Crunchy Wannabe

I want to be a crunchy mama…long legs and flowy dresses. Cloth diapers hung on a line in the yard, delivering up recipes that involve the words kale, cracked, and almond; I want to can and preserve and ferment. Walking to the farmer’s market with my reusable bags, my nine year old skips ahead, examines the flowers at roadside only to turn back and wave to her step-dad and me, holding hands each carrying a perfect cherub faced twin boy in a ring sling.

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Only I have existing commitments with junk food, work, and Kroger. My nine year old likes her IPod and would quite possibly snarl if asked to skip. There are no cherub cheeked twins (YET), no ring sling (do they make those in plus size?), but my husband and I do hold hands, and my mini diva will laugh and smile with us, even as she is very much a tween.


So in addition to food, I think TSO7 is about not wasting the life we have, the life we’ve been given while wanting what seems ideal to us. I think it is important to grow, to make positive changes, and strive to improve….equally important, is not missing my life for what I PERCEIVE another’s life to be. That crunchy mama, I know her. She’s my friend, and I love her. She loves me: enough to confess that my ideal isn’t really her reality (not anyone's, she laughs), either.


I will never have long legs; I do own a flowy dress or two. I have visited a farmer’s market, do buy 90 percent organic produce (at Kroger), and have reusable bags in my trunk, though more-often-than-not they never make it in the store. My husband holds my hand every chance he gets and my daughter will crawl sleepily on me, lying with me when she is ready for bed. This is the mama I am meant to be, here and now, and it is ideal.