My experience:
When something happens to someone you love (if there is even a mile between you, it feels too far and magnifies your helplessness), all the "differences" that manage to distract you into feeling un-connected quickly fall away. What's left is what you have in common, and Everything that We All Have In Common.

What a rich experience, this life on Earth.
Oh, how much it all boils down to love.

Deep and wide love from me to you.

photo: of a photo magneted to our fridge ~ mamas and baybays, BM09

Crafty: Boys in the Backyard

In order to have a garden, we quickly learned that the chickens needed some boundaries. Instead of the obvious easy solution ~ chicken wire around the beds, that sweet Sealion decided to take up a new hobby. He designed and is building, with Austin's help, a bamboo structure surrounding the raised garden beds and deck area of the backyard. If you know Sealion, this industriousness doesn't surprise you in the least. Adorable. And I love the fence! They are placing the "'boo," as he calls it, with three-inch spacing. So you can still see through it, but it creates a pleasing division of space and intimacy to that area that didn't exist before.

Since I wrote that first paragraph, the grandparents have come and gone. As usual, Sealion enlisted everyone's help in completing this project, that, as usual, turned out to be much more of a project than he originally expected (isn't that always the way with projects?! ). And now we can plant the garden! Bravo on the fine fence, fellahs! :-)

framework.

handy: synonym for sexy.

grandparents get in on the action.

Anjali and Austin model one of the two gates.

cherishing

This time.

Here, right now. A place that can be occupied only by you and me. Intimate. The sunlight glows soft. The air just cool enough to encourage snuggling. Noises and activity of downstairs and street fade into the distance. We have been here so many times before, you and I. We tumble into place with ease. Familiar. You welcome sleep just as you gulp the milk. Confident in my presence, you trust in my warmth. I melt into our comfort. Exhale. We are. Here, right now.

So blessed.

Chicken Picker-Upper

Or, as Austin called it, "Pickin' up chickens and puttin' em in her pocket!"

I am astounded by this... Scared for the chickens, but: admittedly very impressed by my daughter. She has the technique ~ of encircling their wings ~ down. And she's done it with more than one chicken. As Miles would say, "she's not scared!"

What can I say...

I like her style.

I did it!

I ran the Shamrock'n Half-Marathon. I am pleased and intrigued that my time was very close ~ within minutes ~ to the first time I ran it three years ago, even though my aim has been simply to finish both times. It feels good to show myself that I can accomplish personal goals, and also be fit, after-baby. And it just feels good to be running again. It's a familiar, pleasant, positive space for me in my body and my mind/heart.

Here's a letter I wrote to Woo about the experience. I think it sums it up well.

Thanks for your note today! The race was fun. After a long warm-up, about 7 miles. And a poopoo break at mile 9! Ha! That helped a lot! After that I had a big burst of energy and was able to pick my pace up (for fun) and really enjoy what my body is capable of. Being in that crowd of people challenging themselves in such a demonstrable way got me teary-eyed yet again. I once again felt so blessed. 1) my physical strength stamina and well-being, and that I have the capacity to regain those after a time of convalescing (treating myself gently during and after pregnancy and healing post-surgery), and 2) that I have wonderful people in my life who love and support me. Arlene and Troy (and Anjali) woke up at 5 with me to get me there and send me off with smiles, and Brian and Austin joined them at the finish line. Josh sent me an encouraging email with a photo of him and Stella cheering. My blog friend Randi sent me a sweet word of encouragement. And you were with me through the whole process, as I couldn't help but think back on that marathon and realize what an accomplishment that was for me, how hard it was(!), and how supportive and cheering you were the whole way. You did not let me down-play it for a second! :-)

Thank you!

Arlene and Brian have let us stay with them in their just-moved-into-home. Their tub has jacuzzi jets, and I treated myself to a luxurious soak post-run. Ahhh!! Arlene is cooking dinner downstairs as I type, and she made homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream in honor of my run!!! What a treat!

Having some mommy-baby and booby time

pre-race as the sun rose.

energized and dancing to the music as we gather minutes before the gun fired.

minutes after crossing the finish line.

me: mommy, and runner (and more).

gratuitous shot of anjali holding the tulips

they picked out for me at the farmers' market as i ran.

(photos by arlene)

Retrospective:

me and my body post-race at the Rock-n-Roll Marathon (26.2!)

(photo by woo lovely)

Preparation

Crawling in bed here in Sacramento for a solid night's sleep before
the Shamrock'n half marathon tomorrow morning. I have had quite a bit
of anxiety about it. As I did my last email reading for the night I
came upon a Daily Groove by Scott Noelle (of Enjoy Parenting, at
right). It said to envision a special something that opens your heart,
and practice envisioning it to become very familiar with what your
heart feels like when it is open - so that you can do it "on
command.". What I immediately thought of was Michael Franti's song,
Love Invincible. On many days when I have woken feeling blah and
desiring an uplift, I have cranked up this song and I just can't help
but dance. So tomorrow as I'm running, I intend for this to be my
soundtrack. If you think of me tomorrow, sing this song. If you don't
know it, just hum along. ; ). It's so peppy, you'll just have to give
in to dancing.

Touch me with the morning sun!
When I feel impossible, show me what is possible.
Teach me love invincible!

(come on now! come on now! show me that ya feel it! show me that you
feel it!)

Happy Birthday, Sealion!!

I am honored to share this journey of life as your partner.

gratitude for here, now

Today I'm grateful for time alone.
One of the two main assignments of The Artist's Way is to go on a weekly "date" with yourself. It must be frivolously fun - like, not an errand or item on a to-do list, or a standard workout, etc., and even better if it's an activity that feels adventurous.  Just for a couple hours a week, intentionally designated self-time to delight the inner child.

This week for my artist date I took myself to see a matinee of Alice in Wonderland ( - in 3D!!)!  As much as I love the fantastic, and of course the fantastical-er the costume and makeup the better always, this was a perfect date.  I stopped in at Guerilla Cafe beforehand and treated myself to a spicy hot chocolate in my to-go mug (and snuck it in to the theater!).  Just right.
Riding my bike there and back with my scarf flowing behind me, I felt so light and free with only myself to attend to.

Photo: upon entering the theater, you may now don the magic goggles.
A nice little less-than-2-hour journey that had me seeing the world in a slightly different way when I emerged.

gratitude for here, now

lightplay on leaves in morning sun.

Sunshine!

Naps.

And my mom ~ it's her birthday today!

gratitude for here, now

I know what I'm grateful for today! Austin's back! He was gone for six weeks - to Australia and New Zealand. I didn't mention his absence here, but I did have a fun time on my food blog writing him a series of letters called, What We Ate (while you were gone). Austin is my partner in kitchen crime. He was an inspiring muse for rhapsodizing about food.

Happy to be sharing the stove and the shopping basket with him once again.

Dear friend, welcome back home! :-)

gratitude for here, now

in my favorite cup: espresso shines in the morning sunlight.

My theme this week is gratitude. Finding gratitude always helps me return to center. Looking around at the everyday details of life, there is always room for gratitude. Always.

This morning as I looked around my immediate vicinity in search of a subject about which to express gratitude, all I could think about was how much I looked forward to having a little bit of espresso. So I decided to go ahead and be thankful that I have the means to procure something so deeply satisfying for me, just a couple blocks up the street. I have a love-hate relationship with espresso (and have had with coffee for most of my adulthood). The little angel on one shoulder reminds me that my extensive nutritional education reiterates the benefits of abstaining from caffeine. She also reminds me that, a mostly-local diet being so important to me, coffee beans are a luxury soaked in diesel fuel even if I do buy organic and fair trade. But the little devil on the other shoulder retorts that I really don't drink that much ~ it takes me days to go through a couple shots of espresso. And it is a great excuse to drink (organic) cream ~ which is encouraged in my dietary principles. And the most important thing: it helps my tortoise-ish behind get buzzing into activity in such a merry way. Oh, and it's so damned tasty. Nothing substitutes for good espresso.

So with the back and forth of living intentionally, there is gratitude in the gray area in between. And a bit of espresso with cream.

gratitude for here, now

Aha ~ there's the gratitude I was trying to share! I found it ~ in the backyard.
I'm so grateful for our lovely backyard haven, and for the creatures who reside there.
They give us joy and contentment on a daily basis.

In the first ~ Anjali feeds the chickens and they peck enthusiastically.

In the second ~ Ana emerges from the henhouse and proclaims her creation: an egg!

for the second time today, Blogger has made complicated what would have been easy.  so i'm just going to post this photo and call it a blogging day before the gratitude that inspired me to blog in the first place turns to all-out agitation. 

breathe in, and then out.

ahhhhhhhhh..... 

( )

inspired by Soulemama

Hello, Springtime! Hello, March!

Ahhhh.  The end of February.  Last Sunday I took the opportunity to snooze on the couch next to my napping daughter.  Waking, I opened my eyes and gazed out the window on the wholly gray day, with the kind of all-day drizzle where if you were to leave the house you might say, "nah, I don't need an umbrella," and after walking not too far you'd be soaked. The kind of drizzle where, as I looked out the window I thought maybe my eyes were just slow to wake up, but, no - it was indeed raining, as it had been all day.
I hesitate to say this, because I believe everything naturally-created is beautifully perfect in its is-ness (even slugs).  But: Sunday I concluded that February is akin to the PMS of the year's cycle.  Good thing it's a short month.  ;-)

For years I have charted my monthly cycle on my iCalendar.  This is a nice habit not only for the obvious heterosexual keeping-track reasons.  Many a time I have had a noteably emotional day, where nothing seemed to go right and instead felt dramatically wrong, and all I felt like doing was crying.  Sealion might say gently, "could this have anything to do with hormones?" and I would respond vehemently, venomously, "you always think that don't you?!" and to prove he was wrong I'd throw myself on the floor, sob loudly and wipe copious amounts of snot on my shirt sleeve.  Then when he wasn't looking, I would sneak to the computer, check the calendar and : sure enough - this day a month ago I cried uncontrollably too!  As much as it irks me that the chemicals squirting through my body could yank my emotional chain, it is also reassuring: tomorrow I don't have to feel this way. And these feelings aren't heralding some shattering life-altering realization; they're just that: feelings. Floating along the river of my consciousness as I witness.

For eons, as our cave-dwelling ancestors looked out on this stretch of late-Winter gloom, reaching the end of their supply of jerky and bones, they would simply toss another log on the fire, gnaw at some leather, and fall back asleep.  But with the electric-charged life we live nowadays, leftover Valentine candy becomes our only hope to stay the course of half-sanity till the crocuses push through the mud.

And so, as February comes to a close and I ponder the deep ponderings and weighty subjects that have crossed my heart during its stay on the calendar page, I feel a lightness lift my soul up out of its heavy galloshes (and chocolate wrappers): "oh - it was just February!"  ha ha!
Glad *that's* over!

Welcome, March!  So good to see you.  

Right Now

I feel blessed to have friends from afar who check in on me through this blog. Thanks for reaching out, loved ones! (:
I left the blog on a melancholy note, but please do not think I'm dwelling in the funk. We have another wonderful visitor! Yay! A visit to chase the winter blahs from even the most sullenly determined blues and moody stewing. Excuses to cook and eat good food, drink wine, roam the hills and explore the nooks of Berkeley and beyond.
Friends are the deep sweet cream atop my mug of raw milk. I love you all! (:

Right Now

Right Now

The assignment:  take a look around you and ~ real fast without thinking too much or trying too hard ~ take photos of what you love Right Now.  I came up with four photos (before the battery died in my camera).  And I added something just cuz:  describe each of the four photos with four words.

Orange: slices of sunshine.

Anjali is a blur.

Papi, strum those chords!

Kitty rumbles the purr.

This exercise was inspired by My Favorite Blogger.

Baby, It's (really!) Cold Outside!

For the past week or so, it has rained hard every day and every night; they blame it on El Nino, that little trickster!  It seems that each day there has been a sunny, or at least dry, window in the afternoon.  So we have run out the door to take advantage of it!  And, amazingly, each day when we have had our fill or our time window is closed, about ten minutes after coming back to the fire, it starts raining!  What timing!

But yesterday, that sunny window never showed.  It was wet all day.  Not only rainy and windy ~ yesterday was cold!  We had a regular winter day here in Berkeley.  The only place to be was right beside the fire.  But the cupboards were picked-over and bare, and the Farmers' Market called.  Or, rather ~ emailed.  Eduardo, the baker-owner of Morell's Bread, emailed all of his regular customers:

I just wanted to remind you that the Ecology Center runs the Berkeley Farmers' Markets rain or shine, cold or warm!

I'm gathering up warm clothes and rain gear and getting ready to brave the storm as are my other fellow vendors.  So come on out to North Berkeley and be a part of what makes our little world here so darned special!

Be well and be safe.

Love - Eduardo 

Well, if we considered being sissies and skipping the market, we weren't about to after that letter!  So I trekked to the market (all 5 blocks!  up hill both ways!) and did my best to buy at least something from each of the skeleton crew of vendors who were out there with pink noses and numb fingers.  Oh, darn!  I had to buy a croissant in order to support that one vendor!  ; )  And, indeed, I was one of a sparse crowd of shoppers that afternoon.  The conversation was warm even if the weather was not, since the vendors had nothing but time.

As the weather is rarely that wintry here, it was an adventure.  And exhilarating!  I was all the better for going, and all the warmer when I got back home to the fire and glass of wine waiting for me.  That night the bratwurst and roasted butternut squash, as delicious as they would have been anyway, were extra tasty because I made the journey to procure them (just think how much slimmer ~ and probably a lot more grateful ~ we'd all be if we had to hunt-and-gather our every meal!).

  

Oh, so cold!  (I really have been in Berkeley too long.  ; )

Celebrationing

Well, I thought I had a little series starting there about Celebration, but some photos that I kept asking a friend for (until I felt like I was bullying her!) haven't surfaced, and life keeps happening!  For now I can send you to Anjali's blog for the version that the grandparents get:   Christmas Celebrations , and Dillon Beach with Friends, but there is much more Celebration yet to include!  Like my thank you cards, the sharing will just be a little late..