read at your own risk ;)

Words. I have not written words for a very long time. I ignored this blog. I felt it was silly of me to keep broadcasting feelings that no one seemed to care about. How ridiculous! I don't write for people but because I have to write to BE me.

I keep a journal, but even that plateaued into a desert of dry tab-keeping and list-making. I said to myself, 'I can't write. It takes work to be good and I don't have that in me.' What a lazy human I can be about the things that truly matter and define me. I have written constantly ever since my mother placed a pencil in my tiny hand and put the blank lined page in front of me. I loved to watch that paper fill up with my own stories and sketches of people, houses, trees, clouds.

It's the one place I've always felt I could excel in if I put the work and practice into. Yet here I am at 38 and still hovering around the insecure notion that I would never amount to anything. What a waste. I am determined to give more effort into the things I love. This is a morbid thought, but what would I want my obituary to say? I know that I am a good mother and I try to be a decent wife. I keep my home relatively tidy and I don't fail to water my garden and pluck out its weeds. I love my friends deeply and desperately yet I am very lacking in pursuing friendships and calling or writing. I want to be better at this too... but I've honestly just been so gosh darned exhausted lately. 

I'm not one to embrace complaining because I don't think anything good ever comes from it, including the pity people might give you which some feel supported by, but perhaps that is just another form of pride that I have in my heart. I want to be transparent, but I'm torn between transparency and the feeling that I might overshare in order to be pitied so I avoid sharing at all. This seems like a safe place to share some things, because people get to choose whether or not they want to take the time to click into my blog and read my thoughts. Truth is lately I've been having some major issues. I have not been able to fall asleep naturally without sleep aids since June. This is due in part to sciatic pain which affects me every day in varying degrees. It is in my hips, and the tingling, burning, constant tightness and discomfort runs down my legs and gives me restless leg syndrome at night, like little electric shocks throughout me. I feel like my whole body is pulsating when I try to sleep, so I cannot. So I pop a pill (well, a half usually) to synthetically fall into rest. I've been dealing with fatigue, and this shuts me down and makes me not want to hang out with anybody for some reason. It's very frustrating. 

I see myself as a healthy person: mostly vegetarian and good at taking my supplements and doing some form of light exercise or yoga most days. So this is incredibly irritating to have chronic pain and issues. Nighttime has always been my time to listen. To reflect and meditate and hear what God is saying, what my mind is saying, to assess my state of heart and to adjust accordingly. I haven't been as free to do this lately because of the pain. But I am certainly pressing in consistently, I am not succumbing to discontentment or stagnancy. I have hope and know that things will not always be this way. I will sleep again, I will feel pain-free again, I will be energized once more.

I have to believe that.

I think of all the people over time who have endured any sort of prolonged suffering or pain, and shone brightly in the midst of it, and I am inspired to dig deeper into that. I know I have renewed compassion for people with disorders and disabilities and diseases that aren't visually noticeable now, where before I may have been annoyed with people's complaints of pain or treatments or constant asking for prayer. I wish I could reach out a little more for that but I find it pandering in myself. I'd rather just keep to myself and hope that eventually I'll find the solution through alternative routes like massage, or acupressure or acupuncture, SOMEthing.

This is very hard for me to write, honestly. Not so hard to write, but to actually go through with sharing it and having people know my vulnerability and issues currently. So scary. But scary can be good. I don't think everyone will understand, especially if they've never had chronic pain. It's so weird! Anyone who has had it or is having these types of issues right now, they know it can be a lonely road. Finding the right doctors to help, the right treatment, if any, the ability to communicate what you're feeling and get over the irritating thought of, "But I just want to be BETTER, so maybe if I don't talk about it it doesn't exist." People, I get it. Basically I have neck pain, headaches, fatigue, joint and sciatic pain every day lately. It's crazy. It wasn't there, and then it was suddenly there. Taking over my body, and not going away. 

But it will. I am hopeful.

This post looks so pathetic to me. I want to delete it. I want to hide this and pretend like everything is peachy with me, because the optimistic, sunshiny words look so much better on a page than these kinds. But I'm going to just put this out there into the cyber world. Maybe it will help someone to know they're not alone. Maybe it'll bring light to why I may have been keeping to myself lately. Who knows. 

I guess I'll leave it right there. I'm sorry if anyone clicked on this post hoping for my usual uplifting words of encouragement and had to read this sad junk, haha. 

I love you people. I'm thankful for you. If you need prayers or a friend, I'll try to be there for you.

procrastinate (the american dream)

the conversion
from worm to winged
comes at a price
dark corridors of soul
scaling rock walls
to higher heights
ascension
perched on aeries
peering below
at the multitude
seemingly contented
appearances deceive
vernacular
humanity as fireflies
flickering lights
mesmerizing few
the dream remains
money, success
queries swarm in minds
like hornets nest
meaning of life
vanishing like smoke rings
against a peach bellini sky
house, car, picket fence
pipedreams
galaxies awaiting discovery
yet cushioned seats
draw me in
lulling into a stupor
of meaninglessness.

Harmony and her daddy laying down some tracks in the Live Barn recordings

The making of an album and the humbling need of one another.

Ever since I met my husband Chris, the most defining character aspect he embodies is his absolute passion for music, songwriting, speaking into peoples' lives with empathy and discernment in his lyrics, and just a general love for the art of song. It is always on the forefront of his mind. It plays out in his life in so many ways: when he sees someone suffering from loss of a loved one or from their own personal sorrows, a song often comes. When he sees the joys of children or people in simple things of life, songs are birthed. When he feels love. When he feels the sting of disappointment or betrayal. Songs are sure to follow as the outpouring of his emotions in song form. It's his therapy, and his gift.
So it's only natural that he would have a strong desire to get this art out to the masses by recording, putting the songs into albums, and getting them out to people. This is where our basic need of humanity steps in. We have such a supportive and wonderful circle of friends and family that speaks into his life to encourage him to keep on, and that the world most definitely needs to hear the encouragement and beauty of the music he imparts.
His newest project which he has been working on consistently for the past year and some change is a collection of raw, honest and compelling songs from the heart on the subjects of love, God, and the journey which are powerfully spiritual yet relate-able on many levels. I feel strongly that this is the album which will best display Chris' true self and soul. Most were written directly after donating a kidney to a woman who has come to be our close friend, Kathy, in the aftermath of surgery in Portland, Oregon. The whole thing left Chris vulnerable and reflective, which is the perfect fodder for good songs.
He has launched a kickstarter campaign, which can be controversial but which we are hopeful will include our friends and many different people in order for the album (which is actually a two-part cd-set when completed) to come to fruition. We are excited for the outcome, and are asking, once again, for you, our friends and loved ones, to come onboard to support his dream of making this a reality.

Here's the link if there is interest in coming alongside us to make this album take off:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chrisbeland/gospel-and-kidney-album?ref=home_social

We are so completely grateful for all of you wonderful people placed in our path to love us, and us to be able to love and share in your joys, trials and lives as well. It's so very true that we humans need each other in this life. So thank you in advance for your friendships, and for any way you feel in your hearts to help and support us in this amazing endeavor to make this double album come to pass!!

Cheers and much love.

Neverland - Ode to Elijah

Sometimes time goes very slow and other times it seems to have gone by much too fast, like when I look at how quickly my son Eli has gone from colicky babe to almost 18 years old and moving out into the big beyond.
I know I'm supposed to embrace the progression of time and I am thankful that he is so amazing and that I can be confident that he will make the best of decisions as he embarks on his new adventures in the world, BUT, in all honesty, I'm going to miss him SO freaking much! He is a solid guy. He makes me laugh really hard. He gets me. He is smart as a whip and witty as heck. He is stylish and helps me decide which outfit is best on me. He's tender and intuitive, he is a willing shoulder to cry on. I enjoy being with him tremendously, and it's going to be super weird not having him around.

I guess I just didn't see the day approaching so quickly- one rarely does, unless perhaps they have a difficult kid that puts them through the ringer, then you maybe wish that kid WOULD leave. Some kids never want to flee the nest, and that can get interesting. But Elijah has always been pretty independent. I remember leaving him in pre-school a couple days a week for awhile, and he'd run off as soon as we got there, "Bye momma!" as I stood there watching him approach the other kids unreservedly. When it was time to pick him up, of course, he'd see me and say,"You're back already?" haha. He's always been very secure in who he was and in my love.
We went on many adventures together and still do. He's the best co-pilot a mom can have. For five years, it was just him and me. I was a single ma, and he was my world. I was young and he was my learning ground, but somehow it all turned out more than okay. I'm so proud of him, the man he's become and becoming.

There are days I guess I just wish everything could stay the same, and all my chickens could remain in MY coop with me. But that's just not how things go. In fact, it would be highly abnormal to have him reject the idea of leaving to begin his own singular life apart from me. I am grateful for his eagerness, but the sadness remains. My buddy is moving on. I just pray he will still include me and his dad in his life, if not daily, then at least occasionally. Because I know a day won't go by (or night!) that I won't be thinking about him and what he's up to, and if he's safe, and......:)

Ash Wednesday and recaps on the last eleven months

Well, it's been about 11 months since the last time I blogged here.... Looking back at the last time I was quite surprised at the length of time that had passed since my last jottings on "Chabot's Corner". I guess it just all seemed so trivial to me. As I had mentioned in my previous posting, my husband, Chris, and I were about to travel with the children to Portland for 3 weeks, during which the kids would stay with our good friends the Torsons and we would be staying in a hotel in the alphabet district called Northrup Station while Chris underwent surgery to donate his left kidney to a former dialysis patient of his.
 Crazy, right? Yes.
The surgery went splendidly, though there were a couple minor complications afterwards with Chris' system adjusting. It was a beautiful, spiritual thing even in the midst of his pain. It was awful seeing my husband like that. But he got through it, stronger, and so did his recipient, Kathy. She is now thriving like she never has before, and a lifelong bond has been formed between all of us, including her lovely husband Tom.
Our stay following in Portland was magical. I'm not even kidding...when we returned we seriously played with the idea of moving there. We aborted that plan soon after, though, when reality hit and we remembered that Chris is now a full-time musician as his trade, and his client base is now here in California for the time being. That said, Portland is now embedded in our hearts like a chunk of gold in the side of a rock inside of us that can never be removed. We are drawn to it..the green, living soul of Portland, the gritty yet clean city streets and mossy forest with the high trees like an overgrown ceiling obscuring the sun. But mainly we are drawn to the connections to our beautiful friends that supported us while we were there. Abby and Tano, and Leanne and Brent and all of their children. They have become family to us for life. They fed us, they drove us, they put us up. They let me cry. They took us to church and prayed for us. It was surreal to be loved like that.
When we returned and Chris' recovery time began here in California, there was a feasible letdown. A low hit me pretty hard. Portland in the spring (or summer, or autumn) can do that to a soul.

California has been good to us though. Thank God, there's been a good amount of rain this autumn through the winter so that everything has turned from dusty brown to a glowing neon green, which always stirs life in me and in Chris.
The kids are happy, attending the charter school around the corner from our home, and Eli, the high school behind us. We are thankful, out loud, every single day. We see that we are blessed. That we are favored somehow. That this simplistic, sometimes penniless life is the sweet life. We feel lucky.
We have peace, and a lot of joy. We get out and hike on those expansive green hills. We go to the ocean and taste the salt in the air and get breathless.
We are loving the process of life. Each day has something sparkling in the midst of the mundane.

Of course, we have dreams and aspirations to fulfill, but we hold them a bit loosely, not allowing our happiness to be dependent on those things. Chris would love to record a couple more albums full of the songs he has been given in the wake of all of the inspiring life happenings he has gone through. Donating a kidney..loving someone so consciously in that way...I mean, it's huge. It leaves this space in a person, from what I have witnessed, where humility and new life can enter in in abundance. And so fresh songs have filled that place. Beautiful songs that have touched people deeply. It's amazing to watch. We'd love to travel to Europe and share his music there. I would love to write books. We would love to someday have a home of our own where we could keep chickens and a goat.
We'd love to not have to worry so much about money.
But right now. Right now is sweet. Each day is this luscious gift with hidden jewels to discover, and I won't hide my eyes from the search.

Today is Ash Wednesday. I have never gotten the ash placed on my forehead symbolizing the cross and that as man, we are dust and shall return to dust. But I think it's a beautiful practice. I think it puts the fragility of life and how fleeting it is into perspective, We have today. What will we make of today? I'm going to look for the gems. I know I'll find them.