getting ready

While I am making phone calls and typing notes and mentally preparing for the RI Birth Network’s Third Annual Fall Forum: When Birth Doesn’t go as Planned, my children and their classmates are preparing for another very special annual event that will occur this weekend — The Lantern Walk.

On Friday night, just after dark, we will gather at the school for a bonfire, singing, a candle-lit stroll down the Wiggly Woggly Path, and the releasing of milkweed pod boats filled with candles and wishes.

It is an absolutely magical experience, one that our entire family looks forward to each November. And last week at school, the children began getting ready by decorating their lanterns.

I love how things often come together like this — in May it was dancing the Maypole the day after I returned from my first visit to New York city for a Power Moms book-signing event — and now this weekend as I get ready to host what is shaping up to be a very important event in our birth community, we will begin our weekend with the simplicity and sweetness of the Lantern Walk.

Such beautiful balance.