where am I, and how did I get here

2010-02-17T07:02:00.000-05:00

I'm Moving!!! I've moved to One Little Window. Come on over and stop by!

for mothers

2009-12-09T16:08:00.004-05:00

I am an independent woman, a strong woman, someone who has always relied on myself and rarely compromises or backs down from anything I truly believe in. I’ve always loved powerful, creative, strong women and have often been inspired by them. Whether professionals, professors, authors or artists, the power and strength from a focused creative woman is passionate. But there is one thing that makes me angry. Occasionally there is an idea, an undercurrent that I sense from both individuals and society, that somehow a woman with a family, with a spouse or partner, or even more so with children, is somehow less powerful, less independence, less passionately strong, less fierce in her pursuits.

I have a family now. I’ve has a family for a while, but now I have a baby. A great deal of my energy, my time and my spirit goes towards nurturing my baby boy, supporting him, my partner and our family, taking care of us all day to day. I got a new package of cloth diapers in the mail today. A bigger size, they’re being prepped in the washer right now. I feel a calmness and happiness unwrapping them from their box, washing them and taking them out of the dryer, warm in my hands as I stack the now fluffy fabric in the cold laundry room. This very simple task, the feel of this fabric on my skin, the care I take in the lot of it gives me a moment of stillness and intent. But don’t for one second think this takes away from my strength, or diminishes my lofty goals. Don’t for one minute think that I am somehow less than I was before. Don’t you dare think I am somehow not as strong or fierce or passionate. If you think that you have absolutely no idea what it means to parent or to partner.

The hardest thing I’ve ever done is give birth to my son, nurture him, begin to raise him and begin to transition through the growth it has given me. It was not the labor or giving birth that was hard. It was not the sleepless nights or the daily acts. It was realizing that birthing in the traditional American way was not nurturing or safe for any of us, and figuring out how to afford and protect our right to birth at home as we knew was right for our family. It was the discovery of what was right for me, the grasping of it, and the standing up for it. Giving birth to my son at home made me more of myself. Deciding what kind of pregnancy I wanted for myself and for him made me more of myself. Deciding what kind of entrance I wanted to give him into this world made me more of myself. Deciding how I would deal with his colic, his cries, his hunger and his smiles made me more of myself. It doesn’t lessen my passion, rather it gives me strength in my convictions, strength in myself. Losing all my time and freedom has been difficult. Having a baby who doesn’t nap, loves only to be held, and is just now, most nights, sleeping for a couple of hours at a time has been difficult. And yes most of my time is now spent on his care, not in reading, or exercising, or working on something tangible. But it has also been spent dreaming, imagining, and loving, as I was forced into mental and emotional stillness where you cannot disguise yourself with your pursuits. Having children or living in a family is challenging because it takes away a lot of your crutches. I can no longer mold the world to my benefit and do what needs doing or I want to do. Rather, I’m challenged to build my strength of character, to focus my ideas, interests and insights, claiming seconds for myself rather than hours. It doesn’t make me weaker, rather it makes my mindset stronger. I can not be a child, emotions and insights at the whim of outside sources. I have to keep the stillness I’m forced into inside of myself to keep my path straighter than the tip of a pen.

All of these things make me stronger and more of myself, as long as when I do have those seconds or minutes I stand up for myself, claiming every dream I’ve had for son, as well as myself.

Having a family doesn’t make you weaker, it makes you stronger. Having a family doesn’t dilute you, it increases your potency. So never doubt a mother again.

Loving people does not make you compromise yourself, it filters out the insignificant and challenges you to be not just what you imagine yourself to be but what others might see in you, moving you closer to who you really are. It tests you, to see if you’re willing to rise up for your own truth.

I love my little family, I take care of them, they challenge me, they embrace me, and embracing them fuels me with fire that burns hotter than ever before, fire to do, to accomplish, to be, to enjoy and to live.

delusions and compassion

2009-12-04T08:26:00.000-05:00

A human being is a part of the whole called the “universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of… consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in all its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.

Albert Einstein

music

2009-11-25T15:49:00.002-05:00

Some days lately are bookended with music. Music seems to bookend my best days, the days where I lay my head down with the kind of peace that comes from rightness and knowledge of where I am in time, in life, in home and heart. My best days are the days that I’m aware of the new breath my life has, a slower breath where accomplishments are of the soul and not the pocketbook or prospectus. On these days I begin and end my days with music. I usually find the world to have both too many and too few words. Too many words of surface, of speaking, or telling, and too few words of listening, of honesty, of substance and connection. I think sometimes after a day filled with conversation, a day filled with events and speaking and places to go, I end the day feeling empty because I always crave a deeper connection. I crave a connection with the words that were not spoken that lie behind the words that either were or weren’t. Words are too easily held back. Words are too easily used to attack. Despite my love for them words often feel inadequate. Music fills the chasm.

I grew up playing music, I matured listening to it, and I use it for every creative pursuit I try. Now more than any other I use it for the creative pursuit that is my life. In the early early morning, hours before the sun rises, after I put my son down for his last episode at night I slip downstairs, plug in my headphones and pick through notes of old songs and new, remembering how to play not just with my fingers but the ache within me that reaches past common words towards the truth I find so slippery to pursue. At the end of my days I bathe in water and listen to music, usually allowing myself the luxury of two songs. I put the headphones in, turn the music up far too loud for my ears, and drift back into that space that somehow lies within me but is only accessed through deep connection and emotion. I wonder at how music carries me into it so quickly. Especially when I try so hard to find it with words spoken, words shared, words tried.

the idealist

2009-11-15T06:14:00.005-05:00

Beneath my deep pessimism I am an idealist. I'll admit it. I've heard people disparage this word, this concept, idealist. I've heard people infer that someone who is an idealist is childish, inexperienced, somehow not grounded in reality. I think people sometimes think these people who are idealists, especially politically, have not been tested, have not been tried, and have in some ways surely had an easy life. I don't agree. To be an idealist is to dream of a better way. To be an idealist is to hold humanity up to a higher standard. To be an idealist is to know in your heart that better is possible. And in that way I think it's possible to get a broken heart when the world appears to have let you down. But to be an idealist you have to be tenavious, stubborn, persistent. It's easier to let the dream die out. It's easier to say, well - that's not possible so I'm not going to try, I'll just work within reality. But just because something is easier doesn't mean it's the adult way of doing things. In fact, I think it should be the opposite.

I've felt tempted to let reality break me, to avoid it breaking my heart. I've felt tempted to let reality lower my expectations. But I don't think I can. I've said before that having a child makes it impossible for me to consider giving up. That's maybe the most amazing, overwhelming and inspiring change my son has brought me. I won't let myself rollover and give up until I know with certainty I've done my best to provide for him, provide food, shelter, love, safety, reassurance, creativity, awareness, grounding and possibility. So I will fight my own pessimism to remain open to the possibility of change. I won't let one lost election, one absent paycheck, one prejudicial decision, or one leaking roof lower my expectations for the world and the life that is possible for him to have.

"Our moral instincts are immune to the explicitly articulated commandments handed down by religions and governments. Sometimes our moral intuitions will converge with those that culture spells out, and sometimes they will diverge. An understanding of our moral instincts is long overdue." Marc D. Hauser

A Woman's Nation: Reclaim Your Right To Birth Right

2009-11-10T14:41:00.000-05:00

A Woman's Nation: Reclaim Your Right To Birth Right
from Huffington Post

on traveling

2009-10-28T09:16:00.002-04:00

I have been completely obsessed with a television program called Long Way Down, and the first one of its like, Long Way Round. It’s a documentary series following Ewan MacGregor and his friend Charlie Boorman on their motorbike trips around the world. They travel from London to New York going east one trip, and from Scotland to Cape Town, South Africa going south in another.

My son doesn’t nap, well, he does, but only if I’m holding him. And if he doesn’t sleep he’s able to summon a mood cantankerous enough to cause a cosmic shift. So I hold him in the glider we thankfully bought while he eats, and while he sleeps. At three months old this is probably eighty percent of our day. So I sit in this chair, unable to move or get up most of the time.

The irony of my newfound video obsession is not lost on me, nor is the reason I enjoy it so much right now. While sitting in my chair it gives me a way of dreaming about travel, and remembering that there is indeed a whole world out there, with people who are so similar, even if in completely different circumstances. This gives me perspective, something that’s hard to maintain when your world consists entirely of conversations with an infant, a coffee table piled with various magazines or books, laundry undone and a pile of yarn.

I went on my first road trip when I was 20, traveling away from college and the state I grew up in to live in a place I’d never seen or really heard much about. Traveling from Colorado east and north until I arrived in Maine, I hardly left the highways. Yet even that kind of uneventful travel was meaningful to me. There’s something about traveling on the ground, seeing the earth move by you as you move towards a destination, that allows you to place yourself, distinguish your new place on the conceptual map we all carry in our minds of the world.

It’s the conceptual that this kind of travel breaks down, and that’s what I love about it. Seeing places and moving yourself through them breaks down the concept that this place is apart from you. Even on my uneventful trip, the east coast was a conceptual “other” place for me. It was something I imagined in my mind and heard people talk about, but saw as “other”, something that was not a part of my life. Like someone who thinks a certain illness or tragedy will never happen to them, and then it does. Finding yourself standing in a place, smelling, hearing, feeling the world around you in that place makes the realness of it, the biology of it, a part of your life, memory and body. It completely breaks down your preconceived notions of it, and you will never think of it the same way. The same thing happens in a place like Europe, Africa, India, Iraq. I don’t think it matters how foreign or different the place is. Inevitably it becomes a real place with real people.

So events, news, wars and stories that you hear about that happen in a place that you’ve stood take on a new meaning. I think we could all stand to see how small the world is, and how alike we all are. But I think we can also stand to see our differences and learn from them. I want to travel more, and more importantly to me I want my son to be able to travel if he wants. Because I want him to have the perspective it can bring. From the little bit of travel I’ve done, and from doing my chair travel that I do now, by watching this program, reading as much as I can, and purposely remembering that there’s a whole world out there, it helps me feel grateful for all that I do have. I think for a person living in American culture there’s no better medicine than seeing how most of the world lives, with little to no material possessions, but often still great joy.

I spend hours now dreaming what feels like opposing dreams. I dream of building roots, no longer just for me but my son. I dream of giving him the feeling that I never had, of really coming from some place. But I also dream of visiting places, seeing new places, smelling the earth on other parts of the globe. Even deeper than that I dream of feeling a deep connection to both here and there, and how my life might be lived with that connection. Maybe a sustainable farm here, and volunteer projects or connections with children there. I don’t know, I don’t even know where “there” is yet. But just the thinking of it is good for me and hopefully good for my son.

i take it personally

2009-10-21T11:25:00.005-04:00

I’ve always found it hard to ignore things. I remember being very little, still a child, watching television one morning. A commercial came on for some charity, probably save the children or something. It came on in between other commercials, probably for cheerios or shaving cream. I remember how I couldn’t forget about it, felt an impulse to help, and felt somehow horrified that the commercial for these children, just like me only suffering, had been sandwiched between mundane ads. I think it was one of the first moments that I realized that bad things can happen, people can know about them, but they happen anyway and nobody stops them. When I became a vegetarian, and especially when I stayed one, it was because of this same impulse. I could not ignore the suffering I knew happens so that I could eat a food I didn’t truly need. No more than I can now ignore the cries of my child when he believes, in his brand new brain that he needs me, even if I know he’s all right. I’ve always taken things personally, in that I’ve always felt responsible to live my life in a way that doesn’t contribute to the suffering that I can’t justify and don’t see a reason for.

But now I find it even more difficult. Before when I thought of war, an image was brought to my mind of a young man in fatigues, wearing a helmet above his dirty face. Now I think of my son, and the other mothers out there whose boys are grown and wearing the fatigues. And similarly, I sometimes can’t help but take some politics personally. You see I want more than anything else to help fight for a world that will be kind to my son, even as my greatest desire is to raise a boy that is kind to the world. Maine right now is voting on a motion to repeal a law allowing same-sex couples to marry. I believe these campaigns are fostered because of people’s religious views about marriage. And this is what I don’t understand and have a hard time not taking personally. I want my son to grow up in a state where people love each other, are committed to each other, and raise their children with intention, stability and creativity. I don’t think it matters how old they are, what religion they are, what color they are or what gender.

I want my son to grow up in a state that in many ways is “old-fashioned”, where he will learn to help a neighbor, grow some food, save a dollar, be happy with less, practice gratitude and get to know the place around him. I want him to grow up in a place welcoming of others, compassionate to all and in this way moral, where he will learn to do the right thing. I don’t understand how judgment and a lack of compassion are moral, and if there is one thing I hope to teach him, it is to embrace diversity.

So when I see political signs up all over, the one’s that give an outcry of peace, love and acceptance give me hope. When I see the ones that imply judgment, what I perceive as warped stodgy morality, and views of a world that I don’t understand, they would depress me, but I don’t have that luxury now. For I think it is my responsibility to do my best to create a world I hope some day my son is proud to live in, where he feels safe not just in body, but in spirit.

just worth watching again, and the inspiration i needed

2009-10-21T06:26:00.002-04:00

Morning Mist

2009-10-15T11:56:00.001-04:00

I'm living in the land of Sebastien Schuller's morning mist, and almost ready to speak again.

New Days

2009-08-14T15:27:00.002-04:00

Dear Son,

Last night you weren’t sleeping again. I sat up, rubbed your back, wondering what was going on in your tiny mind, untainted by words or expectations. I lied down next to you and put my face right in front of yours, looking into your tiny eyes six inches from mine. I asked you what you needed, “don’t you think we should sleep now? Mama needs sleep to, you know”. The room was very dim, just a small nightlight beside the bed casting just enough light so that my eyes, adjusted to the darkness from sleeping, can make you out on the bed, just able to see your pale face clearly. And after I asked you if you thought we should go back to sleep now, nearly begging you to agree with me, your eyes crinkled, glinting at me and your mouth opened wide in a big smile, making me laugh out loud in a way that feels more pure than any laughter I’ve felt since my own childhood. This is the reason I don’t usually mind being so tired. This is the reason the rest of the stresses of life, the rest of the business of summer, the rest of my expectations of motherhood don’t matter. Every day we make our way through together, we get to know each other, as you get to know the world.

You’ll turn a month old day after tomorrow. Part of me looks forward to it. A huge part of me is so excited for the months and years to come, as I get to know who you are, and you get to know me, as we create a rhythm in our lives and get to do more together. I so look forward to when we can talk, and I can hear those thoughts in your head. But another part of me is incredibly aware of how fast the days go by, and how precious the memories of this first month will be. You are small and mighty, as is your influence on my life. In the morning when I come down to meet you and your father after getting ready for whatever the day may bring, sometimes my breath is caught away when I hear you two downstairs. Either your dad is talking to you, or you are fussing at your dad. In the small amount of space that you both hold in this slightly ramshackle house that I now adore for being the place of your birth lies everything in this world that I absolutely need. By the time I get downstairs I am refueled, humbled and maybe sometimes overwhelmed. I love you, and I will live my life in the hope of more midnight smiles.

on proximity and distance

2009-06-15T09:47:00.005-04:00

The other night I had a strange dream. I’ve been cleaning, organizing and as always, always, always, working on our house. We’ve recently joked that it seems to take much less time to create a new human than it does to fix our house. But in this dream I was cleaning an area near my office and found a new door inside of this small closet that has the steam release to our boiler. I opened this door and it was a gateway to a closet of a friend of mine, and into her house across the country. This is one of my many closest friends who all seem to live at least several hundred miles away. Most of my early life I moved away from people, and then as happens after college all of us moved away from each other. So I’m left with many great friends, people incredibly dear to me who each know a part of me that I often wish people in my present life knew, but these people have lives that feel very separate from me. Since these people are scattered across the country, most on the opposite side of it than I am, I often feel like there are little parts of me scattered across the country.

Parts of me that are still a part of their daily life. Parts that stay connected to them in ways impossible for the rest of me in our busy lives here in Maine. There’s something about gestating I think that makes you want to reignite those deep female connections in your life. There’s something about it that makes me want to go to lunch with my girlfriends and feel their support with a hug, and the vibrance of their lives through their stories.

I love where I live. I finally found my home after a quarter century of looking and I don’t intend to leave it. Most of the time not living near all these people that I miss is just something that I think of somewhat somberly, a part of life, a part of adulthood that is inevitable, a sacrifice for finding what I think is the best place for me to live. But sometimes the fact that I like living here so much makes the sadness of missing some of these ladies even more piercing. Because it’s an intentional choice. If feels like I choose a place over them. And even though I know with everything in me and all my experiences that it’s the right choice, it still sometimes almost makes me wish I’d never found this place.

So I guess that’s why in a dream I made a place where I could reach them, near my office, where I sit alone and write these words, where I come when I can’t sleep to read my favorite books, and where I remember other times and other people. If only there was a way to keep the distance we’ve all traveled and the experiences we’ve gathered, staying the people we are now without going back, but have a secret closet where we could still reach each other almost through time, like going to Narnia itself.

Spring 2009

2009-05-28T14:23:00.001-04:00

spring

2009-05-15T10:18:00.009-04:00

I might be waddling around a lot, but I've never enjoyed Spring more...

there's a new kid in town

2009-04-10T14:33:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I saw 2 male woodpeckers fighting like crazy just outside... then I saw this

which made the cardinal mad too...

new lives and new spaces

2009-04-09T12:03:00.001-04:00

Sometimes it seems like life shifts, moves and shimmies in condensed little periods of time. Like little earthquakes that come out of your soul and cause rippling waves of effects all around you. This winter has been a season of changes, the results of which are just beginning to emerge, just as the green of grass is finally this week emerging from under such impenetrable snow. We’re expecting a new life. We’re welcoming a child into our home. This little creature inside me feels like more of a whole personality every day as its sleep patterns begin to effect my own. It seems to like listening to guitar and male voices sing, as well as news broadcasts, and loves baths. But the eccentricities of what this new life will bring to mine I know I can only begin to fathom. But nevertheless, ready or not, in July will be the start of a whole new beginning.

This house we call home is in a constant state of shifting, each season we go through within it has its own effect, allowing us to notice certain things about it that we either like, don’t like, or directly need to fix. It is far from perfect and enormously flawed, as only a truly known house can be. We’ll get to things when we get to them, we’ll fix things when we fix them, and life just has to keep happening within it in the meantime. Over the past several months I’ve been pushing and pulling this house, little bits at a time, so that it will support this new little life coming into it, as well as our changing needs. One thing that needed a drastic shift – my entire workspace. I used to sort of have three workspaces, one for writing and creative thinking, one for sewing and one for storage. This wasn’t always convenient, but I loved the privacy of my little upstairs alcove where most of the writing, sewing and creating happened. But to make room for the baby we had to move part of my closet and my partner’s office. To make room for his office we had to move part of my sewing area. To make room for the sewing area I would have had to get rid of my desk and writing area, etc… etc… etc… So starting from scratch we moved everything into one room with the storage area. Everything is in one area, which is convenient. There are large windows that I love. And never did I think in my life I would have a whole room devoted to my work and creative pursuits regarding this “work”. I love that it’s a room of my own, and that there’s a tree outside (which might be dead, hope with me it can stay up… ). Scouring our barn I found a way to make a work table and sewing table out an old railing, discarded plywood and a new 6 dollar topper. I found some random chairs, stools, posters, lamps and made myself a workspace.

It’s peaceful, and it’s green, my favorite color. I do miss my private little alcove upstairs where I would sew while looking down at the street and field below. But I’ve found over the past years that most spaces when new, make you long for a space that you either dream about or remember. Every day I spend in here working, planning and creating things for others to use makes me connect to this space. Every day I am more comfortable, finding out what part of day has the best light to take pictures. Finding out where exactly I’ll put all the little things, and building up memories and expectations of all the other changes I know are to come.

water and winter, the bump and sun

2009-04-08T11:32:00.004-04:00

Winter is beginning to break. And I am beginning to emerge from it.

on wellness and sunshine

2009-03-17T11:20:00.002-04:00

A lot of my life is set firmly upon the idea that I’ve found my home. Maybe I won’t live in this house for my whole life, but this area, this state, this climate and community are the home that I searched for and have rooted myself into deeply. But every February comes along, with its bleakness and hopelessness, like a chest cold you thought was over, only to linger for a couple extra weeks. Winter in Maine is long. It’s long and consistent, a sign of its character. In Colorado, where I grew up, the climate was a fast mover, a fickle friend. The weather was severe, cold, snowy, windy, but sometimes in the middle of winter you’d have a bright sunny day, when you only needed a sweatshirt outside, and any remaining snow is long gone by noon. Maine is more dependable than that. Most of the time February comes along, and you wonder if you’ll ever see the ground again, if it will ever rise above freezing, and if you’ll ever remember why you love this place so much.

I like shoveling snow (and it’s a good thing I do), I like cold weather more than hot, and the beauty of a clear winter day still strikes me, when I wonder if the sky has ever looked more blue. But come the middle of February even that beauty begins to fade, and my eyes search out green wherever they go. Movies or photos of spring or summer seem like chocolate cake or a Cinnabon for a super strict dieter. There, and full of goodness, but almost sinister in their inaccessibility. And come this time of year, my bleak attitude finally arises and I wonder again why I love this place so much, and why I want to stay.

This past weekend I had a bad chest cold. I had a bad chest cold, and while growingly pregnant didn’t have the privilege of good sleep or pharmaceuticals (which I’m not a fan of anyway, but seriously sometimes a girl just needs a bit of NyQuil). I was feeling growingly pouty and perhaps even slightly despondent. Then we had one of those miracles that happen this time of year and restore all sense of rightness and sanity. A truly, truly, sunny day. I sat at the kitchen table, curtains as open as I could get them, drinking hot tea and eating hashbrowns, and pointed my chest toward the sun. The warmth hit my chest and burned it, simmering it, feeling like it melted my pessimism like it melts the layer of ice on the top of all the snowbanks. It warmed my chest enough to make me feel better, my cough getting lighter, my body finally feeling that thing long absent since the fall, warmth. On days like these I begin to remember why I love it here so much. I love it because the first sign of mud, on a sunny day, hidden for months under layers of ice and snow, brings adults the same joy as it did everyone when they were kids and got to play with it. I love it because absence does make the heart grow fonder, and I would never appreciate the spring as much if I lived somewhere I could take it for granted. I love it because it is real. Life can sometimes be difficult, it just can, and getting through those stretches of difficulty, like the endlessness of winter in February in Maine, allows an appreciation and recognition of beauty when it is finished that I would never have without the challenges that came before it.

spring is coming

2009-03-16T13:23:00.001-04:00

art

2009-02-27T15:36:00.002-05:00

Andrea Dorfman's music video of Tanya Davis' song

as John Mayer says, say what you need to say...

perspective

2009-01-17T07:28:00.002-05:00

http://onedollardietproject.wordpress.com/2009/01/13/maize-in-mombassa/

New Beginnings

2009-01-11T16:03:00.001-05:00

The day before the election I discovered I was going to be a mother. The day of the election was a surreal piece of the present while I tried so hard to imagine what the future might bring. But my hopes and dreams for the future became far greater than any one man or administration might bring. In the future I want my child to be able to enjoy the flight of a bird in front of a snow covered mountain as the golden sun begins to rise on the day. I want there to be more happiness than suffering. More joy than sorrow. For this one child and the world. It’s as simple as that, as big and as small. So when I see suffering now I take it even more personally. While before my determination to resolve some of it left me feeling depleted, because there was no way I could make a big enough dent in all the problems I could see, now I know I have to try, and that trying is a part of my own life.

I had practically given up on politics. I didn’t see any solutions within it. But now I’m more open to any possibility that might bring about a better kind of future and a happier today. I can’t give up now, because I have to believe in a world where people can function together compassionately within it. Even if it’s not a reality, I have to grab onto every grain of peace and beauty I can find so I can hold it all together in my home and present a vision of what the world might be to this little bean within me that will be human.

I’ll be back with more soon, probably more pictures, probably more words. But it’s taking me a little while to adjust to the beat of my new life. I think every life has it’s own rhythm, it’s own drumbeat in the background. My body now contains two heartbeats, mine and another’s, and I find that my drumbeat is dancing a bit irregularly as well. So when I adjust a bit more, and am able to move with it I’ll pick out a melody and try to sing whatever comes out. In the meantime, I’ll stare at the birds, try to see the sunrise as often as possible, and watch the inauguration with enough sight to remember it for two.

I love the fall

2008-11-01T16:28:00.004-04:00

ann cooper

2008-09-26T17:37:00.005-04:00

Ann Cooper: Reinventing School Lunches on Ted Talks. I can't get it to embed...

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ann_cooper_talks_school_lunches.html

talks like these are like a multi-vitamin, or a shot of espresso to me.

dark times

2008-09-22T10:48:00.004-04:00

"In a dark time, the eye begins to see."
Theodore Roethke

As pundits, experts and anchors dispute the good, the bad and the ugly, I guess this is what we can only hope. That through the dark times we might actually begin to see. That through economic collapse we might see the faults in what we'd built. That through media tainted public political opinion, we might see the truth of the people behind it all. That behind frightening possibilities, we might see the truth behind platforms and chose a future rather than a past.

or maybe we'll just remain as aimless as wild turkeys, beating their way through the underbrush...

pundits

2008-09-08T10:45:00.003-04:00

"Wilderness holds an original presence giving expression to that which we lack, the losses we long to recover, the absences we seek to fill. Wilderness revives the memory of unity. Through its protection, we can find faith in our humanity."
Terry Tempest Williams, Red

The further into the political race we get, the more I feel the need to seek out the wilderness...

huh...

2008-09-01T19:42:00.002-04:00

I don't remember the last time I was in an elevator...

food for my thoughts...

nature

2008-08-25T08:26:00.002-04:00

"We are nature. We are nature seeing nature. The redwinged blackbird flies in us."
Susan Griffin

thinkin back

2008-08-24T18:46:00.002-04:00

busy days, not many thoughts

2008-08-24T18:43:00.002-04:00

I've been thinkin' thesis... I'll be back later.

Probably with pics and not too many words...

weather

2008-08-07T22:14:00.000-04:00

The weather has been unpredictable lately. Even more so than usual. And while I know this is natural, nature showing her fiery and moody side, I sometimes can’t help but wish it differently. Lately they predict rain for a week, and the storm clouds just hover above, threatening like a teacher desperate to control an unruly class. Or they predict, finally, a summer day, and I look out the window and it’s raining on the clothes hung on the line outside. And while this means every day is different, while this means every storm is new, unpredicted and therefore more mysterious or dare I say miraculous, the weight of the unknown can still be too wearying.

I’m a planner. I make lists and when I’m done with them organize them. But I love sudden storms, unpredicted with thunderous lightening and a booming voice. I love a sunny day when a cloudy one was expected. I love the thick fog on early fall mornings which others find to be a nuisance. But weeks and weeks of the weather patterns and storm clouds doing as they will, and to hell with the weather forecasts is wearying. It’s wearying from the effort to overcome it.

People used to predict the weather by smell, sight and sound. They watched the behavior of animals, or maybe the direction and way that the breeze blew the fields of wheat or the leaves in the tallest of trees. Now we go to weather.com or check out cnn. If we predict things we avoid catastrophe. If we predict things we can keep them under control. If we can predict everything we’re never surprised. But by doing this it feels like most surprises that creep through the cracks are bad ones. The good ones are rare. I read somewhere recently that your chances of wining the lottery are less than your chances of dying in a car on your way to buy a lottery ticket. That’s great. So how do we possibly keep from getting pessimistic when the only things to happen by chance are bad? How do we stop ourselves from trying to look further and further around the corner, further and further into the future trying to keep the next bad thing from happening. And do we actually do it. If we see the bad thing from around the corner do we actually make it better or just dwell on it further.

So maybe I should stop predicting the weather. So maybe I should go outside and see if it’s raining, or see if it’s sunny. Maybe if I look hard enough at the sky, even though it’s sunny, I’ll be able to see the storm clouds far away that the internet can’t seem to find. So maybe I should just go out in the rain, get as muddy as possible, and let the rain wash the clothes if the sun won’t dry them.

Bertha's Arrival

2008-08-04T13:03:00.002-04:00

I'm pleased to announce the arrival of Bertha. 500 + pounds. 30 inches tall. 22 inches wide.

PS. This room used to be a windowless bathroom...

my first born sunflower

2008-07-22T14:48:00.002-04:00

on love and difficulty

2008-07-21T11:53:00.001-04:00

When you’re a kid and you get a job dog-sitting, or your family takes a visit to the local animal shelter, you’re told not to get attached. You’re told not to get attached to one dog in particular because you can’t keep it, you can’t take it home, or you can’t get a dog yet. Or something like that anyway. Something appeasing. You’re appeased so you don’t cause a scene or whine to your parents for 3 weeks about why you HAVE to have THAT dog. But you’re really being told not to fall in love. You’re told to guard yourself, protect yourself from heartache. Protect yourself from the heartache of lost ice cream cones, stolen toys, no more trips to the amusement park, not having that shiny gold bike, loosing your purple shoes, or that unfulfilled crush in high school. By the time you’re an adult you have a strongly built protective wall around you. You apply for a job, but don’t get too excited or attached to the idea just in case. You find a new apartment, but don’t expect much when you turn in the application just in case that old boss gives you a bad reference. You meet a cute boy/girl and don’t let yourself think past flirtation because it probably won’t work out. And if you get your dog, it’s usually after research into breeds, approval from your landlord, and any other precautions taken.

Of course this isn’t always, and many people still do spontaneous things, and many things probably shouldn’t be done spontaneously. But by the time most people reach adulthood, they’re well trained as to the dangers of the heart. Love makes everything more. Things can happen to something you love and it makes your emotions and attention start swinging on a pendulum of passion. Things can happen to something that you don’t love, and even if you like it a lot you can react objectively. Looking through love, everything you see is more intense, and your whole body can feel what your heart or gut might just hint at.

When I was a kid I never remember minding moving. I don’t remember even once thinking that I wish we didn’t have to move. I don’t remember once wondering why we had to move. By my teens my ability to move myself within 3 days, no help needed, in only my sporty jeep was more than something I was proud of. It was a part of who I was and how I identified myself. But until I was 20 I never loved a place I’d been. I had a brief torrid affair with England, but with the brief kind of passion that can only come from something you know isn’t really real, and more adventure than anything else.

I’ve loved two places since then, one I live in still. But living in this place, this area, this state, makes everything more. My joy is limitless, the beauty is the closest thing to spirit I’ve ever found, but the frustrations are nearly heartbreaking. So as each day throws me on the pendulum of emotion, swinging me this way and that, it’s only through commitment that I center myself. Like any longer love, things are never perfect, especially as they become more and more familiar. But the passion remains. Maybe some days it remains only in frustration or anger. But if I walk through each day intending to be here still, I can move that pendulum back to joy and perfection. While the intensified frustration and anger is sometimes enough to make me flee, for now it’s worth sticking around for the other end of the pendulum swing. For life is so full of questions and unknowns, that when you find the place with the air that when you breath it deep into your lungs gives your body the stillness it needs to look for the answers, it’s worth the stay.

happy fourth

2008-07-04T16:53:00.003-04:00

peace.

here and now

2008-07-03T22:24:00.000-04:00

There are wild roses run amuck all behind my house. Tiny little white blossoms at the end of thriving thorny bushes and branches. They have made clearing in the back nearly impossible, but they’re also somehow what make it worth it. Their claws are more fierce than the claws of any cat I’ve ever met. Yet once our paths were cleared, and they suddenly blossomed, they looked like the most delicate beauty of nature. They did to the paths and bushes and trees what the fog does to the rocky seaside, somehow making it more peaceful, deep, and silent within sound. But unlike the fog, which can seem to last forever, and often comes back the morning after it left, these roses are fleeting. They blossomed lightly one weekend, the next they were in their full glorious bloom, and now most have turned light brown, begun to whither and disappear back into the thorny bushes.

The most important things, the most striking things, often seem to be the most fleeting or the longest lasting. Maybe because time is the uncontrollable thing that nobody has yet to conquer. Middle things are just normal. Fleeting things are delirious, exciting, like a cold shower on a sweltering day, or like a car race going so fast to be done before you know it. These fleeting things, tulips at the beginning of spring, the first steps of a child, that new car smell, the new year’s countdown, or wild roses in the backyard. We give them importance because of their brevity. I don’t stand with awe in the backyard and look at the strong long stalk, now nearly blossom free, with its strong thick thorns and wonder at its strength and tenacity. It’s always there, it grows consistently. I hardly notice it.

Or we embrace those things that seem to last forever. Old couples celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary, old redwoods in California, the mountains in the Rockies, the rocks by the sea, the cathedrals in England, the cliff-dwellings in the southwest. These are so amazing for their timelessness. As if time somehow doesn’t affect them. As if they’ve lasted so long to be beyond us, beyond the daily grind, beyond even the fleeting beauties of nature.

Maybe we only see these things as markers, reminding of us our lives… living. Maybe seeing the fleeting blossom of the wild rose helps us appreciate the fleeting taste of fresh strawberries, or any of the other brief flavors of life. And maybe seeing things that seem to last forever remind us of the long time-line of our own lives, their histories reminding us of our own. But while the scent of lilacs, new baby or the air before the rain may seem to disappear, every breath still breathes in smells. Every day there is something fleeting to take notice of, some are just less obvious, like the shiny new green thorns on the wild rose bushes before they are their full darkness and strength. And everyday there are things around which seem to last forever, or at least contain deep history within them. Like this street in front of me, that now stands with a streetlight standing tall, but which was once the only road in and out of town, carrying many walkers and buggies. Maybe we don’t see that old couple every day, but what about all the sisters, brothers or friends that have lived in thought together forever. Or what about that pet dog that lives all it knows of forever with complete devotion

I don’t know. Maybe seeing those redwoods just makes us believe in forever, or in true love. Or maybe by believing in both fleeting beauties and things that last forever, we can live fully and appreciate today.

office

2008-06-26T19:10:00.005-04:00

My new office

my new window

bertha

2008-06-25T20:44:00.004-04:00

our new stove arrives soon, it's bed is almost made.

i think i shall name it bertha...

on upcycling

2008-06-23T13:07:00.001-04:00

Upcycling is the new, or at least relatively new to me, phrase for using something that might otherwise be thrown away. It’s another one of those things, those words, those ideas that I stumble upon and say to myself, “self, that’s great! That’s radical! That’s the way life should be!”. Then, after my total excitement about how “new” this great idea is I realize how far we’ve strayed, and how far we have to go.

Upcycling is a new word for making do, using up, not wasting, being frugal. Upcycling is what every family history story I’ve ever heard was all about. My New England ancestors upcycled, but would have laughed at the word. They didn’t do this on purpose, they just did it because it’s what you did. How silly is it to travel crazy lengths to buy something for a lot of money that you could make yourself for free with what you find around the house in an hour. It was probably entertainment and adventure before the days of 24 and Lost.

In the very recent past I thought I had to move, today, immediately, or at least as soon as life would allow it. There are too many reasons for this to understand or fully explain, but a huge one was that this house, this lot and this place couldn’t do what I wanted and needed to do with my home right now. It couldn’t. It just couldn’t and I was weary from trying to figure out a way AROUND being able to do these things I needed.

I needed to grow some food. Because I think we all should (I recently read that the average American grass lawn could provide over 50% of the food for the family inside the house). Plus, it’s cheaper which right now is a plus. And it gets me outside… which just makes me better.

I needed nature and had no transportation to go find it, and the birds sitting on the power lines just weren’t doing it. Yes the morning dove seemed to try it’s best to sooth me with it’s coos, but when I looked out at it I just saw the power lines. I needed nature. I needed peace and quiet. I needed to be away from here.

But then, a month later, after we bushwacked, arms scarred from the feisty wild rose thorns, arms covered with a modern art fresco of tan lines, one arm filled out with large shoulder muscles (one side looks like pop-eye, one side still looks like me), and with a few too many new slug friends… I don’t need to leave, at least not right now, not immediately.

An overgrown, thorny, thick, ugly, and I thought completely inaccessible lot behind and to the side of the house has been burrowed through, and I can again get excited about seed catalogs. Yesterday walking through I was amazed we did this in a month, especially since the in-house projects have continued.

Today it would seem that it’s often easier to throw away than to keep. It’s easier to move than to make it work. It’s easier to quit than to deal with it. I don’t think this is always true. It’s easier to think about these things. It’s harder to think about staying with something, keeping something that’s causing pain, anger or frustration. But putting the same energy into staying, making work, upcycling as we do trying to move away or throw away, seems to accomplish about the same. The later is less wasteful, and maybe, at least sometimes, more fulfilling. While sometimes we do need to quit, move or leave, maybe sometimes we really should stay.

solstice moon

2008-06-22T13:26:00.004-04:00

the moon the night of the solstice
with clouds in front of it when I couldn't sleep

Wendell's nature

2008-06-18T08:31:00.003-04:00

"The human definition of the natural world is always going to be too small, because the world's more diverse and complex than we can ever know. We're not going to comprehend it; it comprehends us. The question is whether we can use it with respect. Some people in the past who knew very little biology were able to use the land without destroying it. We, who know a great deal of biology, are destroying our land in order to use it."

Wendell Berry in July's Sun Magazine

seasons

2008-06-14T22:22:00.004-04:00

things that are slightly different if you're causing a ruckus

2008-06-13T17:19:00.005-04:00

If you are renovating, remodeling yourself, doing demolition, gardening, homesteading, roofing, bushwacking, farming or generally causing a ruckus more days than not, there are a couple things that are probably different about your life...

1- you shower at 5, because you can't eat over the smell of your own stench. In the mornings, there's no reason to be clean and fresh.
2 - you are excited when your weekend is over, because you get to sit behind a desk, or stand still and talk to people
3 - you are genuinely excited when new construction books arrive at the library
4 - you dream about having goats, because they would eat the lawn and almost everything else... so you wouldn't have to
5 - you crave lemonade, sandwiches and pasta at every meal
6 - you own more pairs of overalls and boots than you do pants and shoes
7 - you don't understand why people need to go jogging

Vegetable Garden

2008-06-12T14:42:00.003-04:00

My vegetable Garden

I know it doesn't look like much... but wait till next year!

Fog

2008-06-12T14:35:00.003-04:00

One reason I think photos and songs are so powerful is that they are singular. A photo of a flower lets you see the flower, the petals, the slight touch of moisture on each rise of the leaves. A song, especially sung by a beautiful voice lets you hear each tone, each melody, each word with such focus that no other sounds can be heard.

It is hard to savor each moment of life. It is hard to notice all the small things that are out there to be noticed. Because there are so many. Every backyard has almost an infinite number of photo opportunities, quiet moments and details worth distinction. It’s just difficult to focus on them with so much there. Every moment passes quicker than we can fully process it. Every twig of grass completely hides amid a lawn. Every day becomes one pretzel in the big party mix of life.

Unless we’re really paying attention.

There are some things which demand presence, or demand to be noticed. It may be a screaming toddler in a grocery store while a mother is just looking for a nice bar of soap. Just a bloody bar of soap. It may be the car as the engine starts smoking on a hot day on your way to a meeting. It may be the downtrodden shingles on your roof, as water drips down onto the dinner table. It may be a butterfly, landing in your laundry basket as you hang clothes out to dry. Or maybe it’s just a breath, in the middle of the storm of life, that lets you feel where you are again, and maybe even why.

For me an occasional, and sweet-natured, reminder is the fog horns. I live near the ocean. I try to go see it once a week. And while I wouldn’t want to give up my proximity to it, to be honest I rarely see it and sometimes forget that it’s there. Some days I’ll start to realize it’s foggy outside. The other day I was working outside, fighting back the overgrown and thorny bushes, sweating and not feeling the cool, salty, heavy dampness of thick fog. The kind that only really happens near the ocean. Then the low and quiet foghorns sounded. Boats talking to each other. Guiding each other through the fog. Surrounded by trees and birds, it sounded like a birdcall. Well, maybe a Buddha kind of monk of a bird, with a very deep, clear, quiet, completely omniscient voice. Fog horns are sounded to give direction and a sense of place. They’re sounded to give whoever might hear them a sound map, so they can hear where they are, because most other senses are blinded. And the fog horns do just that. Something about their call makes me immediately present and aware of the weather, aware that I’m on a mountain, in the backyard, above the town, by the ocean, where boats and sea guide each other through the fog. Everything is connected in that the sound puts me on a map where I know I am here, and the sound is there, and here we both are going about life.

And when I quiet myself down enough to notice that. Notice it for just a minute, I can almost distinguish each blade of grass, and feel the fog all around me. And when I’m aware of where I am, and when I’m able to notice things, I wonder why did I ever think I needed to travel the entire world, when there really is a world on this mountain, in the town, near the ocean, and where my feet stand.

from Turning The Mind Into an Alley

2008-05-30T15:34:00.001-04:00

"Seeing through ignorance and realizing the meaning of our lives is very precise work -- work for a mind that is stable, clear, and strong. It takes patience to do this practice. As my father used to say, it's like combing our hair over and over again. We're becoming familiar with thoughts that will shift the stream of our being, the direction of our lives -- if we let their meaning penetrate us. In becoming familiar with love and compassion, karma and samsara, the preciousness of being human, the inevitability of death, we train in diving deep into the truth and awakening our dormant wisdom."
Sakyong Mipham

Crayola Sky

2008-05-30T15:30:00.002-04:00

Bushwacking

2008-05-28T22:25:00.010-04:00

The beautiful story of the secret garden almost makes me sad. There is an exquisite, gaping need that a secret garden can fulfill, which is as sharp as it is meaningful. Why does it need to be a secret? Why isn't there another, more welcoming garden. As a kid I read the book, watched the movie (the best one with the beautiful music) and dreamed of my own key that would unlock my own garden. But what is it that makes one want possession of a garden.

People need places. They need secret places, adventurous places, places to challenge them and places to be comfortable. Maybe a secret garden is a place of ultimate privacy. A place like those darkly colored places in your mind or imagination which only you know about. A place that is safe, because nobody will ever find it.

But the story makes me sad because it doesn't show the other places. Wouldn't an open, sunny, welcoming garden be more cheerful, more joyful, more friendly. Wouldn't this, I might assume, be more fulfilling in its splendour than the garden that was closed off from the world. Wouldn't a welcoming, open garden be a sign of life, a celebration of activity. A PART of life. A secret garden somehow feels too separate for me. Too separate from life, and somehow unattainable.

But we all need those secret places, perhaps, as much as we need the public. And if the comfortable garden can't be found, maybe a secret one can be made somewhere. Maybe we need them both. Where I live now I can't have the garden I'd like, can't have the homestead I'd like, and I have no vegetables planted at all. But I am, slowly, burrowing my way through the deep underbrush, fighting through the thorns, to make paths to my own secret place.

Summer?

2008-05-27T10:11:00.003-04:00

It's muggy. Almost. Summer just might actually arrive this year.

Chubby

2008-05-26T10:52:00.003-04:00

Spring

2008-05-26T08:51:00.004-04:00

I forget sometimes how much I need silence. There is something about silence that makes me feel like I need less than I might have thought, like everything might actually be... OK. Have you ever been out on a hike or walking on a spring day, or working outside during a weekend, maybe preoccupied with something that happened. Maybe worried about something that might happen, not really thinking about what you're doing at this moment, when all the sudden you breath, notice the sunshine, and realize that right now all you really need ist he feel of that sun on your skin. Somehow everything else feels further away. Not more distant, still right there, but separated from you somehow.

Every spring in Maine is the same. Everything starts to speed up in a big exciting race to the fourth of July, then swinging back toward fall, descelerating, like a pendulum. As the days get longer, more shops on main street open, traffic picks up, construction crews get working, events get flanned and put in the paper... For the most part there is a fun, exhilarating energy that comes with the quickness of spring. But as we go about in our cars, the birds are building their nests, the chipmunks are buiding their dens, the trees sproud new shoots, the bulbs blossom new tulips and the plants and flowers grow and change as quickly as an infant, in a rush to grow tall enough to touch the sun before the fourth of July. For the most part this activity is fun, exhilarating, with the same energy as a field of lightening bugs enticing each other into matrimony in a field of snow. But with all this fun the deep silence of winter disappears, and with it my ability to notice each thing, individually, and really see it. Wearry from all the activity, in the forest behind the house and on the road in front of me, I fail to appreciate the extent of the beauty and life that I've waited for all winter.

But then after a busy Sunday, when most everything is finished, just as the sun starts to go down, I hear no noise, or at least, only one noise at a time. I hear the birds chirping out back, and nothing else. And somehow the quiet of that one moment, with no talk, no engines, no music, no tv, no appliances (I have a very loud bread machine that gets quite the workout on Sundays), I'm able to recover enough, catch up to my senses. I hear not only the birds now but the ones from earlier in the day. I notice the trees across the street that are full, ad the ones not greet yet above them, seeing the different layers of growth as the blend together in new life. I can think of the events happening around town and distinguish the festivals and the farmers' markets from one another. Just one moment of quiet, stillness helps me process. Just the one moment helps me catch up to my senses and enjoy what I sensed through the day.

spring ponderings

2008-05-13T21:31:00.003-04:00

I made friends with a chipmunk yesterday. I feel i should maybe questions why this was so important to me. Why was this one moment of eye contact, this brief game of hide and seek, this rush when he ran toward me and looked, such a powerful moment, powerful enough to effect my whole day.

the green curtain is filling in

2008-05-13T10:41:00.003-04:00

This time of year I can't keep myself inside, and I physically can't imagine living in a city anymore.

new things are shooting up

2008-04-24T13:21:00.003-04:00

2008-03-17T15:18:00.003-04:00

Sunlight.
Sunlight.
Sunlight, sunlight, sunlight, sunlight.

And when I go outside, I can't even see my breath.

the cloud of winter still covers spring

2008-03-13T10:25:00.002-04:00

effortful sight

2008-03-13T10:08:00.005-04:00

Noticing things can be difficult and paying attention can be painful. I don't think we think about that much, which is why those painful things can stay hidden so easily. It is not just that something around us is camaflouged, it's that we put on the camoflauge. So when we open our eyes trying to notice, record, and take in the beauty, we can't help but also notice things we'd prefer be covered up.

I've often heard people encourage gratitude. I've heard people expound on the joy of simple things. I myself try to notice things, think about things which seem invisible in the movement of today's world. Usually these things are undertaken when we want to understand things better, or slow down our lives, or practice everyday acts of kindness or beauty or gratitude. I look at a bottle of cleaner and try to think what's in it, is it bad for me or the environment? Do I need it? Should I pay money for it? Could baking soda do? Who put this liquid in the bottle and how did it get here... to inspire curiousity and the passion for life of a child, if for no other reason. I try to notice little things in winter that still have some color, even if faded or covered up. I try to notice different kinds of snowflakes that fall at such different times of year, and how sometimes they dissapear into the crowd they fall into. I try to notice these things to stay present in my life, to be aware of my surroundings, and to get out of my modern day, quickly formatting, technology driven mind and rhythm every once in a while. But inevitably you'll also notice things you prefer not to, and you have to either shut down your sight again or continue living life half blind, or you can live through the undesirable, notice, feel and survive the copious amounts of bad stuff there is to see, in order to also see the good.

In trying to understand and notice where things come from you may notice that your toilet paper comes from clearcut forests, and a factory where the people and the town around them suffer from the effects of chemicals and fibers in the air. In trying to notice things you'll realize the coffee you drink every morning is picked in a town that can't grow its own food anymore because they've damaged their forests and fields with pesticides needed to grow your coffee beans. In trying to notice things you'll see the beautiful elderly lady reading the newspaper in the library with bright and interested eyes. You see her jean covered legs tucked neatly under the chair and her peachy, leathery hands waving at almost everyone, since she probably knows everyone in town. But you'll also notice the hunch of the shoulders and the sad challenging eyes of the teenager as she's confronted by the librarian for her noisiness. When trying to notice theings you'll not just hear her loud voice, disturbing the peace of the library, but you'll notice it's 4:00 and must not have anywhere better to be, or anything else to do. You'll notice that when she's convinced she has to leave she suddenly looks younger, not so angry and turns around in an almost circle because she doesn't know where to go or what to do, and who hasn't felt that way at some point, and who hasn't gotten angry about it at least once.

Trying to write about a project of mine, trying to write about this story of mine, I think about things and try to notice them. I have to notice things to remember, I have to notice things to really see and not just get a glimpse. For I am really only half living if I don't. Purposely not looking at something is really the same as looking and turning away, the first just saves you the guilt. But not looking at all also saves you from a lot of joy, a lot of humanness and a lot of small moments that in the act of noticing give you still moments and at least a second where you can say I see that, this is where I am and this is who I am.

But there are still times when I am not ready to sit in the stillness long enough to see, to feel, and to know the whole story. So for the past couple weeks I haven't looked at my story, I haven't tried to notice my place. I've needed to not see, so I've kept my myopic sight by joining the rest of our society and just keeping busy.

spring, no winter, spring, no winter...

2008-03-13T10:07:00.002-04:00

weather

2008-02-15T10:21:00.005-05:00

The weather can effect mood in a way comical, like in a badly written movie with overly moody music. A couple meets after a long time, violins crecendo just as we zoom up for a close up of the kissing couple. A woman stands alone, minding her own business in her kitchen, slow dawnting music gets louder and louder, as fear creeps in and we all KNOW there is an axe murderer around the corner. A man sits at a desk looking out at a cloudy grey day, an hour still before 5. Suddenly the sun comes out, warming the green grass and pushing the clouds away. The man smiles, energy revived, and moves fast to try to leave work early. Cheesy maybe, but true.

This morning I awoke to a blizzard, or at least a lot of snow. I caffeinated myself and went out to shovel the long steep drive. The fluffy snow was just heavy enough to make me warm... sweating... breathing heavier... I enjoyed teh cool air. I saw a friend and neighbor who lives down the road driving an old pickup with a plough on the front of it. I waved, he waved, then backup up and ploughed a good portion of the drive. We visited for a couple minutes, be drove away, I continued shoveling what snow was left, and around the mailbox. Another neighbor came out, beginning to shovel his drive. We waved. A small grey car began to drive toward us, with mountains of snow on top of it. No other cars had driven the snow, unwilling to tackle the 4 inches that had fallen since the city's plough had come by. The little grey car stopped, waved at my neighbor. He leaned down to the passenger window, then walked away, coming back to the car with a broom, and pushed the snow off the back window. I eventually finished, then went to get the big dog to play in the snow in the backyard.

Quaint... hun...

But then as I sit at the table, looking out the window, eating cereal, it starts to rain heavy drops of rain from the grey thick clouds above. I find I have to fight a deep sadness that comes as fast as the water from the sky. Maybe it feels like a rush of the seasons. Maybe its that it makes it harder to stop, notice and enjoy the snow. Maybe its the unexpected, raining down on my happy parade. But it effect my mood, my day, my energy and my body as I trade my parka for a raincoat.

We are so effected by our environments, our places, and yet most of the time ignore them. But their effects on us cannot be ignored. Our bodies bring us back into our places. If it's freezing outside, our bodies need parkas, or we'll die (at least eventually). This place, this day, this weather, demands that I be present, enjoy the snow, sit in the sadness that comes with the rain, and hopefully enjoy the clean air after the rain finally ends. For it can't rain forever, even if it feels like it will right now.

why did the chicken cross the road?

2008-02-10T18:34:00.002-05:00

To get to my house! Ah... life in Maine. And I live in town!

I think they were trying to make their way to city hall to caucus.

2008-02-05T08:57:00.000-05:00

From Four Seasons in Five Senses by David Mas Masumoto

"Once, I stopped a widow after hearing a deeply moving, personal tale of their family farm and the late farmer's ties to the land - emotions rarely expressed nor seen by the family. After a pause, she whispered, "This place... it was his baby."
I stopped and said, "I know your children, they've left the farm. But you shouldn't be telling me these stories. You should tell your children. They need to know."
Her eyes were glassy; she rubbed together her rough, dry hands, which had been quietly folded in her lap. Then she quickly answered, "Aren't you trying to be a writer?" Her hands stopped. "You tell them for me." Then she gently smiled; I swear it looked more like a grin.
I returned to the farm to hear stories. The widow's words became inspiration and simultaneously a "burden of tradition" one generation passes on to another. Here on the farm, voices fromt the past live in the present."

Feet

2008-02-04T15:06:00.000-05:00

This is my floor,
These are my feet.
This is the only sun,
I've seen in a week.

2008-01-22T20:40:00.001-05:00

2008-01-22T20:04:00.000-05:00

One of the first times I felt destructable was as a teenager, while driving. Everyone says "teens feel like they're indistructable" as if it's a bad thing, a reason why they're so irresponsible, a reason for their behavior. But shouldn't everyone start out this way? In a world that to me sometimes feels like an accident or tragedy waiting around every corner, it is entirely beautiful and unique that toddlers, and teenagers, actually don't know that they can be hurt. How beautiful. How innocent. How ideal.

When I realized my own destructability is wasn't from an accident, it wasn't from witnessing anything, and it wasn't from anything happening. It was a moment. I was driving on the highway home late one night. I was listening to music, singing, and then realized I was at my exit. Even as I slowly merged onto the exit ramp an enormous feeling of disorientation consumed me. I literally did not remember driving home. I wasn't aware of my actions or time passing in the 15 minutes or so that I had been on the highway. I wasn't kidnapped by aliens (at least that I remember), I had been day dreaming, zoning out. I had done this drive so many times, and I was comfortable enough driving now that it was habit, instinctual, routine. I didn't really need to be fully conscious in order to drive, or drive this path. But the knowledge that I had done this so subconsciously, so instinctually, completely terrified me. Life, apparently, could be lived unconsciously, unintentionally, unnoticed, and this made me incredibly uncomfortable.

How many more times has this happened to me? Who knows. Too many for me to notice them all. But that's just the thing. I didn't NOTICE them all.

As I get older and life gets, I don't know, however it gets when you become more and more of an adult, this not noticing can happen on a grand scale. We fight through life, we move through our days. We react to things, bills, co-workers, events, the weather, car repairs, tragedies, collaborations... But amongst all this it's hard to find those moments to stop, notice, and decide if we're living intentionally or daydreaming our way down the highway. So often one day we wake up and realize that this job, this relationship, this project, this house, this town, this country, this war, are not what we want. We come to a point where we suddenly see our exit on the highway and wonder "where am I, and how did I get here?"

2008-01-21T20:33:00.000-05:00

I have a stalker. S/He has been here two days in a row. Today looking straight at me as I waved my hands at him/her. For four hours. Yesterday s/he ate the cardinal that comes to visit the backyard.

2008-01-21T20:16:00.000-05:00