A Still Verdictless Life

Thanksgiving In Space

2011-11-24T11:43:00.000-08:00

Holidays seem to be filled with expectations, obligations and stress, which I'm pretty sure is the opposite of the way its supposed to be. In my gypsy life I have spent quite a few holidays away from home and it always gives me a great perspective on what's important and what's enjoyable.
The nearest I came to stress this year was adjusting to new pie crust ingredients (lard and sprouted flour, both of which I am really excited about) and realizing I didn't have a round pan (time was this would have brought me to tears as the underlying fear was that nobody would like me anymore if I didn't make the pie they (I) were expecting). I made the crusts last night, and this morning after my morning beverage I was ready to make the filling which took about 10 minutes. I used to make at least 2 kinds of pie as well; no more!
After breakfast I went to a park near where I'm staying that is mostly for dog walkers, but they allow you in without a dog. It is right on the water and in the distance the Bay and Golden Gate bridges and San Francisco were wrapped in low clouds. Its fun to observe all the dogs; they absolutely embody their personality, whereas humans all take great pains to looks relatively the same as everyone else. I walked for close to an hour and now I have about two hours until I am expected at the big feast and nothing to do but get dressed!
I have been thinking all morning about thanks and how I used to be looking always for really big things to be thankful for and feeling bad that someone else seemed to have something more impressive. Today the things I am grateful for are the small, big things, like weather and breathing and plants and stoves, the kind of things you forget are gifts if you are caught up rushing to meet expectations and obligations. And I'm grateful for the space to do this.

Spreading Everyday Godness

2011-11-13T09:19:00.000-08:00

It seems I only write when I'm lonely, mad about something, or have something to brag about. I don't like this pattern; it puts the not-so-nice stuff out into circulation and only celebrates the monumental. I'm going to try to pay homage to the ordinary things that make life grand (incidentally I am trying to pay more attention to these things in my life in general).
I've had a really nice weekend after a bit of a hectic week. I planned to do a tour of bay area Goodwill stores yesterday which just happened to be their 50% off clothing day - sweet! Then I went to the local movie theater that also serves dinner while you watch the show. My pizza was overcooked and bland and my $4 artisan root beer had high-fructose corn syrup in it, but I managed to let these things roll off my back and really enjoyed the movie: J. Edgar. I guess I knew nothing about the guy, poor troubled man! Oh, and I began that day with sourdough crumpets I made which were a) so delicious I want to eat them for every meal and b) so much easier to make than I anticipated. I have been shy of sourdough because it seemed complicated and "scientific", but I am now very inspired to keep my starter well-cared-for and to try something out every week (maybe I'll try new things when I get tired of crumpets, which is not likely until mid-2012).
Today I am laundering all my Goodwill finds and roasting some Oz Farm delicata squash which I plan to stuff with the heavenly smelling confetti rice I just made and top with cheddar cheese for my brunch. This afternoon I will go to the kitchen and learn how to butcher a pig, and then there will be nothing on earth I can't do!
Okay, so there are maybe a few extraordinary things celebrated here, but I am also thrilled about things like squirrels running along the fence with food in their mouths and the miracle of the indoor shower!

What Do We Do?

2011-10-20T18:11:00.000-07:00

Folks at the kitchen like to talk about the horrible things in the world. I don't think its good to bury one's head in the sand, but how do you even start to try to fix what's gone wrong?
I heard a piece on NPR the other day about teachers cheating on standardized tests on behalf of students, and the experts proposed a number of possible solutions: have someone else proctor the tests, make it harder to cheat. There was no mention that perhaps standardized tests were not an effective measure of educational success, that ideas and solutions will take us farther than answers, especially multiple choice ones. This is how I feel about all the world's ills, I feel like we aren't even asking the right questions, but at least I am glad that people are asking something!
I've been thinking a lot about the picture of the world that most young people are exposed to. Its like they only have a, b, c, and d to choose from when considering their own lives and futures. Even when we tell them they can be anything they want, how can they choose something they don't even know exists? I never thought I would be 37 and have no idea where my life was going, but how many people did I know as a child who where contented wanderers?

Mending

2011-10-16T08:30:00.000-07:00

I've been spending the last few days doing close to nothing as I try to give my arm a break from the repetitive use that has caused it to become an extremely loud complainer. In the spring I developed some pain in my arm and wrist from all the veggie chopping I'd done all winter. My fantastic chiropracter helped me through that and I have now sought the aid of an accupuncturist, who is also helping my get rid of the splotchy skin rash I've had off and on for the past 3 years. Anyway I started out the weekend feeling very much like an invalid, but have spent my time wisely in feeding myself well and examining my inner uncertainties. I am feeling stronger and more directed and looking forward to the purpose and comradery of the kitchen again tomorrow!

Healing Retreat

2011-10-11T19:16:00.000-07:00

I spent a renewing and relaxing weekend in the middle of nowhere. My dear friend Alysoun, whom I have not seen since she was pregnant with her first child (who is now 5) and her husband Tarry (and now 2 children) live in Mendocino county where he is the manager of a small organic farm. The only way to get there is to spend almost three hours on the exasperatingly winding Highway 1, but once there, the town of about 450 residents and the farm nestled in a fertile valley are charming and delightful. The farm and their house are totally off the grid. They are in the midst of making some improvements, but both toilet and shower are currently outside (and it is none too warm) and until a second yurt arrives this week, the parents' bed is in the living room. I stayed in the guest shack, which might sound unpleasant, but Alysoun has always been a masterful nest-maker, so I slept swaddled in down with a hot water bottle and was in heaven!
I read lots of sweet English storybooks to Brendan and Sophie, ate tons of fresh, delicious veggies and apples, visited their heavenly neighborhood bakery, and sat and watched the sea, but what really brought me back to life was our conversations. Alysoun and Tarry and I were all at Emerson together and there was plenty of good reminiscing, but we also share similar wishes and frustrations, and it was such fun to dream together. Alysoun is a brilliant listener and attention-giver and I just felt so taken care of all weekend!
On Sunday they packed my car full of produce; apples galore, a pumpkin, onions, garlic, greens, tomatoes, potatoes, zucchini, a bunch of fresh rosemary, and two sandwich bags of chanterelle mushrooms! I have eaten like a queen ever since!
I have felt lighter and more at ease since our visit and look forward to going back soon!

Kraut

2011-10-05T18:16:00.000-07:00

I'm going on a kraut campaign. Okay, I'm a little late in following the fad of fermented vegetables, but I have got a sick, sick relationship to sugar and I am told it can be cured by having a fling with sauerkaut on the side.

Our class today was about medicinal uses for culinary herbs, very inspiring! We made fire cider by adding garlic, ginger, horseradish, cayenne and lemon rind to apple cider vinegar. We have to let it sit for 4 weeks, then strain off the liquid and it is a good immune booster and digestive tonic.

Going with the Flow

2011-10-02T12:57:00.000-07:00

The theme of my writing seems to have been all about what's next lately. I can't seem to have a converstaion without moving 6 months ahead of where I am, if not years. I have been pretty frustrated by the fact that my next step at this point is very unclear. Focusing on how much I don't know only leads to a downward spiral of blame and negativity, panic and insomnia. So for now I am choosing not to know. I have three months here in Berkeley and I am hoping the program will become more engaging as we are given more responsibility in the kitchen and maybe a little more creative room. I will try to spend my free time enjoying where I am, inside and out, and when I am frustrated, sitting patiently with my questions. Something will come next and after that something else. Maybe my travels will not be so extreme, or maybe they will. Even if I thought I knew what was coming next, we have all experienced that surprises abound, good and bad.

Not From These Parts

2011-09-30T19:48:00.000-07:00

I went to visit the third possible garden intern program on Wednesday. The Occidental Arts and Ecology Center is in Sonoma County nestled in hills of redwood trees and has exceedingly beautiful gardens and grounds. I had a lovely time getting my fingers into the dirt, but I came to the realization that wherever I go in California, no matter how many palm trees or sunny days or exciting ideas, I always feel like a foreigner. Who knows whether this is because I'm an uptight east-coaster or because I have always in the back of my mind the vast expanse of mountains and plains between here and most of the people I love. Anyway, at OAEC visitors are encouraged to pee in the woods to take pressure off the composting toilets, evreryone was sort of floating around, barely attached to the ground under their feet, and as I went to leave, everyone I had just met a few hours ago hugged me, but not necessarily because I was special in anyway, its just what they do - seemed wierd and oddly insincere.
So I am still wondering how it is I am going to find my way to farm living. I have been reading Joel Salatin, who is so encouraging and inspiring, but I feel like there are still a couple of stepping stones between me and where he suggests starting and I have full confidence that those steps will materialize, but it does leave me wondering "what now?".
I am really longing for a rest! All this gutsy adventuring really takes its toll, as does living in someone else's house. I would like to spend some time in quiet, with some outdoor space and a kitchen I can play with. Just putting that request out into the universe!

The Middle of the Night

2011-09-27T16:35:00.000-07:00

So last night, its just after 9pm and I'm sitting at the kitchen table with a 2-year-old, and we are both doing our best to stay awake. Around 7pm, I had tried the old "I'll read you as many books as you want, lets read them in bed!" trick. He ran out of interest on number six. Then there was some industrious building of train tracks while I tried to keep my eyes open on the couch. Then I decided we should have a cup of (sleep-inducing) tea. He just wanted a tea-bag in cold water and the remains of his quesadilla from dinner.
In his defense, he falls asleep every night between his Mom and Dad (a sweet deal for him and to his parents I say "more power to ya"), so I can see why he wasn't really in the mood for sleep while they were in San Francisco. We also had Mom's permission to keep him up as long as he wished. But over the cup of tea I could see he was having as much trouble keeping his eyes open as I was. "It feels like the middle of the night!" I said to him. Inspiration struck when he suggested we were in the dining car of a train (he's a big fan of the railroad!). I suggested we move to the sleeper car, and started telling incredibly slow stories about my childhood. About 15 minutes before his parents arrived home , he succumbed.
As sometimes happens when I get too tired, I could not fall asleep when I finally got in bed. It took a homeopathic remedy and making some to-do lists to finally lose consciousness.

Covering Ground

2011-09-23T23:24:00.000-07:00

When driving cross-country, you eventually have to deal with mountains. Just where you hit them determines the frequency and height of the undulations, but you really can't avoid them all together.
You can tell by my posts that though I am physically pretty coastal, I am still in an emotional process of crossing mountain ranges. Whenever I feel like I've made some progress, another peak looms on the horizon. I hope this isn't making any of my readers carsick!
Anyway, yesterday I visited one of the gardens where I have applied to be an apprentice. It was just nice to be in the moving air and sunshine and to have earth in my fingernails rather than dough. I learned a lot from the gardener and he was a pleasant person to spend the day with. I am however crossing it off my list because it is so hot (Sacramento) and because I sensed a little dogmatism in the community, something I am highly allergic to after my last two jobs. These don't seem like huge, deal-breaker reasons, but maybe the real reason is it just didn't feel right. Over ten years ago (gulp) I was trying to choose where to go for my teacher training and a healer I was seeing at the time told me to close my eyes and tell her what came up when I thought of each place I was considering. I gave some similarly lame reasonings about two (which I just realized are also two of my garden choices - how wierd is that!) and on the third just burst into tears and said I just want to go there!
The end result of my garden visit was an overwhelming urge to get started! It is a little hard for me to be in the place I am right now because 4 monthes (or really 3 now!) is too short to completely forget about what's next and too long not to fidget. I will visit choice three this coming week and share my impressions with you.

Affirmation

2011-09-20T18:36:00.000-07:00

I have been working the early shift this week and am being given increasingly more independent projects, which I love. When we have to do projects in groups I get all bossy and controlling and irritated (and I'm sure irritating!). I made the biscotti and cottage pie almost start to finish, which is also satisfying.
Classes are getting much more interesting as we are getting past the health and safety crap. Yesterday Jessica introduced the work of Weston Price, which I knew about but not quite from its roots. She is also very passionate about it, which makes it more interesting. (Nobody is passionate enough about health and safety to make it interesting however.) Today we talked about menu planning which she approached by having us call out some classic family menus like Thanksgiving. That was really cool because we have a Mexican-American, a Guatemalan, and a Korean-American in the class, and we saw in action that every culture has its own methods of meeting universal balancing principles.
After work, checking my email, someone had forwarded a TED lecture by Elizabeth Gilbert about creativity and how our society puts so much pressure on people who choose a creative path and how we could and should support the magic of the creative process, rather than accepting that it seems to go hand-in-hand with mental instability. It was very beautiful. Then I checked my horoscope at Freewill Astrology which basically said "Erin, you should be doing exactly what you are doing and what you wish for is exactly what you are destined for!" OK, not exactly verbatim.
When I got home the house was empty, so I washed the day's grime off me and made a light but satisfying supper and ate it on the deck. As I ate a hummingbird explored the top of some nearby trees and I wished I could see it closer, so it came down and perched on the clothes line just long enough for me to look it in the eye and say "Thank you!"

Free Day

2011-09-17T15:38:00.000-07:00

The reason I couldn't be completely unemployed for long is that the pressure of the week creates such a wonderful space when it leaves! This morning I can't rightly say that I slept in, nobody does in a house with a 2-year-old, but I had a leisurely getting-up process, made some necessary phone calls and set out to explore some more, this time on foot. My unltimate goal was to find the perfect drink-coffee-and-surf-the-net spot. At the library, my first stop, the internet was s..l..o..w.. and as you can imagine - no coffee! I continued up the hill to an independent coffee shop where I got a tasty everything bagel with lox and cream cheese, but there was little to no seating. The I rambled along Colusa, a street that winds along a hillside of fascinating little houses, for maybe a couple of miles, to the french bakery I wrote about earlier. They didn't have much in the way of seating either, but I did get a slice of fig tart and stash it in my bag. As I strolled along Solano, a street full of interesting shops and restaurants, I began to feel a blister develop; luckily its all downhill until home. I arrived outside the old-style movie theater 3 minutes before the bargain matinee showing of Midnight In Paris, which was highly enjoyable. Now I am in the coffee shop next door where there is seating, wifi and cream for the coffee - the winner so far!

Drugs

2011-09-16T19:00:00.000-07:00

I have a serious television addiction, and when I heard that my new place had no wifi I thought "Great, now I can kick the habit!" but now I'm sitting in the Barnes and Noble parking lot waiting for free tv episodes from itunes to download and its taking about as much time as it would have to watch them on hulu, but I wanted to watch them in my comfy bed.
This morning one of my teachers brought in the remains of a late-night pinapple upside-down cake she had whipped up and was not allowing herself to keep in the house. We were all very happy to share it at tea time, then lunch came and after lunch we all wanted to know where dessert was (we rarely have dessert at lunch, or cake at tea time for that matter). We figured we were all just hooked on white death (my pet name for sugar, for those who don't know).

Wisdom, Balance, Fexibility

2011-09-15T17:41:00.000-07:00

I have been pulling angel cards every morning a) because somebody gave me a deck as a present once and b) to give myself a thought to come back to during the day if I get negative or overwhelmed. I got these three in a row (the title) and I think one could not want for better goals in life. I tend to see every minor downfall as the reason the rest of my life will go horribly wrong, from being corrected by a teacher, to sore feet. I am trying to keep in mind that if something isn't working for me, I have not found my way to do it yet. Three Stone Hearth is a pretty large scale operation and is growing by leaps and bounds and I think "I can't do that much!" Well, they are five years in AND they built it around their strengths, interests and personalities. I keep have to repeat "I don't know yet" as my mantra for the future because its true and trying to know makes me crazy!
I decided I must have a deficiency in something that is naturally occurring in salmon because today as we were flaking some slow-roasted salmon for croquettes I just wanted to bury my face in the beautiful pink pile of flesh!
I got to work on the granola today too and am excited to make my own using the soaking/dehydrating method. I bought some and it is delicious, crumbly and doesn't make me feel like I swallowed a brick.

Incomplete Sentences

2011-09-13T18:04:00.000-07:00

So much stirring today! So sleepy! Snack, then bed! Zzzzzz!

Sweet!

2011-09-12T18:51:00.000-07:00

The weekend was a little funny. I was super tired and a little emotional and was starting to feel overwhelmed.
The moment I walked into work though I was infused with enthusiasm. People were laughing, things smelled amazing. I had the middle shift today which starts at tea-time (the perfect way to start a Monday) directly after which we have "class" which is an hour of sitting and listening to something fascinating. Jessica gave us the biography of the business which is so freaking inspiring - I just kept thinking how lucky I am to be soaking up all this knowledge and energy.
After class I helped mise-en-place the brownies (measure out all the ingredients) which are going to be awesome - gluten-free and palm sugar sweetened with crispy walnuts! Then I chopped a case of chard and then it was lunch time.
After lunch I put myself in charge of coffee, as I feel it has been a bit too strong. I am missing cream too, so today I voted with my pocket book and after work I bought a $10 pint of raw cream, which is illegal in many states and so well worth the price in my mind. I'm going to take it in to work and try to get other people hooked on it so I can take up a collection for the next one.
In the afternoon we shucked corn and cut it off the cob for a corn and fresh coconut side that will be on this week's menu. Then it was time to clean up. It sounds like a simple day, and in many ways it was, but you must understand the volume of things - we probably ended up with over ten gallons of cut corn!
After work I did some grocery shopping at the local organic grocery and got so many exciting things. Now I am eating some truly kick-ass pate that didn't sell last week (and was therefore free) and waiting for my beet fennel and carrot soup to be ready. The family have gone to Marin for a picnic dinner and though they are wonderful it is always nice to have time to one's self.

Settling

2011-09-11T15:32:00.000-07:00

The final (god, I hope) phase of my settling in the Bay Area came with my move today to Jessica and Jake's house in Berkeley (I guess Richmond technically) Jessica is one of my teachers and she and Jake have an adorable 2-year-old boy named Torsten. Their home is clean and quiet and looks like grown ups live here (as opposed to the frat look of my last landing). I am very grateful to be able to put clothes in drawers and sheets on a bed and expect tonight to be one of the best sleeps of my life! Tomorrow I will go grocery shopping and therewith shall temporarily end the life of a gypsy.

Full

2011-09-10T19:24:00.000-07:00

What a full full week! I think my subtler bodies are just starting to arrive and join me here in California. Though I loved every day of work, it is also nice to have a day to roam free. Slightly grimey donut shops are on every corner here, but I have been on the hunt for a good bakery worth splurging on. Today after a bizarre interview for a room/nanny position (which I will turn down if offered) I happened upon La Farine. Test one of a good bakery? The name. Passed. Test #2? Beauty. This was also a flying colors pass with one case of plump, golden buns of the breakfasty variety piled in baskets and another of refined, colorful edible-works-of-art, miniature and party-sized. I ordered a savory morning roll that was a moist marriage of brioche and croissant coiled around ham, cheese and onions and a coffee. The coffee was strong but smooth and heavenly with half and half. At the kitchen there does not seem to be a cream source for workers' coffee and and I have been choking it down with milk or maple syrup as an after lunch pick-me-up that turns out to be like medicine more than a taste treat.
Right next to the bakery a store was going out of business and selling racks of flowing linen garb at rock-bottom prices and I picked up a few gems, though I made myself a promise to get rid of as many items that I have been lugging around in my suit case.

Barkin' Dogs

2011-09-08T19:39:00.000-07:00

I was dragging a bit this morning. I was running late and did not have my customary cup of earl grey on the way in, then there was no coffee at tea time (confusing, I know).
With the bulk of the week's cooking done and on the shelves for customers, most of the work today was prep. There is definitely a krauty theme to Thursdays, as next week's variety gets jarred and the newest batch of cabbage is shredded, pounded and prepared for its destiny. I also zested a ton of limes, which smelled so good and felt so decadent by the case full! They were then juiced and both ingredients frozen for future use. Toward the end of the day we did cleaning, something I did my best to avoid as a manager. By now my feet were really hurting and I was becoming annoyed with some of my wiftier classmates who just drifted off during mopping.
But when it was time to leave, it was time to leave. I didn't have to stay and prepare anything or worry about tomorrow. Now I get to veg out and tomorrow I will just show up. I have got to remember to take the little pebble out of my shoe that was such a nuisance all day! One of my particular neurosese (sp?) is being so hell bent on getting to the end of something that I cannot stop for 30 seconds to do something that will make the whole rest of the day more pleasant!
It is very windy outside my window in the pine tree!

Still Awesome!

2011-09-07T18:20:00.000-07:00

I began the workday by slicing the fat from braised brisket and finely chopping it to be added back into the stroganoff. I could think of several friends who might be quite jealous as the beef fat moisturized my hands and the scent wafted up my nose!
Wednesday night and Thursday are when the kitchen is open to the public for picking up orders, so the rest of the morning was dedicated to jarring and other packaging projects.
The motivational music in the background runs from obscure marimba to top 40 pop to Buena Vista Social Club to top 40 from the 80's. I'm sure plenty more variety is still possible.
Lunch was a southern-style chicken soup with sweet potatoes and black beans and yogurt cream, and yes, it was as delicious as it sounds.
I drank kombucha a bit when it first hit health food store shelves, but I usually couldn't finish the bottle, but the Kombucha on our lunch table, always several flavors of it, is subtle and so refreshing!
In the afternoon I was given the task of making 100 quarts of Mexican Chicken Soup under the supervision of a huge dude named Mudhut wearing a skirt and two different colored socks. Like I said...awesome!

First Day of School

2011-09-06T19:12:00.000-07:00

Did you ever feel as though the universe built something exactly to your specifications? Well, I guess it wasn't really the universe so much as the four fantastic worker-owners at Three Stone Hearth.
The day started with a tea break - fantastic! Then we all sat down to introduce ourselves and get oriented. For anyone who has ever worked in food service you know that it is hard on the body, cooks are infamous for their rotten attitudes and most large scale kitchens are incredibly wasteful and cut corners on quality whenever they can get away with it. Three Stone Hearth has set out to change ALL of it! Everyone is positive, principled, funny, and enjoys working together.
Then we had a tour. The place is so organized and user friendly its incredible. There is plenty of hard work being done, but every effort has been made to be kind to the worker.
After the tour we pulled pork and scooped out roasted sweet potatoes that would later be layered into a casserole. It smelled soooo good. The biggest surprise of the day came when Seth, the kitchen manager, needing help getting a vat of broth out of the fridge looked at us all and said "ok so John is the tall one, who's the strong one? I think its Erin." I said that must be the first time that thought had been had and there was some testing of biceps, but the funniest part is that he may be right!
We all sat down to lunch together which featured a preview of the pork casserole, several tasty and interesting salads, krauts, and lacto-fermented beverages. The conversation was lively and light-hearted.
After lunch I washed potatoes until it was time to go home...3 hours later. Everyone was very apologetic saying the produce usually came to them in better shape, but having harvested potatoes, I know somebody had to do some scrubbing, might as well be me (although my wrist is hurting rather a lot).
I am so excited to be part of this that I don't even mind all that much that my bed is actually a couch that may or may not have a bug problem!

A Verdict Means Its Over

2011-08-25T20:07:00.000-07:00

My mother says sometimes, quite brilliantly, that if things haven't worked out, its not over yet. As a child life is nothing but possibilities, then we go through a stage, some of us longer than others, where we are in search of a destination: a career, a family, a home. Then after climbing the mountain, so sure our prize is at the top, we come unsuspectingly on the magnificent view that is life. Perhaps our prize is there on that mountain top, perhaps its on the next peak or even one that is out of sight, but the view remains to be explored, more peaks and valleys and forests of confusion to be seen close up and understood better. Perhaps we choose to pull up a chair and stay on that mountaintop enjoying the surroundings from afar. I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that, but I have discovered that while a small part of me wants to sit down, take off my boots and have a drink, the greater part of me longs to better know the landscape of my life. Accepting that part of myself, I will continue to explore, even if one day I find a reason to make one place my base camp.
So I am off on another adventure and will be blogging to keep all my dear ones abrest of my discoveries. I will be taking a week to drive to Berkeley, where I will participate in the first-ever session of the Cooking and Culinary Traditions Program at Three Stone Hearth.
I have abandoned my other short-lived blog, which I started because I wanted so badly for life to have reached a verdict, but I guess this title I chose all those years ago was more perfect than I realized.

Extreme Vacation

2010-12-30T07:22:00.000-08:00

This has been an excellent vacation. Although the packing was a little more involved than most vacations (a 16-foot moving truck versus a couple of suitcases), it has been everything I could want: deluxe accommodations (actually our own home), great food, movies, books, and tons of together time with my favorite person in the world.
However, many have noted that there is an ideal length for a vacation and most put it between ten days and two weeks. Having just passed the two-week mark, I think I can agree. There is a part of me that needs to be called out of bed in the morning before I feel like it, to wear shoes instead of slippers, to accomplish something that impacts someone outside my household.
Luckily I have a pre-interview today. Its mainly just to get a little clearer picture of the job I'm applying for, which will help me going into the actual interview I think. This job is something I can do and do well. It combines my interests and abilities perfectly; working with food and children on a farm. Still it is an adjustment to get my mind ready to speak professionally.

The Missing Chapter

2010-12-18T15:51:00.000-08:00

What you may have missed while I wasn't blogging:
I joined a commune (these days we call them intentional communities).
I fell in love with a farmer.
Object of my affection actually loves me too!
We moved in together.
We hated the commune.
We moved to upstate New York.

Now you're up to date!

Life in Camphill (the commune) was a lot of work and the things that looked like they would be pros eventually turned into cons. So we decided we needed some down time and came up here a couple of weeks before J's job begins. I, as a matter of fact, have no job (though I have applied for what seems like the job of my dreams) and there is something about being on the verge of a new life though that is just not conducive to relaxation. A) I don't want to spend money on anything until I know I have a job, and this causes me to notice all the things I want to buy. B) When I moved out of Philadelphia, I thought I was leaving city life behind for good and I couldn't have been happier. Now although Hudson is a substantially less large city and it's main shopping corridor is super cute, it is nonetheless a city. And although our house is very nice (and a few rooms too large for us, really) it is nestled amongst some pretty depressing living quarters, and it makes me feel like we have a sign out front that says "we're more fortunate, rob us please!" This causes me to imagine the mail being plucked from our mail slot (impossible really). This imagination has been encouraged by the fact that my sister sent us a package, but to the wrong house number (the number she used is actually a parking lot) and the FedEx man delivered it to the house next to the parking lot (supposedly) and after watching the man at that house have a violent outburst at someone in his doorway, I'd rather not go chasing after the package. C) After taking on a level of responsibility far above his training last year, J really burnt himself out (but did an amazing job all the same). Now he has taken on more areas of agriculture in which he has no real experience and although it is on a smaller scale and is something he is actually interested in developing, he is freaking out ever so slightly.

We have much to be thankful for, but new is so often scary. As much as I hear my mother's voice telling me that its all in my attitude toward the situation, right now I'm in the rant and despair stage. But don't be too concerned! Yesterday I made a double batch of my grandmother's candy cane crisp cookies and a batch of chocolate corn flake cookies and our cookie tin is bursting. Other menu highlights for this holiday weekend include fettucini alfredo, peppermint stick ice cream, gluten free scones, scrapple, an entire ham, roasted home-grown potatoes and 3 Christmas puddings!

Reinvention

2009-07-07T15:26:00.000-07:00

It's been months since I fiddled around the internet, plenty of time, no real purpose. Busy-ness has a way of making free time so sweet. I am half blind from staring at the screen, I have used over half my battery capacity; its delightful.
I have recently been feeling I am too old to be starting anything. People my age should know what they are doing, they should have arrived. Before you tell me how ridiculous I am, I knew that the moment I could identify the idea. But I still needed to wallow in it a bit, feel hopeless, cry, complain. Now I'm seeing things a little differently. I've identified an urge to reinvent. Its not inconstancy, its innovation, constant adaptation to the ever-changing moment. Just because I once loved the shape of my life doesn't mean I can't mould it into something new when the urge strikes!
I can't remember how much I've written about Camphill or the Beehive Creekside and I don't feel like going back to check. Basically the job I've had for the past year and a half, and the house I've lived in for a little less time than that, stopped being just right some time ago. It took me some months and some agony to get to the next step, because it will be challenging and that is not my usual m.o. But when I am sharing a meal with 12 people who all make there own very distinct kind of sense (not always apparent to others), when I am walking the paths through quiet woods or over windy hilltops, when I am singing with friends, when Barry is babbling to me about all the hungry people I have to feed, when I am making quarts of pesto and freezing gallon bags of kale that were grown just a stone's throw from the kitchen where I stand, and so many other things that take up my days in Camphill, I feel like I'm in the right place. And when I am in my little cottage by the creek, the quiet is so forceful that I can barely stand it. It used to be full, now its empty, I don't know of what.
That is how it has come to be that in August I will again pack myself up and move, this time into a house I will share with around 10 people, roughly half of which have developmental disabilities. I will work hard and share almost everything. Who can say what it will bring? Fullness, I hope.

News, such as it is.

2009-04-06T16:47:00.000-07:00

I am so busy these days, sometimes even forgetting that I have email, occasionally posting a blurb on facebook that sums up my status at the moment. I have left some of you in the dark for too long!
Spring is bursting forth here after what seemed like an interminable winter. This past Saturday saw the opening of fishing season which heavily effects my tiny creekside road. The fish and game folks dump some poor trout into the stream on Thursday and by Saturday afternoon, after MUCH tailgating, they have mostly been caught. A few persistant fishermen still haunt the stream outside my bedroom window, making me less inclined to my usual exhibitionism.
About a month and a half ago, I fulfilled an 8 year long dream and cut off all my hair! Don't shreek, don't faint! It was hugely liberating for a person so largely identified by her hair all her life. It is now such a non issue, leaving me to feel that perhaps now people are free to notice who I am more than what I look like. Of course there is then the terrible possibility that who I am is not nearly as interesting as a mop of curly red hair, but I took a chance.
In a few weeks the village where I work will be putting on the Sound of Music. I haven't been in a musical since college and am more than thrilled to be in it. I am however playing Mother Abbess, so it's not exactly a glamorous part, but the music is quite good!
In light of that, I feel I really must leave you and go learn my lines. I hope Spring is tickling everyone's long-be-stockinged toes and leaving you feeling the thrill of possibility!

(200)8 Great Tunes

2009-01-07T13:46:00.000-08:00

As I've said before, the volume of my posting seems to be in direct opposition to the fullness of my life, so I am actually delighted in a way to hardly ever have a moment to write!
But I do enjoy always enjoy compiling a short list music that sums up the year newly left behind. My compadre Jason Mraz came out with a new album and gave an outstanding performance at World Cafe Live in April. Lily Allen was a staple of our soundtrack on the January trip to Water Island. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova picked up a well deserved Academy Award for Falling Slowly. If you haven't seen their movie Once, you absolutely must! Also check YouTube for her acceptance speech at the Oscars. The rest are pleasant petals of a flowering year of joy and hope. Here's to a new year of even more for you me and the world!

1. New Soul - Yael Naim
2. Live High - Jason Mraz
3. LDN - Lily Allen
4. The Dynamo of Volition - Jason Mraz
5. Can I Stay - Ray LaMontagne
6. Make It Mine - Jason Mraz
7. Falling Slowly - Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
8. Everybody Got Their Something - Nikka Costa

Early Resolution

2008-12-08T08:49:00.000-08:00

Last night I was reading Annie Lamott's Bird By Bird. I bought it at a used book store in Grass Valley (I have not been in Grass Valley since 2006!) and it has been my in-between reading ever since. I am generally a fiction reader. Having been read to at bed time by my parents long past a reasonable age, I am sort of addicted to a story before I drift off. But when I am in between novels, waiting for them to travel between libraries, I pick up Annie. She is so funny and real and encouraging, but I generally don't follow her advice, opting instead of sitting down and writing my 300 words a day to daydream about how much everyone will love me when my brilliant novel is a bestseller. But last night I read the chapter about why one should write. Her reasons were a million times more inspiring than promises of fame, fortune and validation (which, by the way, are almost certain not to happen). So, in preparation for the day when my aged tv no longer transmits broadcast signals, I am going to try each afternoon when I get home from work, instead of lying there letting crumbs of one kind or another cover my couch and my person while I watch celebrities promote their latest endeavors and compare pictures of their dogs and children, to sit down and write, in case there is something important to me (and possibly one or two other people on earth) waiting to be written. From time to time these attempts could show up here.
If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it, as most of her advice is well applied to any pursuit in life.

Say Cheese

2008-11-25T13:42:00.000-08:00

As I have been here writing up a catering menu for the last two hours, I decided "what's a few more minutes?" But I am down to 33% battery and will be virtually blind when I finally look away from the screen, so really, only a few minutes!
On Sunday I learned how to make cheese! It's just another of my miraculous job benefits that I can now take a gallon of the milk given by my cow neighbors and in about 12 hours turn it into a wheel of creamy fresh cheese. Everybody i work with seems determined to be their own grocery as well! Yesterday my breakfast consisted of a slab of Saul and Jolynn's bread with a generous sliver of my cheese and a glass of Dane's kombucha. It's so freakin' satisfying to eat fresh and local!

Not that bad

2008-10-21T12:49:00.000-07:00

The event so complained about over several days actually went off without a hitch and with lots of willing help! We even got a write up in the local paper; unfortunately the girl who wrote it didn't seem to understand what she was there to cover and there was no mention of the tasty food, our hours, or even that we are open to the public! Once my body sensed the event was winding down, it gave the all-clear to a nasty cold that had been in a holding pattern during the previous week. Sniff, sniff!
Between a weekend in the kitchen and sitting in the dirt around the fire at Madeleine's going-away party, I found myself in desperate need of the laundromat this afternoon. They are building a new drugstore next door (because, with one on every other corner, we were in need of more options?) and there was some traffic re-routing around the 'mat. I asked the guy in the hard hat if I was allowed to turn in across the closed lane and affirmed warmly. On my way out I thought I'd have to turn left and find a back route to were I wanted to go, but he saw me coming out, came over to my car and told me I could turn right but to watch the sign holder who would give me a signal. All pretty mundane stuff but I felt really taken care of. And the guy in the hard hat was very pleasant to look at!

Change

2008-10-17T12:51:00.000-07:00

I recognize that I take a little longer than the average person to assimilate a change in plans. Part of my assimilation process includes complaining to a number of people about how terrible this change is and who I think is responsible. Not exactly enlightened behavior, but we need to have some faults, right?
Sunday is the Gala Opening for the cafe; a concert by a Venezuelan group followed by a reception which, until this morning, I thought was for about 35 donors and supporters of the renovation project. But no. Add the entire village and all the people who are apparently saving their rsvp for the last minute and I am told I should plan on about 150. Elegant, dainty hors d'oeuvres are really fun to make for a few, but for hordes they are a pain in the ass. Additionally, everybody seems to be very busy themselves and getting help has been like pulling teeth, plus everybody and their brother came for lunch today, preferring to come as close to closing time as they could manage, eating me out of soup, salad and hummus and generally magnifying my cranky mood.
Luckily some zen little part of me knows that it will all go swimmingly, everybody will be impressed with the reception and say lovely things about me and the food and I will probably, in the end, have a good time. Maybe some day I will be able to skip the middle step where I feel undervalued and mistreated and go completely with the flow!

I'm fired!

2008-09-14T08:06:00.000-07:00

Oh, I had such aspirations of becoming a better blogger again! A well-crafted post always leaves me feeling productive and I so enjoy the positive feedback you all send me. But here I am sweltering in the car (I am sucking off the library's wireless signal, but they are not open) and needing badly to pee on account of a very tasty iced coffee consumed earlier, and therefor in no position to choose words artistically, so I'll just say that my foot is healing nicely and life is generally very pleasant. I hope yours is too (your life, not your foot, unless you are recovering from 4 stitches too!)

Wish you were here!

2008-08-17T08:59:00.000-07:00

I won't say I'm sorry I haven't posted in so long, although I empathize with those of you who feel some lack because of it. Somehow my brain has stopped working in the way that composes and records posts whenever something interesting happens, and I think this is a good thing. I'm not saying the condition won't reverse itself, but for now I can offer only this little post card from the sun-drenched shores of my life.
Dramatic events: In one swift movement I broke and stepped on a pint glass and got 4 stitches in my foot during possibly the busiest week the cafe has seen since the Crazy Health Retreat of April (or was it February?). I do not have health insurance and if I had been forced to visit the ER I might still be paying for it when I am old enough for Social Security benefits to kick in, but we are uber-lucky here in Phoenixville to have a clinic for the uninsured that will take whatever you can contribute to the cost of your care. I am in love with them, even though they yelled at me for using homeopathic wound care and tried to shove pain-killers down my throat (I resisted then and never did need any). I am healing nicely and plan to have my cousin remove the stitches tomorrow when we visit him at the shore.
Magical moments: Lying with my friends Elisa and Diego and their beautiful Italian friend Roberto on the wet grass of their back yard, I saw more shooting stars than I have seen in the entirety of my rapidly extending lifetime on Monday and Tuesday nights. Diego remembers watching the meteor shower every August as a child and we decided to resurrect the tradition.
Things to be grateful for: I am on VACATION (the cafe is closed for week). Gas prices are dropping (at the Wawa in Downingtown the rate is sometimes $.04 per day). This has been the most glorious August weather-wise in my life! The sun is warm, the sky is gorgeous and every time I entertain the idea of lugging up the hose to sprinkle my garden, a thundershower passes through with its gorgeous cloud formations. The blood from my foot that made my doormat look like a murder scene ALL came out thanks to the miracle of oxy-clean...okay, I think I may be testing the limits of your interest in the minutia of my life.
I am wishing you all the eyes and hearts to find the world full of miracles and sweetness!

Getting Out

2008-05-23T13:35:00.000-07:00

Many might say that at 34 years of age (in July), I should have internet service in my home. I'm sure they would also say I should have a washer and dryer (which I don't on account of something about septic systems and flood plains). Sometimes I think I should have these things too. But yesterday on a laundry and email mission to Phoenixville I realized that my life is structured perfectly! Living alone I can get a little cabin fever from time to time, but instead of eating bonbons in my pajamas and buying inspirational figurines for a bargain on ebay while my clothes whirl away in their suds, I put on a little lip gloss and head out into the world to interact with other people while I tend to life's less glamorous tasks.

Clarifications and Updates

2008-05-18T10:22:00.000-07:00

Here ends the tale of Mr. Handsome (although if I ever write a novel, I will definitely work him into it somehow). My mother finally did some digging and found out that he is in a relationship, which we suspected anyway. This may also clear up any misunderstandings about the aforementioned fling; it was not with Mr. Handsome.
This rain, while fantastic for the plants (I have to keep reminding myself), is taking its toll on my spirits! It is hard to feel bouyant when everything is soggy. Nonetheless, I cleaned my house this morning. I really do that quite rarely, usually only when company is coming (sometimes not even then) and it is a nice treat to have a clean house just for me!
Gotta go back to the laundromat and put a load in the dryer!

In Circles

2008-05-14T17:13:00.000-07:00

I came to this cafe, sweaty and flip-flopped, right from yoga, to check email. My email is seriously uninteresting. But I have a whole ceramic mug of tea to get through and "I Love You More Today Than Yesterday" on the Hammond organ is playing (hilarious). I feel a lot like the days back at the cafe in Grass Valley, craving news, connection, excitement, but pretty entertained by my own current circumstances in its absence.
Some of you will know of my aspiration at one time to shave my head. I think right now it could be my only option. I got a haircut yesterday, which I'm sure was the best $15 could buy, but I look like one of those chickens that have a volcano of feathers coming out of the top of their heads. It's too short to put up. It's just crazy! At least at work I get to wear a bandana!
Ok, the tea is just about kicked.
Jason Mraz's new album came out yesterday - buy it.

Overheard

2008-05-12T08:11:00.000-07:00

I am eavesdropping on a woman who has been talking a blue streak about the men she's been out with. She doesn't have much good to say about any of them. The woman with her occasionally confirms or asks a quiet clarifying question. Am I this woman? Do I see the glass half empty? Do I converse or do I orate? I hope very much I am not. I am going to try not to be.

The Upside of Traffic

2008-05-05T11:40:00.000-07:00

On Saturday afternoon I was headed for my sister's house along with everybody and their brother (well, the rest of the expressway drivers didn't actually make it to the door, so maybe they were going somewhere nearby). I am pretty tolerant of traffic after the immense amount of time I spent in my car over the past couple of years, usually biding my time singing along with the radio or chatting on the phone. But on this day I saw the opportunity for about an hour of fairly uninterrupted time to focus on myself and do battle with the helplessness that has been plaguing me of late. In any circumstance in life the only thing you have control over is how it makes you feel. I am not of the school that interprets this truth by closing their eyes and humming whenever anything unpleasant happens. I like to feel good and rotten for a while, but I'd had enough. I sat in the relative silence of my couch-on-wheels and had a little self therapy. I tried to name the feelings that were keeping me down and each time I identified one I concentrated on how it would feel not to feel that way. As soon as I was rid of powerless, excluded came to the front of the line, followed soon after by fat (how did fat become a feeling and why is it connected to every other bad feeling?). By the time I got the South Street I didn't care that I'm the only single person I know, nor was I consumed by strategies for desperately cornering the 3 or 4 single men that must exist somewhere on earth. It was a beautiful evening and I was going to see some of my favorite people. And the feeling has persisted. I've had a glorious day doing pleasant errands at a leisurely pace. And I'm not saying it means anything, but I ran into Mr. Handsome twice today, and it just makes me smile 'cause he's so darn pretty!

More is possible...

2008-05-02T12:45:00.000-07:00

It is a strange time we are living in. There is as much evidence that we are headed for hell in a handbasket as there is that more amazing things are possible now than ever before. I feel my life to be just about perfect and yet the small percentage that is not is so not that if it were an arm I would knaw it off with my bare teeth to be free of it.
I was recently reading a novel set in ancient India and almost every chapter somebody was placing a curse on somebody else. Is that what's going on with me? In some far away lifetime did I so injure someone that they cried out in rage "the thing you most long for will elude you and there will be nothing you can do about it and it will make no sense to you or anyone else." Seriously, I am pretty - people have told me this all my life, maybe even when they should have said I was smart or kind or brave. I am likeable - I have friends all over the globe! I have no more insecurities or issues than anybody else I know. I intend, I affirm, I visualize! Why am I still single? Wait - don't answer that! I am sick to death of hearing "everything is in divine order", "you are in the perfect place for you right now", or the more plebian "men are stupid" (because I know that they are not!). Its a rhetorical question unless you have a really practical answer that I can do something with.
I recently had what i'm going to call a fling, for want of a better word, and I am a little stunned a)that it happened at all and b)that I was so utterly convinced that it was the start of something real. I wasn't the only one either; the idea occured to a number of people before I ever said a word. And yet in retrospect, there is no way it could have become what I really want.

I was just checking my email, staring at the screen feeling I had so much to say and yet I couldn't figure out who I was looking for in my address book. I was looking for you. Not you personally, but the crowd of the unknown whom I imagine when I write this blog; the ones I think must know exactly what I mean. This blog was once about speaking the thoughts swirling around in my head and letting them breathe, get organized or be carried off on the wind. I hope this post begins a return to that practice.

A Visit from SoCal

2008-04-16T13:29:00.000-07:00

I also can't believe I didn't post about the fantastic concert by the incomparable Jason Mraz and his ass-kicking musical compadres. I had the time of my life (Mom and Shay could have stood for a little less ass-kicking and some comfy seats up in the balcony)! The music was fabulous, I laughed uproariously, danced up a storm, and Jason left the stage urging us to find something we love and practice it, to practice kindness, and to practice gratitude. The evening was a snapshot of life's perfection!

The Beehive II

2008-04-16T12:55:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how long its been since I was posting regularly. I can't believe I have not yet raved about my absolutely perfect new home. I told Jame the other day that if I won the lottery and could own any house in the world, I would not want to move. That's how perfect it is. I am sung to sleep by the creek every night. When I wake up in the morning there are branches bursting forth their spring finery outside my huge windows (and occasionally some fishermen). Once I get some deck furniture, I will be entertaining regularly!

Annual Festival

2008-04-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

I must post as I do every year about my tax day celebration. I was so exhausted by 7pm when I set out for the big post office, but luckily, i had to go to Trader Joe's to get mayo for the cafe anyway. I was excited to remember once I got there that there is also a delicious mexican place and an equally pleasing ice cream joint in the same neighborhood.
At the Trader Joe's check-out, the woman said to my basket full of mayo "Mayonnaise emergency?" I explained that I was a cook for a small outfit and that it would be going into our curried tuna salad. She stuck her face into the bag and whispered to the mayo "Don't worry, you're going to a really good home!"
The line at the p.o. was relatively short, almost not long enough for me to scarf down my tacos, and I was soon auto-piloting home, where I was very soon in bed.

Mountains in the Sky

2008-03-28T16:54:00.000-07:00

Every so often the sky, particularly around sunset, looks like an extension of the landscape. Today I was driving through Phoenixville on the main drag and rising in front of me between the brick store fronts was a bank of clouds that made me feel like I was in a mountain gold-mining town. It also reminded me of when your are in the ocean, watching a wave growing in front of you; it is so vast and powerful that you're a little scared, but at the same time amazed at its beauty and the joy of participating in its game.
I've recently reconnected with an old friend from my time at Emerson. You could say that what we experienced there glued us together for life in some way, but it's probably more accurate to say we were all glued already and that golden year together was a precious gift that not everyone gets. It fills my heart to overflowing to think of all those dear people, but it also makes me unspeakably sad that I can't see their faces up close or squeeze them tight.

Fan

2008-03-25T10:34:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday tickets went on pre-sale for Jason Mraz's upcoming visit to Philadelphia. They sold out before I even managed to log onto the site. On Friday at noon tickets would become available through the World Cafe Live Box Office. No way was I letting the internets get in my way this time. I arrived at WCL at around 8:20, just as most of its staff was arriving for work and about 2 hours before the box office would open. I sat, I read, when the cafe opened at 11:00 I sat and read at the bar with a cup of tea. The box office staff rewarded my perseverance by reserving my tickets just before the flood of phone calls began. The show sold out faster than any show they've ever had at that venue, I heard someone say, and I HAVE TICKETS!!! Expect a full report of the event! Oh, and by the way, I was the ONLY person to show up at the box office.

Outpost

2008-03-19T15:29:00.000-07:00

I am housesitting for a friend who lives in a tiny and cozy cottage. Another friend of mine lived here years ago; we called it the love shack. It is my charge to care for the dog and two cats that she left behind. The animals are all quite sweet, and those who know me well will gasp in disbelief to read that I actually enjoy the kitties curling up in bed with me at night. However, the nocturnal noises are something to behold. The dog is a pug and when she is not making her God-given snurfling sounds she is blissfully snoring at a record-breaking volume and the cats occasionally fell the need to converse and have not yet learned to whisper.
It is lovely here though, and takes me back to my days in The Nest in Grass Valley, though it is not nearly as remote.
I am so excited to move into the new Beehive! I signed the lease last weekend and have been looking on Craigslist for a cheap refrigerator (which I must provide) and dreaming up furniture arrangements and decorative strategies.

Patchwork

2008-02-28T12:19:00.000-08:00

I have lately thought more than once, "hmm, I should blog about that!". But alas, I am enjoying a sojurn (is that the correct use of that word?) with my parents (having moved out of the-house-formerly-known-as-the-Beehive and waiting for the new Beehive to get an electrical upgrade and a newly enforced retaining wall so it doesn't fall into the French Creek) and they have the dreaded dial-up AND a cold basement wherein resides their computer. But here at the Public Library the heat is on full blast (dear God I hope they're not using oil!) and the internet is lightning fast.
Firstly, an enormous grateful shout-out to everyone who helped me move. With all your kind effort it seemed like a breeze! The loan of a van here, the shuttling of countless grocery and trash bags full of goods and the hefting of ridiculous furniture there and it all came together just right. Although I'm sure Jane would have considered it about 48 hours past just right (I'm so ashamed, Jane!) Let's all do it again in May! (A collective groan is heard thoughout the township.)
The other day I saw something so rare and beautiful that no human being could ever have had the idea to try to create it and would probably have failed if he tried. A layer of snow covered with an icy crust that lay on someone's red metal roof had folded itself like ribbon as it gave in to the perfect heat of the languid post storm sun. Remarkable!
Perhaps I was all the more inclined to appreciate the sight because the snow and ice had, just a day ago, created the perfect conditions to facilitate me nearly careening into a pond in my car. How sweet it is to be alive!
Shoot! I can't remember the other things I wanted to share! Well, with any luck, another afternoon will surely find me enjoying the decadence of our tax dollars at work and perhaps I will remember them then. More likely a whole new batch of oddities will be trying to escape from me!

It's A Good Thing I Like My Coat

2008-01-31T15:01:00.000-08:00

I got home not too long after 3 o'clock this afternoon, made myself a cup of hot chocolate (with mini marshmallows) and paid some bills online. Around 4:00 I went out to look at an apartment. I didn't have to put on a coat because...I had never taken it off. The entire apartment, by the way, is covered in a yellowing shag, even the kitchen, even the bathroom. This is because the elderly landlord downstairs doesn't do well with noise. The land lady, who seems very sweet offered to negotiate price with me. This puts the place in the running; that's just how open I am being to possibilities!
Anyway, I got home close to 5:00, made dinner, did some online reading, staying current you know. It is now 6:15. I am still wearing my coat. And it's no flimsy wool number; this is blizzard grade down from the heart of Wisconsin! I am keeping the heat way low out of sympathy to my current very sweet landlords who are picking up the oil tab for the remainder of my stay, and out of fear that if they find me to be extravagant they will savagely stick me with the bill anyway.

Pro

2008-01-22T18:43:00.000-08:00

I ordered myself chef's jackets today. Enough to get me through the week plus a couple extra. When I cooked at Emerson, there was a stack of jackets for anyone working in the kitchen (it was also my work-study job to mend all the jackets). Ever since then, an apron is just not good enough if I'm going to spend the day up to my elbows in food.
I'm about to embark on week 2 as cafe cook/manager, and am still feeling excited and grateful (and a little stressed). We have three different conferences already lined up for catering as well, so things are already taking off and growing. Can't wait for the leaves to do the same!

Empty Nest

2008-01-20T15:03:00.000-08:00

The day before I left for the Virgin Islands (it was warm, fabulous, difficult to leave behind), Jane came over, wearing an expression equivalent to a thick San Francisco fog. She told me they sold the house, then burst into tears. I must say, if I have to be evicted, the blow was considerably lessened by my landlord weeping for me.
Its just not the right time for me and this place. Since I set foot inside I've had so many ideas and imaginings, but none of them ever crystalized to the point were I knew how to make the next step in bringing it about. And it is very cold and expensive to heat in winter!
I have no idea where I will go next, though I intend it not to be far, and I doubly intend it to be warmer. I will have a little gathering to say goodbye to the house, and then I'll set about the thing I detest: packing.
In other news, I have made it through my 1st week running the new cafe. For the most part my work was warmly received and I enjoyed doing it. And it the weekend has been glorious!

Religious Experience

2007-12-24T10:38:00.000-08:00

In daily existence it is relatively easy to keep spiritual matters an individual, inner experiece and interact easily with people of all kinds of spiritual views with little conflict, even without considering that the person you are interacting with could have a fundamental spiritual argument with you. But I always find at this time of year, that this so personal aspect of our lives is suddenly on the table for discussion, dissection and disagreement, which kind of kills the "holiday spirit". What I am realizing is that a large majority of the people I know have been wounded, usually in their formative years, by having someone, or quite a few someones, tell them that some part of their experience of being a human being was wrong. To protect this inner wound from further infection they push away with great strength anything that resembles that wounding experience.
I had kind of an opposite experience from so many people who were wounded by traditional religion. I was wounded by intellectualism. When I was small my family attended a congregation of Unitarian Universalists. They were all fine people. No one was unkind to me. I was never forced to do anything awful. But as a group these people were looking for quantifiable answers, a "reasonable" explanation for spiritual tradition. My experience as a human being is that there is much that cannot be seen that is very real, and that the miraculous requires no explanation. All this was supported and confirmed in my education. But at "church" they were ripping away the curtain, trying to reveal the puppeteer, when all I wanted was to enjoy the puppet show! It was only very recently that I realized that the people in my life who can't stand Christmas Carols about Jesus, who wouldn't sit through a midnight mass if you paid them, are reacting to a feeling just like the car-sickness I got every Sunday as a child. They are protecting their inner sanctuary from which someone in their past tried to remove something sacred to them. The anger or sadness that I feel when someone turns away from my joyful singing, is the same anger they fell toward my song. How on earth do you celebrate the holidays with all that going on? My family has found a few activities that make the holiday meaningful and that we can all enjoy; watching Its a Wonderful Life on the big screen at the Colonial, singing to Edie and David's cows on Christmas Eve, and when all else fails, there's food. I have yet to meet the person who doesn't feel just a little bit better about life and the world after a big fancy dinner!

Howling

2007-12-03T14:27:00.000-08:00

The weather here is pretty dramatic at present. Out my window the black mass of the ridge is topped with a thin line of blue that fades into an ominous purple, and the wind is singing around the corners of the house. And did I mention...IT'S COLD!!! I love everything about my life at present, the amazing crash landings I've recently made into jobs and home, the thrill of what the next glorious falling-into-place will be, but when I lie in bed at night with a wool hat, socks and sweater over my flannel pj's and a hot water bottle at my feet, I really miss San DIego (where, might I add, I also complained that it was not warm enough).
I am in the process of becoming a certified food handler, which is both exciting, as it lends some credulity to my career shift, and excruciating, since, from my perspective on the world, it seems to be pretty much government sanctioned propaganda. From the way he looks from the back, I keep expecting the man who was sitting in front of me today to actually be Chuck Norris; that being the most notable tidbit of my day, I'm sure you can imagine the mush my brain is currently composed of.
On Saturday, after dodging the ridiculous gate fee at recycling, I went to investigate the new outlet mall that sprawls beneath the cooling towers of the Limerick nuclear power plant. It was like pretty much every other outlet mall I've visited, and let me tell you there've been quite a few, but thrillingly close to home. More thrilling than that however was the fact that after over a year in sizes 12-14, I could comfortably fit into more than one pair of size 10 pants. This realization brought home to me some of the inner strides I've made in the past several months, strides that I'm pretty sure facilitated the effortless shedding of pounds. Like I said, life is pretty much perfect aside from the fact that this 20 minutes or so of typing has rendered my fingers nearly numb with cold. Off to fill up the hot water bottle!

Going on Sabbatical

2007-11-17T14:01:00.000-08:00

Ok, so my daily posts are not so daily.
Today I went to the Winter Craft Fair at WSP and everyone's tables were so full of beautiful things! I must therefore excuse myself from blogging, as well as conversations longer than a minute and a half and meals other than reheated soup, or I will never reach my ideal of a beautiful and bounteous table at the Kimberton show in 2 weeks.
(All of a sudden I have automatic spell check on blogger!)

Upsidedown Day

2007-11-14T08:32:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had a perfectly leisurely morning, rising around 7:00 and not having to be anywhere until 9:30. Well, once 9:00 rolled around things started to rush, and I tore off to pick up Jame and Ivy before my meeting (they were going to borrow my car while I was busy). While Jame was installing the car seat and I was rummaging in the basement for a pair of shoes, that for some reason I could not wait another day to retrieve from storage, the phone rang. It was my meeting. It was supposed to be at 9:00. And could he have my phone number while we were at it so he didn't have to track me down at my mother's.
So off we went and my fellow meetees were only slightly annoyed and nobody really knew anything and we all decided to meet again next week with a couple more people who didn't know much specifically.
Then Jame and Ivy picked me up and we went to visit Danielle and her girls. Ivy and Amelie and Madelaene enjoyed themselves and eachother emensely, as did the grown-ups. On the way home ivy was hungry and tired, but it had been hard to tear ourselves away, and we still had to drop off some movies and pick up some groceries. That done, life seemed to be slowing down when I suddenly realized that there was to be a brokers' open house at my house going on at that very moment and I had not taken down the makeshift clotheslines that were booby-trapping the entire 1st floor, some still laden with socks and sweaters. So I swung in and apologized to the realtor (whose children I had babysat 20 years previous) and all was well.
Needless to say I hardly got any sewing done. And now I am procrastinating some more to write this all down. Do you think it will look funny if I only have one item to sell at the craft show?

November

2007-11-13T05:31:00.000-08:00

By way of making up for 2 days in one post, I will write about the weather, which has been much the same today and yesterday. It is grey and cold, but the thick blanket of clouds takes the sharpness out of the cold and wards off the frost I've been scraping of my car of late. The view from every window in my house is beautiful, even in these conditions. The fog mutes the tree colors, giving me the eyes of an impressionist. From the window I'm looking out now, this backdrop is dotted with grey and red roofs and given added drama by a tree that has already let go of its leaf burden. He doesn't look dead, he looks liberated.

early riser

2007-11-11T20:39:00.000-08:00

I can now report after several days of it, that a side effect of a clean liver and colon seems to be that I wake up, rested and refreshed at 6:30 every morning. This has very much improved how much I can get done in a day and how close to on-time I arrive at work.
Sadly I don't know how well the-little-organs-that-could will be able to keep this up if I keep staying up to all hours, so bonne nuit!

Exposed

2007-11-10T20:04:00.000-08:00

It used to be pretty much my sister who read my blog, and I could say anything. At a certain point I decided to let some fellow teachers in on it, then I had to be careful I didn't badmouth anyone at work. Then last summer I told my aunt about it, at which point a whole slew of extended family got on board. They are now some of my most loyal and appreciative readers, but it certainly would make me think twice about posting, say, details about my sex life (if I had one).
I have now reached a new rung. Tonight over the tray of meatballs at the aforementioned dance and auction, someone said she had googled the organization and it brought up my post about Mr. Handsome. I have therefore edited the post, removing the name of the organization. And I think we will be dropping the Mr. Handsome story line.
And I feel a little silly and misunderstood. I think part of why I started this blog is that currently, and for some time, there has been no one at home at the end of a long day to vent to, to laugh about it with, to share the excitement with. I don't mean that to sound pitiful, most of the time I like being the only ruler of my roost, but I find it helps one to understand one's thoughts if one says them out loud, or at least types them into coherent sentences. I forget that the cyber dinner table around which I digest my day now seats unnumbered people and they don't all know me well enough to get where I'm coming from.
My apologies for missing yesterday, I was babysitting for my niece in Philadelphia and if I am not at this little desk, I forget to write.

Crap Week

2007-11-08T15:34:00.000-08:00

Just when you thought you were finished hearing about my internal organs, I have something I must share, in case it may give others the strength to boldly go where I have just been.
It was once suggested to me that I might look into colon hydrotherapy. Well, I thought it sounded interesting, and thought about it for 10 years or so, and finally mustered the guts to do it (as it was recommended following the l/g flush). I will not go into detail, again, for the squeamish among you, but I feel fabulous, and am eagerly awaiting my next session.
In other news, I made a very disappointing broccoli soup today at work, and bought the 3rd wrong color of burt's bees lip shimmer since I lost the one I loved and can't remember its damn name!

33 going on 93

2007-11-07T17:56:00.000-08:00

I was having a dream that I was on vacation with Molly Brett and I think Justin Timberlake. We were in the airport on our way home (I think just me and Molly, I guess Justin was staying on) and I was getting a drink from the hot beverage machine. I was trying to use up spare pence (and yet we had been to warm, sandy beaches?) and it was taking FOR EVER because, as often happens in my dreams, I could not keep my eyes open. I needed just a few more p for the beverage, but couldn't see to find it and a line was growing behind me. So I summoned all my strength and forced my eyes open.
And that is how I woke up this morning.
Just minutes later, Jane (landlordette) called to say that Peter (landlord) was on his way over to get the plunger because Nina (next door neighbor) was having a plumbing emergency. The door was locked, however, so I had to go downstairs to hand of the instrument. And once I was up I thought I might as well make muffins. I did a little work in my workshop (including making a baby-doll that bears a striking resemblance to Kartman from South Park), then went to lunch at Helios House. I am making my rounds of all the households in Camphill so that I become a familiar face by the time the cafe opens.
I would have called this a full enough day, but then I had to go to work. Have I mentioned that I hate the afternoon shift? I hate it. The whole time I was there I was imagining being on my couch with a book and a cup of tea. Like I said...93.

Flushed

2007-11-06T14:12:00.000-08:00

Well I have come through the liver/gallbladder flush just fine. I got rid of about 500 gall stones and it was relatively painless, but not for the squeamish. I've decided not to go into detail unless asked as the whole experience comes under the heading of TMI.
And I have successfully avoided any preparation for the upcoming craft show I'm selling at. Today's tactic was making curtains for my room and then taking all the pictures off the walls and books off the shelves therein. Its a little spartan, but starting to feel less like house-sitting and more like my legitimate residence.
I can recommend "Come Early Morning", which I rented and watched last night! I believe its one of those straight-to-video gems. Romantic but not sugar-coated, with some good observations on getting out from under the crap you've inherited (I don't mean Aunt Doris's hideous wedding china) and becoming who you want to become. It is the directorial debut of Joey Lauren Adams and stars Ashley Judd and "Burn Notice" star Jeffrey Donovan. Two thumbs up!

You don't bring me flowers...

2007-11-05T12:54:00.000-08:00

Is it possible that the reason your honey stops asking how your day was is because the reports start to sound like these posts?
So far today I can report that I have lost my sense of smell and along with the ability to taste, and therefor to create, delicious food. I cleaned out the walk-in fridge; that was satisfying. My landlords are currently corroborating the stereotype that British people are lawn-care maniacs. Tonight I start my 24-hour liver and gallbladder cleanse; that should make for an informative and possible repulsive post a day or two hence.
Until then, never fear, only 25 days of NaBloPoMo left!

Fall Back

2007-11-04T16:24:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning, looked at my clock which said 8:04, sat up and let my feet dangle to the floor. It is infinitely easier to get down out of bed than up off the floor. I showered, took my time with my hair, got dressed, made tea (I know this seems deathly boring, but I'm setting the stage). I was about to run to the fabric store, aiming to get there when they opened, then go straight to work, but I thought I'd check my email first. My computer knew better than I that I had missed my once-a year chance to get an extra hour of sleep. It was too late to capitalize on the sleep part, but I did have a whole unaccounted-for hour in which to clean my bathroom and put away some boxes of books.
In other small celebrations, today was my final Sunday on the closing shift. Now if I could just get rid of Wednesdays too!

Built in a Day

2007-11-03T18:08:00.000-07:00

I asked my dad to help me built a frame for my mattress. He pretty much built it for me. It took him most of the day, including an early morning trip to buy the lumber. Tonight will be the first time in a month I have not been sleeping on the floor. I owe him one swanky steak dinner!
This evening there was a folk dance at the Waldorf school. My parents and I were alerted to this by our friend Kelly who teaches there. Late in the afternoon we all started to wonder what kind of gathering we were really crashing, since none of us has any official tie to the place at the moment. When we arrived we were indeed the only people there, besides a handful of villagers, who weren't parents or teachers. One man, whom I don't particularly like, came up to Dad and asked how we heard about the event, the subtext being "what the hell are you doing here?" We told him Kelly told us. About 10 minutes later he came back and asked if Dad had grandchildren at the school. He just really couldn't figure it out. He doesn't realize that the ownership he was feeling toward that place at that moment will never go away. You don't have to be paying tuition or receiving an education or a paycheck to feel that you have an open invitation to everything that goes on there. And why shouldn't you be able to stop by your alma mater for a pot luck and a Virginia Reel?

First Friday Phoenixville

2007-11-02T17:03:00.000-07:00

This evening I went to man a table at First Friday Phoenixville. The purpose of the table was to drum up interest in the upcoming dance party and silent auction fundraiser for an organization I belong to. I had done precious little to help up to this point so I thought it was time to pitch in.
The table was set up right next to Parents of Phoenixville's Budding Athletes (not their real name) and the buds themselves were supposed to be selling raffle tickets, but were mainly wrestling and swearing at eachother.
The band playing accross the street had something of a carny theme: there was fire juggling and booger jokes and a flute player - I just don't know!
Most people read the sign that I stood beside, one woman looked like she might take a flyer, another actually did take one, but other than that - zip!
As I stood there up walks the man we will call Mr. Handsome, as my Aunt so aptly named him after his first appearance in this blog (remember the blushing incident?). He was on the phone, but made a face at me as though to say "I'm down with the Time Bank" and I made a face back like "I'm down with having your babies" When he got off the phone we talked a little about the event that he was out promoting and how he hadn't paid his dues yet this year. Then he asked my name and I said Erin and he asked what my last name was and oh was I Cara Graver's sister? Um, no. I'm her daughter. But she looks young. He apologized and I asked his name and there we were. The blushing incident never happened. Now he's the one who can be embarrassed at calling me old. And next time I see him (Oh there WILL be a next time) I will calmly remind him that I know him and eventually he will remember who I am and that I am not old enough to be his mother and we will be off to a great start!

NaBloPoMo

2007-11-01T19:25:00.000-07:00

November is National Blog Posting Month. Many have committed, through official channels, to posting at least once a day all month long. I am intending the same, unofficially, but cannot vouch for quality at this rate.
Tonight my only words are these: I have just come from a dinner where the company was sublime and the food sub-par and overpriced. We will not be returning to that spot!
I am having my annual bout of respiratory agitation and my voice sounds less like me and more like Bea Arthur. I should be in bed and soon will be.
Sweet Dreams!

Signs of Winter

2007-10-29T13:43:00.000-07:00

On Saturday night I felt like hell fresh from the nuker. Ever since then I've been achy and dragging, but not sick enough to get out of anything. My boss had this same ailment last week and says I will continue to feel wretched for several days and it will never amount to anything. Great!
All the same I am kind of enjoying the crispy air! I am keeping the house thriftily chilly and not really minding it, but my poor skinny friend Shay was here over the weekend and never took off her scarf. I built a fire in the woodstove last night and this morning I hardly grumbled while scraping ice of my windshield. Its all sort of novel after a year in San Diego!
Last night I opened a chain email that promised me that at 8:33 this morning someone would tell me something I had been waiting to here. I was excited. I could think of all sorts of good news it might be. Well frankly it would have been a little scary if it had happened exactly that way because I was in the shower at 8:33. I am still holding out for a declaration of affection or a generous donation of several million dollars. Hey, miracles happen!

Grey Day Musings

2007-10-25T13:38:00.000-07:00

Note to readers who tried to visit links: I entered Jason's link incorrectly at first (fixed now). While I'm sending you surfing, my friend Carl asked to be linked and he is now on the list (at right).
If you want a first hand account of a SoCal fire evacuee, pay my friend Jason a visit at

his new blog

My mattress is oh-so-comfy while you're on it, but I've been waking up with the feeling that a few of my vertebrae have gotten stuck together in the night and find myself doing all sorts of yogic contortions before I pull myself upright to greet the day.
I have been musing about romance and recognition of late and would welcome commentary from anyone who knows more than me, which is quite possibly everyone. I already know that relationships are work, but is getting together a struggle too? Most of my closest friendships are with people who seemed like family pretty much from the get go; am I stupid to expect the same from a quality romantic connection? How many of you had lukewarm feelings toward your mate when you first met and how many of you saw each other and knew: here is someone important to my life?

Lone Wolf

2007-10-22T19:52:00.000-07:00

Just when I think I've done everything impressive, I go and buy a mattress by myself. Its one of those chores you'd swear would be easier with company, but after two failed attempts with helpers, I fueled myself with wonder-mocha and headed to IKEA at about 6:30 this evening in a borrowed pickup. I rolled around on mattresses for about 20 minutes, throwing aside pillows and mattress toppers willy nilly to do a thorough comparison. I must have looked like a mad woman, but I had a mission, and if I didn't have a mattress by the time IKEA closed, I was just going to sleep there!
Of course you can't leave IKEA without a couple of trashcans and a laundry hamper, so I sped through to collect them. I found all the help I needed to locate my mattress in self-serve, pay for it and load it into the truck. As I secured the mattress into the truck bed using my clothes line, I thought of my gay cowboy friend Dusty, who said when I told him about camping myself across the country, "and your not even a lesbian!" I felt this evening's mission was a victory not only for my formerly bedless self, but for single straight girls everywhere!

Cleaning Frenzy

2007-10-17T19:09:00.000-07:00

I feel like I have written more than once that I have at last become an adult. I guess this is just proof that we are in a constant state of becoming! Anyhow, the milestone this time is that I, the person who once let a weeks worth of dishes fester in the sink on a regular basis, the one who did not put her hand to a toilet brush for the entire time she lived in California, I could not rest tonight until I had reversed the havoc done to my house by a wild family sleepover (take an 18 month-old, 4 adults, and two or three meals, stir well and watch the crumbs fly!). The kitchen has been stabilized, 3 loads of laundry taken in and folded, and I am merely resting my feet before I set myself upon the bathroom.

Check-in

2007-10-02T19:33:00.000-07:00

I've been kind of itching to write lately, with no particularly compelling subject in mind, so here's to the minutiae!
I colored my hair last weekend what I thought would be a sedate auburn. I was alarmed at first but have come to love the bonfire that happened instead. Just today I got it trimmed up and I am feelin' fabulous!
I am reading Clarissa Pinkola Estes' "Women Who Run With the Wolves" about the Wild Woman archetype seen in myths and legends and how that deep intuition has been stamped out of our culture over the years leaving many woman feeling they've lost a part of themselves. Having spent the majority of my life keeping the proverbial boat steady this all makes perfect sense and I'm treating my wild hair as kind of an homage to my personal Wild Woman.
In other news, many of you may have already heard through the grapevine that I will be cooking for yet another Kimberton hot spot; the Kimberton Hills Cafe. I am excited as I will be really at the wheel on this job and helping redefine and grow the cafe which has mostly been a well-guarded secret. About 7 years ago in England I was taking a class about figuring out the next step to take in your life and one of the exercises we did was to describe your perfect day ten years from then, including elements like work and home to get a picture of where you'd like to be going. The day I described included my work cooking for the community. (It also included my husband and at least one child, so if anybody wants to help me track THEM down that'd be great.) I've thought passively about that picture from time to time, but I am amazed at how quickly, when I really decided it was time to do it, it all came together. I didn't have to go back to school or get turned down ten times before somebody gave me a shot, it just fell into my open, waiting hands. I guess I'm feeling pretty lucky!

Pink

2007-09-10T18:47:00.000-07:00

Solitude is definitely conducive to writing. Were all the great reclusive writers reclusive because they were great or great because they were reclusive?
Working the closing shift at KWF solo this evening I found myself dictating vignettes to my mental secretary. She leaves a lot of the stuff I tell her out of the record, not sure why I keep her around. It seemed that every task I undertook took on new layers of complication, resulting in the overwhelming feeling of accomplishing nothing! Here's a funny story from the evening that is so very me!
A handsome man came to the back of the store looking for the owner. I put him in touch with someone more helpful and returned to dicing celery. A little while later I went out front for something and met him again serving himself some soup. "Hi again!" he said, "So are you running the cafe now?" Many people have asked me this and I humbly admit to being just part of the team. I do find the question awkward sometimes, like when the manager is standing right next to me, but there was no one around this evening. All the same, apparently I started blushing, because he started to apologize profusely for making me feel uncomfortable. Realizing that I was blushing, and being fairly certain it was more because this man was so handsome than because he had mistaken me for management, only made it worse and the only thing I could do as my face became one roaring bonfire was giggle and head for the safety of the kitchen. Oh, and somewhere in there there was an exchange of names. I am somewhere between dread at the certainty of more blushing when I see him next and hoping that I see him every day for the rest of my life. In my defense, there are a lot of skin irritants in the cafe that might cause me to be a little pink anyway!

Its What Citizens Do

2007-09-04T19:12:00.000-07:00

When you move from one state to another, it is expected that your register yourself and certain significant belongings with the local authorities. While I appreciate societal order, I tend not to think about how it is kept and therefore comply with such regulations only under duress.
Today I spent the whole day getting good with Uncle Sam (I guess that's really the fed, so what's the state government? Uncle Bill?). I arrived at the Drivers License Center in Frazer around 10am, which was reported to be a slow time on their website, and took a number. 2 1/2 hours and a few new friends later, I went to the counter knowing full well I did not have all the documentation required for a home run, but just wanting to see if I could squeeze through a loop hole. Well, I couldn't, but going the full distance was less complicated than I thought. I thought I would have to go to the Social Security Office to get a replacement card for the one I lost 7 years ago when an old wallet accidentally went to Goodwill, wait 2 weeks to get it in the mail, go back to the DMV, possibly forgetting some other piece of vital information on the second attempt. Meanwhile I would have to go to the library to change my voter registration in order to be on time to participate in this fall's election (apparently there is some important local stuff going on around here).
But here's how it really played out. The woman said "Go to the Social Security office in West Chester, ask for the 2 page print out, not the 1, 'cause we can't help you with that, and come back here and be sure to have a check or money order for $26. And take a number on the way out and we'll probably be close to it by the time you get back". So I did. I sped through the SSA, got a money order at the ShopRite next door (most depressing grocery store EVER) as I had forgotten my check book, grabbed an americano and a sandwich and STILL had to wait about an hour when I returned to Frazer. And though it was as if an entire day of my life had been stolen, better that that several halves of several days combined with the weight of dread hanging constantly over my head.
So I am liscenced, registered to vote and newly carded by the ssa. Now I have only to get my car inspected and put my PA plates back on and I will be whistlin' dixie (was that a mixed metaphor?).

The Best News Ever

2007-08-16T06:45:00.000-07:00

I am overjoyed to be back on my little laptop, sucking up the free signal at the St. Peters Bakery, which is part of the St. Peters renaissance, taking back the sweet creek-side village from the clutch of biker gangs. But that is not the best news ever.
On Tuesday after work, I stopped by the Credit Union that holds my car loan to make my monthly payment, as usual not a minute before it was due. I was smelling like coffee and my dogs were barkin'. The teller was sweet and helpful and looked up my account, as I can never remember the number. "It looks like this will be your last payment" she said. I stared in disbelief with a big, dumb smile on my face. I guess I had not been paying close attention and had resigned myself to car payments until the end of time. I thanked her profusely (as though she had payed off the loan herself) and she said "I always like to give good news". "This is the best news I've ever gotten!" I said.
When I got out to MY car, I told Nigel that at last he really belonged to me and thought we should do something to celebrate, but we were both hot and tired and so we went home to rest, he in the carport and I on the couch.

Soul Rash

2007-08-12T16:27:00.000-07:00

I think part of my lack of blogging material has been due to the fact that I have recently been excited about a plan for 2-3 days only to have it make a hairpin turn and go another direction. Sick of regurgitating the whole tale with no ending, I've stopped talking, although I haven't stopped dreaming.
One of my baby steps towards my independence is that I now have a job. But along with this job comes a fairly constant feeling of humiliation and an eery sense that my life has gone absolutely nowhere since 1998. I am working in the cafe at the local health food store and while my coworkers are pleasant and the work is un-demanding and requires none of the preparation I so loathed in my last career, everyday I stand in front of the community that watched me grow up, in my 33-year-old (and slightly paunchy) body and ask "anything to drink with that?". It would only be worse if I were pressuring them with deep-fried potato products instead of fermented mushrooms and soy. I know, I know, its all in the attitude, but I'm afraid mine isn't very good right now. I am watching friends have the careers, the homes, the babies they've been planning for while I sleep in a twin bed in the middle of what feels like a perpetual yard sale.

Needle In A What?

2007-07-14T15:07:00.000-07:00

Readers may think from my lack of posting that I never left Tennessee. Fear not! I am safe at home on Graver Mountain and have people in my life again. I like people! My friend Diego says that he used to think he didn't like Italians, then he moved to the US and realized he just doesn't like people. (He was mostly joking, there are some people he likes.) Anyway, I feel the opposite. My mom and I went to the movies with some old family friends and when we got in the car to go home I said "I'm more fun than I used to be, aren't I?" and she confirmed. I talk now. And help out with the dishes. In fact I am currently working as my mother's butler since I don't yet have a job and can't afford to pay her rent, but dearly appreciate the very lovely roof and four walls.
This afternoon we did what any other couple of fun-lovin' gals might do with a free Saturday, we set up a folding table in the driveway and emptied the canister of the vacuum cleaner onto it and sifted through dust, pet hair and occasional dessicated insect body looking for the diamond that fell out of my grandmother's wedding ring. It is a real shame that we live so far off the road because the sight of us in shower caps and dust masks was really a treat. Sadly we did not find the diamond, but we did find some hardware and a couple of earring backs!
Lest you should worry about a soon-to-be 33 year-old living with her mother and sorting through garbage, I assure you I have bright prospects! I am possessed of a keen urge to feed and am on my way to gainful employment in the field. Soon after, I will be on my way to independent living (that sounds like I'm going to a retirement village) and thus will outwardly display the notion that I have already firmly espoused; I am a grown up!

Dog tired

2007-07-02T21:03:00.000-07:00

Apparently there are those who go into a frantic state when unsure of my whereabouts; I must say its nice to have someone pating such close attention. I just rolled into thr Red Carpet Inn shortly before midnight, having begun my day around 7am. I am in Tenessee, just a short ways from the Virginia border. I have plenty of stories to share, but must now pass out from exhaustion...zzzzz!

Don't Mess With Texas

2007-06-29T09:43:00.000-07:00

Texas is very wide. And from the highway, not terribly interesting. My whole day yesterday was a battle to keep Texas from putting me to sleep. Finally, around 11pm I got to Kevin's for a happy reunion. I haven't seen him in maybe over a year! Kevin and Shay became friends in college and, as he was a guest at the Bowman many a time, he has become my friend too.
Texas is very funny about their road signs, making clever little rhymes and puns like "IT IS unlAWFUL TO LITTER" and "POSSIBLE FLOODING AHEAD, IF YOU SEE WATER TURN AROUND, DON'T DROWN". Apparently locals have little experience of the effects of heavy rain and have been doing themselves unintentional harm right and left. All I got of this rain was a few sprinkles, and now my car and rooftop parcel anre safe and dry in Kev's garage. It won't be the end of the world if the roof stuff gets wet, but it would be much pleasanter if it didn't.
This morning I slept in in luxury, showered in luxury, ate my breakfast while watching tv AND reading peole magazine in luxury. Well deserved after two 14 hour days of driving!

Ketchup

2007-06-28T06:18:00.000-07:00

Oh no! I am falling behind!
Well, I had a lovely day in Encinitas wrapping thing up. Sarah at SuperCuts actually remembered me (she's cut my hair only twice before). I put more than my toes in the ocean (my entire self) and after spending over 2 hours putting the rooftop carrier on the car, I dined on fish tacos from Jorge's.
It was only 4:00 whe I got to my projected campsite yesterday, the sun was still blistering and there was no shade in sight (but there were instructions on what to do if you meet a mountain lion; if attacked, you should fight back!). The best way to keep cool seemed to be to keep driving, so I got an enormous iced coffee and got back behind the wheel. Winds were high and determined to blow me off the road, and pink lightening stabbed at the ground in the distance, but I decided to keep going until Las Cruces. When the city came into sight, the first lodging that presented itself was a beloved KOA. I give up! I'm not going to tell people I camp at state parks anymore, because I don't, because for $6 more you get a pool and wireless internet and no mountain lions.
The sun is climbing and I am almost finished my tea, so its time to hit the road. More soon!

On the Road Again

2007-06-26T06:45:00.000-07:00

Flying West across time zones inevitably leads to this; lying awake at 6:30 in the morning waiting for the world to wake up.
I was alarmed to find out that my flight was delayed and that I would miss my connecting flight in Houston. But I never could have dreamed it would turn out so well! I never felt airline loyalty before, but Continental not only served meals, but they found me a flight on another airline that was non-stop and got me to San Diego at 8:30 intead of 10! Rheanna picked me up in my very own car that formerly smelled of zoo animal, but under her care took on the smell of a Provencal lavender field.
It is very beautiful here. As the plane landed I could see mountains peering through mist, and the San Diego bay, and the Coronado Bridge that looked like a string of Christmas lights from so far away. Luckily it is a gray, June-gloom day and I will try not to get emotionally involved before I leave again tomorrow. Today I'll get an oil change and a car wash, maybe get them to check out the tires. I'll get a haircut from Sarah at SuperCuts, who always does exactly what I wanted. I'll say my farewell to the grocery store and stock up on road snacks. I'll go to the beach one last time and let the waves play with my feet and watch the pelicans soar and dive.
Home felt like I had never left, in good ways and in anti-climactic ways, and it feels right to be going there now. To all my Midwestern relatives that I have neglected these past few months, I am taking the southern route home, so I will miss out on your warmth and hospitality. I look forward to coming back to this place; I have made it mine this year and it joins the list of places that I consider a home, even if they are not so at the present time.

Check in

2007-06-21T12:35:00.000-07:00

I've been home for about a week and a half and it feels almost like California never happened. I've almost forgotten to be surprised when I see folks I haven't seen in a year. Everything is exactly the same, except the mowed down the car dealership in Kimberton - what evs!
I am out at the family ranch now and breathing in deep drafts of damp woodland air and being serenaded by the birds of my childhood.
As for the B&B, I like to think of it as a child. The development of the idea is a lot like pregnancy (not that I know first hand what pregnancy is like, but I like the metaphor). I would say the stage I'm in now is like, hmmm, getting the baby a social security number (grueling but essential)? Maybe we're not that far along. Maybe its more like a sonogram, hearing the heartbeat, maybe finding out the sex, but its still not here and I haven't even begun to pick out furniture for the nursery! In plain English, I am writing a business plan and finding out how much I don't know, but still totally excited to be doing it!

The Smell of Desperate

2007-06-13T20:22:00.000-07:00

I have writer's paralysis! I'd like to say something happy, or funny, or beautiful, or true, but all I have access to right now is a stack of desperate complaints. Its like my life is wrapped in bubble paper and packed into a cardboard box. It is beautiful and precious and exquisite and immense and I have been carrying it forever but I can't find the right place to put it down. It is getting heavy, my muscles are tight with lifting it. I've unpacked it before, taken it out and displayed it, but maybe the resting spot was on uneven ground. I am just exhausted with hauling my life around and not living it but I just don't know how to unpack it! I want somebody to tell me what to do, but I don't like anybody's suggestions. I know on some level that I have all the answers but I'm so tied in knots!

T minus 13 hours

2007-06-10T21:48:00.000-07:00

I did it. I'm all packed up and headed for Philly in the morning. Next time I post it will be from a different time zone. I think I'm headed for a little culture shock. I have become so accustomed to utter autonomy that it may take a little getting used to to have friends and relatives all over the place. I'm a little scared. And a little sad to leave. And a little annoyed with myself for not being unequivocally blissed out. As my good friend Gwyn wisely said though, transition is hard, even when it is a transition into what you've been longing for.

Monkey Love

2007-06-09T01:04:00.000-07:00

As I walked up to the coffee cart, I saw a familiar face and it saw me. "Hey" we exchanged, like we see each other everyday. Actually he didn't know who I was and I was pretty much star struck (even though, living in San Diego, I've had a handful of opportunities to see him upclose). I don't know who Jason Mraz is as a person either really, but I am intimate with his music. I'm not sure I can explain what the connection is without sounding really cheesey. Whether its heartbreakingly beautiful, or fun and funky, its just true. It is through Jason that I found out about the headliner of tonight's show, Bushwalla, who is every bit as wise and wonderful. They don't just make great music, when they perform they are an example of how we should live; openly, generously, in exhuberant joy.

Ode to Joy

2007-06-09T00:24:00.000-07:00

The tremendous weight of being a Kindergarten teacher has been lifted, and not only that, but in the end, my class really did transform, and while I'm not quite sure how I did it, and decidedly sure that I don't want to try it again, I am grateful for the feeling of accomplishment that lingers.
At the year-end assembly today, the 2nd and 3rd graders read Shiller's poem (in German) on which Beethoven based choral part of his 9th symphony. I had extreme goosebumps throughout their reading and I called to mind the image from the movie Immortal Beloved where the young Beethoven, having escaped the anger of his father, is foating on his back in the water, gazing at the night sky that is reflected all around him. This child who experienced such pain never lost his capacity to express joy. I love that piece and remember singing it in German for an assembly myself as a child. I wished as I listened to the children speak, that I had a copy of that piece somewhere. Just hours later while cleaning out my classroom, I came across the music in a pile that the teacher before me had left.

Verge

2007-06-06T17:53:00.000-07:00

It is the eve of my last day of teaching for a good long while (knock on wood - I've said this before!). When people here ask my what's next on the agenda, I feel like I'm about 5 years old and wearing oversized high heels and a tilted tiara when I say "I'm going to open a bed and breakfast". This is silly because with about a month to go until my 33rd birthday, it is totally reasonable (and some would say its about time) that I start my own business. I guess I feel financially young, with a paltry savings account and having never had more responsibility than a car loan, and this is the greatest hurtle for me. I am keen for guidance and advice, but extremely resistant to criticism or doses of hard reality (and they often come in the same package).

Wounds and Healing

2007-05-30T22:38:00.000-07:00

The AC adapter on my laptop sparked and then died last week. Much has happened, but only today did I get a replacement cord so that I could tell you about it all.
Gwyneth, my long lost soul-sister visited all last week with her sweetie Eric, whom I had not met, but whom I thoroughly enjoyed and highly approve of. They arrived last Monday night and on Tuesday morning I had an appointment to have a few moles biopsied. In my naivite, I did not realize "biopsy" the doctor was going to dig great craters in my skin (come on, people! A man on the moon and we are still leaving craters "just in case"?), and in my advanced hypochondria and narcissism following the procedure, I was paralyzed by fear of infection and irreparable scarring. Luckily Gwyn and Eric are both in nursing school and tended to me with care and encouragement. My wounds have scabbed over nicely and I just got word that the pathology report on the detached moles came back normal.
Once I recovered from my mutilation, I had such a good time with Gwyn and Eric! We rented surfboards and wetsuits and spent several blissful hours in the waves. We made some kick-ass mac and cheese, Gwyn made earth shattering brownies, and we had some great meals out too, and generally relaxed good times.
As they pulled away on Monday afternoon, I was sorry to see them go and a sadness tugged at my heart. Another dear friend is entering a world that is foreign to me and committing to an intimate partnership. I so look forward to catching up with them!

Leaving

2007-05-20T16:34:00.000-07:00

I can't wait to leave. I can't get out of this house fast enough (one of my roomates just came back from wherever she was and I am now listening to the thump thump of her world music through the paper-thin wall). I have been wanting school to be finished since about the 3rd week in. I am thrilled that there are only 13 days left. I am excited to be traveling again with home as my destination, seeing family and friends, starting new work. But its pretty lonely being excited to leave a place, especially a place where nobody knew you particularly well anyway. "Go ahead and go already" is the vibe I get. Maybe I have been protecting myself all year from knowing anyone well enough that it would be hard to walk away from them. (The thumping just got louder; what if I was sleeping in here?)
anyway, yesterday, I had sort of a tourist day. I went to Ocean Beach to the oft' talked of People's Food Co-op and Old Town where I bought a San Diego sweatshirt so that for years to come I can advertise this year I've had of adventure and growth. I also went to Mission San Diego, which was the first mission in California and the namesake of the city. It is inland a short way and it was quiet and sunny there with a sweet breeze (it has been depressingly grey here for over a week!). It's just a simple old church and some half-ruined monks quarters, but it had a a contented peace about it that little in life has had of late, and that I crave. A wedding had either ended a short while ago and a photographer was moving the party around from picturesque spot to spot. I could just have easily come upon a funeral or an empty, unused church, but it was a joyful beginning that I caught a glimpse of. When I got back in the car Tess Viglund was interviewing a woman who wrote a book about how weddings are such a huge business and that a weekend limousine rental that would normally cost $450 would run you more like $700 if you happened to be wearing a puffy white dress and a veil. The writer and her husband had been married on a Thursday afternoon at the courthouse and had later thrown a big party at their house.
I came home through downtown Encinitas where I stopped to look for birthday gifts for just about everyone I know. Their is a cool old theater, La Paloma, that never seems to be playing anything I want to see, but that I really wanted to go to. The Hoax, was playing at 6:30, so I rushed home and changed into warmer, movie-going clothes and went back to the theater. It is a beautiful specimen of old west architechture, and my popcorn and soda cost drastically less than it would have at the multiplex. It was an interesting movie, with a little snafoo in the middle when the reel change went afoul, but the three old ladies I met in the bathroom and I agreed that it couldn't have happened at a better time. (I just heard a door slam. I think I am alone in the house again. Aaaah!)
What a nice way to begin to say my goodbyes! If none of the people are gushing over my departure, the city (and environs) are certainly pulling out all the stops to make me feel both welcome to have enjoyed this place for this time, and welcome to go, with no hard feelings and an open invitation to visit any time!

Midnight Snack

2007-05-16T01:32:00.000-07:00

There is a little boy in my class who causes me considerable aggravation, but who regularly touches my heart with his well-shrouded but undeniable sweetness. He sometimes goes running from the classroom without permission. On one such occasion, I caught him in the hallway nibbling on the remains of his lunch. "I needed a midnight snack" he said to me with utter sincerity.
At the age of 32, I'm not saying it is impossible for me too change, but I have come to accept that if there is chocolate in my house, I will not rest until I have ingested it. Utterly worn out from child-herding, I slept for about 3 hours this afternoon. When I got home from choir this evening, I therefore had enough energy to cook up a chicken stir-fry for tomorrow's lunch, watch a little tv, read a bit, hatch an exhilerating scheme for my future (more to follow if anything pans out), and still at 1:46am I see no sign of sleep on the horizon. My defenses significantly weakened, I open the desk drawer where I know the remains of a bar of chocolate are waiting. I needed a midnight snack.

Armed and Handy

2007-05-05T00:23:00.000-07:00

Our toilet clogs a lot. This could have something to do with the q-tips and cotton balls that my roommates flush, but I'm just guessing.
Years ago I was squeamish and inexperienced in the arena of toilet plunging. Whenever possible I would leave the crime scene and pretend it had nothing to do with me. I can't remember the circumstance of my first successful plunge (I think my mom coached me) but I do remember feeling very powerful that I would never again have to skulk away from a clogged toilet and leave someone else to clean up my mess.
Which brings me back to this evening. One of my roommates was having a party, so I went late to the gym and caught an even later movie to avoid social torture. Ready to hit the sack, I returned to find the score was toilet 1, visitors 0. Sadly the entire bathroom floor had become a pond in the fight. I could have used the other bathroom and left it til morning, but chances are it would still be there waiting for me. Feeling extremely righteous at doing someone else's dirty work, I waded into the pond on rafts of paper towel and gave that toilet something to think about! Problem solved! I even did a cursory drying of the floor. I am such a grownup!

Direction

2007-05-02T18:53:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been wrenched in all directions trying to decide what will happen when school ends in June. Stay? Go home? Keep exploring? After some dedicated attention to my personal demons, I found myself in a joyful calm and I knew - it was time to go home, post haste.
I get a range of reactions to this decision. Pretty much everyone at home could understand wanting to migrate to the sun and palm trees of San Diego, but locals here wonder what suburban Pennsylvania holds that I am in such a hurry for?
I thought of a brilliant answer this evening in the kitchen, surrounded by piles of green vegetables awaiting transformation: my home is heaven and I can't help but want to be back there. Why do I keep leaving then? Here is a very simplified picture of reincarnation as I understand it; we keep coming back to earth although it is difficult and imperfect because it is the only way to grow. There is no freedom in heaven unless we are free to leave. It's the same with leaving home. I become more myself each time I leave and experience myself against the backdrop of unfamiliarity. And I am renewed when I return to the roads I learned to drive on, the smell my parents' house, the language my family has created over our years together, time spent with the friends who taught me what friendship is.

Its that time of year again...!

2007-04-17T15:13:00.000-07:00

As long-time readers will know, I think tax day should be a national holiday as it already has many of the elements in place. This year residents of hell, who are now wearing long underwear and reminiscing fondly about fire and brimstone, may have guessed that the cause of their drastic climate change is the fact that for the first time in my life, I mailed my taxes a day early. But don't be alarmed, I'm still the extreme procrastinator I've always been, but for some reason the deadline of April 15th or the 1st business day thereafter was extended and the fact was completely unpublicized and I was sure they were due yesterday. I heard this morning that the date has been recently exteded by another two days for residents of the northeastern United States who recently experienced some inclement weather. Is Uncle Sam going soft on us?
I usually like to be part of the late-night crowd that takes advantage of the post office's special hours, so it was a little anti-climactic to just throw my envelopes in the slot. But it was extremely satisfying just to get them done at all! I never imagined the complications that moving to California would add to the process. First of all, California, being the location of the country's finest climate, has a special form for part-year residents that is so arbitrary and freakin' confusing that I really didn't think I'd make it to the end. Federal forms are mostly adding and subtracting ad nauseum with one little multiplication thrown in to keep you awake. Same for PA. Not so California! It is a smorgasbord of mathmatical operations that I was hard pressed to see the reasoning behind. Who made up these tax laws?
Late in the day yesterday, all forms were filled out, photocopies were made, and the last pesky return, the local taxes from the 15 days of 2006 that I spent living in Phoenixville remained my only obstacle. Now, being lazy and a procrastinator, I never corrected the payroll person at school who had neglected to change my address, so as far as the government was concerned, I was still living on Hares Hill Rd. It seemed like so much trouble to exlpain myself to them that I was on the verge of taking my Dad's advice and committing perjury. As I folded the form though, my skin began to burn and my blood pounded in my ears. I have a mortal fear of the law (which is hilarious, because I am such a square). If I were called on this "mistake', there is no way I could say with any conviction that I was not aware of having lived in the city of Philadelphia for 6 months and owing them taxes. So back to Kinko's I went, worked some magic with white-out and the copier, borrowed a calculator from the guy next to me, reported all 3 of my official addresses during the past year, and prorated the taxes owed and withheld. I am getting back $14 instead of $300, but I will not be fined or imprisoned, and that is worth $286 to me!

Pretzel Girl

2007-04-15T10:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my nose touched my knee for the first time since I was maybe 9. A glorious reunion was also held between my feet and my forehead. I had not been to yoga in a while, but I definitely reached a new level! At first I was a little pissed that the teacher was not helping me as much as he used to, and then I realized it is possible that I have improved enough that I don't need as much attention! I have also been following a pretty challenging (for me) treadmill regime and doing strength training, both religiously. I have also not eaten refined sugar since, maybe Monday, and I DON'T MISS IT! Those of you who know me know that this is huge. I have been taking an herbal/holistic supplement to help control my blood sugar, that was I guess more out of control than I realized, and it is to this miracle capsule that I give a great portion of the credit for my success.
Why am I on such a fitness kick? I have been dropping small stinging complaints about my weight for months. Over the past 2 years I guess, I have been conducting an important, but not altogether conscious experiment wherein I ate like a college kid, exercised less than a vegetable and built myself a cozy protective layer. In the past I always lost weight effortlessly whenever I was in a relationship, although hindsight illuminates these periods of my life as emotionally berzerk. I kept saying to myself "don't worry about the weight, it always comes off when you're in love" until I realized that that was not a sustainable solution, that I needed to be in deep, true, lasting love with myself if I was to return to a healthier body. As we all know relationships with others that we love need our daily care and attention, and it is no different for self-love. I'm am being hyper vigilant right now because I saw myself becoming unhealthy and didn't like where that path was leading. Its like marriage counseling for the body/soul partnership; I have been doing so much inner work to heal the invisible parts of myself while my visible body was growing in a different direction, literally. The reconciliation is going well and I am excited both about the prospect of fitting into clothes I haven't been able to wear for a year and a half and the way it feels to make loving choices for myself. I mean there is treating yourself to a pint of ice cream and there is treating yourself to longevity and self confidence!

Mommy

2007-04-07T10:53:00.000-07:00

I dropped my mom off at the airport at 5:30 this morning. She had been here for five days and leaves behind her a bit of grey sky, literally and figuratively.
We pretended we were at a spa, taking long walks, doing yoga, eating well with the occasional treat, and taking luxurious naps.
Her next stop is Missouri where I hear there is snow, but there is also going to be my sister and my niece, my grandmother and my aunt.
I sometimes cringe to hear people say family is the most important thing in thier lives. Well, it sure ain't all sunshine and lollypops, but I guess you realize more about its importance when its 3,000 miles away.

Marching exhaustedly forward

2007-03-25T20:36:00.000-07:00

I was listening to snatches of A Prarie Home Companion today and Garrison Keilor said "(March is) the month that God designed to show people who don't drink what a hangover is like." I could not agree more! It feels to me like Dante's description of Limbo (correct me if I'm wrong) wherein the souls are chasing a banner that flaps in the wind, but they will never catch it and never stop trying. It is my least favorite month.
He also told a story about some Minnesota golfers who got so excited about the mild temperature that they went out to play golf in shorts and were caught by a Spring blizzard. After this trauma they had to flee to Costa Rica; they just couldn't handle changing temperatures any more. But as they sipped cool drinks in the pleasant and unchanging heat, they dreamt of home, knowing that no one in that paradise would ever know them as the folks in Lake Wobegon did. No one in Costa Rica could tell them the name of the short-haired alto who sat in front of them in choir and smelled like lilacs. This too is exactly what I have been feeling. As lovely as it is to have a bird-of-paradise plant outside my window, there is a loneliness in knowing that not a single soul in for hundreds of miles knows what parts I played in the high school musicals, or how I made paper dolls inside my desk during class all through middle school.
That being said, my major goal right now is to live life as it unfolds and not always have to know the terrain 10 steps ahead of where I am. But it was so comforting to have that voice that so precisely captures for me the feeling og being home tell me that what lies in my own heart is drawn from the well of some collective human heart.

The Ides of March

2007-03-19T19:44:00.000-07:00

In less than a week the following misfortunes have befallen our house: one roomate discovered she had brought lice home from her trip to Costa Rica, a pipe beneath the cement kitchen floor broke and flooded the kitchen and living room (there is now a jack-hammered hole in the kitchen and the carpet is pulled up in half the living room), a mysterious act of God fried the internet/cable/phone connection, and the dryer stopped blowing hot air. We are now on the repairmen's parade route.

Brothers and Sisters

2007-03-18T09:05:00.000-07:00

A colleague of mine invited me to a sweat lodge, which is a ceremony in the Native American tradition. She and her husband host these ceremonies at the times of the solstices and equinoxes as a way of bringing more consciousness to the change of seasons, and the ceremony itself is one of personal renewal.
When I arrived about 5 people were sitting around a blazing fire in a deep pit. We just sat and chatted, introducing ourselves again each time someone new joined the circle. As the time to enter the lodge neared we made prayer ties as a way of focusing our thoughts and capturing our intentions. Ties are made from tiny pinches of tobacco wrapped in squares of cloth whose colors represent the directions according to the Lakota tradition; earth (green), heavens (blue), east, childhood, new life (yellow), south, adolescence, ideals (white), west, adulthood, our personal gift to the world, (black), north, ancestors, wisdom, the realm between worlds (red) and the creator spirit (purple).
At around sundown (not that we could tell through the dense cloud-cover) we shed our warmer layers and entered the lodge, a frame of willow branches covered with layers of blankets. The prayer ties were hung from the willow frame and will remain in the lodge for 4 days and then be ceremonially burnt. The work of the lodge, the transformation, also goes on in us for 4 days.
The lodge is cool and dark and by now there are 13 of us and we do not have the luxury of sitting cross legged. Red hot rocks are brought into the lodge one by one and sprinkled with 4 sacred substances, sweet grass, sage, cedar and I forget the fourth. When there are seven in the pit in the center, the door is closed and we begin.
Prayers and thoughts are offered, songs are sung to the beat of a drum and water is poured over the rocks, making the air thick with steam. It is completely dark. It is a timeless realm inside the lodge, so nobody quite knows how long it is before the door is opened again.
There are four rounds, four times when more rocks are added through the open door. The first round is a welcome round, the second for prayers, the third for healing, and the fourth for gratitude. With each addition of rocks the air gets hotter and thicker and we are dripping with sweat and steam. By the fourth round our singing is more raw and I have to concentrate on every passing second, breathing deeply, to not be overwhelmed by the heat.
In prayers there is much talk of connection (an idea I am ruminating on a lot these days) to ourselves, to our actions, to others, to the earth. In the native American tradition, the stones are spoken of as our grandfather and the water poured over them as our grandmother and we who sit in a circle are brothers and sisters.
At the end of the last round we slowly leave the lodge and the air outside is like a perfect bath! Some folks hose off with cold water, but I feel cooked to perfection and change right into dry clothes. Everyone's faces are very rosy.
To bring ourselves back to earth we share a pot luck meal. Uncharacteristically, I am drawn to the stir-fried seaweed and the curly kale. We sit in communion over the meal and talk like the brothers and sisters that we are.

Wonderful

2007-03-13T20:25:00.000-07:00

My mom said on the phone the other day that she had seen a woman whose children I used to babysit. "She's wonderful!" the woman said of me. It got me to thinking (some more!) about appreciation and the chasm between perception and self-perception. Now, I am not tooting my own horn (although what would be wrong with that), but plenty of people say that I am wonderful, yet I feel like nobody has a harder time connecting with other people (probably mainly because I am not anyone else). What do people mean when they say I am wonderful? At what point in knowing me do they feel this way?
Sometimes I feel pretty wonderful! I'm funny and resourceful. I have interesting hobbies and I make a mean tiramisu.
Sometimes I am greedy, jealous and impatient. I am horrible on the phone. I'm not a great correspondant. I expect a lot of people (especially myself). I wallow in self pity.
When I think of someone wonderful, I think of them surrounded by praise and recognition. Yet how many people do we think are wonderful, who go around wondering if they are?

House of Dreams

2007-03-09T21:10:00.000-08:00

I rented A Good Year, the movie based on the Peter Mayle novel, this evening. It had the same delightful plot that all his books do and of which one never tires; the man who thought he had lost his soul comes to Provence only to be reunited with it.
I had this gut-wrenching feeling from the moment Russell Crowe's character arrived at the old house he'd inherited. It could have been the large bowl of ice cream I was eating at the time, but it also had something to do with the fact that I felt I was watching my beloved walk by and he had no idea I was standing there. Oh god, Russell Crowe is definitely not the beloved, if that's what you're thinking! He was kind of obnoxious. But the house was the very picture of what my dreams would look like if they materialized before me; an old stone house, well-loved and rough around the edges, longing to be filled with life and laughter. The colors were exquisite. The living space was not confined to the roof and four walls, but spilled out into gardens, swimming pool, vinyard and tennis court. It almost made me want to play tennis.
In Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (the book of the year, in my opinion; a must read), the author tells of a little girl who so wishes for a house of her own that she places her tiny feet on a square of bright blue tile she's found and meditates upon this house of dreams, willing it into being with her inner vision. I have a mind to find me a square of old tile and do the same, or perhaps I'll start on the little $2 Ikea rag rug by my bed and build my house around it.

Lollygagging

2007-03-09T15:25:00.000-08:00

This week stretched on forever, but the weather was so beautiful, that I didn't mind being exhausted.
I have developped a lovely routine of coming home from school, fixing a light lunch (having just eaten a substantial, Kindergarten snack at 10:30 or so), and taking it out onto the patio with a book. I have a hearty collection of freckles and a rosy glow from these midday picnics.
This morning the sky was so overcast that I felt like I had accidentally set my alarm for some ungodly hour, but by the time I left school it was bright again and I looked blissfully forward to having nothing planned for the rest of the day. There are those who bore easily, but I am not among them. I can stare and daydream and doze for hours and feel as though it has been a very fruitful afternoon.

My Favorite Things

2007-02-27T21:33:00.000-08:00

When I was small my family took most of our vacations in my grandmother's RV. Some of my absolute best memories are of those trips, the smell of the omnipresent shag carpeting, the cozy lighting, the way rain made rivers down the window as I lay in my bed, which had earlier that evening been the table where we ate supper. "The coach", as we called it, was equipped with an 8-track tape deck and I think we only had about 5 tapes: Debussy piano music, Vivaldi's 4 Seasons, Simon and Garfunkel, Judy Collins and The Sound of Music. I knew The Sound of Music by heart long before I ever saw the movie or performed it in Lise's backyard.
Tonight I was strongly considering staying home in front of the space heater instead of going to choir. At the last minute I rallied and was rewarded thusly: having given up all hope of doing something grandiose with the group, the director seemed to have scoured whatever old sheet music belonged to the college already and found an SSA arrangement of "My Favorite Things". This is a far cry from Bernstein you might say, as did I. But I put aside my snobbery and began to sing with all my heart. Its really esoteric wisdom, that Rodgers and Hammerstein! GIve your energy to what you love and you begin to love the whole world! Just to keep me from totally floating away on a cloud, the woman next to me kept singing "fay-vo-right". The director demonstrated several times how to sing the word (very much like it is usually pronounced, actually). "Fay-vo-right" she kept saying. "Favorite!" I said to her, the way I would if I were talking about peppermint stick ice cream. Crickets.

Much Has Happened, Yet Nothing Is New

2007-02-22T17:38:00.000-08:00

Wow, I have some serious catching up to do! All week I have been composing in my head and not managing to get anything captured.
On Monday I drove 7 1/2 hours up to Santa Cruz to look into a Natural Chef Training that is happening there. I was euphoric on whole drive up! I had good chats with Mom and Jame, good tunes on the ipod, plenty of snacks and perfect weather. But somehow, as I checked into my motel room the air went rushing out of my baloon and I had great difficulty procuring a meager dinner for myself at the New Leaf (local whole food grocery store). My motel neighbors were noisy, the bed sagged significantly to one corner and the whole place creaked and cracked as though it would fall down around me at any moment. It had a fabulous mirror though that made me look like a string bean!
In the morning I got up to go visit the school, Bauman College, which I drove past several times without seeing. It consists of a few rooms in a shopping center between mattresses and seafood. No students were on the premises at the time, just two quiet ladies in the office. One gave me a tour and a cup of tea, and the other did not say a word. My biggest question about the program is how close do Dr. Bauman's theories of eating for health come to dogma, and would there be room in such a training for a meat and dairy-loving individual like myself? The answer seemed to be not so much.
It was a gray day, and after a little driving tour of Santa Cruz, I started the arduous journey back south. I talked to Jame again just as she was setting the Shrove Tuesday pancakes on the table for dinner. I had forgotten that was what day it was and she suggested I stop for my pancakes at an all-night diner. Knowing that no pancake is worth eating to me without real maple syrup, I stopped for some at a grocery store. I imagined going to one of those old-timey coffee shops that everyone is always going to in LA in the movies, so I got off in Burbank and after a couple of curious turns I found myself at Frank's. I ordered a short stack, which I could only eat half of. The restaurant was sparsely populated by mostly elderly patrons. There was however a handsome young man eating alone at the counter. As I drove away I imagined all the ways I might have introduced myself and they were all brilliant and led to our sharing a long and happy life together. The rest of the drive was painfully long and dull. When I got home I emailed Shay; "I left my husband in a diner in Burbank".
Now that I am questioning the natural chef training as a next move, I find myself in the familliar position of desperately wondering what to do with all aspects of my life: where should I be, how will I earn a living, how do I meet people who like to do the things I like to do, will I die alone?
To take a break from all this wondering, I went on an errand marathon yesterday that included a haircut and, at long last, getting my California driver's license. As I sat in the chair at Supercuts, I became increasingly nervous as the woman muttered to herself, seeming to question her own every move. My fears were somewhat allayed when she explained that she had been cutting hair forever, but was going through re-certification and was trying to do things by the book. I could relate having temporarily lost my ability to operate a car after reading the California Driver's Handbook. My friend and fellow thick-haired person Vanessa told me that getting my hair thinned would add bounce to my curls and change my life, so I asked the woman to try it out. It is so funny how many ways we have of changing what we were born with, especially things that other people wish they had, like thick hair. Anyway, I'm enjoying the results.
Then I was off to the DMV which is half an hour away. The first time I went, to register my car, Shay was with me to lend her moral support. At that visit I was instructed to come back after having the car smog checked and at that time I could apply for my license. When I brought back the smog certificate, I had forgotten the passport necessary for the license. This time as I stood in line with my passport, I realized I had forgotten my glasses for the eye test. The receptionist told me I could take the written test today and come back for the eye test without waiting in line. So off I went through the DMV labarynth. I like to call Shay whenever I am in the DMV so she can be there in voice and spirit, and she pointed out the humor in my having driven there without the corrective lenses that I needed to pass the test to be licensed to drive.
The man who processed my application was also the eye-tester and the picture-taker. I think he was sweet on me, or maybe just relieved to see someone who wasn't 16. Although I told him I wore glasses on occasion, he kindly passed me on the vision test, trusting me to wear the glasses when I needed to. I passed the written test too and my license will arrive in the mail. My roomate Lauren needs to get her CA license too, so I showed her my corrected test to give her an idea of what it would be like. As I sat across from her at the table while she looked at it, I noticed there was a whole second side that I hadn't seen or filled out - curious! Sadly, one cannot have driver's licenses from 2 states at the same time, so they punched a hole in my brand new PA license with the great picture!