Christmas Eve 2021
Snowstorm 2021
Great Grandpa Charles Berry & Great Grandma Lavonne Berry
Blueberries & Buttercups
Wesley turns 3 and Arlene turns 1
“Stuck” for Sissy
♥️
“Stuck”
Winn Trip Aug.2020
Dunn Cabin 2020
There were kitty cat boy cousins and girl cousins with matching dresses!
Our Trip to Walla Walla
Arlene “Lavonne” got to meet Grandma Berry, Lavonne. :) We also took the annual diving board picture of Grandpa Charles & Wesley Charles.
Family Photos, by Taylor <3
6/9/20 — So Happy Together!
Arlene "Arley" Lavonne
Unlike your brother’s name which we decided at 40 weeks pregnant, I had a feeling about your name before we ever had kids. Your dad and I thought of it together, and have whispered it to each other periodically over the last 4 years whenever we wanted to imagine something lovely. You were a thought planted a long time ago, a little seed that’s grown into a reality I can hardly believe.
Your full first name, Arlene, is a derivative of Charles, which connects you to your brother. That’s a coincidence actually, but you will see how much influence brothers have even unintentionally. You will be gifted from birth something Wesley had to wait for, a companion.
It is not always easy to love boys. Sometimes he will make it seem perfectly natural, other times you will want to write him off as hopeless. You came second, and it will be your job to teach him that this does not mean you are second to him. It will be his job to teach you how meaningful it can be to choose to be second to others.
After carrying your brother, he left bits and scraps of his DNA behind in me. This DNA has found its way into your forming. No matter how hard it may be at times, love your brother, he is part of you. You will never find another friend as worthwhile or long-lasting.
Arley—
Your first name comes from your great great paternal grandmother. I never met her, and this shows that a legacy is an immeasurably profound thing one can leave behind. You may not be famous, but your life can give historical context and be a comfort to those you meet and those you never will. You may never know the full harvest of your choices in this life; hers still yield new fruit.
It’s hard to say exactly why a few stories about Arley Jackson left such an impression on me. From what I know, she was short yet consequential, uneducated yet known for her wisdom, female yet revered for her toughness. She did not fear the snakes of this world. She had a long life yet held a steady vision of the afterlife. She found meaning in the rearing and tending of all kinds and of all people. She persevered. She was survived by an absurd number of family members, who adore her.
One of those was her granddaughter, your grandmother. And it’s as much because of her impression of her Grandma Arley that we chose that name, as it was because of Arley herself. She remembers an unearthly wisdom. A wisdom you do not gain from an education. You will see in your grandmother what she saw in hers, I am confident. And that will be a window into a heritage we hope you will continue, one of prayer, perseverance, and a mind with seemingly endless insight. That you would continue a trend: that many would look to you for wisdom when they are anxious, that your home would be filled with generations of respect, that you would not fear the times you were made in, because you would know what is made and who is maker.
Your great great grandma Arley survived the Dust Bowl I’m told. And while we didn’t plan it and couldn’t avoid it, you were born into a pandemic. I have been praying you too will not fear the times you were made in, because you will know what is made and who is maker.
Lavonne—
Your middle name, Lavonne, is a very personal gift. It belongs to my Grandma. And as you will see, a Grandma plays a very special part in the shaping of a woman.
I think after my brother, my grandmother was my second closest friend in early childhood. Trying to parse out favorite memories or characteristics seems nearly impossible. She was, and is, a dream of a Grandmother.
She taught me to sing my way through life, in silly abandon, and few things have served my spirit so well. She was a farm girl who missed a year of high school due to tuberculosis and then won valedictorian. She loves to visit with people, and she remembers good visits for a very long time, in detail. She knows how to form a good ritual: when I stayed the night at her house growing up we would always do a devotional together by the window and eat poached eggs and toast. She knows how to make things special: we pulled out lawn chairs and ate frozen grapes while watching summer lightning storms together. She has a light kindness in her voice that seems unearthly, and life has often not treated her kindly or lightly. She has persevered through loneliness that dwarfs what most endure. She showed my mom how to be one of the best moms. She showed her how to enjoy motherhood to the fullest, a gift I carry with me every day.
But what I hope most you will learn about her, is that she taught me the value of storytelling.
She tells me great stories and always has and I wish I could write them all down for you, just in case, but I’m trying my hardest to remember them. Over the years some stories have left lasting impressions, like the connection a daughter can feel for a father. The importance of finding a partner who makes you laugh. And that spending the precious time you have on people, will fill your days with laughter and meaningfulness. She tells me all the time, without saying it outright, how important people are to her: she remembers their full names, where they’re from, and nearly everything they’ve told her about themselves. She spends her memory on people; always has. She remembers things about me that I don’t, even at ages when I might have.
She does not sugarcoat, and she always tells the story as it is to her. So should you. That means all the sad parts, the mistakes, the forgiveness, and the happy endings, whichever might be harder for you to include.
Daughter, much of a woman’s life is spent trying to figure out who she is and why she’s here. It’s a long journey. On many days it involves ignoring what people say you have to be. But I hope it will be something we do together. I hope I can learn who you are alongside you. I hope you’ll let me know you.
And I hope you’ll learn how to tell a story well like your Grandma Berry; that you’ll spend your life collecting all the right elements by pursuing deep relationships, as she has. I hope you’ll know that a woman made in God’s image is a storyteller.
I hope you’ll be like your great great grandma Arley, that your mind will be sharp like a surgical tool, not a weapon, one that uses wisdom to care and parse out made from maker for those around you.
I hope you’ll learn from these women’s stories and persevere through your own, whether through epic storms of weather, loneliness, tiny virus molecules, or something else entirely.
This is where your name came from, and your starting place.
Love, Mom
_______
Water spilled from a Memory of Dust
Arlene Lavonne:
I did not want this name for you
because of the words,
but instead
because of the people.
All words are for people
to people
or through people.
Two names, four women.
Arlene for Arley:
the woman with the stubbornly subtle smile,
the woman who jumped rope at 90,
jogged till 97,
rode a stationary bike till she passed away,
one century old.
She was survival at its finest,
a quiet joy drawn from Dust Bowl drama
in the belly of a land
too ambitious to remember its poverty.
She was survived by so many,
a quiet contribution drawn from dust
to dust, kicking up dozens
of souls
on her way home.
Lavonne:
the woman with the indelible grace,
the stories so full and long of love,
the woman who raised her children well
even when alone,
unfazed by the turbulence of promises
and time.
She is still with us,
hanging on perhaps to meet you,
perhaps to keep telling stories
to your mother,
a quiet contribution cached from memory
to memory, planting seed
after seed
on her way home.
Your mother:
She wanted this name for you.
She is more honest than most
about the lonely strength required
so much more of women
than men.
She is both storyteller and survivor,
that thick substance some call wisdom -
it flows so visibly behind her eyes.
Take the name for her sake;
her love of humble human history;
her quiet contribution cast from thirst
to thirst, drawing drink
after living drink
on her way home.
And you:
My longed for Darling,
my companion created so different yet still
from my DNA...
daughters must be born into some form
of determination
from their fathers.
There is no escaping
the grand opportunity
or the giant danger
that lies in ambush for you
here.
But I do not fear,
"though the earth give way
and the mountains be moved into the sea."
May your name guide you.
May you know the breadcrumb trail,
the strengths
the stories
the souls
strewn behind you.
Look over your shoulder often, dear;
see the quiet contributions,
Water spilled from a Memory of Dust,
poured from Father
to mothers, inverting Earth
after broken Earth:
this is your only
way
home.
Love, Dad
A Rebirth of Words
“What are we doing when we do nothing but think? Where are we when we, normally always surrounded by our fellow-men, are together with no one but ourselves?” - Hannah Arendt
It seems our minds have spent more than just three days in darkness. Quarantined inside a tomb, we yearn for a stone to be rolled away, that we might think freely once again. We are stuck in more ways than one. We are in need of new thoughts.
New words. We think in words. Words are filled with meaning, some more than others. When circumstances become difficult to comprehend, we tend to draw too deeply from the wells of certain words. We fixate. They become the lexicon of the times, a special dictionary full of very narrow definitions: airborne is no longer a reference to flight, it is a transmission method. Collapse is no longer an end to a child’s block tower, it is an end to an economy. News is no longer a paper in a mailbox, it is a frantic obsession.
We quarantine our minds with only a few phrases, and our spirits wither. The tomb closes.
This Easter, during this pandemic, may our thinking be extricated from this narrowness of language. May we gather up the pieces of words spread far and wide - spread too thin - and sit with them awhile, as with newly planted seeds. May we watch them grow, given the proper attention, the right root.
Today, may we find a better Gardener, committed to a redemption of purpose, a renewal of meaning, a rebirth of words.
- Shannon & Evan
Protect
Six
Hands
Surface
Nonessential
Delivery
Alone
Widespread
Temperature
Prepping
Stay
Infectious
Alone /əˈlōn/
Much of life should be spent
discovering the difference between
lonely
and
alone.
One is painful,
one is healing.
One is awkward,
one is good.
One is heartbreak,
one is the heart
of rest.
When you close your eyes to sleep
you do so
entirely alone.
When you wake
you wake
to a world of interaction.
Both were resolved already
in the past.
One is mourning,
one is waiting.
Both will happen.
Neither will last.
Widespread /ˈwīdˌspred/
A hug
is a gigantic sort of thing.
To be wrapped up is to be caught up,
to be embraced is to be ensnared,
to be welcomed
or comforted
or congratulated
with the physics of two human arms
is to be entangled with another soul
(no matter how reluctant the hold).
If arms can be outstretched,
they can be widespread.
If arms enact the coverage of love,
then we may call them Life
redeeming a multitude of Dead.
Temperature
/ˈtemp(ə)rəCHər/
Every day for decades now
We have taken the world’s temperature
Wondering whether tomorrow
Will be fever or chill.
Powerless except only to measure.
Now we take our temperature
Wondering whether tomorrow
Will be fever or chill.
Powerless except only to measure.
Heat is the fuel of life.
It makes the earth edible.
It reconciles our natural imbalance.
It documents the passage of time.
We love light
because of heat.
We are moths to brilliant flame,
powerless except only to measure.
Prepping /ˈprepiNG/
Wait.
That word is loaded
not because it sounds like
weight
but because it is a deep guarantee
of hurt and help
together -
an oil
and water.
Wait.
It does not blend with our experience.
It does not mix with our version.
It does not fade with time.
Wait.
It lies heavy over all things,
pregnant with the intentional or arbitrary,
poised to conclude at any moment -
you just never know which.
Wait.
This too shall pass.
It’s true,
but it doesn’t help that much.
Wait.
There is nothing to do
but demand an end.
Stay /stā/
There are so many feelings we try to push away.
Only the bright ones
are ever asked to stay.
When the nagging dark
pulls its hat down for today,
do not fear the gray.
Now I stop and let it wash
all illusion away.
Now I stop to feel the cost
of all I ever counted on,
all I assumed
would remain.
Let the sense of helplessness
remind you to look elsewhere,
when only
the overwhelming
stays.
Infectious /inˈfekSHəs/
Many things spread like wildfire.
Yawns and fear and smiles.
Our chemistry picks up on close quarter cues
(most we are never privy to).
Most have a materialist explanation -
a quantifiable cause.
But just because the wind
can be measured as a system
does not mean we know where it will go
much less point and make it follow.
We are carriers of moods and attitudes
functional philosophies
so much more viral than we know.
We are relational creatures
pretending we know where we will go,
collecting close quarter cues
more deterministic than we know.
Many things catch flame quickly,
dry kindling scattered as if purposeless,
or just a system too big
for us to measure.
Many things spread like wildfire.
Faith and hope and love.
Protect /prəˈtekt/
We cannot let down our guard
at the same time as
there is so much we cannot guard against.
Six /siks/
We shovel dirt into a garden
either to birth botany
or bury biology.
The former is six inches deep,
the latter six feet.
We shovel dirt into a garden
and wait to see if life
can overcome.
Hands /hændz/
The primary instrument of knowledge
is not the mind:
it is the hand.
Before we ever see,
we feel.
To be certain of what we experience,
we pinch.
To demand proof of existence,
we touch.
The primary instrument of love
is not the heart:
it is the hand.
Before we ever love,
we greet hello with a handshake.
To express our affection,
we write.
To be certain of reciprocity,
we embrace.
To demand proof of love,
we turn open our palms
to the apathetic sky
and beg a God we usually only barely believe in:
bend down.
The primary instrument of worship
is not the soul:
it is the hand.
Surface /ˈsərfəs/
We watch the birds in the morning.
They scavenge with such confidence.
In the winter they came in the early afternoon.
They descended as a a choral raiding horde.
They bounced around too jubilantly to be desperate.
They must have known their meal would be waiting for them.
They must have known it would not be hidden from them.
They must have known this plane
would yield its yield to them
would surface its contents
serve itself up,
so many promises
fulfilled
every day.
Nonessential /ˌnänəˈsen(t)SH(ə)l/
When you see a bird of paradise
Consider
Paradise will be full
Of wanton impracticality.
Each crease of yours you wish you could carve away
Is precisely unnecessary,
the way an artist flicks a wrist
or a poet rhymes a list.
It may be tired to analogize
aged beauty with aged wine
but time still shows
from one good thing's
Decomposition
comes another
Good
Thing
and this is only for the mature
to know.
Delivery /dəˈliv(ə)rē/
Fast forward
Time lapse
And all the patiently turning gears
Become dances.
The seas slowly scintillate.
Each supernova prances.
The wind no longer shifts:
It waltzes,
up, out, together, lift.
Bring it all just barely to a halt
and all the rapidly replicating rhythms
Become songs.
Atoms split into instruments
Molecules make melodies
The strings theorize symphonies
Gravity grows
into grace notes
even in all deep wells.
In the long view of history,
the hand of heaven overshadows the dark hints of hell.
Drink a glass with friends.
Apologize for all your wrongs,
but never anything more.
Smile while the world ends.
You will never know your place inside the song.
Buck the heart’s steep downward trends.
You will be all praise again.
And you, daughter,
Be born in a pandemic.
There is no better time for you to come.
Be we broke or barely treading water,
This broken barren ocean planet
is your home.
There is no better time for you to come.
You will never know your notes,
the narrative arc so much bigger than your mind.
You will always wonder how it always fits together,
how birdsongs become ballads
and newborn cooing rhymes.
There is an artist behind the weather,
an author of fine lines.
There is no better time for you to come.
There is no better time.
Nonessential Bloopers
Because a pool full of balloons and woggles is too much fun for just one photo.
"Mary."
"Mary."
No explanation.
No sermon.
Miriam.
Only the one word
by which she is recognized.
The string of sounds
begun with both lips pressed together
the quick cascade down a mountainslide
(he is almost here,
after all)
into the rolling turn,
the palacial palatal glide
the skid to stop
both lips pressed together again.
MIR-yam.
Then it clicks:
This man knows.
All it took was a name.
He knew
that all it would take
is a name
to show her he knew
her.
Sales people know this, too,
Customer service people know this,
Good doctors use your name,
Your friends call you what your friends call you,
Your parents gave you what they wanted you to be known by.
Your God
knows you.
Will it not be just as
brief
when we see you?
Won't we be just as disoriented,
not having fully grasped the Scripture,
not quite used to the idea
that we don't end when we die,
that you truly did resolve
the core threat to our lives?
"Mary."
Won't we be just
as surprised?
Church, not at church
My people:
seeds scattered across scapes
some raised in ready crowds
some grown alone
edged out among the distance.
You are quiet now:
Fellow laborers
letting the weight of the rake
drop itself back into the ground -
every bit helps,
every natural inclination you can leverage,
you do:
It is so hard to feel the purpose of the work.
It is so hard to look over your shoulder
and find only empty field.
In doing the work of God,
it is so hard to labor alone.
You can’t pretend this isn’t what is happening.
Any one of us would have finished
the effort of belief
if it didn’t involve Sunday morning meetings
with pews or cheap chairs
with wine or grape juice
with small plastic cups and small paper pamphlets
with a cultural inheritance we would rather forfeit.
I want to follow him
just not in droves.
So many of us have been cornered
by the logic of the deep and personal unknown
but cut off from the implication of him
in other humans.
In this eerie season of homeboundaries
in the callous quiet of the streets
in anticipated grief of coming disease
can’t we now know the need
to be together?
And if together in general
then together in purpose,
together in place,
together in pleading
together in praise.
Easter '20
Making dye from food for easter eggs!
Thank you for sun
It hit 60
We swim from April to October around here, because swimming is life even if it’s only in 3 inches of water.
<3
Soon you’ll know what we mean when we say, “big brother”.
Odds & Ends
It's been almost a year since you learned Blueberry's name
And you are still smitten.
