Sometimes it hurts

"How you spend your days, is of course, how you spend your life."-

Annie Dillard.

However plump and green and lush and fervent those leaves are waving at us, "Come join us in our glory" sometimes, we ignore them. Sometimes we miss the point and summer's never long enough and we forget to document what's really around us and gratefulness wanes and we forget to remember that we won't get this back. Slippery moments are meant to be let go of. When our hearts are too full and we've got cucumbers to pickle and a loathsome hot kitchen and dreams of snakes every night. . When those things happen and the dirt is welled up in the crevasses in our chest and we forget to breathe it out and we want answers to come wrapped up in pretty perfect paper and when we shout incomprehensible absurdities at those whose hearts work to steady our own. We lose. When we want and want and want and want like kids in candy shops. When there is no hiding the lack of courage or character or kindness without.  What should we do? What do we do?

And by "we", I mean "me."

I take my daughter to the salv and find harry potter on tape and head over to the fabric store to buy the cloth to make the robes I've been promising her. And I say I'm sorry and I reside in what is enough .And maybe Jim makes me one of his world famous drinks, maybe just after the clock strikes 5.

What we do

"Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest."- Georgia O'keeffe



figment art festival (governor's island nyc)



Yes, as someone else said (whose name I can't remember just now), "we are part of all we have met." But it is what we create out of what we've been dealt that is glittered with meaning and importance and hope of more creating. A glass raised to that actual doing! (One example: A blog post- perhaps I can maintain these smaller posts with more regularity)

Book suggestion of the day that has connections to O'keeffe, but you must read it to find out. A Ladder to the Moon

On Kale juice and quiet

Like a classic April fool's joke, mother nature has it snowing/raining/schmoozing yet again. So the quiet of winter remains. And we are called to stay inside. Inside with our thoughts and energy, trying not to gorge ourselves with food as our bodies call for yet more comfort. I'm trying to stay steadfast to my veganism. Craving change (of diet, environment and internal dialogue) but have yet to manage the gusto I know it will take to burst those on through.

Found this poem over at scratchingonpaper.blogspot.com and had to repost it, for it catches my sentiments for the path we are headed down to a T.

To live content with small means,

                                         to seek elegance rather than luxury,

and refinement rather than fashion,

to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich,

to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly,

to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages,

with open heart,

to bear all cheerfully,

do all bravely,

await occasions,

hurry never -

in a word, to let the spiritual,

unbidden and unconscious,

grow up through the common.

This is to be my symphony.

~ William Ellery Channing

from Earth Prayers from Around The World

That said, it is a "path" that I tread on. I fall short, and slip and get bruised brown. Watching these ones makes it, well, not "easier" but "it." And in this haze of watching and waiting for spring, I pull my mind back to focus on what awaits a steadfast heart. Not ease or contentment, but small bits of overflowing joy.
 

 The kind I see in the proud eyes of these ones as they sport jerseys and balls to honor their dad and his own steadfast, patient heart as he begins to plan out his first season as "head coach."  Waiting for the "right time", meant finding ourselves in the presnt with those looks in their eyes.

Now.I'm hoping that my Kale juice (really just kale, apple, frozen strawberries and some maple syrup in a blender) can keep me "qi-ed up" to carry on with my duties quietly and kindly (enough) until Spring really comes through.

Until then...".wait for it, wait for it" Chug-a-lug, and oh yeah, Cheers!

Yet again, Thankful

Click for an ear in to our world these days

Forsythia brought to bloom early
"Nectar of the gods" (aka grapefruit and lime water)
A prayer in a tree (oragami crane for Japan)
Brightness. Boy. Breath. and the Buddha.

These are a few of the things I am so very grateful for.

This Moment

{this moment}- Amanda Soule

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Everyday Celebrations

What I want Is

C.G. Hanzilcek

What I want is

Enough money

To Do what I want

What I want is

My own hill

And beneath that hill

A pond

In the pond a lazy

Bass or two

And duck feathers

Resting on the mud

Of the shore

Between the hill

And mud a patch

Of grass where I

Can lie and count

My seven trees

My seven clouds

And count the coyotes

Coming down the hill

To drink

Coyote 1 Coyote 2

Wonderful rainy day.
Baked 6 minute vegan chocolate cake
Baked 4 loaves of bread
Made soup
Listened to children on the monitor play all day with no fighting, pretending they were English (accents and all)going to Madagascar for some lunch and "tea"
Did some laundry.
Watched the rain.
Kissed the baby.
No Jury duty for Jim- case cancelled!

In the here and the now

Interested in: and can't wait to use awesome homeschooling/school tool from nytimes (Thanks lady Laura)

 Trying:  to take dear old Dumbledore's advice and be in my life and not only in my dreams. (Ab is loving HP, the boys- not quite as much.)

loving: our outside reading time and adventures in sunlight and fresh air.

Not really missing: the "blue-berry-hot-berry" (blueberries and milk) concoction that is a new kidlet fave. Though I am really missing milk chocolate.