My hair look a little wild on the side. On the one side, on the left. Actually my right, but your left.

Not to mention that it looks like a bookcase is growing out of my head.

Give me a break – I’ve been doing these videos on Sunday mornings (and we all know how hectic Sunday mornings are).

And, I’m proud of myself:

I figured out a way to stuff my video camera in a Kleenex box to prop it. Yes, I know. I should have been an inventor.

And listen for Hope’s elite piano pounding skills in the background.

Three minutes 16 seconds of update. Can you handle it?

October 13 from Sarah Markley on Vimeo.

Can you come cuddle with me for a few more minutes before the sun actually yawns and wakes up? Crawl up and and snuggle into the warmth of my bed before we all have things that need us.

I don’t know what to do with a whole pound of radishes. (actually, I weighed them. 22 ounces – over a pound).

They are really spicy/hot too.

I (apparently) wasn’t supervising the vegetable picking outing at the organic farm and wasn’t aware that we came home with mostly radishes and only a few green beans and onions.

They are ginormous.

Can anyone help?

I’ve never been a sports nut.

Sports in general aren’t that important to our family culture. In fact the ONLY time I’ve ever seen my husband wear any kind of jersey was last weekend when Terry gave him a Brett Favre Jets #4 for his birthday. And he wore it proudly.

I absolutely hate being late. I always have, for as long as I can remember.

I usually run 15 minutes early to everything. It makes my late friends crazy and I get made fun of all the time. In fact, I have been so early to things that I wait in the car because I am embarrassed. My mom is early. My dad is late and I and my sister take after our mother in this area. (Although my mother would say that the only time I’ve been late was when I was born. It was more like 2 weeks late contributing to my almost 10 pound birth weight – sorry Mom).

Having kids didn’t make me late (like it makes late people even later). It just made me on time. In all honesty, I have to work at being “fashionably late.”

When I was growing up, I went to a private Christian elementary school that my parents could never have afforded for my sister and me had it not been for some generous saints who helped our family by contributing to our education bills. Kids of a minister, my sister and I were thrown into classes with families who were far richer than we. We knew it. Sometimes it stung, and sometimes it seemed normal.

Somewhere around my 9th birthday I was invited to attend a birthday party of a girl that was in my class. I was always the youngest celebrating birthdays of my friends who would be turning over to the next age, the year I was eyeing with wonder and jealousy. She was going to be 10 and had invited the entire class to her party. All 32 of us in a day when most birthday parties were celebrated at kitchen tables with 6 of your closest (at the time) friends. Party hats and cupcakes. Not her. Her family could afford it and we all were invited.

I looked forward to it for weeks and the night of the pary, my friend’s mother picked me up and drove to the hay ride at a local regional park. Except we drove around. And drove around. And passed the “Hay Ride” sign. And couldn’t find the party. At. All. Long before the days when everyone carried a cell phone, there was nothing we could do except continue driving to try to find the rest of the class.

This party that had been built up in my mind for so long, was quickly deflating like a cowgirl balloon that no doubt all my friends were holding atop the hay tractor.

When we pulled into the parking lot, finally finding the group, the sun had already set and the the shadows were so dark we could hardly see the rest of the class as they tumbled from the top of the hay pile. The hay ride was over, and all that was left of the party was gifts and cake.

We had completely missed it. The whole thing. It crushed me. I even remember now how I felt then, almost 25 years ago.

I had completely forgotten about that until the other day when I took my own girls to the pumpkin patch. HAY RIDE signs and directions to the PONY RIDES dotted the driveway.

I wonder if things like this contribute to my intense need to be on time to things. My husband hates it and I’ve been ridiculed countless times by people (usually late people) who think I’m silly for arriving early to events. And additionally, I even hate staying home from things I’m expected at. I always have a strange emtpy feeling inside when I stay home from church or when I used to teach and I’d have to call a sub. Even in high school and college it always felt odd to me to MISS school (even for valid reasons) and I’d wonder what was happening at 8:05 am and 10:15 for break; who’d sit with my friends at lunch. It feels like something is going on without me and I’m not needed for it to proceed. Whether or not my birthday-non-hay-ride experience made me an early person, I’ll never know.

But I do know that if you ever invite me to something and I walk in right on time, you can assume I’ve been sitting in the parking lot for the last 15 minutes playing with my phone.

Growing up in the concrete suburban sprawl, I always longed for bits of rural pastimes that weren’t regular around my house.

What is it about a daughter’s eyes that reflect her father’s?

There is a strength, calm and easy, that doesn’t come from her mother (her mother gives her kindness and depth). There is intention and fortitude. Her eyes carry his knowledge of the world and even his fears. She looks up and past the now to see what will come, and he’s taught her that.

Maybe not in color (brown and blue in my family), or in shape (my daughter carries the shape of me), but in strength and endurance.

They are solid. They are concerned. They are wisdom.

And then there is my Father who I pray that I reflect more and more every day.

I don’t want to forget any of it. But I have to live.

Sometimes I want to stop the world and take it all in – little girls’ dirty fingernails and gymnastics leotards, leftovers for dinner that they love even so. Take in the sweet smelling hair after their baths and tickles before bed. I want to stop it all and make them stay little.

But, there is a fine balance between drinking it all in gulps like a firehose and missing it go by like a windy day. I have to live in today. I have to sleep at night and get up in the morning to drive to school.

So I am going to try very hard not to forget any of it – to let my aging mind spin me past the baby aisle without pausing to smile. I am going to try to keep it all tied up in little packages in my heart, some with perfectly posed photos, others with candor and kids caught off guard.

I am going to try to remember the life in between.

I’ve never carried a camera with me when I run.

And I’ve ran in some amazing places and seen crazy things.

I’ve ran through Milton Country Park in Cambridgeshire, England. In November, after the frost lit up the brown wet leaves. I’ve ran in the snow up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. with one of the best friends of my life. I’ve taken a run on New Year’s Eve through the icy meadows in Yosemite Valley, with Half Dome in front of me and the Merced River behind me. I’ve ran on the hard packed sand of Daytona Beach, Florida and in the soft gold sand of Los Cabos, Mexico. I have taken a run from Poipu Beach to Spouting Horn on Kauai and I have ran along the Inner Harbour of Victoria, British Columbia. On the beach of Monterey Bay, in a Redwood forest near Santa Cruz, by the street vendors at the Huntington Beach pier. I have ran the Los Angeles Marathon.

I’ve ran in Portland, Oregon…
Palm Springs, California…
Hanalei Bay, Hawaii…
Fort Wayne, Indiana…

I’ve seen deer, snakes, coyotes, racoons, rabbits, butterflies, owls, hawks, eagles, horses, zebras (yes, its true), seals, dolphins and whales. I’ve almost been hit by cars more times than I can count (and probably more than I even realize). I’ve seen people, well, not make it to the bathroom on time during a race. I’ve been rained on, snowed on, almost blown off a hillside, thundered at, and sunburned. I saw a shipwreck, a wedding, and I’ve also seen the fire-scorched earth near my own home.

But I’ve never carried a camera. I’ve carried keys, rocks, water bottles, sweatshirts. I’ve brought along guilt, misunderstanding, hurt, bitterness as well as joy. But my tiny, keep-in-my-purse digital, I’ve always left at home.

There is something about capturing a moment using only my five senses that is more meaningful. Even if I remember something incorrectly (the sun shines brighter in my memory and the rain clouds are darker), it still is a memory that I own. Or maybe the memory is just a little sharper having only my own brain to bring it up. The sage smells sweeeter and the eucalyptus stronger without a photo. The pavement isn’t as hard and the traffic is not as loud in my mind.

Sometimes I have kicked myself, regreted not having my camera with me.

I capture every other aspect of my life on film. But not this. This running – this is mine.