stay small stay small

Hiding our selves: feeling squeezed [very] tight these days

@brandon.of.bjerke and I have some major decisions to make with the business in the next few weeks. In these big movements of stepping UP! and stepping OUT! I am revisiting tons of old traumas I really thought I worked through 👌🤦‍♀️
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I find myself wanting to remain small because I have learned that there is danger in being seen. There is danger in visibility. You become a target.

So I think... Maybe: if I hide in plain sight, people won't cut me down. Maybe: if I don't take ownership for what I do, what I create, what I put out into the world, people won't be loud in their criticisms. Maybe: if I act indifferent to the pain and struggles that come with being an entrepreneur and running a successful business (there are so many!) all the setbacks won't sting so much.

Maybe: I should stop sharing.

When I really sit back and ask myself "Is this real? Is this really what YOU want?" I get so angry. My entire body responds in a resounding and fiery fucking wail! NO! NO! NO!

These are all defense mechanisms.

We learn: Don't boast, it's unbecoming. Don't complain, people don't want to hear that. Don't air your dirty laundry, that shit's private. Don't share too much, people can't be trusted. Sound familiar yet?

What about connection? What about reality? What about a true representation of life and the big real deep shit we all go through?

I'm really starting to see all the ways I've diminished myself over the years. Since childhood really. The whiplash of overexposure and oversharing. The destabilizing nature of true transparency. I've been accused my entire life of being too honest (is that a real thing?). I'm really angry. All this minimizing leads to a splintering of self. A real compartmentalization.

And for the friends who have hung along with this post, is this what you're going through too? I know I'm not the only one who just wants to say "fuck you and fuck it!". I'm really tired of keeping Monica locked up and tiny. Bitch needs to grow 🌱💪🏽

spring water

The lengths I will go to for clean and delicious spring water: 25+ gallons filled my trunk and this jar and my memory bank💧

One of my favorite growing up memories was getting spring water with my dad. It was a very mysterious process to me, I must have been really really young. I remember it blowispringng my mind that you could pull off the side of the road, fill some jugs, and bring it home with you. I guess I always thought drinkable water came from a faucet 🤷‍♀️ This one ranks up there with: just driving around in his truck to see where the roads went ⛰ pulling apples in various stages of ripeness off the trees at the family fruit farm, shining them on his flannel, tossing them to me to try, and spitting out the super bitter ones 🍎🍏 always buying me old timey candy sticks (root beer and watermelon are still my favorite!) 🍺🍉 having my favorite Polar sodas when I would come to visit (the sarsaparilla and birch were also mindblowing, so unique to my kid brain that the flavor is etched in there, and you could NEVER find them anywhere except Robin's in New Paltz!) 😎 and feeling super badass when we would roll down the windows and blast AC/DC's Back In Black⚡

The memories are really really far back there but they are very very cherished. Especially now since my dad is gone and Bea is here. These moments feel like things I want to pass on to her. Little sweet memories of our time together when we aren't together.

water rainbow

What a 24 hours whirlwind we've been in 🌌🌈 sometimes Life-Universe-Spirit responds so perfectly that TIME seems so coincidental that it's not at all coincidental. Shit just falls into place and everything just flows💃🙏👸big time power up!

And then other times I'm left being like "what the fuck is going on with this timing?". Coming down from the past 24 hours has been a BIG WTF.

We got a call for an opportunity for a kitchen and shop space in Valatie. Call came from someone Brandon worked with for about 10 years, so it's the real deal.

Almost new kitchen. Great space with natural lighting and details, amazing flow and energy, incredible potential to customize the space. But being totally honest with ourselves, it's not without it's issues. Still definitely inspiring to think at that scale and totally doable with those bones.

The offer comes at a time where we're putting a lot of things into play with the business.

We know we're going to be tapped on space and tapped on time (operating out of our 700sf home with a 6 month old 😯😆). Plus I have so much vision and drive to create/to manifest/to love that it feels like I need a <<SPACE>> to do it. Seems like the logical next step for us.

Making sketches and plans last night: thinking back to places we've been, what we're inspired by, what makes that $, and businesses that are unapologetically themselves. Thinking about all the mistakes we've witnessed and experienced. Feet are in both waters of success and waters of failure

These are big dreams too. The ones were you can see your potential and really live into it. Stars align. So focused on the Happy Belly vision and our community power 🙌💪🏽we really thought this was IT!

And then, within AN HOUR of seeing the kitchen, we get a surprise email that we owe a very substantial amount from Bea's birth (which I guess is what's what happens when you have an emergency transfer 🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️ our insurance covers homebirth but only if it's a full homebirth. All the midwives care is now "concierge".) 😑
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Reality fucking grounds us, the dream goes back to the horizon, we become a boring ass glass of water again 🌈🤣
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Seriously WTF with the timing?

Kūkaniloko

Kūkaniloko: we came to these birthing stones the beginning of 2016 to lay down offerings to our ancestors and to ask for their guidance bringing a baby through. While in prayer I saw a baby floating above me connected by a luminous cord, Brandon heard a baby cry, and we saw a mama pig with her babies. All signs pointed to: baby is coming.

I was pregnant 9 months later.

We went back the beginning of 2017 to give thanks and celebrate my pregnancy with Callum. Blissfull and beautiful and fully optimistic.

I don't think much can prepare you for losing a child. For us there were no signs. No one had answers. No one could find anything wrong. We were left with: "it's something that happens". He was just here and then he wasn't. Just like that. Brutal. Cold. Final.

I couldn't bring myself to go there last year after Callum died and while I was newly pregnant with Bea. Too tender, too tenuous, altogether too much. I was in so much grief and anxiety. It totally ripped me open.

But this year we found ourselves here at the beginning of our trip. We spontaneously drove to Chinatown to grab a ginger lei and some local fruit and drove out to these stones to see what would happen.

Our journey bringing babies into this world has been anything but straightforward. We've suffered miscarriages, death, lots of birth trauma, and lots of waiting. So much waiting.

Sometimes it's not easy feeling it all. Gonna be honest, sometimes it's not easy being with Bea-- seeing her grow and change and observe and respond to the world reminds me of all we lost with Callum. It's all so bittersweet.

The feelings are beyond complicated. And in order to work through them and heal (or just get through the fucking day!) we have to sit with that shit. We have to let it get us uncomfortable. We have to digest. We have to cry. We have to mourn. All alongside this beautiful baby.

So, at this quiet but powerful site where the ali'i were birthed, we honored our ancestors and celebrated both babies and laughed about our shit luck and said a little fuck you to the Universe.

That's what our life looks like now. Messy, all over the place, and really fucking real. And lots of love 🌈🌈🌈

motherhood is enraging

Motherhood is enraging

I speak pretty openly about a lot yet this is one that I am always resistant to share, hesitant to admit, and totally and completely NOT ABOVE at all.

So much of motherhood happens in the dark. The literal and figurative. The nursings. The cries. The soothing. The stumbling through, trying to figure out what works best for YOUR kid.

The endless stream of advice that seems to serve only the person who's giving it (give yourself a pat on the back for your flawed retrospect, I swear to Spirit I will not pass judgement on parents and I will support them in their search for what works for their families). How easily you seem to forget the in-the-dark driving just to get your kid to fucking sleep. You forget that she's just laughing in the backseat, giggling to herself about nothing in particular, while you're workshopping all the things you did wrong, all the things you can do better, and all the things to make yourself not fall into a million pieces.

Just the Universe telling you to chill the fuck out? Yeah, it's not that easy because we're adults. We have expectations and schedules and a routine to keep in line AND the need for sleep. I am not above the rage.

So when your kid decides she wants you up at 4am to play instead of sleep. Or she's decided that she's no longer taking naps longer than 30 minutes. She's suddenly forgetten how to suck and decides to wrench your nipple instead (over and over and over and over). She's started using your hair as a toy or as a thing to steady herself (still hurts like hell every single time, expected or unexpected). She wants only Mama (my most schizophrenic love-hate)

Time and time again you make the decision to do "better" (WTF is that anyway?). You consciously decide to not take it out on them physicallyveballyemotionally, especially when that surge of angerdesperationragefear coursing through your body feeds on split second reactions. You have to dig in, KNOWING it does not necessarily get easier. The shit gets different. The shit gets deeper. The shit gets infinitely more complicated.

And MAYBE next time you'll be a little less stupid or angry or immature.

But most of it is still in the dark.