The doing and the being. The nourishing and replenishing.

I’ve been feeling the feels lately.

I’ve been on a bit of a roller coaster.

I’ve been busy with the doing. The doing of gathering and guiding circles. The doing of figuring out next steps. The doing of mothering and homeschooling and wifing and friending and well, adulting in general.

I haven’t been getting enough sleep.

Or downtime.

Or space.

Or water.

I crave space. Silence. To write. To breathe. To be.

To sit and be.

Toddlers are not about sitting and being. They are about the doing. Nine year olds are too, to a degree. Well, also forty-four year olds.

What I am remembering is the importance of space. I am craving spaciousness. So much so that I cleaned off our kitchen counter on Thursday. It is a blank slate. I need the blank. The open. The empty.

We all do sometimes.

Only when we are empty can we fill ourselves up.

I don’t feel empty. I feel full. Too full. Overflowing full.

And that has it’s own beauty and light. And still, exhausting. And the wanting something different.

Friday the kids and I met a friend and we went for a little hike at a nearby park that is filled with woods and trails. I could have spent the day in those woods. Instead we spend less than an hour.

And for all the doing and going of the toddler, his short legs allowed a very slow pace.

And breathing.

And stopping to look at mushrooms growing on fallen logs.

And there I found some space in the doing.

I’ve been talking a lot about self-care in my circles. What it is, how we deserve it, and how our practices ebb and flow. I’m a bit talked out about it at the moment and allowing my own words to sink into my being.

As I write this, a tall glass of water is next to me.

As I write this, I stop and count my exhales a few times. And let out deep sighs.

As I write this, I think back to this morning and know in all my fiber I need more time in the woods with the trees and overgrowth and the mushrooms.

Slowly slowing, moving back to nourishing. Back to replenishing. Feeling this tide come in. Or maybe it’s going out. Either way, I feel the ebbing or the flowing; the shifting; the movement and the settling.

Sending you breath and peace and space and being.