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Mariko Clark

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Mariko Clark

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Anne Lamott

April 24, 2014 Mariko
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🎵Hold me closer Tiny Dancer🎶 . But seriously, someone hold me. I am fainting in all directions over how big and brave and beautiful this girl of mine is. I danced ballet for 15 years and to see her on stage today was A FULL CIRCLE OF EMOTIONS. 360 degrees of feels. . I told her if she was nervous, to just smile at her friend Clara (🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️is that good advice? Idk) and she grinned the whole time so I guess it was a win-win. We celebrated with milkshakes and a ride through the car wash because being four years old is MAGICAL 💃💃💃 . Ohhhhh I really like this kid. Did anyone else worry before kids that you would love them but not really like them? Well, I really like mine. Whew.
By popular demand, here is a Best of Penguin compilation, with a bonus video at the end of my tiny Japanese grandma enjoying it for herself. This is the kind of compelling content I always dreamed of creating 🤷‍♀️
I’ve had a LOT of jobs in my life. Like, an absurdly long and varied list. . Being a mom is my favorite job so far- even better than that advertising internship, where I got paid to taste test vodka. . Being a mom is also the hardest job I’ve ever had, including that same advertising internship, where I got yelled at for stocking the fridge with sparkling water without facing the labels out 💀and for buying an executive THE WRONG BRAND OF IMITATION ITALIAN ICE. . It’s the grossest job I’ve ever had, including the laundromat job, where I washed clothes for a family that clearly had bowel issues. (Thank God for rubber gloves.) . It’s the most creative job I’ve had, including my time in copywriting or teaching ballet or teaching high school English. . It’s the most physically taxing job, including the years I spent as a “stock boy” at a hardware store, hauling around propane tanks and giant bags of mulch. . . It’s the most fascinating job I’ve ever had, including the years I spent editing Philosophy and Religion textbooks. . Being a mom is disappointing and transcendent and harrowing and hilarious and all of the lowest of lows and highest of highs I never could have dreamed up. It is only a part of who I am but it is one of my favorite parts. . Happy Mother’s Day to all of the moms who make up my village. Thanks for pouring into me and my girls and making me feel brave and capable in the midst of the marvelous mess. Cheers to us ❤️
Genetically predisposed to smizing, lankiness, storytelling, LOTS OF BIG FEELINGS, and being the last one swimming when everyone else is bored of the water. 💃💃💃
A surprisingly accurate portrait of me: Jumpsuit ✅ Hat✅ Clingy baby ✅ Party size box of diapers ✅ Rushing between mom life and work life ✅ Kind of struggling ✅ Kind of laughing ✅
Here we have Princess Arra Jinna Princess Straton. (Double Princess because she’s a #fancyfish ) . “I’m going to have such sweet dreams now, Mom, because I have a bud bud to share my room with me and keep me safe.” . Um okay. You clearly don’t understand fish or...safety, but very very happy for you nonetheless.
The public opinion on my last post was intense. I now understand that hard-boiled eggs are a polarizing issue in this country. So now I’m hesitant to discuss banana bread. But in the interest of civil discourse I will say I find it consistently underwhelming. Like, I will eat it if it’s there and it is always a B- experience. Chocolate chips take it to a B+ at most. I see it’s value as a use for old bananas and a vehicle for butter. That’s all. . 🍌🍌🍌BANANA BREAD IS UNDERWHELMING. CHANGE MY MIND.🍌🍌🍌
Here are a few fun facts about me. Okay maybe they are just facts: 1. This is a picture of me holding my dress shut, realizing that the last two times I wore it I was pregnant and absolutely destroyed the zipper. But I don’t hate that lighting. 2. I DO hate hard boiled eggs. Like, top 3 hatred. Like, Fear Factor hatred. Thinking about them makes me angry. 3. Both of my daughters LIVE FOR HARD BOILED EGGS. (Where did I go wrong!?!?!) They are one of the only foods my girls will consistently eat without complaint or cajoling. They will choose HBE over cookies. 4. That’s it. That’s all I can think about because they’re both eating hard boiled eggs right now, 3 feet from me. Jesus, take the wheel. . 📸: @jackiebluetowel
How we all feel about leaving the beach and starting the long drive back to Nashville.⠀ .⠀ Meanwhile, I linked out to the post I wrote a year ago. In retrospect, it is extremely scattered but I still like it and I hope you do too. Life is hard and beautiful, often at the same exact time. ⠀ .⠀ Link in bio, but excerpt below:⠀ .⠀ ⠀ “Holy Week is a study in paradox. The somber and the celebratory.⠀ ⠀ I know many people politely pay their respects to Good Friday, impatient to get to the explosion of praise on Sunday. These people want to celebrate and give thanks for the life and abundance they are experiencing in their season. I get that and I think it’s wonderful – I’ve been there. I am there, in a way.⠀ ⠀ Last year, I visited a different camp. I spent last Good Friday as a Mourner. (I suppose I always will, in a way.) And to the people in that group who resonate terribly with this ‘holiday’, who recognize all-too-well the specter of death, the hope extinguished, the DARKNESS…I am so sorry you’re in that place. I know (I’ve felt) that He promises to be near to the brokenhearted and crushed in Spirit. But that doesn’t make it much easier, does it?⠀ ⠀ But there’s a third group. The Saturday people, often overlooked in the church. I think it’s because we make projects out of the Friday people and leaders out of the Sunday people. But what about the people in that bleak and weary middle. Who have heard the repeated promises of redemption and are just…waiting. Who commiserate with the Mourners and can’t help but grin at the Sunday celebrators, but go home to their threadbare resolve.⠀ ⠀ This is the story of my very best Saturday. But I won’t ever forget the time I spent in that waiting place.⠀ ⠀ If you have been sitting in darkness for so long that light seems impossible…If your Sunday has been months, years, DECADES in the making…I’m so sorry. I see you. It is unfair. It is maddening. I know how empty the Christian clichés are. I know how it can actually make you physically angry when someone tries to offer you hope...”⠀ (Read the rest at the link in my bio)

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