Category: Poetry & Words

Life in Photos, Poetry & Words, Theology

When she draws, she flies

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Old table in corner near window with knotted curtain

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

This is Aveline’s little art space — our old 1940s table, tucked into the corner of our apartment, with big windows all around it. At any given time, the table is covered with large pieces of paper, spiral-bound sketch pads, tiny blank books, stickers, markers sorted by color, bits of crayons broken in half, and a few plastic animals scattered across the table. There’s almost always a fedora and a hula hoop hanging off the back of one of the wooden chairs.  There’s a pendant from her baby shower and stars from when she turned two.

And there’s a view, too, because if you duck down and look through the windows at just the right angle, you see a tree instead of a toll booth, an exit ramp, a chain link fence, or other apartment buildings.

When she sits here, wearing an old gingham pinafore which used to be mine, she counts to thirteen skipping five, and she draws letter A’s and numby 2’s and letter Z’s and circles and faces and eyes and airplanes.

When she draws, she flies to a world far, far from here.

I hope she can always get lost this way.

 

Poetry & Words

POETRY & WORDS :: Why I Don’t Blog, Instagram or Tweet About Poo

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

www.oaxacaborn.com - Why I Don't Blog, Instagram or Tweet About PooEvery once in a while, I receive feedback that I’m looking at the world through glasses that are too rose-colored. That my blog doesn’t live in reality. That we’re too happy.

But the fact is, I’m just like you. I have a two-year-old who whines, sometimes refuses to nap, and frequently makes the house look like a disaster zone. I’m human: my clothes get stinky. Our floors get sticky. Sometimes I get a cold and my nose runs. And everyday, lots and lots of forks and plates and mugs end up in the sink.

But I choose to focus on the good. I choose to focus on the beauty in this life. And that’s why I don’t blog, tweet, or Instagram about bodily fluids or the digestive process. (Except for this post, in which I confessed I quit cloth diapering.)

Why don’t I talk about snot noses? Well, for one, who wants to dwell on that? Certainly not I. And who wants to go someone else’s blog and read about more poopy diapers? I have plenty of them in my own house, thank you very much.

I view this space — as well as the collective timeline of who I choose to follow on various social media channels — as a source of inspiration, a place where I am refreshed, and, I hope, a place where you as the reader can be similarly encouraged and recharged.

So why would I want to focus on gross stuff?

I’ve heard various reasons for writing/ranting/photographing snotty-nosed kids and diaper leaks. None of them really hold up for me.

I’ve heard, “But it’s something everyone can relate to!” Yes, everybody poops. But that’s doesn’t give you carte blance to lose your self-respect and Instagram about poopy diapers ad nauseum. Poo’s not edifying. It’s not encouraging. (You know, there are entire organizations dedicated to improving sanitation in developing countries, but sometimes I think a campaign to clean up “mommy blogs” would do wonders for the morale of mothers in this country. I’m not entirely joking.)

I’ve heard, “But I want people to know I’m real! I don’t want them to think I live a fairy-tale life…I want to be relevant!” Honey, I use the toilet too. We don’t need to swap stories about it in order to solidify our friendship.

And I’ve heard, “But sometimes I’ve had a really bad day and I want others to commiserate!” Oh, I get this. I really do. In fact, bad days are sometimes why I blog. Sometimes, I sit down to write about whatever beauty I can see because it helps me put my eyes back on heaven where they belong. I am not superhuman. I have my share of down days — bummer weeks! — but here’s the thing: focusing on the gloom never did anything to help me snap out of it.

Focus on something good. Focus on something other than yourself. Rise above the diapers and the dirty dishes — see the joy beyond the chores or even in the chores! Widen your world! Too often I think, we as mothers live in a chaos zone, look at other people’s photos filled with pictures of disastrous spaces, read blogs and tweets about digestive processes, and get stuck in a very miserable rut. And then we post pictures of our own woes, with moaning captions, and it starts all over again.

Break the cycle! Stop dwelling on the exploding nappies. Resist the urge to post a whiney Facebook status about how much that diaper change stunk. Open the window, marvel at the way the sun is filtered by the curtain’s wavy movement, really LOOK at your little one’s face, and watch your entire perspective begin to be transformed.

Sometimes I change into something nice, turn on some music, and sit down in the middle of the living room rug with Aveline for some milk and cookies — not because it’s a good day, but precisely because it’s been a bad day.

It’s never too late to press the reset button.

Don’t be a martyr. Look at it this way — as mothers we have to bear the cross of dirty diapers and snot noses, I’m not denying that. But it doesn’t have to become a badge we wear with pride. You’re worth more than that! xo

Adoption, Poetry & Words, Theology

How do I Defend the Orphan When I’m Not Gladys Aylward?

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

“Learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” -Isaiah 1:17.

Every time I read this verse, I’m struck by its straightforwardness. And every time, it tears me up inside. Defend the orphan. How?

Deep down, I want to be Gladys Aylward and take a hundred children to safety. I want to just run out to the edges of the world now and scoop up all the waiting children and take them home — all of them.

Still Image from The Inn of the Sixth Happiness

It tears me up inside that I can’t.

I feel so helpless. I feel like I’m not doing anything, and that’s a torturous feeling when every fiber of my being knows it’s wrong to do nothing.

“Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (James 1:17)

How can I do that?

A few weeks ago, after attending One Hundred Million Reasons to Celebrate, I was broken yet again by this burden. Several of the speakers there had been adopted out of orphanages, and as they shared, God asked me again, “How are you going to be my hands and feet?”

I don’t know the answer to that question yet. All I know is that I’ve been unable to ignore it. I can’t get it out of my mind. “Vindicate the weak and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and destitute.” (Psalm 82:3)

While I continue to wrestle with the “how?”, I’ve been trying to help my friends the Jensen’s on their adoption journey.

And so there are 140+ auction items being bid on right this minute, and every dollar goes towards to the Jensen adoption fund.

Would you consider bidding, and sharing the auction link on Facebook, Twitter, or even your blog? It runs through May 6.  We can’t all be Gladys Aylward, but we can all help the Jensens bring one orphan home.

“We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God.” -John Stott

Life in Photos, Poetry & Words, Theology

What my mother taught me about making a house a home

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

What my mother taught me about linens, onions, and making a house a home via Oaxacaborn
What my mother taught me about linens, onions, and making a house a home via Oaxacaborn
What my mother taught me about linens, onions, and making a house a home via Oaxacaborn
What my mother taught me about linens, onions, and making a house a home via Oaxacaborn

It was my mom’s birthday yesterday.

She taught me — continues to teach me — countless things, among them the simple little fact that everyday chores can be infused with beauty.

She has a incredible touch which makes every little corner so pretty. No one can transform a space so quickly from generic to home like she can — she can make a hotel room feel like you’ve lived there your whole life, and you’re coming home.

She teaches me a cloth napkin folded in half underneath the French press can upgrade that morning cuppa from a routine to an experience.

She teaches me ragged, torn, stained towels belong in the rag box, not in the kitchen.  

She teaches me to stop mid-morning or mid-afternoon and savor something, like a tall glass of iced tea.

She teaches me no matter how little one has, it can be made beautiful through a combination of cleaning and contentment.

And most importantly, she’s taught me to start cooking an onion if Josiah’s on his way home and I haven’t yet started dinner.

Life in Photos, Poetry & Words, Theology

Combating the Tyranny of the Urgent

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Ethereal portrait at window via Oaxacaborn
Folded hands on windowsill via Oaxacaborn
Ethereal portrait at window via Oaxacaborn
Portrait at sunny window via Oaxacaborn
Aveline holding curtain near window via Oaxacaborn

It’s important to combat the tyranny of the urgent. We must not let it consume us.

It’s important to live slowly enough to see tiny moments; those transcendent moments which stand outside of time and give you a glimpse into something beyond what this world can offer.

This morning, as the curtains filtered the sun, and the light wrapped around my little girl, I couldn’t help but realize I was seeing through a glass, dimly. I couldn’t help but think we are souls, primarily; we are bodies only temporarily. (Side note: contrary to popular belief; that’s not actually a C.S. Lewis quote.)

And so in this moment of shadows and light, of heaven and earth, of beauty both tangible and intangible, there was worship.

“The purpose of theology – the purpose of any thinking about God – is to make the silences clearer and starker to us, to make the unmeaning – by which I mean those aspects of the divine that will not be reduced to human meanings – more irreducible and more terrible, and thus ultimately more wonderful. This is why art is so often better at theology than theology is.” –Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss, 130.

Life in Photos, Little Style, Poetry & Words

LIFE IN PHOTOS :: Surrender, Flamingos, and Aveline’s Cameo on Disney Baby

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

It’s taken me two years , but I’m finally accepting Florida for what it is. Funny, isn’t it, that along with the peaceful surrender and acceptance there comes a realization of so.much.beauty. (And yes, I am embarrassed to admit it took me this long. I’m a stubborn soul, and not proud of it.)

Flamingos in Florida via Oaxacaborn copy

Group of Flamingos in Florida via Oaxacaborn

Flamingo sleeping via Oaxacaborn

Flamingos in Florida via Oaxacaborn

Aveline, on the other hand, knows nothing of this hesitation. She’s such an example to me. Aveline teaches me how life is meant to be lived: loudly, fearlessly, with an utterly joyful abandon. Like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, she’s not worried about tomorrow.
Toddler getting doused with water via Oaxacaborn

Toddler splashing at Sea World via Oaxacaborn

Toddler happily yelling at splashpad via Oaxacaborn

Toddler yelling in joy at water park via Oaxacaborn

She’s not worried about anything.

She’s a picture of who I want to be in this life: hands outstretched, head thrown back, full of pure unadulterated joy, eyes pointed up and heavenward, fearing nothing on this earth and giving all the glory to Jesus.

—

P.S. A big welcome and hello to new readers who found this blog via Aveline’s photo appearing in Disney Baby’s What Baby Wore! It’s an honor and I must say, this wee ol’ blog appearing alongside bloggers I so admire is a little crazy to me! Thank you Living on Love for including me.

Poetry & Words, Theology

The Muse of Realization

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

“And what do you do?”

“Well, um, I like to write.”

“Oh, interesting! What do you write?”

“. . .”

The Muse of Realization - On yearning but not knowing what to do - via Oaxacaborn

Someday, I want to have an answer to that question.

Right now, when the words “I like to write” slip out of my mouth, I hear instead “Well, I like the idea of writing something someday.”

But no person ever became a writer by thinking about it.

I think about plenty, though. It’s just been a long time since I’ve written.

Today I thought about how today’s sky was softer than yesterday’s sky; how today’s sky made Florida less of a seven-letter-word and more like something that might even be able to someday remind me of home. I thought about how the back of Aveline’s head still smells as pure and perfect as it did two years ago, and how when I go home my own momma pulls me close and breathes in and says, “Mmm, you smell good.” I thought about how I wanted to be able to do the same thing years from now, and then I thought about how, really, years aren’t given. Years are loaned, and years aren’t ours alone to hold.

I thought about heaven and how the soft sky would one day split, and I thought about the colors that would pour down. I wondered if there would be more than cerulean and midnight blue and the lavender of heather after the dew.

I thought about how music notes are really alive on their own, and I thought about how individually they dance, and how together they become something new every second, something beyond corralling with words.

And I thought about this earth, and the countries on every part of these sphere, and the children on the streets and in the orphanages, and the children with no homes. And I thought about how I don’t know how to help them and I don’t know what do, except that I need to do more. And I thought about all the tears I’ve cried over this, and how a burdened heart alone can’t change the world.

And I thought about all the times I’ve thought and not written, and thought but not acted, and thought but not done.

And then I remembered Wendell Berry, and the Muse of Realization, and thought about how maybe this place in the journey is exactly where I am supposed to be.

“There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say “It is yet more difficult than you thought.” This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

I want to sing.

Poetry & Words

POETRY & WORDS :: Why This Will Never Be A Parenting Advice Blog

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Why This Will Never Be A Parenting Advice Blog - via Oaxacaborn
Oh, this little person.

She’s very much a two-year-old. Perfectly quirky. She loves pirates and hates greens. She’d rather eat kefir than a donut, or almost anything else, except “mac and roni” which trumps all. She yells “Hi, baby!” to every non-adult she sees, no matter their age. And she has her own way of talking. “Fat put-tee”, of course, means “splash puddles”. And “kay yay-yi-yo” is her own little riff on “thank you, Aveline”. She sleeps every night surrounded by dozens of stuffed animals, but among them all, only Mr. Fox, Baby Fox, and Football Dog need to be kissed goodnight.

She loves to have her hair and teeth brushed. She always is sneaking into the bathroom to dab at her cheeks with mama’s makeup brushes. And destroying one of papa’s paintbrushes in a muddle of dull brown mixed watercolors, well, that’s a delight all its own.

She sings about the itsy-bitsy spider every chance she gets, “Fider, up. Fider, wain, down, ‘way. Fider, up sun, Fider, ‘gain!” When she hears dogs or neighborhood kids outside, she yells “Some babies! Some barks! Some dogs!” and runs to the window.

She’s a perpetual motion machine, my wild child.

And I’ve never done this before, this wild-child-raising.

I don’t know how.

Every day, I’m faced with situations that don’t make sense. (Toddlers don’t make sense. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.)

I don’t have all the answers. And in my very short experience so far, I’ve seen that parenting is simultaneously humbling and exhilarating and terrifying and rewarding. I don’t have it all figured out. And I don’t imagine I ever will.

And that’s why this isn’t, and never will be, a parenting advice blog. First of all, I don’t have any to give. And second, my goal isn’t to figure it all out. I’m not chasing the answers. I’m not chasing perfection (thank goodness!) I’m chasing joy. I’m chasing hope. I’m chasing Jesus.

So you won’t find answers or advice here, because don’t have any. But what I do have, I can share; glimpses into our lives, beauty in the everyday, and the reason for our hope.

And I can tell you this — there’s not a day in which I don’t ask beg God for wisdom!