5 things I would write more about, if I were not utterly exhausted:
1) Your awesome list ideas rock. Thank you a zillion times. I have never, ever purchased any legit holiday gifts before, oh, December 23, and though that may not change this year, at least I now have no shortage of good ideas! 2) I pierced my ears over the weekend. This was a HUGE deal. My dad never let me pierce my ears as a kid, and for years and years since then I refrained from doing so, first out of an odd deference to him, and then because it made me more unique NOT to have pierced years. Recently however, it dawned on that wearing a gorgeous pair of dangley earings makes an otherwise unimpressive outfit chic and lovely, and I am all about things that make me look good without actually requiring effort... so I went with my most favorite girlfriends in the whole world and got holes in my ears. I cannot imagine what my dad would say if he were alive still. It felt somehow like a childish act of rebellion, and maybe it was. Who knows why we suddenly get the urge to do things?
3) I made the most delicious gingersnaps tonight. Also a random urge. I used fresh ginger, and without a recipie, figured out how to crystalize it. Am I not a domestic goddess? (It's okay, you can lie.)
4) I have been so exhausted at the end of the day I have done no writing, and am feeling utterly guilty about that--especially as deadlines are gradually approaching. But...
5) I stumbled upon an absolutely wonderful book that I've been carrying around with me everywhere and relishing.
A little help, please
What might one give a guy this holiday season? I need some ideas...both for big gifts and tiny ones (Dh & I are uber cheesy; we exchange little treasures every day of advent--a tradition left over from my childhood). I always hate myself when it's December 23 and I haven't thought of anything and end up opting for sweaters. What are you contemplating for the men in your lives?
5 Things I enjoyed today
1) My two very best friends in the whole wide world arrived on my doorstep today, bearing flowers and hugs. 2) The pure bright sunshine of today, and the way the clouds spread out perfectly at sunset in ribbons of red and pink against the blue bowl of the sky.
3) Dinner where everyone was talking and laughing and listening and eating all at once.
4) Making pumpkin pie late at night, and going to bed with its spicy fragrance wafting through the house.
5) Watching Bean lie down in the bathtub and kick and splash.
What are 5 things you enjoyed today?
10 random things
1) This reminded me how much fun it is to write an utterly random list.
2) Things I am into this month: pomegranates, this soap, making homemade granola, Scrubs on tivo, hearing my son giggle, and remembering to make time for the stack of books on my nightstand.
2) Sitting down and beginning anything—a manuscript, a book, my to do list—is the hardest part.
3) When we ripped out a wall in the bathroom upstairs, we found a Dr. Pepper bottle from 1976. It sits on the windowsill in my studio now.
5) I am procrastinating about working on a manuscript right now.
6) I love Tahitian vanilla ice cream.
7) I’m adore this orange infused dark chocolate. Dark chocolate can do no wrong anyway--but with a hint of orange? Reminds me of driving through southern California as a kid and smelling the heady scent of orange blossoms on the breeze.
8) I almost always choose wine by the label.
9) Violence towards women is something I have become deeply angry about, and I want to do more to affect change.
10) Even in winter, I like having bare feet. Radiant heat makes me happy, and so do my clogs.
Your turn. Write 10 random facts about you, right now—here or on your blog. If you post on your blog, leave your link here so I can check 'em out.
Sunday Doing List
* Had my first-ever Aveda facial today. 1 hour of pure relaxation with yummy aromatherapy and massage. Ooh la la! * Loving having my sister in town. So much fun to spend time with someone you like as much as a friend, but love more, because you're related.
* Wrote the words: REMEMBER, IT'S NOT PERSONAL at the top of my day planner, in preparation for tomorrow's parent-teacher conference with difficult parent A. Must survive conference without getting sucked into her negativity.
* Enjoying the handful of bright yellow tulips my mom brought buy. I love flowers, especially in winter.
* Feeling slightly, and ashamedly sore from a leisurely three mile run with my sister. Must get back into the fitness routine!
* Have started reading Oriah Mountain Dreamer's book What We Ache For, and am drinking it up.
* Making a new commitment this week to really taking care of myself, rather than beating myself up over all the things I don't get done and invariably feel overwhelmed by.
* Getting excited that this is the last week before Thanksgiving!
* Getting ready for bed, right now. I think half my problem most of the time is that I don't get enough sleep.
What did you do today? What are your plans for the week?
Sunday List
* As I feared, by bedtime I was running a fever, and spent the night alternately hot and shivering. * Spent Sunday in bed, mostly, watching the light travel across the room, and dreaming bizzare dreams.
* Ate the best soup ever for lunch--made my DH. Just the kind of soup you long for when your sick, light, brothy, with just enough salt.
* Felt my heart expand with amazement as Bean kept coming over to me, wanting to kiss me, or just be close.
* Wrote some last minute lesson plans, and called in sick. Crap. I hate doing that. I feel so responsible for the little rascals I teach.
* You may officially declare this a useless post. Thank NaBloPoMo.
Exhausted
* My best friend showed up on Thursday, and like usual, she made me smile THIS WIDE, knowing just exactly what I mean...offering the best cup of coffee, perfectly sweetened...and waking up at a cheery 6:29am when Bean hurtled down the hall and let himself into her bedroom calling her name with glee. * Bean slept through the night last night (thank god) but I still woke up in the worst mood ever, and had to lie in bed staring at the sky changing from soft pink to blue for a very long time before I was certain I would not bite anyone's head off. I took a nap later, and it didn't help. I still felt like I was trailing myself by a good two yards until noon.
* This afternoon we hosted a get-together for a half-dozen newish friends with toddlers. We sat on the floor. People brought snacks. None of the kids cried. There was lots of chocoalte cake and beer and laughter. The floor was scattered with toys. People stayed for hours. And when they left, we were smiling, but I felt like an eighteen wheeler had run me over.
* I am now certain I'll be sick tomorrow. I'm not much of an extrovert, though I love to be with people. I need down time, re-charge time, quiet time. Anyone want to come to the mytopography house to be my stunt double for a week while I escape to Canada for somenonstop solid alone time? Life has been kicking my butt lately. Even though it's sweet, and full of moments like these:
A Sunday list
... French toast with local syrup ...Freezing rain & sleet
....The power is back on (yesterday it was out nearly all day--a tree down at the end of the road)
...Reading Vanity Fair cover to cover
... Re-reading the underlined parts in favorite books
... Writing lesson plans for the week
.... Hibernating
What are you doing today?
weekend amusement:: edited to add--it was a really crappy day
This. I've always sucked when it comes to popularity contests. A haircut at Aveda. A whole hour of time to ponder my reflection was apparently not what I needed today. My stylist wore shiny black knee high boots and a black dress with several buckles and studs. Also not quite what I envisioned.
Shopping. Without 18 month old company. DH and Bean ended up joining me for lunch. Bean was a grump, and DH ordered pancakes which suddenly made my avocado and melted cheddar openface seem just exactly what I was not in the mood for. I hate ordering something, and ending up wanting something else entirely.
Flowers & chocolate yesterday for no reason from DH. Still really nice.
And a breve latte. For some asinine reason, I got a pomegranate frappucino instead. And then spilled it on my favorite shirt.
No complaints.Somehow I vastly overestimated the potential for today. It was overcast and humid. Ocassionally it would rain lightly and it felt exactly like being spit on. Bean is getting what appears to be a final set of four molar-ish teeth and he's a disaster. Whiny, clingy, needy, and honestly, totally irritating. When he was in my arms he wanted Daddy. When he was in DH's arms he wanted Mommy, when he was at the table he wanted down, and when he was down, he wanted up. He put a bowl full of shells behind the couch; pulled the cat's tail while the poor guy was coughing up a hairball, and is now throwing a bedtime fit, and I'm really entirely sick of hearing him whine. Grrr.
Oh, and apparently I have autumn allergies.
Sunday antics
A walk down to the mail box this morning with Bean to collect mail from yesterday. I lifted him up to open the metal box, and inside? Such cool housewarming CD's put together by the most wonderful Teri. You made my day, woman!!
Bean picked pockets full of acorns on the way back, and during his nap, neighbors we hadn't yet met stopped by to bring us divine blueberry banana bread and an open invitation to dinner.
And after a four mile run with DH, lounging in the backyard with family, soaking up the last rays of summer afternoon sunlight. Bean's giggle wild and heady with glee.
Doing
1) Grinning because it's a perfect 70 degrees and sunny today, with no haze. The mountains seem close enough to touch---like perfect cardboard cut-outs on the set of a play.2) Planning to make kebabs, red wine & peaches and ice cream for dinner with friends tonight. I'm into cooking lately. Trying new spices (juniper berries & star anise), and loving blush wine (how can anyone not love something that color?) 3) Tiling (finally!) our backsplash with lovely white handmade tiles. A zillion special cuts, cement on my cut-off jeans, and we're one step closer to having a finished house. 4) Wincing when I smile because Bean wacked me in the eye brow with DH's watch this morning. Ow. He thought it was FUNNY when I started to cry. Grr.
Doing
1) eating sour cherries2) unpacking boxes in my office and finding: old magnetic poetry, nude pregnant pictures, squeezed out tubes of paint, and a passle of blank cards 3) panting in front of the fan (it's HOT here right now, and humid) 4) loading the truck with broken-down cardboard boxes to take to recycling 5) planning an evening of leisure with just DH: frisbee, perhaps, or a picnic 6) grouting the last of the tile and staining doors (a bathroom door would be devine) 7) removing the daily dead mouse gift our cat brings to the back door (why, why do they do that?) 8) making grilled cheese waffles for lunch (try it) 9) hankering to make peach pie 10) wishing I had more time to blog
Things I crave right now:
1) Having paint on my fingers and making things again. 2) Splattering paint on the page & blotting a wet brush on the corner of my terry robe. 3) Sitting in a bright oval of lamplight in my new studio, stuff still in boxes everywhere, and not minding when a little paint gets on the floor. 4) Eating dinner outside, with shadows growing long across the slatted table. 5) Licking my fingers after eating something sweet. 6) Walking with my guys after dinner along new trails; finding a pond with a topsy-turvy bird house on a pole, and an old stone wall from long ago. 7) This song. It has the perfect beat. Hearing it once is not enough. 8) The way DH has been glancing at me lately, across the room. In that kind of way. 9) Fresh sheets and fresh flowers in my bedroom 10) A clothesline mood wall like Mav’s to hang whatever strikes my whimsy.
What are you craving?
(Go on, you know you want to write a list!)
The past three days by the numbers:
8 hours spent writing applications.6 application packages sent out. 400 other applicants competing for the same positions. 1,000,000,000 units of stress about obtaining one of said positions.
1 mother visiting. 5 loads of laundry done by said mother. 1 happy grandson.
6 hours of drywalling. 1 diningroom completed. 2 black-hole hours at Home Depot.
3 hours in the emergency room. 2 new babies came into the world while we were there. 1,000,000,000,000, (x infininity) units of gratitude that everything is okay.
6 hours of interrupted sleep. 3 possible teeth on their way in. 2 exhausted parents.
I swear I'll post tonight & I heart you all for writing me emails wondering where I am.
Enjoyment at random
I’m feeling inklings of that today. The maples are all flirty with little red catkin blossoms, and the magnolias (one of my favorite flowers) are blooming everywhere. And all day I felt kind of haphazard, but in a good way. Carefree, non sequitur, goofy. Things are strewn about everywhere, the house is a mess, and Bean was off schedule all day, but for some reason I haven't minded. Instead I painted, and wrote a list of ten random things that strike my fancy.
2) I have the hankering this week to look at art by Gorgia O’Keefe. Again, this must be a spring thing. Her flowers. Surely you have seen them.
3) I just remembered how much I loved reading Jitterbug Perfume, by Tom Robbins when I was in high school. He writes in such a wild, heady, ridiculous, over-zealous, over-educated, over-the top way that I dig, sometimes. When I read it then, it was at the suggestion of my first serious boyfriend and we were all loopy for each other. Sappy, yes. But it really IS a great love story.
4) I’ve had time to mull over the changes coming up (re: going back to work,) and it seems okay to me now. Exciting even. This is what I’m like: it takes me a day or two to warm to an idea, and then I’m all game.
5) I’m over my chai tea obsession that lasted me through the many months of cold winter. Now I’m in love with iced, sweetened green tea.
6) I’m planning on buying bagfulls of wild flower seeds this weekend, and scattering on the hillside below our house. I won’t have time this year to plant a real garden, but it will be fun to see what comes up from the handfuls I toss about.
7) The Vanity Fair Green Issue is my bathroom reading this month.
8) I am daydreaming about my future studio. I can hardly fathom what it will be like not to be doing paintings on the dining room table. I’m looking at paint samples, picture hangers, and storage options. Pure heaven.
9) I’ve started listening to NPR’s jazz profiles. I could do this all day. Like higher math, jazz is something I find utterly mind-blowing.
10) We had a picnic tonight in the new house, in the room that will be my studio. Indian take out: chicken curry, aloo ghobi, naan with coconut, lassi, mango chutney, raita. Bean sat on the floor with us and fed me spoonful after spoonful of rice, and then ran circles around us, his face smudged yellow from the curry.
Your turn: ten random foot loose & fancy free things.
Delight
In the Artist’s Way this week it says: “The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight.â€
Here are my reasons for delight:
*I went on an artist's date to the grocery store last night and let myself revel in the scent of mangos, the big glass jugs of milk, the ripe avocados. In line I ate raspberry chocolate. And the best part? It was just me.
* We bought our house yesterday, in the middle of torrential rain. It is officially ours!
* Today it is sunny and DH’s parents have arrived to help us with babysitting and initial demolition for renovations.
Indigo Leaf Magazine has been launched and I’m so excited to be a contributor!
The Mama Says Om STORE is open, and the t-shirts are fantastic!
Some days feel like the top of the mountain is always just a little farther
Yesterday I woke up with a sore throat and spent the day mostly trying to sleep with an almost-toddler who wanted to mostly NOT SLEEP. This involved several low points in parenting, including DH and I getting on each other's last nerve, while Bean pulled CD after CD of the shelf and let it go shattering onto the floor. We did manage to resuscitate the evening somewhat, with a trip to Barns & Noble where we drank tea and leafed through the most recent celeb gossip magazines. (Yes, I do that. Shamelessly.) We also poked through a tile store with the most exquisite handmade tile, and I grabbed several leaflets showcasing exotic glazes and mosaics—thinking I might use them as ephemera for collages.
But last night was mostly like an extension of the more tedious moments of yesterday---with Bean nuzzling up against my face, as if he needed very air I exhaled on his cheek to believe I was there. The minute I got up to pee he began wailing so fiercely, you'd believe that I had left him in the woods surrounded by a pack of wild dogs, rather than in DH's big strong arms.
Now I’ve got him occupied with various kitchen containers and blocks, but this was only after a meltdown of mammoth proportions that involved the proverbial river of snot and much gnashing of teeth. It’s sure to last all of five minutes before he makes his way back to directly underfoot. Where he’ll stand clenching my leg and whining plaintively, before he melts entirely into a little angry puddle on the floor. I’m such a fuzzy headed wimp when I’m sick. I have two deadlines I’ve been procrastinating on and I suddenly can’t imagine meeting them. I can’t imagine staying awake or thinking anything cogent long enough to meet them.
I’ll leave you on a high note though. The Artist’s Way this week asks you to think about five lives you would live if you were not living your own. At first I had a very hard time answering this, because I LIKE living my life. Most days (when I’m not sniveling and sick) I like who I am becoming and love who I’ve decided to travel this road of becoming with. I’m passionate about the things I’ve chosen—writing, and art and teaching, even on the days when I feel like I’ll never really amount to anything in any one of those fields. But, if I had to pick, here is what I’d be—or whose life I would live:
• A homeopathic OBGYN/Family Practice Doctor • A photographer for National Geographic • Barbara Kingsolver • Scarlett Johansson • Mary Oliver
Of course, the AW also tells you to figure out some way to do something that lives out even the very smallest part of one of those lives, but I'm too blurry to think creatively at the moment. Instead, I'll put it on you: What would you be? Or who?
Say Yes
For the past few days I've been trying to articulate what I want truly for this year. What the deepest, pomegranate red portion of my heart longs for. What my soul asks for thirstily, standing by the river of my dreams. And I’ve come up with this: I want this year to be rich in experience. I want to say yes to each moment as it happens.
Tonight at the gym, whirring away on the ellipse machine my in new running shoes, I started reading a dog-eared copy of Oprah. Somehow it was not by chance that I turned to a review of the book, Goal Free Living: Have the Life You Want Now!, which posits the brilliant, wild, possible truth that the happiest people in the world are those who life richly in the moment, following their passions. Goals, the author says, limit the outcome. Success is possible with goals, but narrowly. MORE is possible than your goals. I’m game for that.
But I also there is a certain magic in the superhero way of looking at things. Put the unsayable secret dreams of your heart down in writing. Say yes to the things you wish for yourself if you dared. And then say yes to this very moment.
A year goes quickly by
It’s New Year’s Eve, and like nearly everyone else who has lived since the time when the calendar we use today first was implemented, I find myself taking pause, making lists, and feeling a bit dumbfounded at how quickly and suddenly the year has come to completion. This year was one of beginnings and endings for me. One of monumental changes. A job ended. Motherhood began. My entire sense of self has shifted deeply this year.
I want to write profound things, or at least meaningful ones, but my head aches from too little sleep. Yesterday we played. Today we drove home: seven hours in the car with Bean, starting at 4a.m. Tiredness saturates my body. We didn’t leave the house clean, and came back to find it had not cleaned itself. The plants---almost dead, the laundry—still not done. But it feels good to be home again in this tiny place where Bean is safe in every room (all hazards have already been cleared) and I can scoot from the bathroom to the bedroom in barely a towel without worrying I’ll offend someone.
I sit with my feet on DH’s thigh, my laptop in my lap, and the cat curled close to my toes. Our shared silence and closeness fills me with contentment. And then I think, CRAP. We’re acting like OLD FOLKS. We had dinner with friends, babies in tow, at five. Watched fireworks over the water by 7:30, and by 8 p.m. were home running a bath for Bean. But oddly, it’s been the best New Year’s Eve I can remember in a long time. So much to look forward to. So much to be greatful for. And absolutely zero expectations of a glamorous night out somewhere in uncomfortably pretty shoes and a slinky dress.
So here are my lists (I love lists):
Do: The Artist’s Way creative workshop. The Breadloaf Writer’s workshop Get to know the neighbors in our new home Learn to make authentic chai tea Plant a vegetable garden Apprentice at an apiary Complete a triathlon
Be: Present in the moment Patient with my son and husband Open to new possibilities Flexible in the face of change Generous with the resources I have Brave enough to take risks Disciplined enough to follow through
Dream: Of having a life rich in experiences Of traveling abroad with my family Of teaching writing Of making a home, HOME Of growing new friendships Of becoming involved in the local community Of making a difference
A list of beautiful things
...that have caught my eye or gave me reason to pause:
This necklace.
This photo.
The chai tea from this place. (I also love the fact that on the wall by the counter hangs a hammer. Below it is a note that reads, In case of emergency, smash anything.)
This found art.
This church.
This t-shirt.
These classes.
These sheets.
This project.
…and this online zine.