Rise Up Rooted

Raising the Moon: Traditions

A post by Jamie

Moon is nine months old today.   Her first Christmas is two days away.  She has no clue what the hustle and bustle means, this year.  But her glorious obliviousness is temporary.  In one short year, she will have expectations that will snowball as she ages.  Those expectations will be formed largely by the precedent set by Josh and me, and also in part by our friends, family, and peers.  As I bask in the simplicity of her first Christmas, I look inside and think forward.  Her future holiday experiences will be framed by traditions that Josh and I have slowly built over the last eight years.  Our traditions will become her traditions.

These are a few of them:

Raising the Moon: Teaching and Learning

A post by Jamie

Little Moon is eight months old.  She crawls.  She creeps.  She points.  She babbles.  Her growth is equal parts fascinating and exhausting.  Her eyes flicker constantly, processing each moment of her day.  She absorbs each word, action, and mannerism.  I am acutely aware of the fact that, for better or worse, she is learning from us constantly.  I continue to reflect on what it is that we hope to teach her.  I realize that if we want her to acquire certain qualities, they will not magically appear.  Her character will be built slowly, the product of millions of little moments learned over decades of time.   While her character will be influenced by Josh and me, and how we choose to act, respond, engage, and lead, it will also be shaped by those we love and surround her with.  Together, I want to raise a daughter who lives with compassion, kindness, curiosity, patience, persistence, humor, forgiveness and most of all love.  

Raising the Moon: Don't Believe the Hype

By Jamie

Moon is seven months old today.  I planned to write a post on the good, bad, and ugly lessons learned this month (GOOD: making and eating solid foods.  BAD: unsuccessful efforts to get her sleeping the whole night in her crib. UGLY:  challenges with raising her in the midst of our all-encompassing, never-ending, restoration project [aka Josh isn’t around much].)

But fuck that post.  If you want to read about the transition to solid foods, there are a bagillion and half blog posts out there for you.   Our current nightmare switch from co-sleeping to crib independence does not warrant any narrative besides: It sucks.  This is what everyone warns you about.  We will survive.  She will learn to sleep in her own bed.    The fact that I am shouldering the brunt of the Moon-raising responsibilities because Josh is shouldering the brunt of the house-building responsibilities:  also sucky but again, we will survive.  In a few months the house will get finished and I will get my husband back.

Instead, I’m going to let you in on a big secret.   

Provisions for Survival: Wild Beginnings

Sang from the mountaintops by Jamie Herring

My folks raised me as a child of the tundra, river, and the woods.  Although my mom and dad have very little in common (except for their union which resulted in me), their mutual passion and respect for the ways of the wild will always be strong.  As a testament to their belief in the importance of fresh air, feeding ourselves, and hard work, they brought me on my first moose hunt when I was three months old.  Bundled in hand-sewn quilts, my folks and I flew up in poppa Jimmy’s red and white Cesssna Super Cub.  We joined Granny, Poppa, Jack Robert, Olinka Yako, and Trooper Don Richardson who'd made the days-long hundreds-of-mile journey upriver in the two-story cabined 40-footer fiberglass boat to eventually arrive at Sterling Landing on the upper Kuskokwim, below McGrath.  Granny carried me to the tops of the brown tundra hills as Poppa glassed the valleys below.  Mom breastfed me on the water, beside hunting rifles, under changing birch trees, and in the cart of a three-wheeler on the way to Takotna.  Dad carried me in a pack close to his chest, on the hunt and laid me down in the tall grass when and we smelled moose coming close.   These acts of my family were at once ordinary and extraordinary.  They simply raised me to be real.