I am officially a military mom.

It’s taken me a couple of days to compose myself in reality and in my conscious mind as this scenario has played out. It seems like just mere days ago I was nestled into a hospital bed holding my newborn son in my arms. The first night we spent together I couldn’t stop running my fingers through his thick, dark hair and rubbing his palm with my fingertip just to get his little fingers to wrap around my own. Our first night I was counting his tiny fingers, and brushing the tops of his tiny, little toes. I had so many things to tell him and I was so excited to finally be holding him in my arms. It was just me and my boy that night. A new space had been hollowed out in my chest and he had nestled in and made a home for himself before I could even begin to comprehend just how much being a mother changes you.

the first chapter from my second book:

1

decennium

12.14.2021

My parents may have given me life on that Labor Day weekend of 1987, but on this day 10 years ago Dr. Belzer saved it. 

An entire decade has since passed I had a surgery that saved my life from the deathly grips of Crohn’s Disease. I had been sick for years. In and out of emergency rooms across the twin cities western metro area in hopes there would be just one competent doctor out there who would take my case as seriously as they do on any episode of Grey’s Anatomy. I wanted to be able to do something that most people do without a second thought.

I wanted to eat. 

I am very intentional about my first cup of coffee every morning.

Sometimes I can stay in that present moment for the duration of my favorite morning beverage. More often than not, I am usually casted off into reality within the first

couple of sips.

I do not check my phone.

I do not start on my to do list.

I do not think about anything more upon waking than my first cup of coffee. The first moments of my day belong to me.

As the world these days seemingly begins to spin faster & faster, I find the desire to go even slower. 

I exist in a world that values the hustle over the connection & the understanding of ourselves. 

The understanding of ourselves & the connections we have with each other. We are trained to be wildly disconnected from our bodies and not given the time to process our emotions. We don’t have the time to understand what our bodies and our souls and our minds are trying to tell us when we have shit to do. We’re busy. Seriously, have you seen my calendar

When I accepted this mission here on earth the universe told me the following:

“Here on earth, they value efficiency, consumption, and speed.”

I looked at the universe and said, 

“Then I will go slow, be present, take only what I need while being appreciative of what I have. After all, the meaning of this life is found within the journey, right?”

Source looked at me out of the side of their eye. As if ignoring what I said previously.

“Here on earth, they deem being tall & slim with blue eyes and blonde, beach wavy hair to be beautiful. They value looking good and being liked  over feeling good and being connected.”

I rested my hand to my chin, , draped in thought. After a moment’s meditation I said,

My dreams have been wild lately. Not so much in storyline, although there is a little of that too. Perhaps I’m finally getting adequate sleep to be able to delegate that energy to dreaming, maybe I’m feeling less stressed in life, or we could blame it on the darkness wrapping it’s arms around these chillier fall days which ameliorate the environment for dreams to come out and play.

For all one knows, it’s none of these things at all.

They say that the human heart on average weighs 11 ounces.

But it sure as hell feels a lot heavier when it’s broken.

When Grammy was given the chance to write about herself, these were the words that she used.

“I am part of the Pellersels family, that says it all” followed by a space and three exclamation points.

She goes on to describe herself as a mother of 5, a grandmother of four beautiful granddaughters, two handsome grandsons, and great-grandsons who are also the cutest and beautiful great granddaughters.

She lists sewing quilts as one of her favorite pastimes, listening to country music, or 50’s rock Elvis music.

She says her favorite quotes as “I don’t get it” and “Oh fer cute!”

& while she is absolutely right about all of those aforementioned things, in my opinion, she’s always been much too humble.

There is an endless supply of topics that run through my mind in the wintertime months.

Whether it has to do with the amount of darkness the winter bestows upon our weeks, the significantly less than summer temperatures, or my intrinsic inability to fight my physical body’s plea for rest, I will never know.

At least not today, anyway.

I watched some videos of you today. I don’t think you knew at the time that I was taking them and for that I am delighted because I always have preferred the unfiltered version of you.

I miss your laugh.

I wore a couple of your rings yesterday. I’ve been carrying them in my purse until I find a spot I feel is dignified enough to keep them. I remember what they looked like on your fingers, and I only hope that they look half as good on mine as they did on yours.

If I had another bit of truth to tell you Gram, I have been avoiding writing this piece.

I went for a walk today.

Which really isn’t anything new in comparison to most of my days. However this walk did feel different in several small ways. Something I have noticed since moving to a larger city is while there are lot of people around, it actually can be quite an intimate space to exist. Your eyes are drawn to the differing structure and architecture of homes. Homes like this  have since been erased when the world settled for quick and easy profits of smooth and sterile looking builds that have mass appeal over harnessing the skill and intention of true artists. The weathered and beautiful incongruity between buildings that have sat for a hundred years only mere feet apart from each other in some areas is like a feast for the eyes, like nothing I’ve come to know or observe in suburbia. So much beauty, so many stories hiding behind walls and lost secrets between bricks and mortar. It so much to take in

I woke up this morning after a night of uninterrupted sleep. Which is a rarity for me. Usually waking between the morning hours of three and four for at least a few minutes. Upon opening social media after some morning meditation, I found myself feeling almost giddy when most of the photos that appeared on my feed during my slumber were those of the sky. The captions communicated a sense of wonderment and awe of the northern lights that everyone was experiencing from different parts of the state and even the country was a welcomed feeling compared to what social media usually provides. May it serve as a reminder that we are all part of something much bigger than ourselves. The feeling almost brought me to tears – but that could also be attributed to the fact that I am really going through it emotionally these days.

I find myself thankful in the moment that nothing lasts forever.

“I don’t really even want to write right now. Even if I did, I don’t even know what I would want to write about.”

                -jess kuusi

That’s how 90% of all my writings start. I always think I don’t know or want to write about anything and then next thing you know, I begin and there are three whole pages of “nothing”.

The nothing always turns into something.

“I didn’t go for a walk today. I probably should have.”

I find myself time and time again repeating this ‘tale as old as time’ mantra that rest is also productive. A hot tip I am quick to advocate to others when they tell me they have been feeling less than themselves. A piece of guidance that’s easier to tell others to follow than it is to heed the advice we don’t inherently follow ourselves.

Dancing has always been a large part of who I am, for nearly as long as I can remember.

I attribute that to my mother.

I remember how it felt shortly after my parents separated and she became a single mom. She played a lot of music; from Fleetwood Mac to Martina McBride – she played it all and she danced like no one was watching. My sister and I would dance with her and suddenly the act felt more like healing than it did exercise. I can still remember the height of the CD racks we had full of different artists in our living room. Of course this was back before streaming services. I come from a time where you’d get those Columbia House music subscription flyers in the mail exclaiming “13 CDs for the price of 1!” You would then affix the stamp of the CD that you wanted into the designated ‘mail in’ and a few weeks later, your brown box of CDs would arrive in the mail. Mom always let my sister and I choose an album stamp to place on the mailer. When that brown box arrived in the mailbox a few weeks later, it was always exciting.