White

Dale Chihuly glass art at Desert Botanical Gardens
making bread

damn hippy sunscreen, never rubs in all the way.
angels among us

beatuties at boyce thompson arboretum

Not much to add here...This week's theme is white...We live in the desert which means bright colors or brown. Not much white. I'm sure creativity was inspiried in other corners of the world with a bit more or less! color.

Don't forget to feed yourself

Everyone is talking about the changing of the season. It's so fun how these small organic events bring us closer to each other or at least inspire in us similar thoughts of mind. Change, the passing of, losing of and gaining of time, new life and the death of old habits, remembering self, slowing down. Sometimes we need the Earth to remind us what is so easily forgotten.

Recently I've woken up to a cooler home. The sense of calm and peace floats around us like the leaves off the trees, those leaves being the anger and pride we carry so deep. As a family we have promised to love more, to wait, to be kind, to say yes more.

It's no mistake that the desert sees a moment of springtime before winter instead of a traditional fall. Months of summer cabin fever, trapped inside away from the 120 degree heat is similar to winter's, but without the joy of snow. After all that hiding we do deserve a chance at new growth. Though only the strongest seeds survive, as our own little flash of winter is still just around the corner. The frost of anger can be sure to kill any growth of joy if it is not carefully planted.

To be sure this cool feeling is not a passing breeze, we have dug some time out of our schedules to nourish ourselves daily. Each one of us having our own me time. Though we are family that relies on attachment parenting as our mainstay, we do realize the dangers of co-dependency. Drew has decided to complete a triathlon so his daily training becomes his me time. He takes over the bath/bedtime routine giving me an hour or so in the evening to write, photograph, herb yoga, or whatever without interruption. Sevi takes her moments as she needs them having recently discovered her room is more than just a place with a bed, she'll often steal away for 40 minutes alone.

I am empowered and calmed as I feel the strength of my family growing in every one of these solitary moments. I'm looking forward to a much cooler summer next year.

Valley of the Sun

This city always surprises me. When Drew and I first came to Phoenix we jumped in with both feet. Literally. We could not get enough of the sun, lakes, south mountain, gardens and museums. We were in hog, well javelina actually, heaven. But almost a year ago, just after the baby could crawl around, we started to say somethings like: it's so boring here. There's no culture. We don't fit in. After careful analyzation, and a major soul searching event of a lifetime, we remembered we felt the same way in Bellingham, Prague, and Seattle. So with excitement for a new adventure, staying put, we decided to plant our grapefruit tree.

We started thinking about what we love about this place and couldn't stop talking about it. It's amazing how your whole outlook changes when you focus on the good parts of things. With the cooler weather just around the corner, I thought I'd share some of our faves.

Desert Botanical Gardens

Amazing array of desert flora habitats native to the southwest. They just added an herb garden that we are all in love with. We've renewed our membership.

South Mountain Preserve

Literally our backyard. We can see it from our window and while it's really more a hill than a mountain it is the largest city park in the country. With hiking, mountain biking, old mines, and so much more to explore. And the best part, it's free.

Telegraph Pass

I think this is technically part of South Mountain Park. It is our closest hike and a doozy for an out of shape mama as it is straight uphill for about a mile. But well worth the view of the entire valley once you get there.

Mill Avenue

Shops, singers, bums, college kids, beer. What more could you want? Gives us a little city when the burbs get too much.

Boyce Thompson Arboretum
Our current favorite. We just became members here. It is a massive desert park with every desert in the world represented. A flora lovers paradise. We just explore a bit each time we go, but I could spend all day in each little section so I don't mind. Sevi loves to run free and smell the flowers.

Flagstaff
Our little pacific northwest. Up north, Flagg always helps us with our little cravings of Seattle. It's very granola, green, usually a little rainy, and a ton of fun.

Saguaro Lake
This man-made delight is less than 2 hours away, as everything seems to be, but is amazing. Straight out of middle Earth, there are 100 foot canyons with green trees and bushes sticking out the side and a huge dark blue, clean amazing body of water right down the middle.


Our Sunday Farmer's Market/Now Saturday Maya's CSA
Our little section of suburbia has its own farmer's market. We were riding our bikes there, but it got a little hot. In about two weeks, we will start going out to The Farm at South Mountain to pick up our veggies with our new CSA membership. Can't wait.


SWIHA
The local hippie college, yes there are hippies in the desert. I know three people who go to school here now. One is studying herbalism, the other nutrition, and the third acupuncture and naturopathic medicine. It's the one stop shop for alternative medicine education, resources, seminars etc.

Pecos Community Center
Less than 2 blocks away you'll find Sevi and I here almost everyday. We take a bunch of mom and tot classes that were less than our one music class we used to do. We also go in the mornings to play at the playground and evening to play in the splash pad. They've got great soccer fields we use for bocce and picnics.

Who needs more than a patio home when you've got all this right in your backyard, literally.

So what is the real reason we felt so uneasy? I think we got bored. When we weren't busy changing diapers, chasing a crawler, and up every 2 hours in the night, the idea of taking the baby to any of those places seemed overwhelming. So we let our memberships lapse and got into the kid stuff. We just barely have begun to feel more mobile with her and now forgot what there is to to around here, for kids AND grownups. I mean how many playdates and splash pads do I have to go every week? Honestly I can't remember the last time I saw an outdoor concert or felt awed in the presence of Margo Reed or transported back in time by the fashion wing at the Phoenix Art Museum (is it even still there?).

Our love rekindled when we started reading bloggers in Phoenix. Strange but through the cyberhalls living in the same city, though we've never met I am inspired by all my sol seeker kindred to rediscover what we loved so much those first years. We've been off and running already with visits to Boyce and the DBG this last week and an outdoor ballet show on tap for Saturday evening. Maybe it's the cooler weather. In any case, it feels good to be home again.

Car Gazing, from the Window

the day we brought sevi home from the hospital

bad ass biker dude with a skull on his helmet. funny thing is you don't have to wear a helmet in the state of Arizona so this guy's smart and cool.
Just another random drive to the grocery store for some more beer.

see a corner view from windows around the world

Redefining Social

Sunday night I ended my relationship with about 85 people. All friends. Yes I left the facebook dance party. I have been deliberating about this for months. Really almost right after I signed up. It's about the same time I stopped working on my real writing, and stopped working on my compost writing on my blog. I did the weaning thing, recalibrated my notifications, settings etc. But it didn't work. I was an addict and had to walk away. I kept thinking it was breeding this whole generation of wallflowers. With all of us loosing the guts to go up and ask the boy to take us for a spin.

I contacted all my friends and let them know they could still reach me the old fashioned way. I got a couple of 'are you okay' and 'is everything alright's' and really just one 'good for you.' But it doesn't matter, I did the right thing for myself anyway. I get social networking and I think it's a great tool if you own a business or are promoting something. But for average suburban folks I think it can be an excuse not to call each other up, or worse, actually hang out. I mean how many times did you write on someone's wall and feel like you didn't need to call em? Or make plans that way that took 3 days, umpteen messages, and several wasted minutes checking to see if they responded. When if you just called each other, it might have taken 10 minutes, and maybe you'd have spent another 30 or so catching up; creating a joyful conversational cadence to make any wallflower graduate from shuffling her feet.

Okay that's a bit dramatic. But I'm just bored of it. The voyeurism, the necessity to be clever in 200 characters or less, the constant checking on comments I made comments on. All disguised as conversations, so we can convince ourselves we are interacting and being social. I made a couple of dates this week, and Sevi and I are gonna go play at some kiddy stuff. I'm not to get on the computer, but once at naptime. Last time I did this, as a test, I had a totally euphoric week. I've said it before, but it's worth repeating: I have the best days when I go wildly dancing through my life, and the beat of a live heart is the best music I know.

where are you

Thoughts on a rough day in the early days of motherhood. I just found this in one of my notebooks. It's amazing the clarity one can have on pure emotion. I was just talking to a girlfriend about this sort of thing. How it's easier for men not to screw things up because of their emotional selves. They don't let the self-talk and bullshit of how they feel about a thing get in the way of the doing of it, for the most part. But feeling what your feeling is good, healthy even. So, we decided it's not that having particular emotional moments are bad. It's what you do or don't do with those moments and those feelings next that matter.

where are you

we judge her without sympathy without shame,
the mother who hits, who shakes, who maims.

i've imagined it sure, we whisper in quiet empathy,
but actually doing such a thing we could never see.

once upon a time she had a village to guide her in these days
alone at home with children, it's her choice they all say.

exhausted, worn and beaten she steps out of her body,
to look upon the lifeless one, and swears she has no memory.

she never asked for help, never wanting to seem weak,
but village you were there, always refusing to speak.

in solute she acts, quickly, without sight,
knowing in just a few moments her sweet child will be all right.

don't be fooled however, the village still lurks around,
judging, watching, whispering, not making any sound.

she thinks to herself, "where were you dear village, in my moment of despair"
through tears she takes a look, and as usual, finds no one there.

September Corner

This corner view asked for September. While most folks are getting ready to stay in, us Phoenicians start to creep outside. The weather cools bringing the end of the over 100 degree days and when we're lucky, some crazy monsoons to liven things up. As a result of nature's indecisiveness we get:

Cactus in Bloom

Visits from Garlic Fairies

and garlic-loving angel fairies

late afternoon dips in the pool

the best cool blue morning light for walks

...and photos

and even better light in the evening for our night stroll

Take one last trip before school and see other corners of September.

Because, I am

JOYFUL!!!!!!!!!

Sniff and Scratch

I'm a suspect hippie. We do a lot, but there is plenty of the magic of industrialism we certainly partake in. I shop at Target, for one. Only every other month or so, but I do. The other night as Drew was throwing something in the garbage, he yells, "What the crap is this?" holding up a small jar and a paper container that previously held some organic mustard and whole grain crackers. So, I don't always recycle. What do you want?

Usually I'm okay with my little non-green indiscretions and try to repeat my mantra, 'we do what we can' whenever I cheat. But, once in a while I get into one of my crazies where the guilt has taken over and I try to overcompensate by buying a 6-ounce bottle of shampoo for $25 or the biodegradable-better-for-the-water-chlorine-free toilet paper that makes sand paper feel like imported silk. It's usually in these moments I remember my friend Audrey.

Audrey is one of those too cool for words chicks. The kind, well to me anyway, that always had it put together. She knew who she was and didn't compromise, but never made waves either. I have always envied this about her. Audrey is now a midwife. Again, ubercool and envy from me. She's one of those perfect Seattlites complete with the Birkenstocks, occasional dreadlocks, and unmistakable smell of patchouli who couldn't name the current pop icon or fashionista of the day if she was staring at a People magazine. Instead she always knew about the cool underground clubs to hear the latest folk rock that would end up on the radio next month and openings of vegan restaurants under wacky apartment buildings next to a sex shop.

One day in college, I went to pick up her and her roommate Janelle, also a good friend, for lunch or something. The fact that she was and still is good friends with Janelle is Audrey lesson #1. No boundaries. No judgement. Janelle, one of the sweetest people on earth -- truly, is the complete opposite of Audrey; gorgeous, perfect make-up, always stylishly dressed in latest fashion, an accountant, even talked about how she couldn't wait to get a boob job after college. Me in all my judgemental splendor, always found that fascinating. You see what I was used to is like attracts like. Growing up in a small town, I was used to that sort of odd social segregation that happens.

So anyway I walk under the Tibetan prayer flags into their red paint-flaked rented house and find both girls waiting. Audrey, clad in a wacky tank top that looks like it used to be a tee shirt, a flowy mismatched patterned skirt, and pink and orange striped tights, slipped into her brown Birkenstocks and came over to give me a hug. I noticed the change at once and pushed her back. She had shaved her armpits.

Whoa! I said, What's this all about?? I thought you were anti-shaving. As she grabbed her giant canvas sack disguised as a purse, she simply replied, "I'm more anti-stink. Where do you guys wanna eat?" There was no dissertation about the health and sanitary implications of underarm hair nor any defensive fireballs about women's rights spit back. Eventually I learned that what seemed to me to be complete contradictions of character, were in fact definitions of it.

She was exactly what Fleetwood meant when they sang Go Your Own Way. Living your own truth even if it seems contradictory to the outside world. With her on my mind lately, I've been driven to choices I would normally skip over or maybe say or do only in private. I've been trying it on with a real move-on-not-give-a-shit passiveness. I do it without commentary or explanation (at least out loud anyway), when I get the looks or the comments I myself once often made. I think it's the first step to freedom and true inner confidence. I feel lighter and the talking in my head is getting quieter. So, just before lunch, I'm off to Target to get some of that super soft double roll, yeah the one with the little bear on it. Where do you wanna eat?

The rule of Four Tens

No time to say goodbye hello...Maybe I need an initiative like this. Hmm...wonder where my City Hall is...

BlockHead

What is it about writer's block that makes your brain turn on just as the lights turn off? I swear every time I get in a slump with writing, I compose some of my best sentences lying in bed to the beat of the ceiling fan. But as soon as I decide enough is enough and get up to grab my laptop, they all vanish. I can't even remember what story I was 'working' on and the illustrious cursor has me hypnotized into a half sleep in a matter of minutes.

Last night I had such a moment. And at 3:30 when I decided to finally put the ideapad away (well actually the battery died), the familiar pat pat-pat of a little fairy lulls me into her room. No biggie, a quick snuggle she was fast asleep in moments, but I'm jarred awake again. As I'm walking out of her room, I step on the giant pile of Dr. Seuss library books we've been obsessing over in this house. But I'm safe, not a stir from the little sprite.

But, as I'm lying in bed, those sentences start
Oh not now no not now to my head says my heart!
Soon I'm off on adventures with words spinning tales
Of witches and sages with stars on their nails.

The rat-ta-tat-whir of the fan shows me then,
to breathe very slowly and take it all in.
I'm drifting, I'm lulled, off to dreamland I go
Till the damn neighbors dog starts to put on a show!