stories :: Page 33 :: Small Pond Graphics

Archive for stories – Page 33

Oh Happy Day 050710: A Time Piece

· May 7, 2010

Hello, Friday! It’s the day that marks the end of the work week and the beginning of the weekend (at least it does for me at about 5:30pm CST.) For the latest installment of my Oh Happy Day! Gratitude Project, I’ve been thinking about marking time.

Last weekend, I took three watches to the store to install new batteries. I kept forgetting the task for several weeks, and each day at work I’ve been completely lost without the wrist-bound vehicle for marking time. I found myself glancing to the upper right corner of Kermit (my trusty laptop, for the unindoctrinated) repeatedly throughout the days just to orient myself. It’s interesting how much we come to incorporate that simple task into our daily routine. There is something special about keeping time, about acknowledging its passage. It orients us. It gives us context. And, although it may appear to speed up or slow down depending on our activities, it’s very consistency puts our own context in parallel with the rest of the world’s.

So, I have three watches. Two of them have been without batteries for a while and lost to me because of my annoying tendency to procrastinate. (Evidence that time and I need to come to an understanding, I know. But, that’s another post.) When the third battery wound to a complete halt, it served as my motivation to act–a few weeks later of course. Sigh. One watch is a quirky Minnie Mouse version I purchased during my first summer living in Las Vegas, NV back in the day. Minnie is sporting her typical babydoll dress and flirtatious pose in silver on a plain black background. The glass of the face is faceted to provide just enough sparkle as the light hits both to make me smile and to hinder my ability to focus on Minnie’s big hand all at the same time. My second watch was a gift from my Mom and Dad for my 30th birthday. It’s a demure and very professional-looking black leather and silver Ann Klein version with no numbers and a slight pin-stripe face. The watch that broke the camel’s back (so to speak) is a lovely Swiss Army Victorinox stainless steel linked variety that the Queen gave me in celebration of my 10-year anniversary at the day job. We often choose carefully–and people choose carefully for us–the instruments for marking our time.

It’s been an eventful week in my relationship with time. You may have read in the essays about birthdays and anniversaries I’ve been celebrating. Topping my gratitude list, I’ve been thankful for the joy of keeping time, of marking events in celebration. I’m realizing that time is celebration-worthy. So often in our striving to mark it this way or that way, we think of time as our enemy, and the keeping of it as a cumberson task that reminds us of how little we’ve done or how little of it we have remaining. We hate waiting. We resist moving forward. We’re disgruntled with looking back. We’re intimidated by looking ahead. We are even dissatisfied with this moment. With every passing day I mark, I want to resist this notion.

There is something very God-inspired about keeping time. The Bible’s account of Creation draws our attention to it with every action. “There was evening and there was morning, one day.” “There was evening and there was morning, a second day.” And so it goes. In the inception of time, the marking of it began. The commemoration of evening and morning. The capping off of one time period to usher in the next. The acknowledgement of time’s passage was ingrained from those very first moments.

Having just celebrated my first-born’s fifth birthday, the 2-year anniversary of EyeJunkie and a hundred other significant and more ordinary occurences evident in the passage of time, I find I’m grateful for the sheer joy of marking it. The joy of remembering, of remembering milestones. The joy of evaluating, of finding the value from seasons. The joy of even having time, of experiencing this life in sequence. The joy of celebrating time spent, invested. Together and apart. This marking defines a thousand starting points and perhaps just as many ending points and all the markers along the way. The counting down of hours and the counting up of years.

It’s true that this moment is all we have. We have memories, both bitter and sweet, of time passed. We have hopes and dreams of the time ahead of us. But, we are living THIS moment. If there is anything to be gained from the celebration of milestones, the marking of important events and significant (or even just regular) time periods, it is that this moment deserves an audience.

So, today, I’m sitting with attention. I’m moved by the action in front of me. I’m standing in an ovation. I’m offering applause. I’m so grateful to have put THIS moment on my calendar.

Oh Happy Day!

Categories : oh happy day!

The Reason Behind the Reason

Posted by haley montgomery

· May 6, 2010

Today marks my two-year anniversary as a blogger. What a journey! This week, I’ve been thinking about the EyeJunkie adventure as it relates to my 2010 theme word, courage. Over the last few months, several friends and commenters on the site have made reference to openness and the courage required to express thoughts so transparently in this particular medium. Can you say world wide web? Emphasis on world. While I don’t necessarily see myself as courageous (hence the year-long posting pursuit), I do recognize that sharing one’s thoughts and life in any authentic way with the internet is not for the timid. It’s intimidating. It’s scary. And, yes, I think it can be a little presumptuous. I mean, what do you care, right?

I’ve actually been amazed by how much you care. By how much credence you’ve given to my sometimes haphazard thoughts. I know my own time constraints and schedule, and I’ve been amazed at how ready you’ve been to carve out however brief a space in yours for this blog. I’ve been honored by the comments–both here and on Facebook and Twitter. I’ve been inspired by how many of you have taken the time to send me a personal email about something you’ve read or seen here.

Still, courage? Contemplating whatever courage might be required to enter the blogosphere and the daunting task of interjecting my voice into the fray has me thinking about the reason I started this “thing” in the first place. And, the reason behind the reason I’ve realized since.

I had been contemplating this adventure for some time before I actually began. I’ve always enjoyed writing and journaling. This particular medium seemed (from an observer’s position) to be the perfect combination of both. I was pregnant with Baby Girl at the time and swimming in a sea of toddler antics, dirty diapers and waning second trimester stamina. I was immersed in the usual schedule of home-making and nursery preparations. I was keeping my head above water with a healthy design schedule at my day job. And, I was realizing that, for the first time in my life, I had virtually abandoned any personal creative pursuit.

For those of you who haven’t read all the fine print, my day job is with an advertising agency where I am a graphic designer. So, I use my creativity for a living. However, I’ve always somehow needed an outlet for exploring ideas in a more personal way. Whether through painting or poetry or book-making, expressing myself–usually through some combination of words and pictures–has always fueled energy and creativity in other areas of my life.

It began to dawn on me as I made it through the considerable energy drain of a third pregnancy paired with two toddlers that my children didn’t yet know that creative person, that writer, that painter, that maker of things. Somehow through complacency or busyness or sheer exhaustion, I had forsaken those pursuits. Then, I began to notice this odd on-line medium called blogging. I began to see this type of outlet as a way to incorporate those creative tendencies back into my life without the less than kid-friendly materials and space required for something like the watercolor painting or collage I was prone to. In early 2005, my parents gifted me with an exquisite little MacBook named Kermit. He opened the doors of reality on that little idea that had been germinating. I began brainstorming and making notes and sketches for how a personal blog might actually flesh out. You can read the evolution of “eyeJunkie” and the “adventures in paying attention” theme another time, but suffice it to say that one domain name, a web hosting account, and one WordPress download later, this blog was born.

“Hello, world.” That statement was enough to intimidate me for sure. It was the title of the test post WordPress Dude includes in every download of the application. It chrystalized the nature of this experiment pretty clearly–my words, my voice broadcast to the world for all manner of internet-goers to partake. Yikes.

My voice.

As I plugged along with writing and posting, EyeJunkie certainly filled the creative bill. It helped me accomplish that goal of a creative pursuit. Those readers who have been around for any length of time can attest that I’ve subjected the Junksters to all kinds of experiments and hare-brained ideas–graphics popping up here and there, series starting and fizzling, run-on sentences and fragments abounding. But, something else beyond a basic creative outlet has emerged for me in these two years.

Recently, I was writing some thoughts (something about underwear purchases or chili… don’t even ask) in an email to a friend who commented… “this sounds like an EJ post.” Wait a minute. EyeJunkie posts have a sound. That stuck. The comment made me realize the reason behind the reason that this blogging adventure matters to me. I’ve noticed a voice emerging. Mine. A consistency and willingness to speak. A thoughtful, but emphatic tone. An amalgum of emotion framed in a single sound. The sound of my own voice.

Through the months of blogging, I recognized that I had been in a period of my life for some time when I felt that my voice was being drowned out–perhaps by difficult relationships, distractions and interruptions, the absorption of care-giving and kid-loving, dailyness and just plain busyness. I found that my own voice was hushed and difficult to discern–even to myself–above (or below) the din. Through the act of writing and exposing thoughts to the world regardless of who may or may not be reading, I was finding my voice again. I realized again that I had something to say, and this venue gave me the inclination to say it. To find the courage to speak it. In my own voice.

Is transparency in this world brave? Perhaps. Is writing an authentic blog essay courageous? I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve put courage into this body of nonsense as much as it’s put courage into me. Writing an EyeJunkie worthy of your attention has encouraged me to speak. In my own voice. If the question of courage is “where can I find it?”, for sure I’ve found at least a little within this cyber space. Thank you for listening to that process.

Categories : essays

In a Wildflower

Posted by haley montgomery

· May 5, 2010

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
(William Blake)

These first four lines are likely the most recognized of William Blake’s much longer rhyming treatise on nature’s lessons and need for protection alongside human nature’s frailties and inescapable tethering to creation. It’s from the poem, “Auguries of Innocence.” To me, it has always been the colossal urging to pay attention to the details. It’s so easy to miss the longevity of a single moment.

Little Drummer Boy and Bug have taken to bringing me “prizes” in the form of wildflowers (and sometimes grass, sticks or the occasional lizard) found around our lawn. They are quickly coming to realize that mommies always love flowers. This knowledge has something to do with the squeals I offer them in return every time.

They each presented half of this bunch to me last week and were eager to see the blossoms find a home in my “flower glass.” They seemed satisfied with this spice jar repurposed to showcase their treasure. And a treasure it is. It’s been way too long since I’ve buried my face in a mound of clover blossoms to enjoy their sweet and tender fragrance — it is summertime’s rite of passage in Mississippi. Last Wednesday, I was all too eager to poke my nose into the center of this bouquet at the insistence of the boys. “It smells!” they said with renewed discovery. It was a discovery for me as well. I had almost forgotten that these ever-present reminders of the grass’ need for mowing actually have a scent. How often I miss the sacred place found in something simple like a collection of white tiny-petaled “weeds.” How often I breeze past the pursuit of these treasures by pudgy, dirt-stained fingers just to get inside the door at the end of the day. How often I fail to embrace and really soak up the infinity of that moment as these prizes move from their sweaty palms to mine.

Yes, I’d like to get back in touch with that little girl who didn’t mind burying her head in a field of clover. In the mean time, although it wasn’t quite the same as lying facedown in the field of green shapes, to bury my head in each of their little bodies in a thank you embrace was most definitely heaven.

Categories : mother's heart, poetry

First Fruits

Posted by haley montgomery

· May 3, 2010

Little Drummer Boy, my firstborn, turned five yesterday. You can all share a collective sigh of amazement with me, and possibly pass the tissues. He’s my firstborn. And he’s five years old. It’s taking some getting used to. In August he will start “big school” and launch a whole new trajectory of independence. As with every stage, he’s forging the way Bug and Baby Girl will follow all too quickly.

Whether we like it or not, firstborns seem to prime the pump by virtue of their very newness. They are the first fruit of anything (or anyone) else to come. LDB set the scene for pregnancy, childbirth, infancy, and all the developmental stages beyond. He christened me in all those areas. I was wide-eyed in wonder most of the time and hyper-sensitive to each nuance. He formed the assumptions upon which those same experiences with his siblings to follow were based. While I’ve resisted the urge to compare and contrast, it happens. His has been the benchmark by which all their stages have been measured — not in terms of good or bad, but in the way of expectations and the anticipation of growth or change. His has been the benchmark of change in myself, the transformation of woman to mother and all the complicated soul-immersion that title entails.

I named him Little Drummer Boy in this venue because during his toddler years, he always seemed to follow the beat in his own head, and he pressed anything and everything around him into the service of articulating that syncopation. As he’s grown, he’s become less enamored with the perpetual and all-encompassing trap set, and more involved with the typical car chases, fire emergencies and train adventures in which boys are usually found. However, I still notice his beat. It’s the one heard in his plethora of very distinctive sound effects. It’s the one found in his unending toy sagas where rockets and dinosaurs seem to thicken the plot every time. I have yet to find it in my heart to call him anything shortened for blog-aging purposes. This particular Drummer is and will always be MY Little and Boy as well.

He was born four weeks early, to the day. Little Drummer Boy’s unexpected birth on May 2 came after some minor concerns during the last part of my pregnancy. My doctors’ good care and cautious natures recognized that the risks possible with LDB were minimal, but insisted on consistent sonograms and stress tests to confirm their suspicions. Therefore, I saw lots of pictures of Little Drummer Boy before he was born. Those sonograms were difficult emotionally. The fear in waiting for results each time was inescapable, even though I knew there was likely no need for concern. They were difficult because they made LDB so real. Yes, I knew he was real. I had felt his early movements. But, in seeing his tiny and newly formed body, I fell in love with him. Completely. It changed me. It changed so much about how I saw things. How I saw Little Drummer Boy, how I saw myself and my life, and how I saw the rest of the world. I think I’m only just now getting past that gripping fear of knowing my whole world was wrapped up in this other new person.

Little Drummer Boy offered first glimpses of that wonder of having another human being formed inside me. The most amazing thing I remember about being pregnant with LDB was feeling him move. I so vividly remember that feeling of having him touching me from the inside. It was strange and amazing all at the same time. And, while I wasn’t overly romantic or existential about this unique womanly experience, it was unforgettable. I can also clearly remember that moment when he was out of my belly. There was such a void there. I was empty, but relieved all at the same time. It brought so much joy to hear him cry and see him and hold him in my arms the first time. I remember those feelings with each of my children, but I suppose they were most poignant with Little Drummer Boy. My experiences with Bug and Baby Girl were certainly no less precious or significant, but their births simply had the reality of not being first. The wonder was still incredibly wonderful, only not the wonder of a first “weaving.”

Little Drummer Boy offered me first fruits… The first fruits of watching my very heart sitting outside my body. The first fruits of love that is unquenchable–by the dirtiest of diapers or the loudest shout of “no” or the most frustratingly tearful bedtime. First fruits of wishing I could control the entire world, but knowing I’ll never be able to do that. First fruits of being sure I’ll never know any greater joy than this moment, only to have the next moment surpass it. He offered the first fruits of realizing this other person, this other tiny soul, is totally dependent on me. The first fruits of dreading that day when he’ll be disappointed. First fruits of knowing, as impossible as it seemed during those beginning years, that he would live to make a wrong choice at some point because that’s what humans do. Firstborn sadness of seeing that wrong choice and knowing I’d give him ten thousand other chances to get it right, plus one more. Firstborn fruit is sweet. And bitter. And utterly defying of description, although I’m desperately trying.

When I think about how small Little Drummer Boy was when he was born and how he just covers me now when he sits in my lap, I can’t believe it. I find myself thanking God he still wants to sit in my lap. LDB is a gentle and curious spirit. He has a big vocabulary, loves books, and loves stories–mainly telling them. He always has a story line going on in his head. It incorporates everything he’s interested in at a given moment, so his story is a precious picture of his heart and mind I want to discipline myself to hear with undivided attention. My Little Drummer is very inquisitive, but also very cautious. He is my child who always contemplates before making a move. He doesn’t always do new things very quickly, but he’s a very thoughtful child. He is quick to say “I love you,” perhaps because I tell him so often myself out of sheer necessity in my soul. He says it without being prompted. He often says it first. First fruits from my firstborn. He changed my life.

Little Drummer Boy, my firstborn, turned five yesterday.

Categories : mother's heart

Five

Posted by haley montgomery

· May 2, 2010

Happy Birthday, Little Drummer Boy! You completely changed my life five years ago today. I’ll never be the same, and I’m forever grateful for the simple and amazing gift of you.

Categories : mother's heart

Hello & welcome! I’m Haley Montgomery, and I’m the designer and owner of Small Pond Graphics. I sometimes fancy myself a frog kisser— a documentarian coaxing poignant moments from unexpected places. This blog has evolved from those moments.

The small Pond FIELD GUIDE is part diary, part sketchbook, and part wish list – an archive of ordinary wonders. For years, this space has housed my stories – creative ideas, vintage inspiration, our forays into curious places, and the simple artifacts of quiet of conscious living. Through watercolor, photography, and illustrated tales, these pages uncover the blessing of ordinary days and the wonder found in authentic places and pursuits.

I invite you to open the boxes.
Peek into the drawers.
Rustle through the pages.
I’m honored to have you here.