joy Archives - 1000 Strands

Permalink Gallery
Making Love

Making Love

“You sure do write about sex a lot.”
Yes. That’s true, but I didn’t expect this. I’ve never cared much either way about sex, honestly. It’s not on my mind that often… not that you’d believe me with all this Love and Making It talk.
But something happened to me after my second baby was born and sex has become my yoga, my running, my self-care, my way back to loving my body and learning that my “self” is more than what is just in my head. I am not just a soul or an intellect. I am a body too. And this body is good – as good and perfectly created as my soul. Sex has become a the way I grow as a human, a Christian, a woman. My body and soul are reuniting and getting to know each other. This is why I keep talking about sex. I believe our bodies are good for way more than short bursts of pleasure from food or quick orgasm. Our bodies are much wiser and complicated than we give them credit for on a normal day.
Ask anyone who has a workout they absolutely love (a runner, a yogi…) and they will tell you how that exercise brings them joy and endorphins and knowledge and self confidence and health.
Movement. Courage. Vulnerability. Fun. Play. Appreciation.
This is sex. It’s not just mechanics. We are making love. It’s not easy, but it should be fun. And it can grow us as humans, if we let it. Growing in the areas that make sex great, also make life great.
The keys to great sex are trust, bravery and love.
****
Sex is complicated, for sure. No one has been handed a clear and […]

By Nicole|November 27th, 2013|Love and Making It|6 Comments|

Permalink Gallery
Tonight I Can (a quick and honest thought on sex in marriage)

Tonight I Can (a quick and honest thought on sex in marriage)

LOVE and MAKING IT is a new series on sex and marriage, bodies and souls. It will be candid and sometimes messy. It’s not just about having a great sex life; it’s about having a great body life. I want one of those. Read at your own risk.

An Honest Prayer About Sex in Marriage
Tonight
I cannot shave
I cannot be thinner
I cannot grow or shrink my breasts
I cannot learn to dance on a lap or on a pole
I cannot be anything but me
But I can be brave and I can smile
I can kiss and I can love
I can move toward you instead of away
I can stop disqualifying myself from fun
For tonight I will to let you love me as I am in this very instant
not as I will be tomorrow or was yesterday
I can forget my age, weight, rules and responsibilities
I can decide to play for just a night with the love of my life
Tonight I can

(Addition: I sent this to my husband for his privacy-release, and his comment just made me laugh. “also, rereading your post… I get all the other things you can’t do by tonight… but why can’t you shave? That seems doable.” yep, seems doable. I agree. but sometimes, it’s just not.)

By Nicole|October 4th, 2013|Love and Making It|8 Comments|

Permalink Gallery
Have you ever been asked a personal question?

Have you ever been asked a personal question?

This was how my mother started the conversation.
“Do you know…”
“Do I know, what?”
“Do you know how women have orgasms?”
(AAaaaaaakward pause…avoiding eye-contact now…)
“Um, yes? … Yes. I mean, yes. Mom, Seriously!” (laughing erupts)

How did your parents bring up the sex talk?
But, my mother didn’t stop at this first shocking question. She did not accept my protest that I already knew all I needed at 16 years old. She knew me deeply despite the fact that it would be 11 more years before I truly understood the depths to which she knew me, when I had my own daughters to love.

(aside: isn’t it funny that as we grow up, we think our parents don’t know us? now that i am a mom myself, i could hardly think of anything i know more intimately than my daughters.)

See, my mother became a teenager in the 60’s and a single mother to two small girls in the 80’s. She is neither large in stature or personality. Caring, loyal, sensitive, Indigo Girls-singing… this is my mom.

She gave me space to discover my way in the world. She usually held back advice or opinions. But, this conversation, this was just too important to leave to chance, I suppose. Too important to hope my sister and I learned it somewhere someday.

And so, one night at the dinner table, surrounded by flowered wallpaper in our little kitchen nook, my education in sex and/or “feminism” began with a loving, blunt question.
“Do you know how women have orgasms?
There is a part of your vagina called the clitoris…”
“Wow, Yep. Yes there is… Thinking about it right now, Mom. Thanks.”
************

Within that awkward, sweet conversation, my mom enunciated one of the most important things I have ever learned […]

By Nicole|March 8th, 2013|Honest Home, Wonderful Wrestlings|4 Comments|

Permalink Gallery
Let’s Celebrate Life

Let’s Celebrate Life

When you go to Disneyland, you can ask for a big button to wear all day. It will say “It’s My Birthday!” or “Let’s Celebrate!” And you can fill in your name underneath or write what you are celebrating: “Anniversary” or “Graduation”. Then everyone who works at Disneyland will see your button and comment and welcome you.

“Happy Birthday, Princess!”

“Happy Anniversary!”

We live near Disneyland and go often. The other day my little girls and I were walking through the huge plaza full of people as another woman walking towards us caught my eye. She wore a “Let’s Celebrate” pin, crew-neck t-shirt, big white sneakers and high-waisted shorts; Typical, comfy, I’m on vacation from rural (fill in a state) attire. I always think about the people at Disneyland as they walk past us. Is this their first time? Are they spending 3 years’ savings to make these memories with their families at Disneyland? What’s her story?

Then, as this particular woman moved nearer to us, I looked closely at her button and saw that it said “Let’s Celebrate… LIFE.” Instantly, all the details I had subconsciously noticed about her came into focus: Comfy clothes. Thin, short, newly-grown-in gray hair. Pale and slightly puffy face… New cancer survivor. Laughing with her friends. Walking through the Disneyland plaza. Celebrating LIFE. Smiling at me as she passed. She’s on a LIFE.

Life. I want to be on a LIFE. Let’s celebrate… LIFE.

“Happy LIFE, Princess!”

So, step one of going on a LIFE – what that woman in big, white sneakers and high-waisted shorts wore all over her gorgeous face: Gratitude. For Everything. For Life Itself.

(pause.)

Gratitude. It only happens in this exact moment.

What makes a LIFE? How does a person permanently change, ditch […]

By Nicole|January 31st, 2013|Free Flying Faith, Healthy You|5 Comments|