To tell you the truth, I stumbled into blogging.

I was a magazine writer and a weekend do-it-yourselfer and a negative pregnancy test hider. Around the time we started seeing an infertility specialist, Travis suggested I combine my love of writing with my love of tinkering. So instead of having a baby, we had a blog.

And it helped. It healed. I painted and hot-glued and repurposed through my infertility. And of course, eventually there was Ada…

I went back to work for three days and quit even though we would only have $16 left out of Travis’ paycheck once we payed our bills. That’s why there’s a Mary Kay sticker on the back of our one and only car; I was a make-up lady until I started getting freelance writing gigs. Thankfully, I got back to writing within about six months. I was a terrible make-up lady. I remember doing a consultation with our realtor and friend, Pat, while trying to nurse Ada. It was a disaster.

Being the messy, impulsive Creative that I am, I have a tendency to jump from idea to idea. Our garage is where projects go to die or at least sit around until I fancy them again. But blogging…I’ve always blogged. The story has changed. Instead of writing about decorating a house that was much-too quiet, I come here and tell you stories about these wild (and very loud) little wonders and our adventures in blooming smack-dab in the suburbs.

There’s a lot of talk of branding when you’re a blogger, which, honestly, is something I struggle with every day. As a writer, it’s nearly impossible to get one of my stories noticed by an editor and published in a national magazine but I can publish my writing here on this blog (my own little magazine) and I have a better chance of getting jobs. I’m working as a writer at a weird time in publishing so yes, branding is important. This blog is my job; my livelihood.

But…how do I brand my heart? How do I sit down with a graphic designer and say, for example, this is who I am deep down to my bones:

A denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows so my hands can be free to make.

Bare feet on wood floors.

Elton John’s “Rocket Man” playing in the background while I stand at the farm sink, washing dishes in hot sparkling water.

A Nehi soda bottle holding fresh-cut zinnias on the window sill.

Floating in an inner-tube in open water with sun-warmed skin.

My baby, nursing and giggling with milk rolling down his cheek.

My cheek pressed to Travis’ chest, listening to his heartbeat through a white t-shirt worn soft.

Mom’s hand rolling on wind waves as she drives with the windows down, humming with the radio.

Every word of Billy Joel’s “Vienna.”

Breath catching in my chest at the sight of a red bird, Heaven’s reminder that everything will be okay.

Swinging on the front porch, reading the same weathered copy of Leaves of Grass my grandpa read to me as a kid, my finger running over the words to “Miracles,” which I once got excited and dog-eared against all of my rules of book ettiquette. My heart knows every word:

Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by  day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles…

Or this one:

I too am not a bit tamed- I too am untranslatable;
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

What font would I be? What color? What logo could be created that will still tell my story tomorrow, grow with me as I grow?

I am not a bit tamed. I am untranslatable.

I write about this house, our storied home, because this is the only “box” that can contain me. What stories would the walls tell if they could talk?

They would say that Ada got her ears pierced this week then woke me up at 5 AM to take them out against my best efforts of negotiation.

That Eli is cutting two more teeth and bit me so hard while nursing, I bled through my shirt, which led to a downward spiral of questioning if I should wean him and if I do, will this be the last baby I’ll nurse? Do I want more children? Can I handle more? Do I want myself, my marriage, more than another nursling?

They’d talk of the growing pains of my mom moving in with us. How at 30, I fear having two bosses under one roof: My mother and my husband. How I wonder who I’d be if I hadn’t married at 21 and took off running instead to live in a small apartment, writing with a cigarette hanging from my lips, probably on the coast…skinny as a rail because I’d be too angsty and frenzied to eat. Or more likely, working some thankless editorial job and living on Lean Cuisines, promising myself that next month I’d start being edgy and angsty and frenzied.

They would tell you how the kids were fighting over the same toy and the dishes were stacked high and the kitchen floor was crunchy and Coldplay’s “Fix You” came on the radio and this man I share my life and responsibilities with grabbed me up and we held on to each other, less like lovers and more like two sea-ravaged souls, until everything faded and it was just us.

These walls would say that their is madness and gnashing of teeth and unpaid bills and all sorts of unkind words healed by sudden bursts of laughter, kitchen-dancing, old photos found in the back pockets of dirty blue jeans.

There is so much life.

So friend, I don’t know that I’ll ever do a good job of writing a well-branded blog. You might come here and find a mess. In fact, I promise you will. But my goodness, will you find life. And love. And a friend who believes that your walls have stories worth telling, too.

Here’s a few..

---

 

 

What story would your walls tell this week? Share your memories from this week with us on Instagram with #ourstoriedhome or post them on our Facebook wall.