Fear This

(This is my guest blog for my sister Mary Alice, From the Frontlines.)

Becoming a parent may happen on purpose or by accident, but however it comes about, parenting itself is a calling.

-Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn. Mindful Parenting.

The other night I was chatting away with Rescue Ranger as Babou happily played in the tub. Babou joyfully scooped and spilled cup after cup of water while Rescue Ranger and I happily discussed...just about everything. The topic of high school had come up and he was telling me about his experiences.

"But you know Auntie Jo," Rescue Ranger confided in me proudly, "I never did any drugs or drank or got into any kind of trouble while I was in high school."

"Really," I replied, very impressed.

"Nope," said Rescue Ranger, "I was too scared."

I laughed, knowing what he meant. Mary Alice was a force to be reckoned with when she was mad.

"And you know what really gets me Auntie Jo?" Rescue Ranger continued, "She would guess the bad stuff before I could do it. Like I would be going out and she would say, 'I hope you are not thinking of doing such and such because I will be soooo mad if you do,' and I hadn't even thought of doing such and such until she said it and then I would get mad because it was such a good idea and I hadn't even thought of it--mom had! She was always two steps ahead of me."

After Rescue Ranger and I hung up much later that evening, I thought about what he had said. I was so impressed with Rescue Rangers respect for my sis, with his sense of self, with his way of being.

I love Rescue Ranger.

Rescue Ranger has always been so close to me and has only gotten moreso over the years. Now he is more like my best guy-friend than nephew. We call each other up and talk and talk. Nothing is off limits and we know we will always laugh. Rescue Ranger is hilarious and we both have the same quirky sense of humor.

As I tucked Babou into bed, I thought about Mary Alice and what a lovely mother she is to her children, and what a role model to me. It takes phenomenal parenting to raise such a mature and fun son, one that calls up his Auntie to discuss life, love, and the pursuit of happiness.

You have done an amazing job, Mary Alice, and I am so proud of you. Thank you for producing children who are now my friends.

Slowing Down

Life is always a rich and steady time when you are waiting for something to happen or to hatch.

-E.B. White, Charlottes Web.

I have been blessed with no morning sickness thus far, but am really tired. It is as though everything I do is underwater, in slow motion, with a thickness to it. I definitely don't have my usual energy.

I think deep inside me, perhaps, I am mourning my future sleepless nights in advance. That is the one thing that I found the hardest about being a new mother, the lack of sleep.

The double whammy, of course, is that you are not supposed to drink coffee, right? Well, I have cut back but I would be in dire straights if I had to give it up entirely. I drank a lot of coffee with Babou because my life was very busy back then, moving, working, lots going on. It is my one vice and I am keeping it. We all have to survive, after all.

Great Expectations

A beginning is only the start of a journey to another beginning.

Ahhh to get away! The Old Man and I got to and it was wonderful, amazing, and totally needed. We headed south to Costanoa and spent a day and a night completely relaxed. We got massages, sat in the hot tub, we lay around in our bathrobes (really fun and one of my most favorite things to do)!

I can't say enough about this place. The food was delicious, organic, and amazingly fresh. There was interesting driftwood art and beautiful, native gardens.

Outdoor showers and fireplaces and other relaxing places scattered about.

The Old Man's mother stayed with Babou and LocoO so we were dog and toddler-less and that was lovely as well. It felt so good to let the relaxation sink in and not have to hop up to attend to this or that. Just lovely.

And to what occasion owed this celebration retreat? The Old Man's Father's Day present: that he is going to be a father again! We are happily expecting the birth of our second child late next February. Yes, that means I am pregnant!

Growing Ambition

Gardening is an instrument of grace.

-May Sarton

I wanted to show some pictures of my garden, I am so happy with it this year--it is as though this year all the pieces of the puzzle came together into one and it all started to make sense. I have been working away at it for four years now and am finally starting to see the rewards for my effort--wresting flower borders from sod prisons.

And it was worth every bit of the effort!

And here is a link to pictures my dear friend took not too long ago.

Mary Alice

Your house is your larger body.

-Kahlil Gibran

Dear readers, today I am sad for my sister, Mary Alice, who is not only paying more in rent than many of us can imagine, but also getting much less attention than any landlord I have ever experienced. And I have experienced quite a few in my lifetime. And the shameful part of it all is that her landlord is the US military. Our country.

Hers is a story best told in her own words. It saddens me to no end that those who take care of us, are so little taken care of themselves. Please leave your comments for my post on my sister's blog, she needs your support. And, if you feel moved, feel free to link to her blog via yours. More people should be aware of the reality military families have to deal with every day.

MFK Fisher and the Art of Living

I find increasingly as I get older that I do not consider myself a writer.

-MFK Fisher, To Begin Again

Lately, in an attempt to better myself, I have been trying to read more. And lately, that reading has been mostly about MFK Fisher, a food writer with honest prose and a penchant for vegetarianism. She grew up in Whittier California, and was a contemporary of my grandmother, also a writer from Whittier, California.

All this reading has been inspiring me. I love the ubiquitous glamour of these times. The constraints and the freedom.

The entire period of time that MFK Fisher, my grandmother, and their contemporaries, lived is fascinating and inspiring to me in a very sensual and elegantly hedonistic way. The cocktail parties, the education and travel, the artists and the writers, the food and the wine. The formality, the cultural girdle, that held the sensuous nature of the time in its place. 

I can see it all so clearly, from my mother's many tellings of the cocktail parties her mother and father attended, and held, and at which my mother and aunt often served. Well heeled professor types mixed with the artists and writers, the clinking of the ice swimming happily in its rapidly sinking waters. The small bites of food confirmed or denied for a more slimming cigarette perhaps.

The spare furnishings of the modern, art deco style. The minimalist style that perfectly tempered the overstuffed brains. The cigarette and martini hangovers that must have ensued, only after lengthy discussions over esoteric points of academic interest.

The way the men and women arranged themselves. The lipstick, the cufflinks, the twinsets. The subtle disclosure. The importance of style, Jackie O, cars, the relative abundance of the post war mentality. The Bon Vivant and suspension of time.

Many people tend to characterize themselves by a certain span of time, a certain frame of reference. Often the time they consider their happiest, or the one in which most things were going right. They see this as the pivotal moment and use it as a compass for the rest of their lives. 

I noticed that many more progressive individuals fight this instinct, however, and continue to move on creating better and more interesting moments in a continual sort of fashion. 

In reading MFK Fisher's biography, I was struck by her ability, after great tragedy, to continue to move on and produce and focus on what was important to her as she continued on her journey. She did not get stuck day dreaming about her favorite past moment. She did herself the justice of this discipline. A true inspiration and the hallmark of successful, flexible living. Life as a work in progress. Life as art itself.

Image credits in order of appearance: npr.org, flickr. com, Life.

Naturally challenging

To be wholesome, we must remain truthful to our vulnerable complexity.

- John O'Donohue, Anam Ċara

This is my third year of vegetable gardening. I was so excited to move to a house that had a yard, a space for a garden, a patch of sunlight to support it. I have come to know the joys of knowing that half my dinner will come from my backyard. 

For about three months. 

I am not yet (although I am working on it) the kind of gardener that can maintain a continual harvest. I know there are ways of planting that will do this for you, in my fortunately mild climate, but this will be my first year trying it.

It is for this reason that I am continually in awe of organic gardeners, and of people who lived off the land for all the years that echo back into time before grocery stores and farmer's markets  and the relative abundance of today. 

Making do is what they did, beautifully. Cuisine based on the land and what it would yield. Being a locavore was a given.

Today it is even more natural to not be a locavore. I live in one of the most abundant areas in the west and could not maintain a locavore diet without considerable pain.

What I am saying, in a roundabout, circumambulatory, and run-on sentence-y kind of way, is that my hat goes off to one of my favorite ladies and reads, Life as I know it, and her undertaking the locavore challenge.