Terra Trevor

Project December

I have a new December holiday tradition—we began doing less. The arrival of wide-open, unplanned hours meant that when a spur of the moment great idea pops into one of my kids’ head, I had the freedom to say yes, if I wanted, without feeling the need to struggle with dropping everything else, and we could take off and do it while the idea was still hot. Looking back I can’t imagine the great loss if I had ignored the call.

Typically, logical, linear thinking took hold of me during the winter holiday season. And aside from hating the fact that we were always too busy and I was often too tired, it remained one of my favorite times of the year.

What I didn’t like was that immediately after fresh cranberries and pumpkins began making their appearance in November, I became programed. Dependable. A slave to what was expected of me. And when I depended completely on following along with what we had always done, and were expected to do, year after year, it became predictable. Tiresomely sensible. Boring.

Our family celebrates Christmas, and my pattern was to make a list at the beginning of the month and I never had time to check it twice. I was too busy doing. My mother’s-mind had become programmed to think consequentially (supply and demand). If the cards didn’t get sent out earlier enough, or if they didn’t go out at all, I graded myself with a holiday F. On top of all else I aspired to the notion that the house ought to be cleaner than usual, with a perfectly decorated tree. When the cat batted the ornaments off the tree, and the dog (or the baby) chewed them, I lost hope.

Then one year in early December, many years ago, I heard a dark horse in my mind, calling to me.

“Call and cancel.” It whispered.

“Don’t take down the box of Christmas decorations this year. Do less, and do it with more love.”

Instead of pulling out the carton of our treasured things that we usually put up around the house and on the tree, I told my family that we were going to celebrate with a nature theme. The kids and I went to the florists and bought a gallon container of Baby’s Breath, and we strung the tree with white lights and tucked small clumps of the white Baby’s Breath into the branches. We placed a pair of red flowers on the table, to increase the energy of health and vitality. And that’s all we did. The effect was stunning, simple. It required little assembly, and the clean up after Christmas was easy.

I wish that I could tell you I learned about being more with less right then and there. But I didn’t. I also didn’t learn it the year my son had cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy, when I couldn’t stretch wide enough to cover all that needed to be done. That year the fear of the unknown gave me the incentive to do just a little more for the holidays. Sure, I wanted to have some wonderful memories for my three children to remember so that they would be able to recall more than hospitals and sickness. Yet my inspiration in the cancer years came from realizing that I like doing something a little bit special for my family whenever I can. Because I know my usual tendency is to get caught up in the tangle of everyday things braided with holiday responsibilities, and I rush through my days.

But I didn’t rush through anything when my son had cancer. I moved through each minute with careful thought. My mind was a camera capturing each second. The experience of cancer did have some unexpected good surprises for our family however. It taught us about the power of now, to pay attention to each moment. And it shook up our holiday traditions, teaching me to let some of our traditions go against the grain, to let them go haywire and to let go of the outcome.

Except the lesson didn’t stick. Every December my frenzy returned, and after my son grew healthy again I reverted back. Back to holiday doing.

Then one Christmas years and years later, age gave me what I have always longed for. Perhaps other people might live forever, but I am pretty sure I won’t. The memory that I want to last and be passed on is that I am a mother who is not always a busy, frantic woman with worry wrinkles around her eyes. I also want it to go down in history that I am also relaxed, and fun to be with.

Every year since I have de-cluttered my commitments and allowed myself some freedom and breathing space. There are the years when I do decorate the house, send the cards, bake the cookies, buy and wrap beautiful gifts, volunteer and go to-ing and fro-ing. But I NEVER do all of these things in the same year anymore.

Now I choose one or two things to focus on. My rule is that it must be tasks I want to do, no obligations, and I let the rest slide, so that I will have time to go ice skating or spend a lazy afternoon reading book after book to my three children, with a bowl of popcorn at our side. Or have time, after the kids are tucked into their beds, for me to gaze at the night sky, cold, clear and studded with stars.

The result is the December holiday season is no longer crazy making for me. I look forward to the one or two holiday inspired things I want to do with more love. The reward for me is in discovering what it is I want to highlight each year, and enjoying the unplanned things we dream up as a family now that I allow time to go with the flow.

This is what I want to claim as a mother and grandmother, for the time I give to be remembered. That is why I now wrap it, and not objects, and give my time as a gift to my family.

First published in Adoption and Foster Parenting Today. Reprinted in the Huffington Post.

Photo credit Santa Fe Daily Photo.

The Clothes We Wear at Home

It was one of those days. I couldn’t wait to get home from work and change my clothes. A heavy July fog rolled in and I was so tired I decided to put on my bathrobe.

After dinner my husband sliced watermelon. It was my turn to wash the dishes. What could it possibly hurt, I thought, if I left the dirty dishes sitting on the table for a while? We generally kept our house clean, yet on this day the rest of the house was a mess, with sandy beach towels, the picnic basket and cooler from a pleasure-filled weekend strewn in the hall, so I decided to let the kitchen go too. What I really wanted to do was read my book.

My six-year-old daughter twirled around the room in a see-through lilac chemise rescued from a rummage sale box. She was wearing lipstick too, and blue eye shadow reached past her eyebrows.

My three-year-old son was still potty training. He could take off his underpants five hundred times a day, but never once would he get them back on again himself. Sometimes I let him go bottomless. That’s how he was on this particular evening, playing on the floor with little cars. Eyes filled with brown warmth peeked out from under a cap of shiny dark hair; his underpants, however, were nowhere in sight.

While I was relaxed in the untidy living room, nose in my book, the doorbell rang. My husband answered the door. “I’m a social worker from the adoption agency,” a male voice said. “I live a few blocks from here, and thought I’d drop by on my way home from work and meet you.”

I lurched bolt upright. The wood floor felt gritty on my bare feet. Before we had a chance to offer our visitor a seat, I heard the back door bang. In bounded our six-month-old Newfoundland puppy. Her bark had a friendly woof in it. All sixty pounds of her romped in circles around this man I had not yet met.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the cat leap on the kitchen table and start licking one of the bowls. The scent of onions, garlic and roasted peppers from the pot of chili Verde I’d cooked for dinner drenched the air. I was grateful I’d picked a huge bunch of fresh daisies that morning; perhaps the flowers would catch the social worker’s eye and keep it off of the cat.

Fortunately we were experienced with the adoption process, and we knew surprise visits were not part of the procedure. The social worker from the adoption agency was only trying to be neighborly by stopping by instead of phoning. He talked with us for few minutes, and said he would call us on the telephone to set up a home-study interview appointment.

This story is excerpted from my memoir, Pushing up the Sky and it became a marker moment in my wardrobe. It got me thinking about the clothes we only wear at home. You know what I’m talking about. The gray sweatpants long past their prime. Sweat shirts and t-shirts that are faded and worn out, but never thrown away. Clothes we wouldn’t wear out in public, but are good enough to wear in that place we call home because they represent the comforts of home, and we feel good while we are wearing them. Or do we?

The problem was, I didn’t. Something about wearing worn, frayed, unflattering clothes made me feel tired, worn out. It was also hard for me to relax in my oldest worn wear because those are the clothes I put on when I’m doing weekend warrior projects, and cleaning out the garage, or for house chores and yard work.

That long ago evening (wearing my bathrobe) I took a pledge. I vowed that forever more I would own clothing to wear at home that was comfortable, presentable and made me feel as good as I did in my plush, turquoise bathrobe, yet appropriate for any spur of the moment event that might take place during daylight hours at home.

Why had I neglected home-wear clothing?
I had a professional writing-life work wardrobe that I wore for readings and author appearances, along with a few lovely outfits to wear for nicer social occasions, but I only wore those clothes at home when we had guests. What I lacked was clothing to wear on any ordinary writing-day at home that was comfortable and made my heart sing.

Forgive yourself if this portrait reminds you of yourself. It’s almost everyone’s secret, except for a few really honest people. Of course some of our friends are the type who always look their best, at home, or anytime, anywhere. We love these women, but for a few minutes let’s not think about them. Our souls long for acceptance, and when we start being honest we get our sense of humor back, and then we are half way home to being able to be kind to ourselves, to treat ourselves as we do a beloved dog, cat, friend, and family members.

Home. It serves as both origin and return, as haven. As a source of security and also platform for collecting, organizing and utilizing the things with which we maintain and express ourselves. For a number of years I have been working from home. My home has become the center of my universe. It is where I work, rest and socialize. When I first began working at home I adhered to a rigid early morning schedule of fixing my hair and putting on a bit of make up, and dressing myself in a manner that (the critics deemed) was appropriate business attire for working from home.

It didn’t take me long to figure out this was not who I wanted to be. That type of mandate was the reason I left the corporate business world and began freelance writing and dividing my time with a part-time job as director of volunteers for an animal shelter assistance program. I had the freedom of working from home and began to follow my own dress code rules.

I think many of us become nicer as we get older, less judgmental of ourselves and of others. Life tends to round off our sharp edges.

During my transition period of adjusting to working at home in 2010, I found Project 333 but I needed to think about it for a while. It sounded too restrictive, yet I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and eventually the idea of downsizing my wardrobe and becoming moderately minimal in all aspects of my life became irresistible and I climbed aboard.

After I edited my closet, letting go of a sizable amount, releasing a number of items the wardrobe critics say every fashionable woman should have, including the white button-down shirt I never wore and I slowly began to find my style, my own true north, and it was rooted in simplicity.

Variety is important to me. I like plenty of spice. However, the wide variety I crave cannot be satisfied through clothing. It hails from living a diverse lifestyle and from the multiplicity of people I meet or spend time with, and the places I go with scents of lime or plumeria, sesame or curry, surrounding me. From the music I listen to and the books I read. Books with diverse themes serve as a passport, allowing me to glimpse into peoples and a terrain unknown to me, so that I can learn and grow, understand and see through the eyes of someone who has lived different than I have. There was a time when I thought it necessary to have a lot in common with a person in order for friendship to grow. Now I know it has more to do with my own growth and ability to reach out without having expectations.

Color is central to me, but it no longer dominates my wardrobe. Yellow and orange arrive in the form of long walks at sunset, from the Nasturtium blooming near the path to the beach.

Once I stopped focusing on always dressing for the outer world, and allowed my own needs and heart’s desire to come first, it was fun to cultivate a wardrobe of clothing I love and enjoy wearing at home.

I plan, select and purchase my at-home wear with important key factors in mind. My writing life is messy, filled with children, dogs, cats, pet hair, muddy footprints and sticky fingers. When I’m not writing, at my computer, or reading, I’m active at home—cooking, cleaning, yard work and pet care. Our house is subject to extreme temperatures, downright cold inside or sweltering hot, and I dress accordingly. If I lived in the city I might dress differently at home. Yet this old house on the Northern California coast defines my needs.

As columnist and author Molly Ivins said, “Charm doesn't fade, wit doesn’t age, and knowledge is still priceless. If we live well, every year we become a year’s worth better, smarter, and wiser.”

For me, growing smarter and wiser includes knowing that I’d rather be comfortable at home than chic, and that comfortable does not need to equal frumpy. And while I still care about looking my best when out in public, I can accomplish it with a tiny wardrobe personalized by what works best for my life right now, in this moment.

I’m more successful in terms of how kind to myself I have become, what a wonderful tender friend I am to myself. I care enough about me to fill a vase with purple Astrids, and make myself a garden salad and pots of soup, even when I’m alone. And I’ve gifted myself a small collection of just-right-for-me clothing to wear at home.

First published at Recovering Shopaholic: Trade Your Full Closet For A Full Life

One Possible Thing Before Breakfast

The dogs are shedding their winter coats, and every day I comb them out, ranking their fur outside on the grass. Loose hairs have been falling from my head too. I sweep up the thirteen-inch-long strands of my fallen hair that collected on our wood floor and then wound around my toes. And then suddenly it occurs to me to stop brushing my hair inside the house. Instead, I brushed in my garden and let those fallen hairs blow in the wind, winding around the branches of the peach tree. Maybe a bird would weave my hairs into her nest.

Strikingly handsome weeds grow at the edge of my garden. It is a manageable plot stretching along the backyard fence line that borders the creek and its surrounding wilderness. Newly planted tomatoes, zucchini, cilantro, basil and serranos grow alongside wild snapdragons and hummingbird sage. A bird feeder stands in the middle, I add an extra handful of Sunflower seeds for the Scrub Jays who send the smaller feed to the ground like rain while searching for their favorite treats. Below the feeder, birdseed sprouts in a crazy tangle of wheat-like stalks, along with deep-apricot milkweed blossoms. And at the creeks edge a wild sunflower has appeared and is in full bloom.

You couldn’t plan to grow a garden like mine, certainly not in the city. You must be willing to embrace what nature offers.

A flock of ravens gossip harshly at me. Squash blossoms turn their yellow heads and face the sky, and the gift of berries dug from the backyard of a friend in Alaska, and the handful of Nasturtiums seeds I planted 18 years ago have multiplied so many times they now fill the hillside and are making their way down to the creek. The Nasturtium toss and bent in the wind waving their orange flowers.

Every morning I bush my hair in the garden. Strands of my hair fall to the earth or float away in the wind.

I take a few minutes to sit still, watch, and listen. A cottontail rabbit sneaks under the wire fence and a moment later a squirrel shimmies down the Avocado tree. At first they don’t see each other, but they both see me, and at the same moment they turn to flee and run smack into each other. They sit startled for a few seconds, nose to nose. Then both turn and run away. Then they stop running and come back, and for a few minutes they chase each other in circles around me. When I stand up they both head for the fence line and disappear.

Time in the garden sooths me. All of the tension and worries I've been carrying have dropped away. My hair continues to shed and thin, but I stop worrying about it. Time stops and a deep rightness takes hold of my being.