The camera tells a story. The pictures reveal a life. But they only reveal part of the story and they only skim the surface of the life.
The camera’s story:
We played outside often and got muddy and loved it. Bracken, the moment he crosses the sliding glass door threshold, runs immediately to the dirt and sinks his hands deep in the mud. Within seconds, he is covered. I love his muddied mouth, especially when he smiles and dirt is caked between his front two teeth. He is talking often and will smile and say, “dirty.” While the kids played in the mud, Nick and I (with the help of Granddad, Nick’s dad) prepared our yard for the summer. We built three more garden boxes and planted our summer garden. We put in drip systems.
Janeene, Foster and Kendall visited for Party at Pardee, a 60-mile bike ride. Janeene, Foster, Al, Nick and I rode through beautiful country roads and enjoyed moments of peace that have been absent in our life for the last three and half years.
As with all Christian holidays, Easter came and we attempted to maintain some element of the truth of the holiday for Carson and Bracken. Surrounded by Easter Bunnies, we tried to teach them Christ. Carson loved hearing the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. By Easter Sunday she could retell the whole story (in the fragmented voice of a three year old).
We ended the month spoiled. We got to spend two weekends in a row with Evin. We camped in Santa Cruz for a weekend, paid for with coins we had all been saving over the year. One rule: We had to spend every coin. We visited an Earth Day festival and saw a bike operated blender making smoothies. Bracken almost touched a very large iguana. We went to the Boardwalk and rode a roller coaster and Carson rode the Carousel.
The second weekend was spent in Monterey, a quick trip to see Nick run the Big Sur Marathon. In a marathon that is typically slow, due to hills and wind, Nick ran one of his best times.
What actually happened:
Bracken was muddy, often. We had so much laundry; clothes were constantly overflowing the laundry basket. Bracken cried, kicked and screamed every time we told him he had to come back inside.
Bracken is talking and copying us constantly. He often smiles at me and mimics my words: “crap.”
We worked outside a lot. The garden boxes look great. But the front yard is covered in weeds and the area that I weeded two weeks ago already needs to be reweeded. The drip systems work well, but one area is already leaking and needs to be fixed. The cat sometimes poops in the garden boxes. We have wasps and I have found three black widows already.
The bike ride really was amazingly peaceful.
Easter: We dyed eggs and ruined a place mat and some clothe napkins. Carson got in trouble while dying the eggs and ended up crying for 10 minutes straight. Bracken ate way too much sugary food on Easter and pooped all over our bed that night. We didn’t have any clean sheets to remake the bed. Carson really did love the story of Christ. But while we were trying to celebrate Christ’s resurrection, Carson kept wanting us to talk about his death. She would say, “I like that part.” She is slightly morbid.
Camping is really not very relaxing with two toddlers. We were exhausted most of the weekend and while we tried to take a nap in the car, Bracken wouldn’t sleep and instead decided to put stickers all over his dad’s face. Nick and I got in a couple of fights because it was so stressful to live for two nights in a campsite surrounded by poison oak. Carson came home with a tick attached to her neck.
The trip to Monterey was quick. Evin slept on a roll away bed and didn’t really sleep that well. We ate bagels for every meal. We got a flat tire.
So maybe the truth of the story lies somewhere in between the Camera’s story and the Cynic’s story. Mud is dirty, but that is what makes it fun. Life is chaos, but maybe that is why we want to keep living.