You can't make your heart feel something it won't.

Hi there. It's been awhile. I don't know. Here's a song.

Just the same.

We went in search of different things. Madeleine was looking for creatures to catch in her net, minnows or frogs or bugs or lizards. Violet, with her silent intentions, hunched over near the edge of the pond, looking for rocks or evidence of fairies. Me, in search of that deep breath that comes when I've been outside with the girls long enough, near a thing of great beauty. That breath that empties out my lungs, lets the light in.

The moon hung large on the horizon, completely full, deep yellow, looming. We stayed for a long time, and I took pictures as I waited for that breath to come. Night fell, and the moon rose high enough to reflect on the pond, shimmering through the gentle ripples of water. I tried to take a picture, but the batteries in my camera died just then. So I watched the moon's reflection and found it, that deep sighing breath, the relief of letting go.

When we left I told the girls that that had been my favorite part of the outing. That it has been so long since I saw the moon reflecting on a body of water, and it was just such a lovely sight. "Did you take a picture?" Mad asked, and I told her no. But really, in a sense, I did. I caught the feeling just the same.

Until I am part of it.

The children are sleeping. I hear their silence, a soft void of sound, the whispered noise of small limbs nestled in covers, the delicate din of eyelashes brushing cheeks, tiny breaths, the quiet ring of dreams in the gray-dark. The whole house is dark, black-cloaked windows -- night is pressing in from outside. The light in the kitchen fends it off, and the glow of the television. I am tired. I dice a red onion, slicing the neat rows, and dice the red and yellow bell peppers, and shred the baked chicken from Sunday's dinner. It all comes together in a pot of soup, simmering together in diced tomatoes, green chiles, the warmth of cumin and chili powder and garlic rising in the steam.

Once that task is done, and the kitchen is tidied, I drift into the other part of the house, closer to the glow of the television, and mute the sound. A storm is swelling outside, the rain an audible insistence of sleep against the roof, against the back door that bangs against the house in the wind. There is a slow murmur of thunder. How sad, I think. Me still in my work clothes, shoes and all, as I lay on the couch and curl underneath with a pink fuzzy blanket. There is comfort here, somehow, in the sloppy, unintentional end to this long, long day. The sleep is sudden and easy; I fold myself into the silence until I am part of it.

Grateful to witness love and light.

The air in the house is cold and dark and quiet at 6 in the morning. Without fail these days, I wake to the feeling of Madeleine trampling over my legs to crawl into the swirling warmth of the bed, nestled between me and her father. "Cuddle," she demands as she burrows under the blankets, curling her body into a warm little curve. This is my cue to unfurl myself so that she can lay on my shoulder and I can wrap my other arm around her. It amazes me that her long, skinny frame, all angles and strength, can soften enough to fit against me so perfectly, even now. Just as when she was a baby, and her small body fit perfectly into the nest of my arms, or my eye against the curve of her head, or her head in the curve of my neck, legs pulled up beneath her.

The morning has another start when I walk down the hall to get Violet out of bed. She's usually still asleep. It's warmer in the girls' room and she's still burrowed underneath mounds of covers. The best thing is that I say, "Good morning," softly, and she gives a huge stretch and blinks the sleep from her eyes. "Good morning, mama," she says in her sweet little chirp of a voice, and I sit on her bed and hold out my arms. "Good morning hug?" I ask and she drapes herself against my body, still heavy with dreams and the last of night clinging to her. "I love you," I say, and she says, "I love you, too, mama," with such genuine sincerity. And then she's ready to go, wide awake, the day a grand stretch of possibility laid out for the taking.

I follow her down the hall, bones heavy and creaky, still not quite awake myself. I'm tired, weary in the deepest part of me, but still grateful. Grateful to witness love and light in so many ways, contained in these two girls, in all its hopeful forms.

Making lovely.

I read an article once about how smiling during a workout, particularly on a run, can improve your performance. Something about making yourself smile, no matter how artificial, can get your brain to send out happy signals and give you a little extra push of energy.

Yesterday on the treadmill I was pounding away and a great song came on, and I was feeling it. So I looked up at the black TV screen in front of me and smiled. I looked at my face, the dark circles under my eyes, the overbite, the skin that is inexplicably breaking out (too much Halloween candy?) and I smiled. The screen was so dark I couldn't see how flushed I was, but I could see bits of sweat breaking free from my hair as I ran, and I just felt good. I picked up my gait and upped the speed on the treadmill and went for it. Smiling. Reminding myself to smile. I smiled when feet started to feel kind of leaden, and when my muscles ached and even when I felt a tiny tweak in my right knee. Smiling. Remember to smile.

It hit me somewhere during that time, rounding out my third mile and feeling that familiar mix of tired and exhilarated, that I was excited, feeling really excited about life, and it was something I manufactured right then on the treadmill, pushing myself and wearing myself out and remembering to smile.

I lament sometimes how I am not often excited about life anymore, but what I had forgotten is that excitement is something you make. You can't sit and wait for it to find you. You can't sit back and wait for the circumstances of your life to arrange themselves in a pleasing pattern. Those random, magical moments exist, but they won't find you unless you put yourself out there.

The point of this whole blog has been to recognize those random magical moments, but it's so passive. Observational. I need to start making them, too. Making and celebrating lovely.

(The song I was listening to on the treadmill yesterday).