Ecology of a Woman

Thanksgiving

2009-11-27T11:06:00.000-08:00

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.

-John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Happy Thanksgiving! This year I am thankful for so many things, I feel so lucky to be blessed with such amazing friends and family, husband, child, beautiful home walking distance to most everything, garden, yard with fruit trees, just so many blessings I could go on and on. Rather I will remind myself to be grateful every day for everything, living with the attitude of thanks.

I hope everyone is enjoying the fruits of their busy cooking day yesterday: leftovers! Aren't they the best? This year I brined our turkey to wonderful results. Once you brine, you never go back, or so I have heard, and now believe! Another new one this year was a jellied cranberry-apple sauce that I think will become a tradition, recipe thanks to Food and Wine magazine. A fuji apple adds pectin to the cranberry sauce creating a moldable jelly. I used a loaf pan to mold the jewel-colored sauce studded with apple bits. The apple created an even, innocuous background, a perfect counterpoint to the acidity of the cranberries. Translation: delicious!

Thanksgiving Day started early with our local toddler Turkey Trot. Our good friend and neighbor is an avid runner and offered to run the one-mile race with our little one. Patrick and I watched proudly from the sidelines as they rounded the track and headed into the hills to complete the one-mile loop. We waited anxiously as they disappeared from view behind the hill. Finally, we saw them reappear and begin the final lap. Babou was no longer running, her head and shoulders down, and I felt more than saw, her lower lip wobbling. She had fallen while running down the hill at full speed. We started cheering and Babou looked up and saw us. She straightened up, pulled her eyebrows together in concentration, and started running...right into my arms! My heart broke as my love for her grew, bursting its mold again. Love, it seems, knows no limits. And that is what I am most thankful for.

Earthly Delights

2009-11-17T09:46:00.000-08:00

At its heart, a genuine food culture is an affinity between people and the land that feeds them.

-Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

The choices I make now about my food will influence the rest of my life. If a lot of us felt this way, and started thinking carefully about our consumption habits just one meal at a time, we could affect the future of our planet.

-Camille Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

I finally finished Animal Vegetable Mineral: A Year of Food Life, and am enjoying the afterglow of inspiration while still trying to digest its far reaching focus.

It is both a new and old way of looking at food and our relationship to it. Reading about Kingsolver's garden, her canning, and her garden journals filled with nature notes were all food for my soul. The outdoors have always been a particular place of joy for me, the changing smells of the seasons, the excitement of growing things, the lessons plants teach us silently, leading by leafy example. It is amazing just how much nature is woven into our being if we just go outside and are reminded. For me, it is the ultimate sanctuary, the ultimate grace.

The book also reminded me of the importance of a food culture, of individual knowledge of our food. It reminded me of the manager of the french restaurant I worked for during college. When it was slow, we would often talk about her life growing up in France. She would happily regale me with colorful details of their daily meals, her mother's careful preparation of each menu, her loving care of their family's potager. Their garden supplied most of their fresh vegetables, and other goods were bought locally and produced locally. Regional pride prevailed. Natural ingredients created with care and pride made fulfilling, shared meals that nourished both body and soul, family and community. And. as importantly, the environment, the land, and its natural abundance.

We have now had a vegetable garden for the past three years, slowly growing more proficient with time. This year is the first that I will continue growing through our mild winter, and next year I plan to learn to can, learning to store the bounty of summer. Reading this book makes me realize at a very deep level what I do impacts more than myself and the environment, it also affects my daughter and future generations. I want to teach her where her food comes from, I want her to feel the excitement of sowing a seed and watching it grow, and I want her to internalize the deep happiness that comes with that ancient alchemy of earth, air, and growing things.

Weekly Report

2009-11-12T09:26:00.000-08:00

Last week we had the great fun of having Rescue Ranger come for a visit! Babou thought he seemed more like a jungle gym than a cousin! Patrick's mother also came for a visit so Babou was about beside herself trying to keep everyone entertained!

It was all too much for her, and she got sick, as did I. The end of last week and the beginning of this week were spent getting well. Babou has made a full recovery as of yesterday and I am pretty much better too except for a nagging cough.

Needless to say, between company and sickness, there has not been much time to get anything done and I am starting to feel angsty. I need to work on my writing project more, a lot more, and I need to plant the winter garden. And then I need to get going on the bigger projects I am trying to finish before the baby comes. It is crazy to think, but next month will be so busy between Christmas and lots of family birthdays (including Babou and Patrick's) that I see time slipping away so quickly. Plus, hopefully, I will be starting a new job next month! I am very excited about it all but feel I can't waste another minute.

Still, life goes on and you know it should be enjoyed. I am lacking that feeling of joy and inspiration I depend on to happily move ahead...so...I have decided to take Loco O and Babou on a hike this morning, a much needed walkabout. We usually take some kind of walk-about/outing a day, usually to the park, so I decided to do something different today. And maybe I will treat myself to a latte along the way! That way I can spend the afternoon writing and gardening free of any worries that I am neglecting my dog or child as they have already gotten to run about! And I can focus, hopefully!

Halloween

2009-11-02T08:08:00.000-08:00

The shadows of a thousand years rise again unseen,

Voices whisper in the trees, "Tonight is Halloween!"

-Dexter Kozen

And what a day and night it was! This was the first Halloween that Babou has really "gotten." It seems more and more, at an amazing rate, Babou is "getting" things. Yesterday, she sat down to do some drawing and, instead of her usual horizontal scribbles, she announced that she was going to draw me! She then proceeded to draw a circle and add eyes, nose, etc ! I could not believe it! It was, albeit, an abstract, but still, she managed to get the idea and had suddenly leapt out of scribbles into something much more realistic. I was so proud!

We spent halloween afternoon making popcorn balls, I think more for myself than for anyone, really! It eased us into the sugar debauchery to follow!

We ate a good dinner and dressed and then, when Patrick got home from work, he put the finishing touches on our little ladybug and we set off!

She was a little rusty at trick or treat etiquette and it took her a couple of houses before she could remember to say "trick or treat" at the door instead of "I want some candy," as she did at first!But once she got into the swing of things, she was one happy ladybug!

She would collect her goodies and say "another house please" and we would say, yes, that we were going to go to another house, to which she replied, again and again, "fantastic!"

She was giddy by the time we got home and I could barely get her night times on and get her teeth very carefully brushed before she crawled onto my lap and promptly fell fast asleep! The contented sleep of a perfect Halloween!

Fast, Easy, and Tasty (and Healthy)

2009-10-30T07:22:00.000-07:00

When men reach their sixties and retire, they go to pieces. Women go right on cooking.

-Gail Sheehy

Once upon a time, I was talking to my mother on the phone. We were chatting about this and that and the topic of dinner came up: the Big question: what to have? I personally think it is one of life's hardest, although sometimes I do pretty well thanks to almost daily cravings for certain foods guiding the way.

This particular day, I had come up with an amazing little menu for what to have for dinner. My mother mumbled something halfway apologetically about having some plans for soup. She finished up by saying, "I just don't love to cook like you do, you know?"

Well, I don't either, I quickly informed her. And beyond that, I certainly could see how she had had to cook for years squelched much inspiration and joy she had for cooking. My father is a firm believer of eating at home, always, so my mother had dinner on the table pretty much every night of the year for God knows how many years (a lot) and still cooks daily for my dad. Add to that that we all had our little, and big, eating whims and you really have a nightmare on your hands.

In my situation, I have the luxury of enjoying cooking because I don't have to deal with picky eaters, Patrick and I like to eat out (not very often anymore, but certainly more than my parents), and Patrick works away from home pretty regularly. When he is away, I will often make a big pot of soup and eat it for dinner for days. So easy. Cooking for me is fun because I don't have to make a big production of it if I don't want to. And often, I don't.

In this vein, I discovered a dinner the other night that turned out really well and was really easy, I hope this helps make someone else's evening a little more relaxing:

Pasta with peppers and sausage

Start pasta water to boiling

un-case one, sweet turkey Italian sausage, saute and crumble

When mostly cooked, add half a jar roasted peppers with some of the juice to deglaze the pan

cut peppers into whatever size you want, you can just chop them in the pan with your stirrer

Add cooked pasta and a little pasta water and cook it all together for a few minutes

Season with salt and pepper (I always season last) and viola!

You can add lots of variations to this: I sometimes add sliced garlic and onions to saute in with the sausage. Fresh herbs and lots of parmesan cheese at the end also seem like a good idea. Red pepper flakes might be amazing addition if you are not feeding too tender of palates. This is a great go to pasta dish for a quick and easy dinner on nights you don't feel like cooking.

From the Mouthes of Babes

2009-10-28T07:34:00.001-07:00

Last night I was putting Babou to bed. I had just finished reading to her and had turned off the light and we were having a cuddle. She wasn't quite ready to sleep yet and so we were talking about important stuff like the moon and how hard it is to see when there is a ceiling in the way.

She looked thoughtful for a moment and I thought she might be drifting off, instead she said, "mama, you're my best friend!" I gave her a squeeze and told her she was mine, too.

She was still thoughtful looking and continued, "and daddy, I LOVE daddy!" I agreed, and we talked about how much we loved her daddy and all that we loved about him.

Still, she continued, "and Nana, I have two nana's and I LOVE my nana's!" I said yes, that she does indeed have two nana's who she loves dearly and who love her dearly. Feeling satisfied, she then drifted off to sleep!

Inspiration

2009-10-26T07:49:00.000-07:00

"'From a Neurological viewpoint, it's a revolution for the brain when you have a child," says Michael Merzenich, a pioneering expert on brain development at the University of California at San Francisco. "It is life-changing in the sense that you are presented with physical, mental, mechanical challenges - forty nine disasters to take care of at once. It's an epoch of learning and brain-induced changes, because everything matters so much...I don't think there are a lot of better things you can do for your brain than have a child."'

Quoted in The Mommy Brain by Katherine Ellison

Katherine Ellison presented last night for our Mamas Writing salon and I am already a chapter deep into her book, The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood makes us Smarter (which is pretty far for this slow reader). It is fascinating and a refreshing take on motherhood and the changes it incurs in women. It is also well researched and easy to read, both an extra boon! I will let you know how it was thoroughly once I finish.

The writing salon ended a very pleasant but busy week filled with lots of writing (I know SO much--too much--about tomatoes now), visiting (got a visit from my brother-in-law Military Man although Babou took him over fairly quickly),

hiking (complete with the excitement of snakes and beautiful views),

and an adventure out to the coast to visit an old friend and see her new art exhibited. Babou had her first oyster at the art show and caused a mild stir. A photographer asked to take pictures of her first try capturing her tentative first bites. He then strolled off missing her spitting it out after some thoughtful chewing only moments later!

One Day at a Time

2009-10-21T10:00:00.000-07:00

God give us the grace to accept with serenity the things That cannot be changed;

Courage to change the things that should be changed;

And the wisdom to know the difference.

-Reinhold Niebuhr

A beautiful fall morning greets me and I am hoping for a better day today. Yesterday was a tough one, Babou stretching me to my limits. Such a sweet girl, really, but yesterday she was decidedly impossible. Not wanting anything but lollipops (and consequently eating very little all day long), wanting only to wear her brand new ballet shoes hopefully into mud puddles (nonnononono), not wanting me to read to her and then desperately wanting me to read to her, asking me to go away and then desperately wanting me to come back. I felt like some odd puppet being controlled by this two foot tall, devious she-child.

My philosophy is to always give her lots of attention when she is being cooperative, polite and Friendly, and to simply redirect bad behavior and not give her too much attention. I think sometimes any attention, either positive or negative will oftentimes fuel a behavior.

Yesterday it was very hard to maintain a calm exterior and not take the bait and give her lots of negative attention or put her in the backyard until she straightened up (which is what I really felt like doing)! I was so mad inside, calm as a cucumber on the outside.

It took a toll though and I was very tired by the end of the day. But I made it and she seems to have a new attitude today, as do I. The heirloom research is going well and I am finding it really fascinating. All these plants have lived such lives, traveling so widely, sowing their wild oats, so to speak. It is easy to delve into such rich histories and discover they are so like people themselves.

Monday Morning

2009-10-19T09:51:00.000-07:00

To fill the hour, that is happiness.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

The weekend is over and a new week has begun. I spent the majority of my weekend cleaning out the backyard, hauling piles of limbs and leaves and weeds and have a nice skinless part of my finger to show for it (rubbed clean by the cutters). My backyard is not even that big! Babou was very helpful, carrying Babou-size clumps and always letting out a big sigh after having heaved them in the pile!

My plan was to clean it out AND plant it for fall, but that was a bit overly ambitious, I found. And Babou's patience goes only so far.

Today is a rainy day so I will be working on indoor stuff today. Writing projects, some cleaning, a library trip for Babou complete with puddle jumping along the way, and other errands.

I am trying out a new recipe tonight, in line with my not too strictly but mostly vegetarian diet: polenta and balsamic glazed radicchio. I will let you know how it goes. I was thinking it would be a nice enough dish for company but want to trial run it first. Radicchio is not my favorite, but I think this may be a way that it could be very tasty, a good balance with the polenta and a little sweetness from the balsamic. We shall see!

Odds and Ends

2009-10-16T08:32:00.000-07:00

To me, there are three things we should all do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it, if you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week ; you're going to have something special.

-Jim Valvano

The week is already mostly over and, as I am reviewing my goals for this week, I see that I still have a lot of work to do and that my days went in many different directions other than anticipated.

We had our first real rain this week and, consequently, when Patrick needed new boots for work, everyone was out. In a fifty mile radius. I know this because I drove all around, much to Babou's dismay, loading and unloading her until we finally gave up. But, it has stopped raining and boots will come in so we shall persevere.

Sleep has been an issue this week. Babou has decided she really likes to sleep in until about eight in the morning. Then, if she takes a nap in the afternoon, I literally have to hold her down to get her to sleep at a reasonable hour. Otherwise, she won't sleep and the cycle continues. So I have been trying to wedge her out of bed at earlier and earlier hours. And yes, those would be my precious early morning, getting things Done hours. Sadly enough.

I often fall asleep holding down Babou until she "gives up." As soon as I do, my little in utero wee one wakes up and decides it's play time. I have an eerie feeling that that is the way that things are going to be now for a long time. I am adjusting to that fact.

So the upshot is that I have not finished the writing project I had slated to complete this week. I am writing plant descriptions for my brother-in-law and his wife who are starting a gardening catalog/heirloom plant company. I really need to finish it so they can move on with their catalog and so I can get it off of my shoulders, but will just have to keep on.

My garden is in need of some fall cleanup and planting. More on that later as I try to get my garden to produce over the winter.

Looking out my window this morning, there is a soft fog all around us. The kind that will likely burn off to sunshine in the afternoon. A cup of coffee buoying me, I think about my "to do" list and am so grateful for my life. Although motherhood is challenging and it is hard to keep balance, I feel so grateful that my "to do" list is filled with such nice things like gardening and writing, baking apple pies for Patrick's lunch, and time with Babou. And, of course, all the other not so nice things, like Cleaning Out the Refrigerator, for instance. But really, I am so thankful to have an amazing daughter, amazing husband, wonderful family and friends, and a soft fog and warm cup of coffee to begin my day.

Why I Write

2009-10-14T11:43:00.001-07:00

Here is the piece I had been working on. It still needs work but I cannot look at it any longer so I will let you look at it instead! Ha!

***

Why I Write

Writing...is about some of our deepest needs: our need to be visible, to be heard, our need to make sense of our lives, to wake up and grow and belong.

-Anne Lamott

Becoming a mother is one of those things that is almost impossible to prepare for, one of the few experiences in life that changes you instantly: one day you are not a mother, and the next day you are.

It happens so fast you wonder what happened, exactly, suddenly flung into new territory without a road map. While nothing can really prepare you for the labyrinth of this life transition, it does help to have tools to light the way. The tools you use are as individual as you are, the only requirement for the job being that they work. Yoga, girlfriends, books, therapy, martinis, or some combination of all of these, or more, may work for you. What I have found works for me is a writing practice.

When I say practice, I mean practice in a mystical sense, almost religiously, as a sort of devotion to myself. I also mean it in an athletic sense, for it is a type of mental athletics for me, a way in which I practice knowing my thoughts, a way of keeping up with myself as I change. I would not consider myself a writer, although I aspire to being one, but I write every day, as a tool for understanding myself. I write when I do not make sense, especially when I don't make sense. I write when I am not politically correct. I write and then I throw the writing away. I write to release myself from myself.

Writing has always been a part of my life, a way I could dependably clear my head and slow my speeding thoughts. A way I could savor life by slowing my experiences to the pace of my pen. My writing life began early, by being home taught. Diary writing was part of our cirriculum. By keeping a daily journal, my sister's and I learned about spelling, vocabulary, and grammar. It was consequently an impersonal recording, mostly of the days events and highlights; mostly of what we had for dinner.

I had always had a hard time communicating my thoughts into words. As a child, my thoughts fluttered by as feelings rather than words, a shorthand that I understood but that did not translate well into speech. As I grew, I practiced slowing down to sculpt words out of my feelings, whole paragraphs and chapters and books of feelings with no punctuation.

I practiced translating my feelings into words and soon writing became a habit and my journal more private, it's contents evolving to record my interior experiences. I still included what I had for dinner, but this time in much more lavish detail.

And then I got busy, and life whizzed past faster than I could write it. My twenties were filled with major life transitions and experiences happening in rapid succession, leaving little time for introspection.

Motherhood was the catalyst for my return to writing. I found myself laid completely bare after the birth of my daughter, a tabula rasa. My whole perception of life had changed overnight. My whole perception of myself changed overnight. Even my nervous system changed, going into a consistent state of high alert.

Becoming a mother was a very difficult transition for me. I stared at myself in the mirror. I looked how I felt: different. I wondered as I stared, who this woman was, what she thought about things, As I felt my internal compass shift its true north, I wondered who I was now, trying to fit into a new mold as scratchy and uncomfortable as an ill-fitting turtle neck. Feelings of suffocation and aloneness blurred my vision.

In order to make sense of my jumbled inner landscape, I once again turned to writing. I asked myself questions and waited for answers to come. And waited. I persistently faced the sound of my own silence, my own distance from myself.

I persisted in hopes of not only discovering my voice again, but in also discovering a new career. Writing seemed the perfect work for a stay-at-home mom. I struggled with this new concept of myself, of my life. I wondered how I looked to those looking in on me, wondered again who I was now, and where I would go. I still want to write as a career, to be published, recognized; to be heard. But I now recognize how important writing is to me on a fundamental level; that it anchors my very being. I may not fully know who I am now, or where I am going, but I do know that all along the way I am writing myself into being. And perhaps that is most the important part of the journey.

From the Mouthes of Babes

2009-10-13T08:45:00.000-07:00

Babou's Alligator smile with Auntie Katrina and her real smile!

The other day was a long one. For some reason or another Babou had refused her usual afternoon nap and made it happily and energetically through the afternoon. As I put her in bed after her bath, she looked up and me as she snuggled in and said "Mama, I give up." I laughed, my sentiments exactly!

Practice

2009-10-12T09:31:00.000-07:00

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life.

-Anne Lamott

As I have written before, in my quest to become a better writer, I joined a local writing group called The Writing Mamas. The class caters to mothers and creates a warm, safe place where you can write, share your writing, help one another make contacts, and get published. It is perfect for me right now. The class acts as a support group, creative outlet, and infuser of inspiration.

It is a good place to hone your skills by getting critiqued in a gentle way. I need some help in this regard although it seems I am only pointed in a direction. I think I need to work on my sentence structure and on my style. It is one of those things that is only half-taught, as far as I can see. I keep looking for books to help me. I am currently reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, which I am thoroughly enjoying, but it seems more catered to fiction writers and I am trying to work on nonfiction articles and essays.

I want my writing to flow better. It is amazing how much work goes into a piece of writing. It never fails to leave me in awe, after I read something simple and elegant, realizing how much the author must have worked shaping her thoughts into elegant paragraphs. That is what I am striving for in my writing: simple, elegant and clear writing still voluptuous with feeling and imagery.

In any case, I am inspired and hopeful and enjoying those feelings. I know they are fleeting and that the most important thing is to be consistent. Consistent, moderate effort seems to be the theme of my thirties, an anecdote to the all or nothing of my twenties, and hopefully the underpinnings of a modicum of success in my forties. At least that is the way I am looking at it now.

I am going to work a little more on the writing for class last night and will publish it here tomorrow.

A Wild Week

2009-10-09T10:50:00.000-07:00

In spite of the cost of living, it's still popular.

-Kathleen Norris

This week has gone a little unsmoothly, you could say. Things have not fallen into place as I had hoped. For instance, my tire was found flat the morning I took my sister Katrina to the airport for her return flight. I had to drive backwards up a one way street between traffic so as not to completely warp the tire (I live on a series of one way streets and the gas station is half a block upstream, if you will.) Flat tire inflated enough to make it to airport on time, thank God.

Patrick burnt his eyes welding and was in excruciating pain all night and most of the following day. I was up the whole night grating potatoes and applying them as poultices over his eyes, along with ice and cold wash clothes. He healed, thank God.

Patrick's bicycle was stolen off of our front porch for the second time. The first time Patrick had seen the person who had stolen his bike nonchalantly riding it around town. Not so nonchalant after having Patrick chase him down the street. The bike was returned, as it had been stolen, in the middle of the night. This time, we were at the park swinging Babou and throwing the ball for Loco O when Pat motioned me over. He pointed out a guy sitting on the grass patiently scraping the stickers off of Patrick's bike! Patrick went over and confronted the guy and, after much back and forth, Patrick got his bike back. Again.

I had my halfway doctor's appointment for the baby and all looks good. I am so excited to meet our newest addition that I almost wish we were having it tomorrow, and then I remember I have to go through labor and am glad it is still won't be for awhile. I am due February 24 and we are waiting to find out if it is a boy or a girl. It's one of life's best surprises!

A Day to Remember

2009-10-07T20:05:00.000-07:00

Believe me if all those

Endearing young charms

Which I gaze on so fondly today

Were to change by tomorrow

And fleet in my arms,

Like fairy gifts fading away

Though would'st still be adored

As this moment thou art

Let thy loveliness fade as it will

And around the dear ruin

Each wish of my heart

Would entwine itself

Verdantly still.

It is not while beauty

And youth are thine own

And thy cheeks

Unprofaned by a tear

That the ferver and faith

Of a soul can be known

To which time will but

Make thee more dear

No the heart that has truly loved

Never forgets

But as truly loves

On to the close

As the sunflower turns

On her god when he sets

The same look which

She'd turned when he rose.

-Thomas Moore

Two years ago this afternoon, ten years one month and one day after our first kiss, my husband and I drove silently up the California coast. Liquid gold late afternoon sun glinted through the window as we drove, suspended in the moment. We were on our way to get married; an impromptu, sunset ceremony.

We had planned on getting married and had our marriage license but had been unable to coordinate times for a courthouse ceremony. Synchronicity influenced events and Patrick unexpectedly got the weekend off, my friend Gabriella's step-mother - an non denominational minister - happened to be in town and free. One of my other friends happened to be in town from the Bay Area painting in a local Plein Air festival. And her sister happened to be a photographer and lent my friend her camera.

We stood on the beach, my mother, Babou, and Gabriella's father standing nearby.

Gabriella's step-mother drew a circle with sage, enclosing the three of us,

and the ceremony began. We pledged our vows, centered and unselfconscious,

with the sun setting behind us, waves lapping near our bare feet.

As we parted from our closing kiss, we were surprised by the sound of clapping.

So immersed we were in our circle and vows we had not noticed the other beach goers watching from a distance. The cheering continued, as well as much well wishing, and we happily, giddily walked to a little picnic table near the beach. There we had our quickly pulled together sunset picnic of baguettes, cheese, fruit, and champagne. Gabriella's father toasted us, and we watched the perfect evening turn to dusk.

Looking back on that day, I realize that although I had always thought I wanted more of a traditional wedding, that the wedding I had was actually the perfect wedding for me. We were so in the moment, so unselfconscious, so focused on our words and what they meant, so focused on each other. We were able to take our vows in a way that meant so much, in a way that really was a union, a blending of two. Our marriage, the blending of two very different people, has allowed us both to become more authentic and balanced versions of ourselves. We both felt the change, everything was the same and yet completely different. A golden evening that will last forever in my memory.

Halfway There!

2009-10-06T13:32:00.000-07:00

Day Two and Company

2009-10-02T08:44:00.000-07:00

I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.

-Benjamin Franklin

Day one down, we are now on day two. This is good, a little hard getting used to the new schedule and I am tired, but I will get used to it. And I'm pregnant, tired is fairly normal.

I feel good and hopeful. I am also re-starting the morning pages, a tool I have used off and on from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. It is a full twelve week program that I have never been able to really do but I have always tried to do at least the morning pages. Maybe I will get motivated and do the whole program. I have heard from friends that it is quite life changing/enhancing/directing/motivating.

Ok, well I must get on. I need to finish an anti-foodie (I know, I know, me write an anti-foodie piece? Well, you will understand when you read it), and the inspiration and flow is flagging so I have to just, as Ann Lamott would say, get my really shitty first draft out of the way. So maybe not finished, but started.

Then I need to do some home stuff, yard work, week-wacking, some extra house cleaning, and food shopping. In anticipation of guests that I am so excited about seeing. Today one of my oldest and closest friends is coming to visit, fresh from a month long trip to Indonesia that I haven't heard enough about. I went to Indonesia in my early twenties and have always wanted to go back.

Katrina, my brilliant, busy sister is arriving Saturday morning and I am almost hopping inside to see her. Yes, weird, but that is how I feel. She will be here till Monday and then my mom arrives Sunday to stay till Wednesday! And I have my writing class on Sunday and hopefully my article will have evolved past it's shitty first draft into a gleaming, publishable piece to have reviewed.

And I think I will make some zucchini muffins to really get the bed and breakfast feeling going. I found a good, basic recipe the other day, and with a little creative license, made them my own: cardamom, sun dried cranberries, and slivered almonds!

Self Discipline

2009-10-01T07:24:00.000-07:00

You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons.

Kahlil Gibran

I have been thinking about this childraising/time to yourself/something for yourself conundrum.

And thinking...and thinking.

I think that there are different times in one's life that offer unique experiences perfectly suited towards growing in various ways. Every phases of life presents both obstacles and opportunities.

For instance, when I stopped working and started a family, I decided that the new phase of my life would be a perfect time to explore my more creative side. That side I had had little time for really, between school and work and then more work. Even the writing I did get to do at the wine magazine was very constricted and uncreative due to the editorial content. I had never had a real opportunity to discover my voice, or my creativity.

I thought motherhood would present the perfect opportunity for reclaiming my more artistic side. That being creative with my children, seeing through their eyes, and experiencing their unstructured concept of time would reconnect me to my innate creativity that dwelt, I intuited, in a more playful part of myself long buried.

But I found myself instead putting my old attitudes into my new life. Trying to structure time too precisely, or letting it go entirely. Never really enjoying the moment because now I was focused on a new to-do list that never ended. The list may have changed, but my attitude had not: grimly going down a to-do list or worrying about the lack of order in my life and overcompensating. And still, fun and creativity coming last, if at all.

I thought what a perfect opportunity to finally do what I had always wanted to do: become a writer. Hopefully make that my new career. But I find myself, day after day, filling my time first with my hopelessly mundane, and certainly un-fun, "to-do" list.

So I have decided, in all of this thinking, that my wish to become a writer will never happen unless I do it, every day. As though I am already a writer, treat it as a career, as a job, and hopefully, in so doing, it will become just that: a job and a career.

In order to do that, I am going to start putting myself first, literally, in the morning. By putting writing first in my day, I will always do it. I will structure my time, but not confine myself either, blending the lessons of flexibility and fluidity that motherhood has taught me with my older, more rigid attitudes about life and work. My focus will be less on perfection and more on production. Making writing a regular part of my life, on a daily basis. A consistent, regular mental purging, if you will.

I think I will be able to relax and enjoy the rest of my life more, knowing that I am taking care of myself as well as my home and family. If you lose yourself, you have nothing to give. It is that elusive balance of maintaining oneself in the face of life's demands, a paradox no one is immune to and a balance everyone requires. Here is to each of us finding our paths and, most importantly, walking them.

Homework

2009-09-29T07:02:00.000-07:00

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but knew what to do with it.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are back from our latest trip to visit parents and Practical Sis to help my nephew celebrate the big two years old birthday, and we are home now, for good, it seems, at least for a couple of months.

You see, with Patrick's work (construction diver), there is not usually a reliable schedule of where he will be or when, and there is no predicting the future, so we take advantage of time when we have it and live very in the moment. It is really nice, if you look at it the right way, but very difficult on any type of schedule. That is the big reason I stopped working when we had Babou, with Patrick's work being as it is, we thought it would be best if our children had at least one parent consistently there for them. And that would be me. I thought that I would thrive in creating my own schedule and really enjoy the freedom of our lifestyle.

In reality, it is much harder than I imagined. I talk to my sisters, all busy and stressed and find myself envious. That they get to go somewhere and either get paid for their work or see that they are accruing credits towards their goals. Measureable rewards for time spent. My life, I am finding, is quite unmeasureable right now. My goals are difficult to see happening and I have to really focus on creating a structure for myself within which to try to move forward. Homework is not as easy as I thought.

This sort of whiney post is a...to be continued...

Mastering the Art of Joy

2009-09-23T09:12:00.000-07:00

"Julia taught me what it takes to find your way in the world. It's not what I thought it was. I thought it was all about-I don't know, confidence or will or luck. Those are all some good things to have, no question. But there's something else, something that these things grow out of. It's joy."

-Julie Powell, Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen.

It is an ordinary scene, a young woman in her kitchen whipping up some sort of chocolate concoction to alleviate a particularly hideous day. She turns to her husband and explains she finds comfort in the fact, that after a day when nothing makes sense, she can follow a particular recipe and it will achieve a particular result. A harbor of reassurance in an ocean of uncertainty.

This young woman is Julie Powell, in Julie and Julia, a movie based on two books: one on Julie Powell's blog-turned-book in which she trudges through every single recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, a sort of homage to her adoration of Julia Child as well as to her sometimes precious nature; and My Life in France, by Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme, which Julia describes as a book about some of the things she has loved most in her life: her husband, Paul Child; la belle France; and the many pleasures of cooking and eating.

The movie is a beautiful collage of the two books and personalities. Meryl Streep is a wonderfully credible Julia Child and the film provides an edited version of their time in France and after. While I do appreciate Julie Powell and her book, I have to say My Life in France is very simply a must-read for anyone interested in Julia and Paul Child.

The book is written as a series of stories, strung together chronologically, and are based upon countless letters saved by friends and family throughout the years. Julia writes that while her letters consisted of very badly spelled two to three page affairs documenting the latest escapades of their cat, any good gossip, and whatever food-related revelation she was currently enthusing over, Paul was a serious letter writer and would often include sketches and collages of news and photo clippings in addition to his journalistic detailing of their day-to-day life. It is in this way that My Life in France takes on an immediacy of detail, and at once you feel you yourself are there with Julia and Paul, enjoying "the brilliant sparkle of autumn light on the dark Seine," and "the smell of Montmartre at dusk."

Moving to France was a pivotal moment in Julia's life. It was where she found herself, awakened to the sensuality of food and life, came into her own, and found her calling.

This awakening is seen so vibrantly felt and described both on the pages of My Life in France and in Julie and Julia. Julia is a woman filled with joie de vivre. Her enthusiasm for everything about France is absolutely contagious, how she simply fell in love with its people, food, rituals, and its "generous pace of life." You see how really, although her life had evolved in a rather unplanned manner (Julia describes how, after attending Smith with only "half my burners on," she planned on becoming a famous novelist but instead found herself a bit afloat until she joined the service, began to travel, and met Paul), fate had a plan the whole time. That maybe the chaos of life is only chaos to the naked eye, but has a much richer and deeper cadence that is by nature unknowable.

Julia's transformation is such a joy largely because she is so honest about herself, so unselfconscious of any vanity. Upon her arrival in Paris, Julia says of herself, "I was a six-foot-two-inch, thirty-six-year-old, rather loud and unserious Californian." A year later she writes, "Upon reflection, I decided I had three main weaknesses: I was confused (evidenced by lack of facts, and inability to coordinate my thoughts, and an inability to verbalize my ideas); I had a lack of confidence, which caused me to come back down from forcefully stated positions; and I was overly emotional at the expense of careful, 'scientific' thought. I was thirty-seven years old and still discovering who I was."

But in discovering her calling, she discovered herself. She realized that while she could at times be "overly emotional," she "was lucky to have the kind of orderly mind that is good at categorizing things." This way of being was intrinsic to the success of her book and the launching of her career. Who else could have so passionately fallen in love with such a vast subject as French cookery or chronicled its many nuances as scientifically?

Julia Child's story is a quintessential tale destined to unfold. Perhaps that is why Julia writes "one of the things I loved about French cooking was the way that basic themes could be made in a seemingly infinite number of variations." That one could master a technique and really be set free creatively, allowing the technique to guide the form, and grant you, the season, and your mood, the artistic license.

Perhaps this is where the movie fell a bit short for me. It seemed to me that while Julie wanted the comfort and reassurrance of a recipe, Julia wanted the freedom of variation within the order of technique. Julia's way seems more joyful and free, and more mature. You get a sense that Julia had faith that on the other side of chaos lay order, that life could be very free if based on a foundation of structure, and that life could be trusted and lived with great, unassuming joie de vivre.

Last Hurrah

2009-09-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

-Guilaume Apollinaire

My Old Man, who I am now calling Patrick because I do not feel right calling my husband "my old man." I did it because he sometimes, much to my consternation, calls me his "Ol' Lady." But it's not me and it feels weird to write it so I am stopping. Good. There it is, so we will start again...

Patrick got home from his most recent job a couple of weeks ago and it has been wonderful and disrupting and all of that since his return. The balance of my days shifts quite a bit to accomodate lots of family time whenever he returns. I am always between the two seeking some sort unattainable equilibrium.

But we have been having a lovely time with lots of beach days and even snuck away for a couple of days on our own, much in thanks to the MIL. It was the 12th anniversary of our first kiss (I know, I know, eyeballs roll to the ceiling but truly we are very sentimental about this but not disgustingly so, I hope at least) which was really our beginning (See archive for full, squishy details).

To celebrate, we headed north to Fort Bragg, a little fishing town that is now known for its abalone diving and fishing. The Noyo river runs into the Paciic there and a little harbor supplies lots of old fishing town quaintness.

We ate at a very fun, quirky family owned and run Italian restaurant in the harbor the first night. And for our anniversary dinner we ate at a place called "The Restaurant," run by a husband and wife team.

The food was amazing, especially the house made dessert, the best cheesecake we have ever had. I know I will be gaining lots of weight trying to replicate their cheesecake recipe in the future!

We brought our bicycles so we spent much of our day riding around town checking out whatever struck our fancy.

We met a lot of interesting people and decided that we would always bring bicycles on our trips, it was such a fun and easy way to explore a place.

But the best part of getting away was truly coming back home. I had never been away from Babou for more than one night before and we spent two nights away this time (and probably the last time with the new one on the way now, this was sort of our last hurrah for a long time). I missed her so much! The closer we got back to home, the more excited I became to see her again! I realized that I now have another love of my life, thanks to the first love of my life, a love so much deeper than any words can say.

(Babou in her 1st pair of cowboy boots, thanks to her Nana!)

Fall Inspired Dinner Party

2009-09-03T10:15:00.000-07:00

Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.

-Harriet Van Home.

In my continuing fixation with fall (and would it please start to cool down please, pretty please?) I recently hosted a dinner party inspired by the season I am so anxiously anticipated. The food turned out beautifully and, although the weather is still quite warm, I did notice some of the sycamores that line our street are starting to fall!

An Autumn Menu

Butternut squash tortellini in a sage butter sauce with dried cherries and walnuts

Green salad with apples and roquefort cheese in an orange vinaigrette

Pear cake with fresh whipped cream.

For the butternut squash ravioli, I cubed and roasted a butternut squash lightly tossed in olive oil and dusted with salt. I pureed the squash with low fat ricotta cheese, about a cup, and a couple of ounces of neufchatel cheese. I also added some salt, cinnamon, and coriander, to taste. Then I used won ton wrappers topped with about a teaspoon of the mixture to create the tortellini. I made them earlier in the day, along with the cake, so they would be ready to go when it was time for dinner. When it was time, I boiled them for maybe five minutes while melting butter with sage I cut into ribbons, chopped walnuts, and dried cherries. I added the tortellini to the butter sauce and tossed to coat them and then into the serving bowl they went!

For the salad I made a vinaigrette with Trader Joe's Orange Muscat Champagne Vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. I added a sliced green apple, blue cheese and mixed greens, tossing it at the last minute.

The cake I got from Clotilde Dusoulier who has a food blog (and now book) called "Chocolate and Zucchini." She is also translating a French cookbook, I Know How to Cook, first published in 1932 and considered the French equivalent of Rombauer's The Joy of Cooking, due out this October. The cake is surprisingly easy and really good. It calls for "ground almonds," which I don't know where to find, so I just minced up some slivered Trader Joe's almonds and it seemed to work just fine.

Although it was a labor intensive dinner, with a little organization and timing it was pretty easy. Making the tortellini and cake ahead of time made dinner really come together quite quickly in the end--just mixing up the salad, cooking the tortellini and making the sauce, and serving. It was rich but very delicious and a perfect, dinner party worthy, vegetarian feast.

One lucky mother

2009-08-31T09:08:00.000-07:00

Today a new sun rises for me; everything lives, everything is animated, everything speaks to me of my passion, everything invites me to cherish it.

-Anne De Lenclos

Morning sun has broken through the fog that crept in overnight, a nice cooling fog after all the end of summer heat. I feel like this summer has lasted at least twice as long as a normal summer and I am so ready for the fall to come. I am so ready to also stop feeling nauseous and get my energy back. I am now just starting my second trimester but apparently the early pregnancy symptoms do not care at all, they insist on persisting!

And so do I, in spite of it all. I have managed to not let everything go, I have been keeping up, if nominally, and waiting it out. Getting the flu did not help, but I was very well taken care of Babou, who healed me in record amounts of time. She came into our bedroom while I was sick and stood by the bedside. She shook her hands in a motion to stop, both in front of her, and said "Mama, don't worry!" And then she leaned over me and cupped my cheek in her little hand and said, "I help you." I could not ask for more.

Karma

2009-08-21T09:59:00.001-07:00

Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.

-Elbert Hubbard

The other day I was getting ready to leave after a visit to my parent's house. As I packed and organized I was more aware of how nauseous I felt than usual. I commented to my mother about how yucky I felt.

Mom said, "well, at least you can still do things. When your sister Mary Alice had morning sickness she couldn't even move!"

"I know mom," I replied, "but don't you think Mary Alice was being just a little overly dramatic?"

My mother gave me a sideways glance and shrugged her response.

And my dye was cast.

By the time we stopped for lunch at the halfway mark home, I was sick enough that I could not eat. The second half of the trip was excruciating. My body ached, my stomach rebelled, and I felt like my eyeballs might fall out if I had to focus on a road one minute more...and I had hours more focus for my eyeballs to fall out.

By the time I got home, I immediately went to bed and did not get out, except when totally necessary, for two days. Today I am finally feeling well enough to think, in a limited sort of way.

While I was not stricken by morning sickness as much as the flu, I do realize that life was teaching me a little lesson on judging another's experience and I get it. Point taken. Ahhh Karma, at least you know it's there but next time it's in action, I plan to be on it's better side!

Possibilities

2009-08-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

Our aspirations are our possibilities.

-Samuel Johnson

Yesterday I visited two of my favorite places: the Library and Rite Aide. Why my faves? Because both of these places give me the feeling of unlimited possibility. Maybe if I just get that one book, it will be just what I needed and I will become enlightened, successful, brilliant.... I always feel as though the antidote to whatever form of ennui I am currently experiencing can be found amongst the bookcases. Even the smell of the library excites this sense of possibility--the scent of books magnified by their sheer numbers and proximity.

It is the same whenever I step inside Rite Aide. I look down the beauty aisles, stopping slowly to ponder the lipsticks. Perhaps this is the day I will find my ultimate shade, that shade that makes me look at once more bright eyed and heavy lidded. The color that will complement all my features and work seamlessly from day to night--albeit this concept of "day to night" is much different now with children, mostly I just need "day," "night" meaning mostly "asleep."

Then down the hair aisle. Perhaps I should try a color on my hair, highlights? Perhaps that is just the lift I need, instantly transforming into the beauty I know is sleeping somewhere in the depths of me, just waiting for the right magic wand to awaken! Could that wand be masquerading as a L'Oreal highlighting kit?

Fake tan, perhaps? Maybe that is what I need more than a highlighter kit! Maybe that's the magic wand, liberal amounts of fake tan. Or maybe both? Then I would really look different, more exotique, more mystérieux, and très jolie?

In the end, I usually leave the library with an armload of books, mainly self-help, that I will read exactly four pages of each before getting a serious attack of ADD and returning them all in fear of late fees. And Rite Aide, I generally pick out the same shade of lipstick that, although does not act as a magic wand, neither washes me out nor startles children or small animals...or my husband who staunches opposes most changes to my appearance.

But, like an old friend, I know the very next time I walk into the library or stroll the beauty aisle of Rite Aide, that feeling of possibility will faithfully return. I will again catch the fleeting vision of a new, more self-aware, successful me who is, of course, wearing the perfect shade of lipstick and a tan from the aisle of Olay!

Feeling Fall

2009-08-04T09:07:00.000-07:00

Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower.

-Albert Camus

Sitting here this morning, I am overlooking the garden, full and at its summer zenith, and dreaming of fall. I am always ready for the next season to begin way before it's time. Maybe it is just that we've had such a busy summer and now I feel ready for cool weather, apple pies, and walks sprinkled with falling leaves.

There is also the feeling of rejuvenation that comes with fall, a feeling of a fresh start, the beginning of work again after the fun and play of summer. A feeling one should be sharpening their pencils, collecting tablets of paper, and getting their backpacks in order.

It is always surprising to me that I have such a strong sense of this "back to school/work" feeling when I was homeschooled for most of my life. But perhaps that is the precise reason that it has such a strong pull for me; it is so imagined in my mind that it now has a life of its own.

Whatever the reason, I am excited for fall to begin and am already making plans for myself. I have joined a writing group, my first class is next week, and I feel like it is just the motivation I need to take writing more seriously. Sometimes I feel as though I am in a bubble, being at home with Babou so much, and can't quite get the perspective I need to move ahead. I maintain a status quo, if I am lucky, and bumble along. I am looking forward to collaboration, time devoted to myself, and a feeling of possibility. I am really going to try to make some strides to becoming a better writer this fall.

Babou is calling me, letting me know my time is up, and that I must continue on with my day. I have been trying to let her help me more with the things I do because she really wants to. My nerves are suffering though. She really likes to crack eggs and knows how to open the refrigerator now. Yesterday, after we had made eggs for breakfast, I found her in the kitchen having cracked every single egg we have into the frying pan. She looked very triumphant. I looked horrified.

This is how it goes and I am trying to maintain a zen exterior but every time she prunes one of my plants to an inch of its life, pulls up a flower instead of a weed, or helps me crack all of the eggs, I have to say I become more and more...unnerved. Patience is not one of my virtues, and I think God knows this. We are practicing, I guess.

The Foods of My Father

2009-08-03T08:17:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so entwined that we cannot think of one without the other.

-M.F.K. Fisher

Coming home from a long day at the beach, I am in the kitchen making hot chocolate for my daughter. She is waiting anxiously beside me, watching as I add the chocolate and the milk, gently stirring the liquid as it slowly warms. I stop just short of filling our waiting cups and go to the cupboard. I pull out the salt, slyly adding a pinch to the mixture. Babou and I sit with our "hot choclit" and I am five years old again.

I cannot think of a more contented time in my childhood than the afternoons we spent on our front porch, the sun-heated deck warming our outsides while my father's special hot chocolate warmed our insides.

It would always be after a long day at the beach, when my sisters and I would return half frozen, that we could expect a nice hot chocolate to ease the numbness from our limbs.

Lying on the warm porch , we would wait happily while our father made us our special drink. It tasted distinctly different for our father always added his secret ingredient: salt. It made it taste at once more and less chocolate-ty, and always more exotic.

Popcorn was another specialty of my father. It was always a treat, and always in the afternoon, that we would get popcorn. But as soon as we saw our father pull out a certain pot, we knew we were in luck.

We would all wait for the first pop of the corn as the air filled with the scent of warming oil. Our father would pull out a paper bag, carefully fold the edges down once, and then add the popcorn and salt and shake it together vigorously.

And then it was a free for all. There was never quite enough popcorn and always too many hungry hands. It always went way too quickly, but I suppose that is part of the reason it tasted so good.

Food memories and childhood seem like two sides of a coin, perfectly fitting together with tongue and groove-like precision. Mothers, as a general rule, hold sway in this department and this was true in my growing up. My mother prepared most all of our meals and I can recall so many wonderful things that she made, things that I try to reproduce more and more for my family. But perhaps because my father's food contributions were less regular, they stand out distinctly in my memory.

Today I carry on the tradition with my family, letting the taste take me back to my childhood while creating memories for my little one. And isn't that just the beauty and the mystery of tradition...the ability a memory has to carry the happiness someone creates down through time? Memories creating new memories; an ancient echo of love.

Summer Travels

2009-07-30T08:34:00.000-07:00

But if in your thought you must measure time into seasons, let each season encircle all the other seasons, and let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.

-Kahlil Gibran

In my imagination summer is always this warm, lazy space of time stretching languidly into a distant future.

In my reality, this summer has been incredibly busy, scheduled and finite. Lots packed into each day and lots to do at any given time.

The latest burst of traveling and activity was spurred by my nieces visit. Mary Alice's daughters, Little Red and the Middle Child came out to visit and we ended up spending some time with them up in Northern California where they were both born. My mother joined the adventure

and we all spent a wonderful bit of time visiting old friends and swimming in the clear, cool river; a welcome respite to the heat that welcomed our arrival.

One of the highlights of the trip was Babou's experience feeding a very tame deer at Mary Alice's mother-in-law's home! Although the deer loved to fed,

they did not take well to being petted! Babou, a devout animal lover, was overjoyed.

Even Loco O, our overly friendly and energetic Golden, had a wonderful time and found ways to keep the long ride home interesting!

And so did Babou.

And now we are home, my Old Man is off on another job and we will go visit him soon. But, in the meantime, I will enjoy returning to a normal routine. The beauty of travel, I have always believed, is not so much experiencing something new as much as re-experiencing the old as new again.

Summer Days

2009-07-15T10:31:00.000-07:00

Hospitality is one form of worship.

-The Talmud

July is flying by, summer is flying by! And, despite my energy level, I am keeping up with things fairly well--as long as I am not throwing up (morning sickness is haunting my every move)!

We are having, have been having, lots of company. My nieces, Mary Alice's girls, my Old Man's mom, my mom, lots of fun and lots of entertaining. We took the Old Man's mom to Bolinas Beach and it was so beautiful, clear, and hot. We dipped ourselves in the icy Pacific and it was actually really refreshing.

The ocean inspired us and we made our own fish and chips when we got home. We tempura fried some fish and some squash from the garden and served it with clam chowder. It was so delicious! I haven't been able to eat many vegetables lately but somehow they were much more palatable when dipped in tempura batter and deep fried!

Today my mother arrives and we will all head north to the little mountain town we grew up in for a little vacation and to collect my nieces. I will be sure to take lots of pictures and will post when I return next week. I hope you are all having a wonderful summer so far!

Fear This

2009-07-01T09:30:00.001-07:00

(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

2009-06-30T07:58:00.001-07:00

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

2009-06-20T08:52:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-17T07:49:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-15T15:32:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-12T09:34:00.000-07:00

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 minimalism 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

2009-06-10T07:21:00.000-07:00

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.

In my Dreams

2009-06-09T08:43:00.000-07:00

Dreams pass into the reality of actions. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.

-Anais Nin

Last night I dreamt I was aboard a war ship. It was early morning and misty. I was silently witnessing two military men manning a missile launcher. One man ordered the other to load the missiles. The other man loaded them with trepidation. "Don't you think of the children?" he asked the other man. "No," he replied, " you can't think of the children."

I woke up this morning sick to my stomach. There is nothing I would fight for except maybe to end fighting. This dream had started last night, influenced by an Anthony Bourdain tv show the Old Man and I were watching. It was about Namibia and I was struck by the starkness of the landscape, the eking out of an existence, the brutal history.

One tribe lived a very poor existence with only one plant as it's sustenance. It made incredibly use of this one plant, making inventively varied dishes from its parts. It made me embarrassed at the riches I possessed in my refrigerator. How we are so lucky to have the food we have here, the richness, the luxury of being "foodies." The luxury of having to go on a diet.

Bourdain mentioned, as he blithely sand boarded down a dune, that this was the land from which apartheid leaders collected, kidnapped, their mercenaries. It made me think of the terror of being terrorized by mercenaries, and of how terrorized the mercenaries might have been to be terrorizing. The two sides to a dismal story.

I am truly amazed that after millennia of evolution, human beings still solve their disputes the same way they did when they first learned to stand. Can't we think of a better way? Why is war always the common denominator?

A Thousand moments

2009-06-04T10:59:00.000-07:00

Home sweet home. We got back into town Sunday night after being out of town visiting my Old Man for the last week of his job down south. I have been trying to unpack and get back into our routine all week. We are all present, finally, work being here for at least the next couple of weeks. We have a semblance of a complete home life for the moment and I am so grateful- reveling in family dinners, nights spent together, early morning lunch box makings.

So much to catch up on! Your blogs, my thoughts and experiences, pictures, all that good stuff. But I am rushed at the moment, trying to get the spring cleaning to the Good Will and the sideyard cleaned up (housing inspector mandates) before I have to run errands and take the dog and Babou hiking. I try to give them at least one toddler/dog led outing a week, where they set the pace and decide where to go and what to stop and look at...for what seems like forever. Wanderings, I should call them. We are going to a local lake and having a little picnic and wander before nap time.

Anyways...I have had recent interesting thoughts on diets, conservation, and time management. These will be the subjects of upcoming posts. I look forward to catching up on my reading and writing and offer you an excerpt from my journal as my entry today...

A Thousand Moments

Thursday May 28, 2009

I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.

-Saint Paul

I love the mornings here. Every day I wake up to deliciously cool air floating through the open window. The fog has rolled in faithfully, stealthfully, under the cover of the night, gently cooling our mornings and easing us into our days. The mountains here are so dramatic, the fog clinging to them, to the orange and avocado trees already, more permanently, clinging to their steep curves.

A cup of coffee, the crack of an egg, the chopping of the vegetables. I steady myself for the day. I love how it opens up to me like a gift, like a blank canvas I can paint as I chose. The structure may be there, there may be limits to the frame, but the colors are all mine.

I found myself fighting my life yesterday, being dragged down by the paradox of being constantly busy and yet accomplishing absolutely nothing to the naked eye. Such is childcare. It's moments quiet, built upon thousands of moments, words, smells, influences coloring your child's world, slowly creating their childhood. The thousand moments that make a moment, a memory, a safety, a contentedness.

Today, I am intending to relax into my own contentedness. This is my life, the one that I have chosen and love. The life we are building, the family we are building. Motherhood is my first job, writing my second. Writing, my sanity. My mental framework when things don't make sense. A place to put my many thoughts. My paintings made of words.

❀✿ ❀✿ ❀✿

The foggy morning turned into stacked clouds as the day wore on. Billowing from behind the rocky mountains, they looked more like softer cousins of the boulders that scatter the hillsides.

We took our morning walk, rock hounding as we went. I am collecting rocks for a little rock garden I want to place in a worn spot of ground next to our front stairs, utilitarian yet ornamental. I am searching flat rocks, to make a flat surface. Easy to pull garbage cans over, easy to pull the hose around.

But I am always searching for rocks, always collecting them. It seems ingrained in me somehow, probably through my grandmother Bertha, a woman after my own heart. When mom came to visit me a couple of weeks ago, she laughed when she spotted the rocks I had carefully placed, altar-istically, on top of my dresser.

"You are so Bertha," she had laughed. Indeed, each rock was from somewhere special to me, my secret marker. One from a river bed in my Northern California hometown, one from the creek behind my parent's house, another from a Central California beach, coral from a special visit to Hawaii, a tiny abalone shell from my Old Man. All memories in stone and shell.

My daydreaming stopped abruptly as I looked up to see a diamond backed rattlesnake not three feet in front of us. Luckily I had LocoO on the leash and Babou holding my hand (we were on a road with few cars, but the cars that did travel it went fast--way too fast). I backed away slowly. The snake was not coiled, just warming itself smack dab in the center of the road. I swear to God my heart stopped for a second. I was almost shaking as I hurried us all back home as quickly as I could. To the safety of the cabin and PBS cartoons. The snakes down here are so lethal you have only approximately twenty minutes to get the antivenom before you die. It takes twenty minutes to get to the freeway.

Needless to say, I spent the afternoon running errands in town, picking up some fish for dinner, stopping by a little Mexican store that carried everything under the sun including a perfect little black dress for $12. That and a bar of avocado soap were my purchases although many of its trinkets called to me, the many Virgin of Guadalupe candles, hoop earrings, sheets, you name it. Babou also found many toys she liked, and a friend, the owners son, about three years old. Who put his head on her shoulder, leaned in for a hug, and stole a kiss!

Zucchini: New Ways with an Old Love

2009-05-19T11:48:00.000-07:00

"All this passion over a handful of blossoms. But I, too, am captivated by these lithe yellow flowers, having grown them over the years, sometimes begging space in friends' gardens when I didn't have my own, becoming familiar with their whims as plants, how their gentle savor can refine and ornament other foods as well as please on its own."

-Marlena De Blasi, A thousand Days in Tuscany.

The first zucchini I ever saw I killed it with a hoe.

- John Gould

I have long had a love/hate relationship with zucchini. It all stems from growing up in a small, mountain town in California. Every one had a vegetable garden, and everyone had at least one zucchini plant in their garden.

A sort of sure thing, harvest-wise.

I loved the smell of the plants in their little patch of earth. The beautiful, huge green leaves, transparent in the sunlight. The golden blossoms, the bright green fruit. The way they smelled, indescribably alive and yet modest in their glory. The spikiness of their stems compared to the delicateness of their beauty.

There was something about that mountain place, that mountain soil, that caused zucchinis to prosper unlike anything many had ever seen. Zucchinis, left unchecked, reached baseball bat proportions. One had to keep up with the zucchinis, one had to stay ahead of the game.

My mother and neighbors became increasingly creative with zucchini as the summer season wore on. Zucchini began to infiltrate all kinds of foods that would not normally contain the green beast. This culminated in one neighbor's discovery--a recipe for a cake/bread using zucchini but that was NOT the ubiquitous zucchini bread; this was called "friendship bread," and required a starter.

It was fancy.

And it hit the little town like nothing had in a very long time, small towns being sort of incestuous and all, and soon everyone had made and received at least one "friendship bread."

When the bread started making second and third appearances, the name experienced a metamorphous, and was aptly dubbed, "enemy bread." Normally friendly people began hiding when they spied a neighbor arriving with suspicious packages in "enemy bread" dimensions!

I survived that summer, and many more like it, happily with my love of zucchini still intact. But, perhaps because it is in my blood now, I am always looking for new ways with this green beauty. It is in this spirit of the coming summer that I offer you a recent recipe I concocted in an effort to make a simple soup from what I had on hand. Happy zucchini bumper crops to you all!

Simple (yet effective) Zucchini Soup

Chop 2 medium size zucchini and add to 2 cups simmering chicken stock (or vegetable stock)
Cook until tender
Puree in a blender or food processor until smooth
Add 1/4 cup hummus and blend again until thoroughly incorporated.
Add mixture back to the pot, reheat and serve.
This soup is also good served cold, but is best warm.
Enjoy!

My "Licious" Babou

2009-05-15T08:27:00.000-07:00

All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today. -- Indian Proverb

May is stretching into June way too quickly and yet time seems to have slowed at the same time. I think it is partly anticipation. My Old Man returns home from his job at the end of this month and his next job is...gasp...in our own town! So I have that to look forward to and the time seems to be flying by except when I think about having to wait until the end of the month to see him and then it feels like it is going v.e.r.y. slowly.

In the meantime, we had mom for a visit and Babou outdid herself entertaining her grandmother. They had such a good time together. I could hear them in the backyard coming up with all kinds of new dance moves and there was much gymnastics involved in all their activities!

Lately, it seems Babou is growing before my very eyes. She is so aware and is just blossoming in so many ways. Driving over a bridge the other day, Babou pointed out the window to a boat and exclaimed, "Boat! Daddy!" I didn't realize she realized so much about her Daddy's work (he's a construction diver).

Lately we have been upping our practicing of numbers, letters, and colors. We take daily walkabouts, needed outings for all of us. Loco O needs as much walking as we can give him, and I need the exercise. We hike up into the hills and chant our "ABC's" and "123's" and look at flowers and learn their names and what colors they are. Everything is blue to Babou! For some reason she just cannot get past this color! To any color question, the answer is invariably blue!

Her confidence is soaring. The other day at the park, I watched her back up this little boy against the slide with her wagging finger. She was pointing at him and giving him quite a reprimanding. I don't know what he did (I suspect he tried to take her turn on the slide) but I am quite sure he will never do it again!

And foodwise she has always been a fantastic eater. I have never made her "baby food" except when she was really little (and she still preferred whatever we were eating instead), she has always eaten whatever we are eating. But lately she has become much more enthusiastic about it all! She likes to help me cook now, and she has taken to exclaiming, "Mama! 'Licious!" Music to a mama's ears!

May Happenings

2009-05-11T16:11:00.000-07:00

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
-Old Saying

Time has been moving quickly. I have been moving through my days in fits of momentum in which I do much quickly, and then have to calm down for a couple of days to recoup and renew. As much as I can while chasing my increasingly agile, quick, and BUSY little Babou!

I started out the month with the Open Studios private party my friend throws every year. Although the day turned out to be a bit drippy, it was a success none the less. The food went quickly, and smoothly, and everyone seemed to really like it. It was a solid three days of prep and I am so glad I organized it as it did because it was much smoother that way than in previous years. I was a little flustered at the end and forget to bring flowers to decorate the platters (I always decorate with nasturtium flowers) but the food looked really good anyway. I just had to be a little more clever in the presentation.

My friend's art was, of course, the main centerpiece, and she had some beautiful new paintings on display. I am always in awe of that ability, to translate light and landscape into art.

Promptly afterwards, my back went out! But I found a really good chiropractor out of it all. I was in so much pain that I chose the first chiropractor who could see and who would let me bring my daughter. He turned out to be a special type of chiropractor that practices something called the NUCCA method. They adjust your upper vertebrae to change the signal your brain is receiving from your back. Then the back readjusts itself back down the vertebrate, solving all imbalances along the way. It is very precise and very gentle. I was/am truly amazed at how well and quickly it works and on a variety of difficult conditions such as sciatica and scoliosis (which is what I have) of the spine.

I was really pressed to get my back realigned and in working order because LJoy had made a reservation seven months ago for an evening of camping on Angel Island. I would have been so let down if I had missed it, it was truly amazing. We had views of the Bay and Golden Gate Bridge, and of the city. The moon was almost full and we got to watch it rise. I hope that Babou remembers it, I know I will. It was one of those experiences that you will never forget.

Mother's day my mother came to visit and I had girlfriends over in the afternoon. We all hung out in the backyard to enjoy the garden. All the flowers are doing really well and the veggies are really getting going. I am so glad I got them in when I did...

Mom will be in town for a couple of days, helping me make sure my back keeps its adjustment. There is just nothing like having your mom around! Happy Mother's Day dear readers!

Vegetable Dreams

2009-05-01T09:09:00.000-07:00

I believe more firmly than ever in fresh raw milk, freshly ground whole grains of cereal, and vegetables grown in organically cultured soil. If I must eat meats, I want them carved of beasts nurtured on the plants from that same kind of soil.
-MFK Fisher

Yesterday I returned from my big grocery/catering shopping day and found, to my great delight, a package from Amazon on my front porch! I hastily opened it wondering what wonderful surprise was this, and found that it was the gift won on the Eco Women website! A book, by Sophie Uliano, entitled "Gorgeously Green." It is a book I have looked at many times before but hadn't bought due to one thing or the other. I have wanted it for so long now! Thank you, Eco Women!

If you haven't had the chance to check them out yet, do so now. They are a committed group of ecowarriors who provide consistently sound and practical advice, well researched and vital information, and motivation and inspiration to make positive changes consistent with a global environmental mindset. Read them, know them, enjoy them: http://ecowomen.net/ (I apologize--my link setting in not working properly.)

The Earth Day pledge I recently made was to incorporate more vegetarian meals into my weekly bill of fare. It was the motivation I needed to get myself into gear.

The stars were also aligned in my favor for after I made the pledge, my husband, a pretty stalwart meat eater, left for a job that will last a month, perhaps even two. So it is the perfect time for me to start eating vegetarian and testing recipes that will lure him to the other side.

So far, two of my favorites (maybe not my Old Man's though--still have to test working-man-worthy vegetarian) have been a curried cauliflower soup and roasted vegetable salad. They are delicious alone as light meals, or paired for a more substantial menu.

Curried Cauliflower Soup

Saute reasonable amounts of onions and garlic and in a small amount of oil while steaming a whole head of cauliflower. Add curry, perhaps a tablespoon, to taste with the now translucent onion mixture. Once fragrant, add four cups of stock. For thicker soup, add less.

Meanwhile, with a food processor, puree the now steamed cauliflower adding a can of "lite" coconut milk as you go, creating a creamy cauliflower puree. You may also add fresh ginger to the puree which will provide the soup with an extra kick or, for a milder flavor, add the ginger to the onion and garlic mixture at the beginning.

Add the cauliflower, coconut, and ginger puree to the simmering stock, mix well to combine and adjust seasonings as desired. Enjoy!

Roasted Vegetable Salad

Slice eggplant, portabella mushrooms, red onions, and tomato halves (or whatever combination of vegetables you like--fennel would be good here too) and place on an oiled cookie sheet. Lightly brush tops with more oil, season with salt and coarsely cracked pepper. Bake at 350 for about a half an hour, until cooked to your liking.

Meanwhile, combine balsamic vinegar and olive oil with salt and coarsely ground pepper whisking to combine. If you are a garlic lover like I am, you may also add a clove or two of chopped garlic to the dressing. Add mixed greens. Toss and plate greens, topping them with the still warm roasted vegetable. Top with liberal helpings of blue cheese and enjoy!

Things we gained in the fire

2009-04-30T15:48:00.000-07:00

we must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
-Joseph Campbell

A soft afternoon. Babou is taking her nap and I am at my desk overlooking the backyard, taking in the view, all the plants finally in their right places, all in different stages of grown-up-ness, all looking pretty happy to be where they are...

Yesterday I finished planting the vegetable garden. Most of the day was spent digging and planting and marking and resulted in a garden that will surely satisfy us this summer. All told, we have eight heirloom tomatoes underplanted with marigolds, four Italian eggplant, four peppers (hot and sweet), four summer squash, pole beans and snap peas entwined in Babou's teepee, and a wide variety of various greens and herbs.

All the vegetables I planted this year were from my brother-in-law and his family who are starting an organic, heirloom plant company with the majority of the seeds being biodynamic.

I am so happy for my brother-in law and his family to be starting this company. This past year has been a very tough one for them; a changing one for them. Last summer their home was devastated by the fires that raged across California.

It was amazing to see the progression of their lives since they essentially lost everything that they had had. Both my brother and sister-in-law believe in, and live, a very alternative lifestyle. They are committed to living off of the land and growing their family as a joint venture. Over the holidays I had asked my sister-in-law what direction they were going to go in, and she had confided that they were really trying to just digest what had happened and wait to see what direction life wanted them to take.

I was very impressed with the openness and faith in life she demonstrated so naturally, something that would be very difficult for me. Given the same scenario, I would have been trying to regain control of my direction, instead of stepping back and waiting for life to point the way.

Life did point the way for them and has really taken them in a new, positive direction seemingly effortlessly. Everything seems to be falling in place perfectly, moving them along under its own momentum. It is truly inspiring to see, and really makes me reflect on the concept of faith and of effortless action.

To remember to trust life, and to let go.

I have such a hard time reconciling letting go and moving ahead. Their story is such a lesson in faith, in life, and in what is gained by being lost.

I Remember (an attempt at a poem)

2009-04-29T16:13:00.000-07:00

I remember knowing that it had begun
At the same moment
That I knew that it would end.
Memorizing your profile as you slept
Knowing we would not last,
Knowing we were not meant to last.
You were my closest, and yet I held you far
Knowing time knew too much.
We were not meant to be but for a time
You said that you would miss me.
I remember I will never forget you
Suspended in our first, starlit kiss.

This is why...

2009-04-27T16:04:00.000-07:00

This is love: To fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First, let go to live...in the end, to take a step without feet.
-Rumi

Late last night, as we were driving home from our weekend helping my Old Man's brother and his family move, the Elton John song, "Rocket Man," came on the radio. I turned it up, knowing both of us loved the song.

Old Man was holding my hand. Babou and the dog were sleeping peacefully to the hum of the car and the music. Old Man squeezed my hand as Elton John sang the lyrics about missing his wife.

I turned to smile at him and saw the tears rolling down his face. He looked at me, wiping them away and answered the concern in my eyes. He said, "it's just that this song always reminds me of you when I'm on a job, it makes me miss you so much."

He left for his job today, and will be gone for about a month, maybe two.

I think I am even more in love with him today as I was the eleven long years ago when we first fell in love. I am thankful every day that I have this kind of love, that I have this kind of man; my kind of man, my diver man.

Rocket Man

2009-04-27T16:02:00.001-07:00

A different day

2009-04-22T11:14:00.000-07:00

The goal of life is to live in agreement with nature.
-Zeno (335-264 BC) from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

The weather has turned, and turned fiercely. Yesterday it was in the nineties, and the heat left me blank and in the moment. I have been overly busy lately, and yesterday was a brief respite from the busy-ness. I had a day, somewhat, to myself.

I got to go out to lunch with one of my favorite friends, an artist and graphic designer, who is that beautiful combination of confidante, mentor, and friend. We were planning the menu for her annual Open Studios party, which I am catering again this year. I came up with a list of ideas and we decided on a really delicious menu--the party should be fun, it always is--in the garden, surrounded by roses and art!

Here is the menu we decided on...

Cinnamon and Coriander encrusted pork tenderloin in a pomegranate balsamic sauce

Curried couscous salad with sundried cranberries, green onions, and toasted almonds

Fresh arugula and corn salad with roasted red peppers in a balsamic vinaigrette

Roasted vegetable focaccia sandwiches with smoked gouda cheese and cilantro pesto.

Thinly sliced sweet cantaloupe served with a trio of prosciutto

I will make everything except the arugula salad and sliced melon the day before for ease the day of the party. I need to do as much ahead as I can because it is a challenge with Babou and the Old Man may be back working in southern California by then...

I spent the afternoon trying to keep cool in the backyard. Naked sprinkler jumping was Babou's happiest way of keeping cool!

That evening, I met up with my over-the-fence runner neighbor, to practice the Dipsea Trail. Although I missed the application, I am still training with her and plan on doing the whole trail in a practice run. I realize I am not much of a competitor, but the trail is truly magical and I want to make it the whole way, every year, as sort of a spring ritual. As I made my way along the trail I realized, again, how important nature is to my mental and physical health. How being a part of the terrain changes you, reminds you of your place, and is as much about rejuvenating your spirit as it is about training your body.

I came home spent, renewed, and happily thoughtless. The heat and trail had cleared a space in my overly busy brain for a little peace to reside.

A favorite poem and views from my garden

2009-04-20T08:31:00.000-07:00

Now I become myself

Now I become myself. It's taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
"Hurry, you will be dead before--"
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted by love.
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!

-May Sarton

Catching up

2009-04-17T08:02:00.000-07:00

GON OUT
BACKSON 
BISY 
BACKSON
 C.R.
-Winnie the Pooh

Lately I have been really busy and have been having a hard time getting to my writing. And I miss it. So I decided this morning would be different and that I would blog before the day sweeps me away. I have been getting swept a lot lately!

So here I am, armed with a steaming cup of coffee, which is doing a considerable amount to buoy me through my day. From my desk window, I can see the sun beginning to warm the mountains and hills with its light; closer, I can see my garden and my new ocean and river rock border. I collect rocks, always have, and have managed to collect enough to border my flower beds and build a little cairn by the plum tree. It makes me inexplicably happy.

So where to start? I suppose where I left off would be appropriate! After the Amazing Homecoming, we got right back in the swing of things and had friends over the next night, amidst all the unpacking, which really never got accomplished because we left again the next day!

The next day was my birthday, and the Old Man flew in from southern California for the event. I picked him up at the airport and we loaded the car and headed to the foothills. The dear Mother-In-Law was left with our young charge and we snuck off to the very beautiful Sutter Creek Inn and had the most wonderful alone evening and night. Our room had a fireplace, clawfoot tub, sofa and chaise. The decor was a hodgepodge, but it perfectly suited us.

We played tourist the next morning and then had lunch at the Imperial Inn in Amador city, it was so romantic. They sat us alone out in the back garden. It was one of those soft and warm spring days. They made home squeezed meyer lemon lemonade, which was divine, and had a good selection of local wines. I had a glass of a 2007 Sobon "Old Vines" Zinfandel which smelled HUGE but was surprisingly balanced. We shared an appetizer of various salami's, greens, and olives. I felt like I had been transported to Europe and felt, very much, that I had gotten away!

The next week brought a lovely visit from Practical Sis and her entourage: Husband, boys, and dog. We had a great time, although the weather turned and it was a bit drippy and muddy. The children had much fun in the mud, as you can imagine! We had a picnic and hike by the lake one day and it it cleared enough to BBQ another. Really nice to see Practical Sis but it made me really miss her when she left.

The weekend brought a dinner with my beloved T at her house. She is an accomplished cook and made a most satisfying dinner; salmon with a warm balsamic herb sauce, fingerling potatoes, I made a salad, and delicious warmed bread and butter. I hadn't seen her place in almost a year, since she had moved in, and she has done much to make her place so inviting. T has a way of making her spaces so cozy, relaxing, and elegant in an unpretentious and intimate way.

The next day, we had plans to spend Easter with the MIL, to just go up and back the same day (about 3 hour drive both ways) and I was to bring a dessert. I planned on making Mary Alice's coconut cake and so, after I got back from T's dinner and gotten Babou in bed, I set about making the cake. I have the unfortunate trait of always waiting until the last minute to do things. I got all the ingredients together, floured the pans, arranged my mixing bowls and went to put together the egg beaters. It was then that I realized that they had no beaters. Hmmm. I had a vague recollection of Babou playing in the pan drawer and running back and forth into her little room. I checked the room and found one beater cleverly placed amongst her stuffed animals. I continued my search for the second beater. I looked everywhere. All through her clothes, in pots, I took apart my pan drawer, I looked in all the weird places she hides things, like the shower. By this time it was almost 11pm and I was tired so I took it as a sign of sorts, turned off the oven and put away the bowls and ingredients. I decided I would get up early and make shortcake and just assemble strawberry shortcake at MIL's house, maybe not the wow factor of the coconut cake but very tasty no less. SO I get up in the morning and make the shortcake. I fill two cookie sheets of shortcake and open the oven to bake them. Guess what's in the oven? Yep, the other egg beater!

Which leads me to this week. It has been a calm one, so far. I got sick and lost my voice a little bit. I got it back but sound a little Stevie Nicks-ey! I can't say I don't like it! The Old Man got back from his job for a little break, we have been enjoying being all together, cooking and working in the garden, tying up lose ends from all of our galavanting all over the place; mail, laundry, errands, shopping, etc. Settling back in. This weekend some of my oldest girlfriends are coming to celebrate our collective, spring birthdays. And I am cohosting my friend D's baby shower. I am making the cake. Any guesses?

Home

2009-04-06T10:15:00.000-07:00

No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.
-Lin Yutang

I arrived home, finally, Thursday afternoon. Driving into town, I was amazed at how much had changed in just four weeks, how spring gathers its March momentum to explode into spring. How the trees, bare when I had left, were now like green firecrackers bursting into bloom. Everything soft with life after the bareness of winter.

I pulled into my driveway and grabbed Babou to run up the stairs, leaving my unpacking for later. Inside, I noticed a bouquet of pink tulips on the dining room table! I continued on into the kitchen and saw a beautiful lunch and bottle of wine awaiting me. Hmmm...I continued out to the back yard where I found my friend, the bearer of all these sweet homecomings, having just finished weed whacking the back lawn which must have previously been in excess of three feet tall! The yard was beautiful; flowers blooming, now neatly mowed green, green grass, fig and plum trees filled with leaves, everything lush and happy.

I couldn't believe how lucky I was to get such a homecoming! I am stilled bowled over by it and am so happy to be home, so happy to see the old with new eyes. I have always loved traveling not only because I love seeing new things and ways people live, but because it really puts your own life in perspective. It is the perfect anecdote to ennui of all kinds.

A father's wisdom

2009-04-03T14:39:00.000-07:00

This week I stayed for a couple of days at mom and dad's. It is a perfect midway point for traveling from southern California to northern California. And it is an appreciated break for the road weary.

I spent all of yesterday morning packing and getting ready to leave on the final leg of my journey north. Dad was hanging out and talking to me a I packed. Dad's a talker, and has always been. He is less into conversation and more into lectures, diatribes, that sort of thing. I think it is for this reason that I cannot focus on someone talking at me for any longer than perhaps two minutes. Any longer than the two minutes and I start to drift off as I learned to years ago, into my own thoughts. An early defense mechanism. I learned to say "hmmm," and "really?" at appropriate intervals and get away with it most of the time. I was doing this while he talked at considerable length on a variety of topics.

But then it got interesting. For those of you who are skittish, stop reading here.

He started on the topic of Bucharest. He wanted to know what I had thought of it while I was there a few years ago. Then he figured we should look it up in the dictionary (we look everything up in the dictionary--it is, I am pretty sure, my parents favorite book and what googling is to us now). He got waylayed by the definition of Buddhism instead. He read me that one. Then he started in on religion.

"You know, science and religion, really a lot of contentious sh@#, I figured it out a long time ago by realizing it was all bullsh*%. When Nanny (his aunt that took over his care after his mother passed when he was five) had her Unity meetings, she would just have every sit and clear the sh#$ out of their heads. You'd sit there with your palms up and release your toxic thoughts through one hand and receive the wisdom through the other. Just to empty yourself was what was important. There were no words for what filled you, you just got smarter. And if you didn't get the toxic sh#$ out it would create an imbalance in your system. That doctor Jarvis and the herbalists would have you change your acid balance to fix it but I would just use tums. It clears it out.

Anyway, Nanny was really helpful for people to just sit and be quiet and this one lady was really into it and started asking some pretty serious questions about the meaning of what she was understanding which you really can't think about because it can't be put into words. Yes, she was like that for awhile until she met this 21 year old Indian man with a really big dick and she stopped worrying about it so that was pretty good."

Yeah, that sounds about right. I was laughing all the way home. I am actually still laughing. Totally my dad. That story perfectly expresses my father. He is a trickster of sorts.

Lucky I found my Indian...(old man is part Navajo)...!

Stopped in my Tracks

2009-03-25T11:58:00.000-07:00

Become willing to see the hand of God and accept it as a friend''s offer to help you with what you are doing.
-Julia Cameron

I had no idea how seriously I was destined to taking a break from my daily life. I had arrived in southern California and had been thoroughly enjoying the freedom from the home schedule, the edited housework and cooking, the introduction of long hours to do with what I wanted. To dream, to plan, to explore. To have time to myself.

Last week, however, I was stopped in my tracks by a terrible cold, and an infection in my hurt toe (the toenail I lost last year had never fully grown back correctly) that was being exacerbated by running. I had to go to the doctor and ended up having minor surgery which resulted in me having to take this week off of my feet, let alone running. Through all of this, I missed the deadline for registering for the Dipsea Race.

This has not been my week.

And yet, in a way, it has been my week. I realize that I have not had a chance to really sit still and take stock of my life in a long time. I consume my time with busy-ness and don't often take the time to come up for air and see what is working and what is not. So I have been taking this time to take stock, to think about the rythmn of my days, to make sure I am using my time wisely. Am I moving forward or am I wasting time? What do I want to incorporate into my days and what can be deleted? I am editing, simplifying, and clarifying. I want to live a simpler, more elegant version of my life in which I do less while accomplishing more.

I am returning home next week and am so excited to see my garden, to see what is blooming, to reintroduce myself to my home and my life in the Bay area. I feel renewed. I feel like I have had the time away that I needed to look at things with new eyes and from a fresh perspective. My faith in life has been renewed and I realize again that sometimes misfortunes can really be opportunities, that holding onto your goals too tightly will suffocate them and you, and that by letting go you can get ahead.

Se-lah.

Lovely, Lazy Days(ze)

2009-03-10T15:13:00.001-07:00

I pray you...your play needs no excuse. Never excuse.
-William Shakespeare

We have been in the San Diego area for a few days now, having arrived late Friday night, and are happy to report that we are thoroughly enjoying ourselves! The weekend was spent unpacking and playing. We went to the San Diego zoo with my Old Man's best friend from back in the day.

He is now married and has a little one Babou's age. It was the first time I had ever been to a zoo and I found I was more struck by the plants than the animals. There were a lot of really amazing plants in that zoo! Check out this staghorn fern, one of my favorite plants of all time and here is one of the finest specimens I've seen:

Babou and her new friend had lots of fun chasing each other and making us nervous and worn out from all the chasing!

Saturday night we all headed back to our temporary house and made a traditional Santa Maria style BBQ dinner--so good--including anaheim peppers stuffed with sharp cheddar cheese. Really fun and cool to visit with them down here--we live so far apart we don't get to see each other much.

Sunday was a relaxing day. The RV park where we are staying has a beautiful pond, little playground, and backs up to a creek that is only about an inch deep but provides ample opportunities for fun! Babou spent the afternoon throwing herself into the water and generally slapping around. Ocho busied himself racing back and forth with one of the largest sticks I have yet to see him hoist about. It was so nice to just lay in the sun in the sand and hear the trinkle of a creek. You can say I am pretty relaxed here. It reminds me of being a kid and spending my days by the creek. I am so happy for Babou to have a piece of this experience.

The internet is not working here though so I am going to have to use the nearest library's wireless, about 20 or so minutes away. I am getting library card and am hoping to actually read some books while I am here. I feel so self indulgent playing in creeks with my baby, reading books, getting to know a new area.

It feels so good to get out of my environment for a bit, out of my routine and into a new one less heavy on the household work. I still have the housework and cooking/cleaning, albeit an abbreviated version, but don't have the yard to deal with which makes a big difference.

There is always so much to do at home. Good thing I am resetting my batteries, I plant the second section of out vegetable garden when I get back, start training for the Dipsea race in earnest, and start spring cleaning. But until then, I am going to enjoy every moment of my little vacation!

Spring Hike

2009-03-05T12:27:00.000-08:00

No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow.
-Proverb

Today Babou and I went hiking. It was beautiful. I hope this quote offers hope to all my east coast sisters!

That's all!

Dinner: MacGyver Style

2009-03-04T16:33:00.000-08:00

Beauty is an ecstasy, it is as simple as hunger.
-W. Somerset Maugham

Yesterday I packed up the dog and the baby and headed south again, another long trip with sketchy internet access. I am determined to do better on this trip, make sure no matter how difficult to keep training for the trail race in June, try to keep eating out and junk food to a minimum, and to post at least once a week; hopefully more.

Babou was intent on helping me pack which made everything go a little slower than usual,

and the day was pretty rainy which also slowed the process. However, my dear friend surprised me with a going-on-a-road-trip-gift: the soundtrack to my new favorite movie, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." Do I have the best friends or what? It made the whole drive! It tinted my glasses a warm gold color as I drove, making everything more beautiful, mysterious, and a little foreign!

The road ended at my parents where I delivered Practical Sis, Mary Alice, and my birthday gift.

And then ran out the door and to the store to quickly shop and prepare her birthday dinner. It was 5:30 and they like to eat by 7 at the latest. The problem is my parents live in three houses, each with 1/4 of a kitchen. It was raining heavily and steadily by the time I got to their house, so I wanted to make everything in their house, not walk back and forth between them. Their house has a modified kitchen; a refrigerator, sink and the electric skillet they use to cook with. So that was my challenge for a special birthday dinner.

I got wine first, that always enhances everything you make, gauranteed! Then I got some garlic rosemary polenta (pre-made, in a roll). filet mignon, black peppercorns, canned pears, chocolate sauce, crispy oatmeal cookies (I had wanted meringue cookies, but they had none), and really good vanilla ice cream.

I rushed home and opened wine, fielded Babou, and started dinner while Mum caught up with Rescue Ranger who had called to wish her a happy birthday complete with an a cappella "Happy Birthday." (We have a tradition in our family of calling each other on our birthdays and singing as loudly and wildly as physically possible--even the dogs get into it, I have heard many a howl but really we get so into it it could be any of us for that matter!)

I first sliced the polenta into medallions, dusted them lightly in salt and pepper, and sauteed them in a little olive oil. Once those had cooked, I set them aside, covered, and then added more olive oil to the pan. I got it as hot as an electric skillet will get while I prepared the filets. I cracked the peppercorns and mixed them with seasalt dredging the filets through the mixture. I then seared the steaks, took them off to rest, and next prepared the sauce. I deglazed the skillet with about a 1/3 cup of pomegranite juice and let it reduce in half. Then I added maybe 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar and let that reduce in half again. I added a little salt and would have added a little butter to finish the sauce but they didn't have any so I just left it be and it was still quite good. I whipped up a little simple salad with a balsamic dressing and dinner was on the table!

For dessert, since I was too late to bake a cake or anything, I had decided to make a version of one my favorite desserts we used to serve at the restaurant I worked at during college. It was a scoop of vanilla ice cream sandwiched between two meringue cookies topped with a poached pear and covered in chocolate sauce--divine and easy! Couldn't find meringues to save my life so I used a crispy oatmeal cookie as the base, added a scoop of ice cream, and then topped it with a canned pear half and loads of sticky chocolate sauce! Candles were lit and singing wildly ensued and present opening after that!

I think our dear mother had a really wonderful birthday and was so pleased with all the phone calls and attention. That's what I love about birthdays and what makes me so avid about celebrating them, they can make you feel so amazing, beautiful, and loved. All of which our mother is...amazing, beautiful, and very much loved.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

2009-03-02T15:35:00.000-08:00

I can't guarantee the lovemaking because I happen to be very moody.
Cristina, Vicki Cristina Barcelona

I had the great pleasure of watching Vicki Cristina Barcelona over the weekend, and have to say that if I could drink this film, I would; that if I could consume this film, I would. It is one of the most beautiful, sensual movies I have seen in a very long time. Now I say this with a disclaimer for movie buffs, I watch movies for very different reasons than maybe a lot of people watch movies. I am less interested in the story line than most. I watch movies for the background, for the houses the characters live in, the clothes they wear, the thoughts they think, the passion they express.

This movie fulfilled me completely in this way. It reminded me of traveling with girlfriends, of how different cultures hold different ideals, how art is valued much more highly in other cultures than our own (at least in my experience), how sexuality and love are often subjective and can be used as a catalyst to self knowledge and growth. How it feels to be free. The romance of unfulfilled love; that its incomplete nature is its beauty, it's charm.

I felt like I had gone somewhere after I had watched this movie. In a way, to a place very much like home to me as I have often felt more at home in other countries maybe because I grew up so much more on the fringes of American culture. Not only did I feel I had come home, I felt the well of my soul had been filled with beautiful images. I loved Juan Antonio's home, the pond, the garden, the way they ate, the style of life they lead. I absorbed it, soaked it up, and it made me feel as though I had gone somewhere without having to go anywhere. Which makes all the difference.

So...the big question is (if you've seen the movie) would you go to Orvieto?

Sweating My Prayers

2009-02-27T07:41:00.000-08:00

The woods are lovely dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.
-Robert Frost

Finally I returned to the Dipsea Trail today after a two week respite. I did not stop training, but did miss the stairs that still have me up at night wondering why I am committing to this self torture. Today I was again reminded of the euphoric feelings associated with pushing yourself beyond what you thought possible and surviving to bask in the glow.

It was good for me to get out. It has been raining for most of the week and, while I have been busy and social, I have not actually gotten out of the house much. I have been overly introspective and have been drowning in the intensity of my own thoughts.

As I started out this morning, the rain catching droplets in my hair, I felt freer that I had in days. Running gets me out of my head; I run till I can't think anymore. Being physical balances me as nothing else can. At no other time is my mind as clear as it is after being wiped clean by the sheer force of my exhalations echoing my inhalations. Sometimes I actually feel I am running from my thoughts, running as fast as I can, knowing the strength of my legs can outlast my moods and my mind delivering me from their mire.

Today I got a babysitter, headed for the hills, and ran like hell. My thoughts caught back up with me, but they are softer now, and feel much freer. Running to your very end is the perfect antidote to overthinking.

Focus

2009-02-25T21:43:00.000-08:00

A man is but the product of his thoughts - what he thinks, he becomes.
-Mahatma Ghandi

I have been thinking a lot about the question I posed to myself yesterday. Of course I would rather be anything but a hermit, but it is difficult to maintain your focus when you are in social situations.

Last night I picked up an old religious magazine I used to read a lot when I was younger, called "Science of Mind." I just felt down and needed some grounding. Leafing through the pages and re-absorbing the attitude of positive focus and release of worry, I realized how far I was from this way of being, a way of being I relied upon as a foundation for much of my life.

I realized the question I had posed to myself was not the right question, rather the real question was why was I focusing on the negative, or what I perceived to be the negative, and consequently creating more of it--actually creating a problem when there really isn't one. Most of the time it is within my power to eat sensibly and moderately. On the occasion that I am social, so what? I believe in living life and wouldn't be true if I denied myself. That is not what is causing me to keep the weight on, my focus on it is what is keeping the weight on.

As I dusted off my old positive thinking manuals, my old self was dusted off as well, one that I had been missing for a long time. It is interesting how you need to be reminded of certain things every day. Every day I need to remind myself to think on the brighter side, to be who I want to be instead of strive to be who I want to be, to DO what I want to do instead of wish for it, to move forward in belief, not doubt.

This may seem a far fetched realization but it makes sense to me. I was focusing on what wasn't working instead of what is and what can. I truly believe that what you focus on grows, that attention is everything. Attention is power.

Dieting Dilemmas

2009-02-24T09:51:00.001-08:00

I eat merely to put food out of my mind
-N.F. Simpson

So one of my very best girlfriends came to visit me this weekend and we had grand times discussing life, love, and the pursuit of happiness. G is one of my oldest and dearest friends and, although we appear very different on the outside, we are secretly the same person. Or not so secretly.

In any case, we also share a birthday in common--practically--hers is a day before mine. Over the weekend we discussed our general unhappiness at the extra weight that seems to creep more and more easily onto female bodies as they round the bend from the twenties into the thirties.

So we decided to make a pact to lose 10 lbs by our birthdays in early April. Starting Sunday. As in two days ago. We decided to keep food journals and aim at a certain number of calories and fat grams. And to exercise smarter by varying our routines since we both already exercise very regularly.

It is much harder than I had anticipated. Sunday was alright but yesterday I hosted a dinner party for my much loved friend and former colleague T. I compensated earlier in the day keeping calories and fat to a minimum knowing that I would be eating a richer dinner. I thought ahead and told myself I could have smallish portions of the appetizers, dinner, dessert, and wine.

But you know how it goes. I ended up eating and drinking more than the allotted amount and had great fun and enjoyed it all. I figure that I will eat lightly today as well to compensate for last night.

I just have a hard time limiting myself at dinner parties and social gatherings because it's fun and I love food and wine and conversation. I get into it and completely forget the rules I have carefully laid for myself.

I find when I am alone and cooking just for myself and for my Babou I naturally eat moderately and healthfully and start to lose weight. But as soon as I am cooking for My Old Man or for guests or going out then it all goes out the window. It seems I have a hard time being social and eating normally.

I wonder, do I have to be a hermit to lose weight? (I feel very Carrie Bradshaw.) To be continued...

Transient thoughts

2009-02-23T08:40:00.000-08:00

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
-Annie Dillard

Ahh...finally home again! Babou, Loco O and I got back from our road trip Friday afternoon and have been settling in and having friends over much of the weekend. It is so good to be home and get back to a routine for a bit before we go back to visit the Old Man again. All this traveling takes a toll on me sometimes. I keep waiting somehow for my life to even out to begin taking things seriously, like my diet, writing, and running. But I have to realize these things have to be portable because my life is portable and this is the way we live.

It keeps one flexible for sure. I realize that I just have to think about it a bit. Trying to write on the road was much easier with a laptop but still difficult as the places I stayed didn't have internet access. So much of the time it proved too inconvenient to post. So I didn't, but I think next time I will still write and then post when I have the chance. No excuses.

Also, I ate way too much and ate out more than was necessary. Sometimes it was unavoidable, but much of the time it wasn't. My Old Man's place has a kitchen and I could have cooked more. The reservation he is staying on has really great local produce and I should have taken more advantage of that. Next time I will make myself lunches to eat on the road so as to avoid the fast food slippery slope.

Keeping up with running was hard. I kept up the minimum but with all the time in the car it was really hard. And now it is raining so much that I can't go running with Babou at all and am having to do these horridly cheesy aerobics tapes and hop up and down in my living room! My daughter looks confused, my dog scared!

But, overall, I am so glad I went on this trip. I had a great time for Valentine's Day, got to see both Sophia Katrina and Practical Sis and play with their little ones. ElleBee and I got to check out my alma mater and Cal Poly and practiced driving! I got to meet Jenn at Juggling life AND Yo from Write on Yo! Very cool! And I love road trips, who am I kidding?

I just realize more and more that this is my life and that it is not changing and that I do like it, I like that I get to go places and do different things, I have always loved traveling. But I do realize that it is harder with an entourage than alone and that I can no longer wait until "Monday" to start my diet and exercise goals. That life starts now and doesn't stop. THis is my life and I have to do what I love and is important to me everyday rain to shine traveling or not. Every day presents itself as an opportunity and challenge and I just have to do the best I have with what I've got and be consistent. These are my thoughts and goals this wintry Monday morning.

The Kiss that told Forever

2009-02-14T13:28:00.000-08:00

And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
-Kahlil Gibran

It all started with a kiss. An amazing kiss. A kiss that lasted A Very Long Time. Close to an hour. Maybe more. Really. In the span of that kiss Mr. Jo and I shared our pasts, our present, and our future.

The kiss delineated our lives into "before" and "after." It created a third entity that would live to guide our lives together, holding us as one through good times and bad. Our love was so strong it created a spirit of its own, a guardian spirit, a silent witness and helpful hand.

You see, Mr. Jo and I went the through our 20's together, went through the growing pains of finding our individual paths, our path together, trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle. Our relationship was not an easy one, although it is now. We had a lot of trouble along the way. But love was always there to bridge the gaps, to mend our hearts, helping us love freely again. Love was always there, a silent witness with plans of its own, a life of its own. It held us tight, always reminding us.

Over the years, Mr. Jo and my love has worn us smooth, softened our rough edges, melded our lives together. Mr. Jo has taught me to relax and enjoy life, to take things one day at a time, that a little finesse goes a long way, to trust life and, most of all, how to love.

Since I started my blog, have been trying to find the perfect name for my husband. I know he does not exactly appreciate being called "Mr. Jo," but I just haven't been able to find the right title, that perfect name that encapsulates who he is and what he means to me. But I knew it would come to me.

And it did. Mr. Jo's new name came to me in my middle of the night musings and is perfect, perfect, perfect. So, without further ado, I am very pleased to introduce you to My Old Man.

New Mother, New Baby, New World

2009-02-11T17:06:00.001-08:00

There is no other closeness in human life like the closeness between a mother and her baby.
-Susan Cheever

I am continually amazed by my dear sister, aptly named "Practical Sis." I arrived late afternoon yesterday to find her serene as ever, one and a half year old and two month old surrounding her. Her home beautifully arranged, no laundry awaiting my eager help, her body looking as though it had not just given birth to a baby whose future as a linebacker looks certain. How does she do it?

It is a mystery, that is all I can say. This woman was born under a sign of equilibrium and boy does it show. I am proud of her beyond words. I held her newest little one while she took a shower today, and I was in tears at what a sweet and interested little person she has brought into the world. He smiled and gawed at me and I giggled and cried and gooed at him. Very embarrassing, I am glad Practical Sis was in the shower so she could not see what a Sentimental Sappy Sis I am. I told the little one what a great choice he had made in choosing his mother and father, what a fine life he will live, under the loving guidance of two of the most balanced and calm people I have ever met.

And, if he ever needs some spice, he can most certainly come to visit his auntie Jo anytime he wants to see how the other half lives. I will probably be in the backyard trying to sow a lawn while talking on the phone wearing perhaps high-ish heels as the mood struck me before I could change into sensible gardening clothes. Happens to me all the time. Last spring I chopped down a tree in a strapless dress and sandals because the mood had struck and I had to do it right then! That's the kind of woman I am unfortunately so you can imagine how inspired I am when I am around Practical Sis. I am inspired to slow down. To take my time. To relax and enjoy life. And to have another baby! (Yes, I did say that.)

The cousins are having fun too!

Maybe a little too much! Whoops!

Road Trip

2009-02-10T08:51:00.000-08:00

In America there are two classes of travel - first class, and with children.
-Robert Benchley

I used to love road trips. I'd throw my little bag of necessities in the back seat, throw on the music as loud as possible, and off I would go! I loved driving. Back then I smoked and there was absolutely nothing as freeing as driving down some freeway to some destination contemplating life and having a cigarette. I know, I know, bad BAD Jo, but it's true and I am not sorry to say it.

Much has changed now and the allure of road tripping has lost its lustre. I now travel with a two year old and wiley dog, neither of which care for sitting still. I still have my music, although not blaring any longer. And I have now been a nonsmoker for years. My bag has turned to bags. My car has gotten bigger and still I seem to fill it every time.

The good news is, however, is that road tripping for me is now much more about the destination. I still love the traveling part, but I am much more excited to get there! See new places. New people. This trip is filled with that. I get to meet my NEW nephew and goo and gaw to my hearts content--stay tuned for pictures tomorrow!

I also get to hopefully meet a cherished fellow blogger who has given me a huge Valentine's day boost and who has Mr. Jo's ultimate regard and admiration, Yo. THANK YOU! Check out the link and you can see me win! And I get to visit with sisters and parents and more nieces including our dear Elle Bee. And the road all ends with Mr. Jo who is conveniently located in the nexis of the gatherings working on a job nearby.

And the best part of all? Since I now have a laptop computer that I LOVE I can take you all with me! Ready? You'll have to take you own car though, as mine is already full!

Free Falling

2009-02-06T10:38:00.000-08:00

It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
-Anonymous

I woke up this morning with a jolt, it hitting me that I have said (out loud, mind you) that I am preparing for an athletic feat involving scaling not one, but several mountains, and that I am not only trying to survive it, but race it!

This morning, the part of me that enjoys more...shall we say...hedonistic activities...caught word of my commitment and said WTF? You're going to WHAT?

I don't know why it took so long for this other part of me to realize my plans, maybe she was a bit in denial. But she is no longer and she is on a mission to abort this little dream of mine.

She knows all my weak spots and makes big digs regarding the facts that I am not particularly athletic and have never raced. Ever. How hard it will be to train with a wildcard 2-year-old and husband gone half the time. She knows how to get to me. She taunts me, plays with my mind, beckons with wine and chocolates, a cozy couch, and food TV.

But the more motivated, healthy, enthusiastic, perhaps a bit annoyingly bouncy and tiger-ish part of me has weaponry of its own. Everything I have ever done that I have been proud of I didn't think I could do. I was scared of it. I didn't know how to do it. But every time I realized if I just jumped in and did it rather than over-think it, I could do it.

My philosophy thus far is that all you need to have is the courage to begin, to throw yourself over that edge, over that cliff of disbelief. Once you are falling, you can figure out the rest. The courage is in beginning.

I know this philosophy is not for everyone. It is kind of extreme. I am kind of extreme. I have spent quite a lot of my life throwing myself over cliffs, so to speak, knowing that once I had begun, I could figure out the rest. But it is a working philosophy and can be applied to all kinds of things. Mostly it requires a lot of faith and the courage to jump.

Today my alter ego made herself known, made her arguments, enticed me with her charms. But even she knows I am already gone; I am already in free fall.

Biodynamic: The New Organic?

2009-02-05T10:21:00.000-08:00

Benziger Family Winery, Glen Ellen, CA.

Biodynamics, its advocates assert, maximizes the personality of a given plot of earth. Like a homeopathic doctor, a Biodynamic farmer analyzes the land and determines what is out of balance. The aim is to turn the land into a self-sustaining, self-regulating habitat.
-Peg Melnik

Biodynamic is a word that is getting more and more play lately. I first learned about Biodynamic farming practices while I was working at the wine magazine. It was becoming increasingly popular and had a somewhat cult following among certain groups of winemakers and grape growers. The idea that one could reach beyond organic and create an even more eco-friendly growing environment was, and is, appealing to many environmentally-minded farmers.

A mix of alchemy, astrology, and deep ecology, Biodynamic practices were conceived by Rudolf Steiner, a prominent theosophist of the early 1900's. Rudolf Steiner is also well known the founder of the Waldorf schools. Prompted by local farmers concerned with the effects of conventional agriculture on soil quality, Steiner gave a series of eight lectures in 1924 that would become the foundation for the Biodynamic movement.

Since that first series of lectures, the use of Biodynamic practices has flourished worldwide. The Demeter Association of biodynamic farmers was created in 1928, and holds the standards by which biodynamic practices are measured. It's international counterpart, Demeter International, acts as an overarching association providing consistent global standards for Biodynamic practices.

While the efficacy of Biodynamic farms have been questioned when compared to organic or conventional farming methods, those who adhere to its philosophy seem to have an almost religious conviction regarding its worth and merit.

Biodynamic farming methods hold a deep regard for the overall ecological health of a farm. Land is treated as its own ecological niche, allowing all its parts to play a role in the fulfillment of its production. Herbs are homeopathically prepared to facilitate compost preparation, mixtures must be prepared in specific ways and mixed in one direction or another for specified turns, all to create subtle beneficial energy shifts.

Alchemy and astrology play important roles in biodynamic farming, and perhaps this is where people start looking askance. But, as any Farmers Almanac will remind you, most farmers have relied on astrology since the dawn of its beginning. It is perhaps the first true tool used by farmers to mitigate the uncertainty of crop production.

The special focus on the subtleties of plant energies and their environment, including the cosmos, was, and is, very ahead of its time. Although the efficacy of its practices in terms of yield are unclear, perhaps it is the scientific field that has yet to develop the right study by which to measure its efficacy.

Painful Epiphanies

2009-02-04T08:13:00.000-08:00

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
-Kahlil Gibran

I had my second training session this Sunday. I decided I could go a little faster, push myself a little harder, and I took a third of the stairs two at a time. By the time I got to the top, I was close to throwing up. My legs shaky, my mind numb from the pain.

I pushed through it and tried to run through the breaks from the stairs. I tried to run after the stairs. I could not. Those first two at a time taken stairs had left their indelible mark.

I was not strong enough.

How am I going to run this race without making a fool of myself when I can't even take one flight of the 672-odd steps fast?

The answer to this question is a lesson I have never learned and is crucial for the next phase of my life: to grow naturally a little at a time. A seed does not bear fruit the first day it is planted. Likewise, I will not be strong enough to run all of the Dipsea stairs the second time I train. I will get stronger a little at a time. Naturally.

I had this epiphany a few days later. And, while I am more committed to this race than ever, I am scared. But in that fear of pain, of growing, of trusting myself and my body, of trusting the process of all life and growth, there is great wisdom to be had. I know I am growing in more ways than just physically, through the pain of exertion, I know that I am growing in understanding.

PS--On a much funner note, Yo is having a very fun giveaway! Check it out!

The Mary Alice interview

2009-02-02T09:40:00.001-08:00

Mary Alice recently got interviewed on her post and offered to extend the invitation to any willing readers. Mary Alice always asks good questions so of course I was game...and just like that I got some fun questions in my email..let me know if any of you would like to be interviewed...here is mine:

1.You are a wonderful and inspired cook. When did you realize how much you enjoy it? What event solidified your passion?

I think I realized how much I enjoyed it when I started planning dinners for friends and family--shortly after I moved out and into my own place (with roommates). I think the thing I love best about cooking is creating an ambiance, creating a vibe with food, flowers, music, candles, and guests. I love that. It doesn't have to be fancy to be wonderful.

No real event solidified my passion, but working in good restaurants through college definitely instilled an appreciation of food and wine. I loved the ritual and care of good food and the whole dining experience. To this day, serving has been one of my funnest jobs (if that's a word).

When I first moved to Santa Barbara to go to school, I ended up moving in with the sous chef at the restaurant where I worked. He lived with another sous chef from a different restaurant in area. I learned a lot about food from him (the one from my retaurant, Eric) and I also learned a lot about both food and wine from the chef of the restaurant. They were both very generous to offer me little tips and it was always fun cooking with Eric at home. Or just eating his food!

2. In your perfect world, how would your garden be any bigger than what you have now? If so, what would you grow that you don’t currently?

Oh man that is a loaded question! I would have such a bigger garden in my perfect world. I imagine fields of lavender, herb gardens, much more fruit than I have currently--trees, berries, and melons. I would really love to get more into herbs and have a garden devoted to their cultivation. I am fascinated by their lore, their signatures, the energy and essences they impart. They are truly magical beings that I would like to get to know better.

I would also have vineyards and make my own wine! Ooooh yeah!

3. What is a lesson you hope to impart to your daughter, that our mother imparted to us?

That having less is a less a burden and more a chance to be creative. She taught me to really create things, make things, do the best with what I've got. As our Brother Shoe says "Live below your means." Most importantly and in the same vein, she taught me that class has to do with education and being a cultured person. That is a huge lesson I want to impart in Babou.

4. You have done a lot of traveling. What country did you feel most at home in?

Greece, for sure. Everyone is so friendly and open, they even wave goodbye backwards, summoning your return as they say farewell! The water is clear and refreshing; not so suffocating as it is in more tropical places where it offers little relief. The food is amazing, every ingredient is the best it can be, all the food seems to be showing off how good it is...simply, naturally, phenomenally delicious! I have never seen tomatoes so pleased to be tomatoes--it's like they are screaming "look at me, I am a TOMATO! Woohoo!" Seriously.

5. What is something that you are going to eliminate from your life in the next year?

Worrying. I think it is the biggest waste of time there could possibly be...ever. Looking back on my life I realize how little worry ever did for me. Life works out. You've just got to point yourself in the right direction, work hard at what you love, and life will work out for you. No worry required.

So...if you would like to be interviewed, here is what we do as per Mary Alice:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Dippy Thoughts

2009-01-29T16:00:00.001-08:00

Oh, the wind is in the canyon, and the redwood sirens wail
In their massive lamentations as we swing along the trail,
While the purple shadows muster like ambassadors of the night
Where the glooming mountain lingers like a phantom on the right.

Oh, we pull across the ridges and salute the lone pine-tree
Where it watches like a sentinel above the western sea,
And Bolinas waits below us at the finish of the run
And we see the water glaring as it fuses with the sun.

Oh, we see the boasting breakers come a-sprawling on the sand,
Like some endless game of ten-pins played by Neptune's mighty hand,
And the sky is like a vision as the evening star ascends,
Like a phoenix from the sunset where the ash of evening blends.

Oh, there's nothing like the tonic of the rolling Dipsea Trail,
For we breathe its boundless spirit and the world's distortions pale
while we feel the red blood pulsing as it hits a swifter pace
Like a wild thing loosed to the circle in the rapture of the race.
-The Dipsea Trail, by Waldeman Young

I am not like this. I do not think this way. I am not competitive, I am meditative. I am a lover, not a fighter! And yet, deep within me something has stirred and demanded my attention. I want to run in a competitive race this year. I plan to run in a competitive race this year. I plan on not only living through this, but also enjoying it as a right of passage to a more confident me.

And I think I can do it.

It is all my neighbor's fault. Since She became my neighbor, we discovered our mutual interest in running. She runs regularly and competitively. I wasn't at the time, I was walking/hiking regularly and She inspired me to start running again.

Then She upped the ante and got me to do what I have long shyed away from--running with another person. I have always avoided running with others, always afraid of my ability, of conversation. It dates back to an ill thought out agreement to running with an old friend who ran, literally, circles around me. I have been gun shy ever since.

But I went out on a limb because I really like my neighbor and want to be friends. And I loved it. It was so much easier to run with someone. The time flew by, it was fun, and we got to get to know each other better, I repeat, it was FUN! I could hardly believe.

So when my neighbor invited me to beginning training with Her for the Dipsea run, a big deal run here in my neck of the woods, I surprised myself by going.

By starting.

I told myself I would just train with Her as a goal, perhaps run the route by myself at the end instead of joining the race.

But the bug has bit me and I am committing. I am unsure if I will get in, lots of people try and its hard to get in, but I will try and run the route in June either way. I want to challenge myself, push myself and see my body respond. I want my family and friends to be proud of me and my abilities. But most especially, I want to set a good example for my daughter. I want to show her what a strong woman is and what a strong woman can do. I want to be that for my daughter. So I'd better get strong!!!

Thank you for inspiring me, my dear over-the-fence friend!

This Beautiful Life

2009-01-23T13:46:00.000-08:00

Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body.
-Elizabeth Stone

Babou is deep in the process of discovering and developing her will. And, not surprisingly, it is quite a little force of nature; a squall in the domestic scene.

Yesterday was one of those days that was an extreme test of patience for me. It had finally started raining after a two week dry spell; I was happy it was raining and geared us all up to go to the park and grocery store. Loco O. needed to run and I thought it would be a fun little adventure.

It was not.

Between the dog pulling me one way and the baby pulling me another or, worse, refusing to hold my hand as we traversed busy streets, I thought I was literally going to come out of my skin. The grocery store was worse; she couldn't be in the cart because her rain boots kept falling off so she had to walk with me through the store and that was just way too much fun for her and way too much for me.

When I finally got home, I spent her nap time engrossed in the Sears book entitled "Discipline." It gave me some good ideas and I gave the afternoon and Babou a fresh start.

I don't know if it was the ideas in the Sear's book, or if it was the act of trying to work with Babou but either way the afternoon and evening were a much different story, a much nicer story illustrated with cooperation!

Later that evening, as I was getting ready to put her to bed, I noticed that she was already in bed. She had her doll and was tucking the blankets up around its neck and was giving it a kiss goodnight. She then gave it a squeeze and wiggled her index finger at it and said, very authoritatively, "seepy seepy!" My heart almost burst and I promised myself then and there to always cherish every moment...even the trying ones.

*Note on previous post: I am not that far ahead in my garden, trust me, the pictures that accompany the previous blog were from last April. I love looking at them and thinking of spring. The picture of Babou cracks me up because she look like some cowboy out checking out the back forty!

Growing Gardens and Babies

2009-01-21T10:43:00.001-08:00

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends. To appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Busy last few days with Diver/Mr. Jo/my husband returning home for the weekend, mother-in-law visit, and inauguration day fixation. I literally could not remove myself from my television screen. It was so exciting, so monumental, so dignified, and so profound. So inspiring.

I've been working a lot in the garden trying to get my flower beds ready for more planting. All my bulbs are up so I know where they are to plant some larger flowers. I am trying to kind of create a perennial structure to my flower beds that will be it's mainstay and then I can sort of accessorize with annuals. I had been replanting the whole thing every year but between the vegetable garden and the flowers beds, I don't have the time anymore. So this way I can just do some fun periphery annual plantings every spring and focus most of my attention on the vegetable garden.

I am really excited about my vegetable garden this year. I am planting almost exclusively heirloom varieties, and have been working compost in throughout the year, just digging in whatever kitchen scraps I have available. Nothing too scientific.

The plan is to rent a rototiller this weekend and dig in some fertilizer, We have never done this so I am hoping this will add yet another dimension of growth to our garden. There is just something so amazing about having this little oasis of a backyard. It makes me so happy. And Babou loves it too!

But she has been a little bit of a pain lately with it running through the flower beds breaking bulbs and smashing seedlings. Does anyone else have this problem and come to a conclusion? I want the garden to be hers too but don't know how to keep her out of it during the delicate stages? Any words of wisdom? Ideas? So far I have been yelling "NONONONO" and physically taking her out of the space and trying to give her her own little place and tools to work while I work. That lasts about one minute before she is back. Aiii! All advice welcome! Thank you!

The Creek

2009-01-16T17:14:00.000-08:00

Meaning, moods, the whole scale of our inner experience, finds in nature "the correspondences" through which we may know our boundless selves.
-Kathleen Raine

Thinking about my growing years and what they have meant to me, I have found that I keep coming back to the same genesis, the same background that has influenced my life the most: nature.

Growing up by a creek and close to the ocean has profoundly colored the way in which I perceive the world. Our home was (and is) filled with windows, often open, overlooking the creek below. I was born in that home overlooking the creek, at sunrise. It was my first view, my first baptism, and the heart of my life for many years.

My activities were predicated on the rise and fall of its water, each season bringing its own wonders. We used to swim in the creek; sometimes innertubing down when it was high enough, later in the season, having to crush through thick, green stalks of watercress scenting the ride and our skin.

We would spend hours immersed in its glories, smells, and mysteries. We would sculpt figures from its clay banks. I can still remember exactly its smell and feel. That good, squishy kind of clay that escapes between your fingers. Wonderfully gooey.

We would lay on the beach and build homes and roads through the sands. I would always add an abalone shell pool. I loved the irredescent glint of its sheen, so much like that of water itself.

Later in the year, the santa ana winds would come. They always seemed to begin just before the darkness had begun to thin. Awakening to the change, I remember once dragging my sleeping bag outside onto the porch to feel the wonder of its warm charm. The smell of distant places whispering through its breeze. The excitement of knowing that it would be warm at the beach that day.

Everything seems different when those winds come. You feel different; freer. The creek takes on a different air during those winds, just as a woman changing out of day clothes and into something a little flashier, a little more daring. I relished the dusty wind throwing its pollen and pampas grass fluff.

The fall and winter would come bringing its more sober air. This was the hardest time of the year, the part when we couldn't play in the creek. But the smells were no less enchanting as we visited the flood stained waters checking for signs of clearing. The muddy scent of possibility. We spent hours upon hours with that creek. I knew it intimately, like an old friend.

And it was truly my first friend. It is a part of my soul; a part of me. It taught me that everything has a soul, perhaps most especially plants and animals and ecosystems. It also taught me that life is much grander than we can ever know, and that perhaps it is not for us to know. That there are mysteries embedded in mysteries and that paradox is the energy upon which we exist.