how we spend our time: paying attention

Today I’m delighted to welcome Ginny Kubitz Moyer to kick off this series with her new book Random MOMents of Grace. I love Ginny’s writing for the glimpses of God she notices in daily life. She is a perfect author to start us thinking about one important way we choose to spend our time as parents: paying attention.

Ginny’s book is all about paying attention to the grace-filled moments that spring up unexpectedly among parenting’s challenges. I love her elegant and wise writing, the everyday subjects she tackles in search of motherhood’s spiritual side, and her chapters that are short enough to read in one sitting when my kids are quiet for five whole minutes. Here are more words of wisdom from Ginny on how she spends her time:

1) What is one truth about time you have learned since becoming a parent?

They say that when you are the mother of small kids, the days crawl by, but the months pass like a shot. I couldn’t agree more. Sometimes it is so isolating to be at home all day with your kids, especially because there are periods of your life as a parent when it is simply too much of a production to get into the car and go anywhere. Those days can feel endless (except for naptime, of course, which moves at twice the speed of light.)

But now that my boys are six and four, I look at baby pictures of them, and I have to catch my breath because I realize how quickly the time has passed. We forget that when we see our kids every day. And the fact is that every phase of parenting has its challenges and its blessings. I’m not changing diapers anymore (thank you God!) but oh, I do miss that adorable baby-hair that Luke had, which stuck straight up as if he’d been playing with electricity.

So, as I write in the book, I’ve learned that I shouldn’t will the time to pass too quickly. When things are frustrating now, it helps to look at my kids and realize what I have now that I will miss in a year, or five, or ten. That’s a reminder to savor it.

2) What is one practice of using time well that you have developed as a mother-writer?

I love this quotation from the writer James Thurber: “I never quite know when I’m not writing. Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, ‘Dammit, Thurber, stop writing.’ She usually catches me in the middle of a paragraph.” I’m not quite that extreme, but I can relate.

Writers usually want large blocks of quiet time in which to sit down and write, and the reality is that when you’re a mom, you almost never have that. So a lot of what I do, writing-wise, involves letting things simmer in my mind or mentally trying out various adjectives or squirreling away bits of information to use later. This means I can write in the car on my commute to and from work, or while making dinner. If you think about writing as being more than just putting pen to paper or sitting in front of a laptop, you realize there is actually a lot of writing time during the day. Then the only challenge is to remember it all for later ….

3) What new insight about faith did you gain from writing this book?

All writers are people of faith, I think, because it takes faith to face an empty page. You need to have faith that you will be able to put your feelings or your experiences into words that other people will enjoy. I think it also takes faith to slog on through the writer’s block, those times when you feel like everything you are writing is about as exciting as a tax return, and why would anyone ever want to read it?

It was so thrilling to get the contract for this book, but at the same time, it’s a different experience to write when there is a firm deadline. Luckily, I’d been writing the book in bits and pieces for about two years prior to finding a publisher, so nearly all of it was already done. But there was still some work to do on it, and I found myself going on faith that the ideas would come.

I distinctly remember starting one chapter and writing a ways into it and thinking, “Oof. This chapter is not going anywhere. I should just abandon ship right now.” And then, about a week later, I revisited it, and guess what? I found that it was better than I’d thought, and I had some ideas about where to take it. It’s now one of my very favorite chapters in the book.  Sometimes, you just need a little distance … and faith.

4) What is your favorite way to spend time with your family?

Oh, so hard to choose!  I love the quiet weekend mornings when we’re all just hanging out in our pj’s.  I love going on trips where we are out of our normal element and we get to discover a new place or a new experience together.  It is so fun to play soccer outside, all four of us, on the front lawn (I am the least athletic woman I’ve ever met, and now I’m playing soccer?!?  Motherhood is so broadening.)

Most of all, I love hugging my boys.  There’s nothing sweeter.

Thank you, Ginny! Please visit Random Acts of Momness for the rest of Ginny’s Blog Tour over the next two weeks. And be sure to check out Random MOMents of Grace from Loyola Press, who has generously offered FIVE copies of Ginny’s book to readers of Mothering Spirit! (Full disclosure: they gave me a copy, too – but I was waiting to buy one anyway, so their generosity in no way influenced my opinion.)

To enter the giveaway for your own copy, leave a comment below. And if you’re inspired, share one way you try to practice “paying attention” in your daily life!

how to nurture your mothering spirit – check out the series!

What a lovely way this has been to kick off 2013, with weekly reflections from wise women on how they nurture their mothering spirits in busy seasons of parenting.

The last installment in the series will be coming this Wednesday – from yours truly – so in the meantime, check out any posts you may have missed.

Here’s a look back through the past few months…

Nell shared a story of discovering sewing as a way to connect with God in the midst of parenting little ones.

Maureen invited us to join her in a hot cup of chai and a quiet moment of simple pleasures.

Melissa wove her story of learning to embrace centering prayer as a connection with the Divine within.

Lydia considered hands-on crafts like knitting, sewing and baking as ways to enjoy the quiet process of creating alone.

Kate offered a number of simple and creative ideas for nurturing her spirit as a pregnant mama.

Peg evoked the practice of greeting the morning darkness as spiritual self-care while parenting teenagers.

Mihee reflected on life as one big inconvenience and how we encounter God in the unexpected moments.

Leanne wrote about her love of writing and the catharsis of processing motherhood’s challenges through her words.

Roxane evoked the healing powers of pot roast and how we need to nourish ourselves in order to care for others.

Ginny described her writing desk and the need for a private space at home to call her own.

I’m deeply grateful to each of these kindred spirits for sharing their wisdom and words with us here! Please be sure to visit their blogs in turn, where you’ll find even more nourishment for your spirit and soul…

Tune in Wednesday for the culmination of the series. And if you’ve caught up on all these wise and wonderful reflections, take a minute to explore the latest redesign of Mothering Spirit and let me know what you think!

the gentle voice of God

Slow down. Slow way down.

Washing dishes in the sink. Running errands in the car. Rushing around the house in the morning madness before work.

A dozen times in the past few weeks, I’ve heard the voice, simple and steady, speaking somewhere between mind and heart.

Slow down. Slow way down.

I ignored it for a while. Bothersome, distracting.

Then during one frenzied moment of both kids crying, telephone ringing, pot on the stove bubbling over, to-do list for the night glaring at me undone, I finally stopped and listened.

As in, white-knuckled hands gripping the sink, head bent down to hear, blood pounding in my ears, really listened.

Slow down. Slow WAY down.

I turned off the bubbling pot. I silenced the phone. I scooped up two crying boys. I cleared a spot on the toy-strewn floor for us to sit down together. I pulled an armful of books off the shelf. I started to read.

I ignored dinner and computer and phone and to-do list. I slowed down. Slowed way down.

And the rest of our night did, too.

. . .

I’m writing a new curriculum for small groups to reflect on God’s call and work. Over the past few weeks I’ve been returning to feedback from facilitators who piloted earlier versions of the program. One particular section of participants’ responses keeps haunting me.

When people were asked to imagine what response they would get if they asked God, “What am I supposed to do with my life?”, God’s responses were consistently kind and full of compassion:

Keep doing what you are doing.

Trust me. I will take care of you. It will be okay.

Live into the commitments you made. Look for love and light.

See me in the unfolding of every day.

Your life is worth something. You are valuable.

You’ve been too hard on yourself.

You don’t have to please others anymore. Follow your heart.

Take care of my people. Feed my sheep.

Real responses from people who did our program. The first time I read their words, I felt the hair prickle on the back of my neck. Because no matter how cynical I sometimes get, when I read words as simple and loving and compassionate and gentle as those that people heard from God, they resonate as deepest truth.

Slow down. Slow way down.

When I look back over my life, a few moments crystallize when I can remember hearing – in that strange, silent interior-but-not-self echo – what I would call God’s voice. I came to recognize it as God’s voice slowly, over time, with lots of testing and skepticism and doubt. And I started to learn that the truth of the voice being God’s – and not my own, or someone else’s, or society’s – was because the voice was not booming or profound or powerful, but because it was quite the opposite: soft, simple, gentle.

Always loving, forgiving, compassionate.

Wanting wholeness, seeking peace, offering hope.

Slow down. Slow way down.

. . .

The refrain keeps nagging at me.

I know I do too much, pack every day full to bursting, stress too much and sleep not enough. I realize the wake-up call is, in fact, a sit-down call.

More than that, I know that the voice will not relent unless I respond. God is persistent in calling, especially where change is concerned.

So I’m trying to slow down, slow way down.

Turning off the noise and listening to the quiet. Clearing space for what matters and letting the rest fall away. Breathing into the prayer of the present moment.

But it’s hard, really hard. God’s voice is so often challenging, too. Why slow down? Why not rush to fill every precious second of this life with something worth living?

Yet the call persists, darn it.

My slow response must, too.

they’re going to read this someday

My children.

Whether I show this to them proudly or they stumble across it secretly, they’ll be able to find all the words and thoughts and fears and questions I squirreled away in this small place, my secret hideout, my safe breathing space during the chaos of early parenthood.

(Because we all know the interwebs, even surer than elephants, never forget.)

I wonder what they’ll think when they read this. Will they roll their eyes at my drama? (Probably.) Will they laugh at my sentimentality? (Likely.) Will they wonder why I made such a fuss out of every worry that flitted across my new mama mind? (Undoubtedly.)

But here’s my deeper hope. I hope that if they become parents someday, they might dip their toes down into this swirling mess of my words and touch solid bottom.

That they can find camaraderie and companionship in knowing that I had no clue what I was doing either, but I loved them something fierce.

That they will remember that the long arc of the relationship of mother and child, despite its daily dips and difficulties, the tempers and the trying stages, bends towards a deep, lasting bond.

That they might seek solace in their own words-as-prayer, no matter what calling their path finds.

A wise friend once wrote to me that she saw my efforts at trying to raise children in faith as putting little invisible slips of paper with God’s phone number on it in the pockets of the pants and jackets they will wear out in the world someday, helping to make sure that when they need it, they’ll have it. Because that’s all we can do.

I’ve never forgotten her words. And while the songs and prayers I teach them now, the books we read and the churches we visit, the stories we wonder at together and the questions we can’t explain – while all of that is part of the scribbling I do, tucking love notes from God inside the corners of their hearts, the musing and mumbling I do here in this space is part of it as well.

Maybe someday they’ll stumble upon something I wrote, about struggling with faith or struggling with the world’s brokenness, and they’ll pause and think, too. I’m not so naive as to believe they’ll share my questions or so audacious as to assume my thoughts will shed wisdom on their lives. But if they can find a moment’s companionship here, an affirmation that faith can run deep while questions run deeper, a stubborn declaration that even when it wasn’t popular or sexy or clear or easy, I tried my hardest to understand and love the God who is Love, then I will consider these stumblings worth the cost.

And maybe, just maybe, if they become parents themselves, and the transition or the transformation isn’t easy, but by God it’s the most humbling school of humanity they could ever find, then I’ll happily meet them there. Because the journey of becoming their mother, of learning from them every day how flawed I am but how wide my heart can stretch, has been the gift of my life.

And that is a story I’m happy to tell them over and over again.

finding my voice

I’m in the midst of two big writing projects, one professional and one personal. So I’m thinking a lot these days about voice. How to find the right tone, how to connect with a reader, how to speak a word of truth or hope or grace.

Writers often talk about wanting to Find Their Voice, a strange turn of phrase for the muddled, maddening process of translating the noise in one’s head onto the written page with such depth and beauty and clarity and freshness that someone else will want to read it. But desiring to find one’s voice implies that it must be lost; declaring it can be found means that it can be identified in the first place.

I don’t know what my writing voice is, if I’m honest.

Perhaps it’s honest – I try to be, anyway. Perhaps it’s hopeful – I’m stubborn like that. One of the quirks of blogging is that I can see, on the flip side of the page you read now, exactly what posts drive the most traffic. So I can report that people like humor, though I’m not always sure how to write humorously about serious subjects. I can tell you that personal stories connect more readily than grandiose statements. But just because you might like to read something I write doesn’t mean that’s what I should give you. Writing – at least the kind of writing I want to do – isn’t about consumerism. It’s about calling.

Whenever I read the jacket of a book by a new author, I always sigh when I read the comparisons: “the new so-and-so” or ”equal parts Famous Writer and Big Name and Everyone’s Favorite.” If I wanted to read Anne Lamott, I would have read Anne Lamott, I think to myself. I want to read this person; let her own voice speak! But perhaps we can’t help but echo the voices that have shaped our own.

Maybe the early years of parenting are like that, too. When we’re starting out, we can’t help but mimic. We imitate our friend’s example or copy the guru’s advice or follow the book’s instructions, praying it will transform us into a confident, knowledgeable Parent. But in order to find our own voice, we have to stop speaking everyone else’s words.

We have to trust ourselves.

This week I made a few important breakthroughs in my latest project for work. I changed my tone, pulled back in some places and pushed forward in others. Momentum is slowly picking up, and I’m grateful. A clearer voice is emerging, one that I hope will resonate with those who will read it. But this process of finding voice took long days and longer weeks, frustrated file folders stuffed with drafts, umpteen creative brainstorming exercises sprawled across my office, winding walks with the dog to seek answers through my sneakers.

But my personal writing project? I have a long, dark, twisted, labyrinthine way to go before I find my voice there. Perhaps not coincidentally, it’s a project that touches on my parenting, a part of my life that still feels new and uncertain and challenging beyond my expectations. But I’m at the point, with my writing and perhaps my mothering, too, where I’m finally feeling ready to push past the voices that talked me here and dare to come face to face with what might be the toughest and trickiest but possibly truest voice I’ll ever find.

My own.

rhythm, metaphor, and mama’s heartbeat

In the days leading up to the writing workshop, as I planned and packed (and wasted time worrying about how I would be away from the nursing baby for a week), I envisioned the chance to spend a week writing as a world apart from parenting. No requests for snacks, no cries for milk, no laundry to fold, no meals to prepare. For a few precious days I would get to be a Writer, not a mother-who-occasionally-writes.

How wrong I was.

Because not only was my writing shot through with my children and my identity as a mother, and not only did others around the table bring poignant and painful reflections on their own roles as parents, but the very craft of writing we worked to hone returned us time and time again to the early years of the parent-child relationship.

In the book we used for the course, Words That Sing: Composing Lyrical Prose, our teacher Mary explained how our basic sense of rhythm, the cadence that carries our sentences, was set by our mother’s heartbeat: the steady thump-thump-thump we heard for nine months in the womb. Turns out the reason we love music with a good beat is the same reason we love favorite authors: rhythm.

Whether or not we are aware of rhythm when we read or write, we understand it innately. A sentence either works or it doesn’t; it sings or it falls flat; it soars or it stumbles. Which is why balanced sentences appeal to us on a gut level: “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” Because the comfort and constancy of our mother’s heartbeat is still thumping somewhere deep in the recesses of our minds.

And rhythm’s not the only part of writing that goes back to mother.

Turns out that primary metaphors are also hardwired into our brains. When we are first learning about the world as a baby, certain sensorimotor experiences become connected to affective emotions. So when a baby is nursed, one of the sensorimotor experiences is warmth (milk! mama’s body!) and the emotional experience is affection (someone’s taking care of me!). Our brains conflate the two, creating a primary metaphor of warmth and affection that sticks with us for the rest of our lives: ”He welcomed me warmly” vs. “She greeted me coolly.”

It’s the same reason we view “up” as positive. The breast or bottle is always up, above the baby’s mouth, so the child’s primary experience of nourishment, warmth and comfort is looking and leaning up. So this direction becomes forever associated with all good things: “Things are looking up” vs. “I’m feeling down.”

And it’s the same reason we equate “big” with importance. The small child sees their parents, bigger in size, as having power and control. So as we grow, we don’t think twice about calling something ”a big deal.” Our body never forgets the early experience of spending years looking to something physically larger than ourselves as the most important influence in our lives.

Weighty stuff for writers to remember. How can the metaphors and rhythms we use evoke deep responses in the reader?

But equally powerful for parents, too. The fundamental way my children begin to learn about the world is through their experience of me.

Fascinating, says the writer in me. Terrifying, says the mother.

writing workshops & birth stories

I got to spend the whole week writing.

From where I sit now – surrounded by piles of laundry and dirty dishes, worrying about work emails and tomorrow’s to-do list, planning meals and errands and playdates – last week already seems a year ago and a world away.

I’m left with lingering memories of my time at the workshop: an annoying tendency to analyze every phrase I write (what a lovely suspended sentence! what a charming balanced series!), a head bursting with stories I need to share, and a heart brimming with gratitude for the writers with whom I was graced to spend six days.

We laughed, we cried. We cradled each other’s sacred stories and pushed one another to go deeper into truth. And by the end of a long week, with little sleep and lots of caffeine, plenty of swearing but even more praying, we each agreed that we had been changed.

But how exactly? As writers? As people of faith? As something more?

For the past few days, as I’ve reacclimated to a life weighted heavier on mothering than writing, as I’ve dived back into the daily swirling mix of my vocations, I’ve been wondering what I could say about the week, what I could convey about this transformative experience – without sounding trite or falling flat.

Ironically, my inability to crystallize my impressions about the writing workshop has helped me make sense of a completely unrelated phenomenon: the birth story.

Sprinkled through endless blogs, splashed across pregnancy magazines, shared and reshared at moms’ groups and baby classes, the birth story has become a genre of its own. But a strange genre – a narrative that swerves wildly between lengthy clinical descriptions of labor’s stages and euphoric elations of how absolutely amazing, beautiful, and life-changing childbirth can be. Part boring medical textbook, part born-again testimony.

As someone who loves story, celebrates the act of claiming one’s voice, and wonders at the marvel of birth, I should be interested by birth stories. But I have to confess that I usually find them painfully, ploddingly boring. Even the tales that dance the edge of danger, even the feats of endurance through searing pain.

I could never understand why my eyes glaze over when I read them, why my interest wanes halfway through a friend’s passionate storytelling, why I never bothered to write the story of my own boys’ births, even when I love to write about so much of their early years.

Until I realized why I couldn’t write about the workshop either.

Because the truth about Life-Changing Experiences is that they are impossible to express in the immediate aftermath. Even when their power compels us to share, we can’t make sense of the experience when we’re too close to situate it within a larger context.

Ironically, it’s the timing of birth stories that traps them from becoming powerful narratives of transformation: new mothers want to capture all the details before they forget, but they’re too overwhelmed by the newness (and the hormones and the lack of sleep) to grasp the totality.

It’s why women seize upon centimeters of dialation or hours of progress through labor as landmarks of their story, even though inches and minutes fail to describe the transformation that takes place. It’s why tracking my progress as a writer through lessons on sentences and style falls short of expressing how I was shaped by the deeper relational experience of being in community with such a quirky, passionate, committed group of writers.

Words fall short.

I’m like the weary, wonder-struck new mother who wants to tell you how her world has shifted but can’t convey the depth of the transformation.  Even though I know something significant has taken place, I can’t yet see the scope of how I (the writer) or my baby (the writing) or the world around me (the audience) has changed.

I jot down fleeting impressions, share snippets in conversation, promise myself I’ll sit down and let the words pour forth before their immediacy passes. But I can’t capture it completely. I need plenty of time and space to sort out how this shaped me, who I am becoming.

To say nothing of making sense of the beautiful, terrifying new life – its promise and its responsibility – that is emerging.

morning: mumbling towards mystery

He is up at dawn, hours before his older brother starts to sing. Bright sunlight slips through the slats of his window blinds, enough to rouse his tousled head from sleep.

Two rooms over, I hear his protests grow louder. I give up the dream of sleep, untangle my limbs from their warm cocoon and stumble across the cool wood floor. Morning birds in the pine tree near my window chirp too cheerfully for anyone without caffeine.

As I slowly push open the door to his soft yellow room, he turns with wide eyes, then beams delight when he recognizes my face. She’s here!

We roll into regular rhythm of morning routine: cuddle, kiss; nurse, change; breakfast, books. The house wakes up slowly around us, creaking as it stretches into sunshine.

He begins to rub his eyes, push away the spoon. I wipe smears of banana off his cheeks and gather him into my arms. We climb back up the stairs, slowly and soft to keep big brother sleeping.

We settle into the rocker in the corner, cool breeze fluttering curtains. I pull a stack of small books onto my lap next to him, their gnawed corners proof of baby belovedness. I read a counting book, a barnyard story, an owl tale. His chubby fingers fumble to turn the pages.

I wonder how my words sound to his ears. The rise and fall of their cadence, a sing-song of mystery. Only by tuning to the rhythm of language will he learn to speak for himself. But for months it must seem a strange mumble that tumbles from our mouths.

Does God’s word fall the same? I wonder. Muffled and mysterious on ears that make no sense of strange sounds.

Only over time and the slow, steady turning of my mind’s desire to learn does their shape become clearer. The heart senses meaning where it couldn’t before: maybe God sounds like this; maybe God means like this.

God keeps speaking, patient and prodding, while I fumble to turn the pages. Trusting that truth will emerge, hoping that small epiphanies will awaken me to some deeper understanding.

A glimpse of a face I recognize as beloved: She’s here!

blog awards & bad moods

I’ve been in a rotten mood the past few days. Kids didn’t nap, sun didn’t shine – if only the dog had up and left, it would have felt like a true, twangy country song.

My attitude towards Eeyoresque moods has been largely informed by the Julie Andrews School of Facing Storms: start ruminating on things I love and the dark clouds slowly lift. I’m not particularly partial to raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens, but you get the idea.

So as I brooded, I found myself thinking about two delightful surprises that had recently come my way – blog “awards” from fellow bloggers who let me know they like my writing.

The first was from Sherry Antonetti at Chocolate for Your Brain. Sherry is a mother of ten and a free-lance writer. To think that my work is enjoyed by someone who knows heaps more than I do about 1) parenting and 2) writing was a lovely boost to my mothering spirit. Sherry passed on the Liebster Award, a German word meaning dearest or beloved. The idea behind the award is to create new connections among up-and-coming bloggers. When you receive it, you pass it on to five bloggers that you enjoy reading in order to spread the love.

The second was the Versatile Blogger Award from Natural Mama Nell at Whole Parenting Family. (You can read more about this award geared towards sharing the love here.) For this award, you’re supposed to share 15 blogs that you follow regularly and then share 7 facts about yourself. Since Nell is quite a versatile blogger herself, I was encouraged to think she enjoyed my writing in the same light.

So for a week where my mood has tended too sour, let’s sweeten things up a bit, shall we? Here are a few** blogs that have become favorites. Some I’ve shared in the past; others are new finds; all are well-worth your time. Simply listing them here has lifted my mood, proof that kindred spirits can always be found, no matter what medium we use. Enjoy.

Small Town Simplicity - Lydia’s writing is breath-taking: poetic, thoughtful, crystal clear. Her reflections on raising her children and living life simply make me slow down and notice small beauties around me.

Homemade Mothering – Talk about a versatile blogger: Maureen touches on everything from healthy cooking to green housekeeping to the joys of life with little ones. And her writing has an eager, honest spirit that I just love.

Peace Garden Writer - “Purposeful pondering from the prairie” is this writer/mother’s tagline, and the articles and columns Roxane shares from her newspaper writing fit her purpose perfectly.

First Day Walking - When I stumbled upon this blog from a “Twin Mom / Pastor’s Wife / Presby Minister / Amateur Writer / Silly Dreamer,” I knew I’d discovered a gem. I love Mihee’s writing about motherhood, ministry, and Asian-American and feminist theology. Check out her Motherhood Mantras series; I’ve clung to a few of these words myself.

What’s Up, Jesus - One of my guaranteed sources of wit on the interweb. Over years and miles and winding vocational paths, Rev. Love-It-Or-Leave-It and I have held onto a friendship based on mutual love of sarcasm and stubborn faith. Doesn’t get much better than that.

Random Acts of Momness – I’m a shameless fan of Ginny’s writing. Few people connect parenting and faith with as much grace and depth as she does, every time. Her blog is a bright place that never fails to disappoint.

Sense of the Faithful - As a thoughtful mother of young adults, Peg offers wisdom from the other side of parenting. She shares stories of brutal honesty about her struggles with the Catholic Church as well as thoughtful reflections on spirituality. (And her upcoming book on pregnancy and childbirth is amazing!)

Rosemary’s Blog – And if you have no time to read but simply want to rest with something beautiful for a moment, this artist’s work is amazing. Seeing Rosemary’s photography each day lifts my spirits.

** I’m too busy these days to read zillions of blogs, so you’ll have to forgive me on sharing less than 15. And does anyone really care about 7 random facts about me? Nah.

Any favorites or new discoveries you’d add to the list?

a (new) room with a view

Today is my first day working in my new office.

One of the features of our new house that delighted me was a bright, spacious room for an office on the main floor. I’ve been working from home for years, but tucked away in a corner of the basement guest room. Or squeezed onto a sofa amidst piles of laundry. So the idea of a Real Live Office – with the big writing desk and all my books gathered together and windows that gaze out on green trees and blue sky – is a dream come true.

Of course, the books are still in boxes on the floor, and the writing desk is currently piled with photo albums, and the view out the windows is shrinking daily due to spindly weeds winding their way skyward. But the hope of a room with a view - a room of my own, a room for my work – still quickens my heart.

In the years that I’ve been working from home, juggling parenting and paid work, I’ve learned the importance of claiming a space for myself. No matter how cramped it was, that corner of the guest room was mine. Aside from the occasional spin in the office chair, no kids were allowed. I needed space to read and write and think, separate from my world of mothering.

Looking back now, I understand why my own mother needed her den downstairs, her space apart. As a family grows and spreads to every corner of the house, it’s important for a parent whose days are spent primarily at home to carve out a sanctuary. Whether a corner for crafting, a nook for reading, a desk for the computer or a basement for the treadmill, spaces all our own are essential. I find that my breath slows, my shoulders sink and my whole body relaxes into a room free from toys and chores and to-do lists.

Many wise women have written about the need of a room of one’s own. But for me it has been one of those truths I had to learn by living – that inner life needs outer space to flourish. The deepest work of my heart desires a physical place to call home. It doesn’t need to be grand or glamorous; it simply needs to be set apart.

Ironically, the one feature my office currently lacks is a door. (I’m hoping my handy husband will remedy that by year’s end.) So whenever our sitter is here, I’m still tucked away working in the corner of a bedroom. But even on afternoons like this one, when I only got to steal a few minutes while the babies were napping, time and space away recenters my soul.

A bit of good work gets done here; nothing life-changing, nothing flashy. But bit by bit, I find myself through this work and these words. Mothering’s daily dervish – whirling, twirling, swirling – leaves me exhausted if I don’t pause to ponder. Spending time away from my wee ones, even when it’s under the same roof, is a spiritual practice of parenting I’ve come to cherish.

And this room with a view gives me a fresh perspective – a longer, wider, sometimes sunnier view – on life outside its walls.