Listen For The Birdsong, Look Up

This week leaves me feeling immensely grateful for so much. Over the weekend, we dropped Olivia off to travel with four other friends up to the Maine Youth Activism Gathering, where she spent three days being with people who are mindful and compassionate about social justice. By all accounts, she had an amazing time, eating locally sourced, fresh food, and connecting with interesting people. While she was there, she and some of her travel companions did some recording for Blunt Youth Radio.



They hope to do a show on youth activism for Blunt, in the future. Already, she's excited to be a part of mini-YAGatherings. It definitely seems like a good resource for the Maine teen who is passionate about activism.

The rest of us spent some time at the farmhouse, stripping more wallpaper and glue from walls. And just in case you've ever thought to yourself, gee, what this room needs is wallpaper, I'm here to tell you, you are wrong. So horribly wrong, just sit there in your wrongness being wrong, wrong. ::sigh:: But, it is nearly all gone and this week, we will spend four days up there, finally getting primer and paint on the walls.



In between scrapes and moments of trying to clean up the endless mess that results from renovations, we took ourselves outside, which seems to be the best reset for weary minds and bodies. On Sunday evening, the sky was lit up with peach clouds in a Maxfield Parrish sky and a robin sang the sun to bed as the brook rushed a few yards away.











On Monday, when we heard the news about Boston, and our hearts broke again, we picked up our daughter, grateful she was safe, sound and happy, and more, back under our roof, at least for now. The robin's song replayed in my head, and my mind tried to reconcile the contrast of pure, simple beauty, with hideous loss. All I can do, any of us can do, for those that have lost so much, is hold them in our hearts and minds, and listen for the birdsong, every day, and know that joy exists. Look up.