snow on the blossoms.

today.

snow on spring.

bits of today.

earlier today, i went to bed around 1:30 a.m. after a nice, long, "this is me" phone conversation over two mugs of tea with a dear friend.

i woke up to the smell of daffodils as the blue sky smiled down and filled my heart with lightness.

in the middle of my morning, a friend called to say that she was in my corner of town and wanted to have lunch. "yes. please. give me 15 minutes" was my swift response.

i have been waiting a long time to have a call out of the blue wanting to meet for lunch/coffee/tea/a hug/laughter/good conversation friendship here. (thank you.)

as the blue sky when i walked into the cafe became the northwest rainy grey sky as i walked to my car, i laughed as i walked swiftly to my car and decided not to stop and take a photo of a gorgous blooming something.

my dad called to check in and share an idea he had for me. getting these middle of the day "how are you" calls from him is nice.

millie sighed with irritation about five times in her neverending quest to sleep next to me on the couch as i work. finally, i gave in for a bit. her gloating, knowing sigh sealed the agreement we have that she has my number.

in between editing and moving files, i continued soaking and laundering my rummage sale finds that will soon become creations from the little room.

i put on the kettle for tea, and as i poured the hot water into my mug, the sun came out again, so i went outside to join it for a bit as a robin, two chickadees, and a junko sang their joy of its return.

and as i took in all that is today in this life i live, this is what i know, at least in this moment. the push and pull of life can be exhausting and push me to places and thoughts and fears that i do not want to live inside let alone pass through. yet, i keep going. i begin to allow myself to see these pushes and pulls as nudges instead of tornadoes. i find that if i share the pieces of who i am and what i am experiencing with someone else, i can see deeper into the truth of my life instead of trying to adjust to the blurry shadows that do not want to reveal what they know. and when i see this truth, i remember that life is good. i am okay. we are okay. the lightness of the blue sky shining morning is a part of me even when the grey comes back.
i will not forget.
the lightness lives inside me.

catching my eye. march 23.

the shared moments of jen and dar

kelly and mati making their dreams come true

krystyn's hope revolution

stephanie's buds

andrea's media cleanse

amy's bias tape tutorial

kim's views of spring

possible.

backyard cherry blooms, 3.22.08

A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible.
Welsh Proverb

what springs brings...

"Grandpa wants to know if there is anything you might want."

How do you decide what it is you might want after someone dies? I have heard so many stories about how families become divided over money when someone passes. Or how someone's great aunt promised them a special vase and then their sister-in-law suddenly said she was promised the same and the person telling the story decides it just isn't worth it even though she was the only one in the family to come over each Saturday with daisies to put in that vase for her aunt. You know these stories.

The funny thing is though, when you have distance, when the fullness of the missing sets in, you realize all you want is one more minute with that person while they are breathing. Heck you would even be fine with one more minute with them in the funeral home. It is a strange thing to deeply understand that previous sentence.

So, when my mom called me in December of 2006 while she was visiting my grandpa and asked if there was something of my grandma's that I might want, I paused and immediately had this thought: I just want something that was really hers, that she used, that she touched, that she lived inside. I said that all I really wanted was something she had worn and wondered if the grey sweatshirt with the chickadees, the one we gave her years ago for Christmas, was still in the house. By the time I finished trying to explain, worried that I sounded so odd only wanting an article of clothing, my eyes were blurry with tears and I couldn't say anything else. The deep truth that I would never touch her again, hear her voice again, see her wear that sweatshirt again had taken over.

My mom said that there were a few things in the closet and she would check.

She called the next day. She had found the sweatshirt.

She had found the sweatshirt.

And a few other things and she was going to send them to me.

I have mentioned this before, what it was like opening the box and seeing the sweatshirt and the memories that came back to me when I saw my grandmother's blue windbreaker.

What I haven't said is that I promptly put everything into the trunk that we use as a coffee table where we keep sheets we use on the couch when we have more guests than the little guestroom holds. I could not handle looking at all of it. Seeing those clothes rocked me for a while last January. Last summer, when we started the (not-yet-finished) great cleanup/organization of 2007 (and 2008), I opened the trunk wondering what the heck might be inside it.

Crap.

Right. The clothes. For some reason, I took out the grey sweatshirt and moved it to the bottom of my pajama drawer. Then, I quickly closed the trunk. Moving on.

In October, when we moved the dresser to the family room in anticipation of the new bed with under the bed drawers (the one that pottery barn screwed up the delivery of so many times that we finally had to cancel the order and hence the stalling of the great cleanup for the last few months) and I had to clean out the drawers, I moved the sweatshirt to the top shelf of my closet.
Yesterday, I noticed it again.

Today, I took down the grey button-front sweatshirt with the chickadees on the front and put it on. I put it on and went outside to investigate what spring had brought into my world today.

I put on that grey sweatshirt that my grandmother wore whenever she was around me and my brother as if to say, "I remember. I see you. I know you love me. I love you too." I put on that grey sweatshirt and I went outside with Millie. And, I walked around the yard.

Like she would do every morning.

I walked around the yard to see what had happened since yesterday and if nature felt any different because she suddenly lived inside spring.

I put on the sweatshirt and went outside to visit with spring and to feel just a little closer to someone I will never see again.

I put on the sweatshirt to remember that she lives inside me.

This weekend, Jonny is going to put up the new hooks we bought a few weeks back to put just inside the front door. Hooks where I will hang this sweatshirt so that I can put it on each morning before I go outside to see what gifts nature has brought overnight…so that I can put it on and move forward just a bit while holding onto the best of her.

five (really) good things and six other things

ready to be sewn together maude bags, march 2008

1) jen made my day with the gift of the new blog banner above. and then, with her help, i did a little spring cleaning around my blog as i changed font colors and other things. (thank you dear friend) this make me so darn happy!

2) since coming home from visiting the midwest, i have put myself on a schedule. it is really working and helping me focus and feel less overwhelmed. i have been devoting the late afternoon and evenings to working in the little room...cutting out simple selma totes and maude bags and another new line of bags...designing and then creating a new apron that is the prototype for a new design i will be sharing soon. i feel more centered with a schedule and knowing that i can shift it as needed is helpful.

3) as i work in the little room, i have been listening to sarah vowell (and friends) read assassination vacation. oh my goodness, she is so funny. i love this book and the way she looks at the world and draws such incredible parallels between the past and today. i want to be her friend.

4) the sun is shining today and i can hear the birds chirping as i work. the robins and chickadees are today's soundtrack.

5) water with a slice of lemon. this is a really good, really refreshing thing for me lately.

a few weeks back, annie (whose class i will be taking at artfest in two weeks!) tagged me to share six little known odd things about myself...hmmm...this somehow morphed into a list of little known facts about me as a kid...here you go:

1) when i was little, my dad had a secretary named joyce. but, i thought joyce was the name of her profession. as in assistants to attorneys are called "joyces." i think that was because when i would see her at my dad's office, i was told to call her "mrs. [insert last name here]," but when my dad talked about her to my mom, he called her joyce. i remember the moment i suddenly figured out it was her name. i was dumbfounded. i never told anyone about my confusion until i was in my 20s.

2) i never took a nap during naptime when i was three and in preschool. everyday we would lay down on our cots and mrs. lewis would dim the lights and put on a record of some sort. everyone would sleep. i would try to braid my hair or count the lights on the ceiling or try to talk myself into being brave enough to ride the swing the next time we went outside to play. (i have mentioned mrs. lewis once before on this blog. she was the first person outside my family to teach me about love. she's retiring this year after 34 years. i adore her.)

3) i recall that when i was first learning how to read and spell, i would ask my mom what signs said as we were driving (so i learned how to spell "detour" early on). i also always wanted to know what street we were on. a main street near our home was miami street. it would drive me crazy that my mom insisted that the street was hers, and i would repeatedly explain that "it isn't yourami it is myami."

4) when i was about four, i had a dream that the lead singer of sha na na was breaking into our house, specifically to steal the new video camera from our basement. in the dream, i heard a noise and went to investigate and started to go down the stairs (sitting as i went from one stair to the next). i got to about the fourth step down and saw him going into the basement. i was holding my pink blanket and was suddenly frozen with fear. i woke up terrified and still remember it as though i had the dream yesterday.

5) the house i lived in from the age of about two until ten is my favorite house ever. if i had enough money to build a new home for me and jonny, i would build a home almost exactly like that one. i guess the people who live in it now have completely remodeled (not to mention they painted the bricks of the colonial-styled home white). i never want to go inside to see the remodel as i want to remember that house exactly as it was in my mind. i loved that house on garland circle so much and sobbed when my parents said we were moving.

6) when i was in grade school and my parents were out for dinner and we had a babysitter, i used to pretend that the back of the couch was the parallel bars. i would lean back against the couch and lift my legs in the air like nadia did in the print on my wall. my parents would have not liked me treating the furniture that way so i never, ever did it when they were home. last my brother knew that couch was still out there having survived time in my mom's basement then matt's house then a friend's house when matt moved to portland and now a friend of that friend has it. i bet that couch has seen more than i would ever want to know...but once, it was part of a little girl's "gymnastic routine."

*******

i would love it if you would share your five really good things...or an odd unknown fact about your childhood.

go ahead...

please...

senses. blue sky break.

{see}

{touch}

{hear}

{taste}

{smell}

{and know}

a little wdw for your viewing pleasure

a few people have asked me why i haven't posted more pictures from disney world. the truth is that it just takes me forever to resize and choose and all that when i am looking through a whole big batch of photos.

so here are a few for you...i am adding a few more to flickr here and there in a set (you can go to the set just by clicking through to my flickr account by clicking any of these photos)

hope you are having a beautiful day, wherever you are in the world.
i am hoping for blue skies here in washington...

pause.

when you read these words
i hope you will pause
and take a breath with intention
and then send compassion
out into the world
to anyone you know
(or do not know)
who needs your compassion

moments

A moment that invites you to feel as though someone has taken a box full of all you know and a box full of all that you do not want to admit and turned them over on to a table and said, "Make sense of this. Now."

A moment (or two) spent wondering what home really is and really means and why it sometimes feels like I am someone searching for home instead of seeing the home I already have.

A moment that feels as though someone holds up a mirror facing me and says, "Look. No. Really look."

A few moments I have experienced lately.

I have been a traveler walking through truth, wonderment, joy, and pain. I have been visiting the past while sitting in the present.

I have felt as though I am becoming a bit worn in a few places as if I am on a trip seeking the lessons of the wise skin horse.

And this is what it is…life. This is what real is. This is what I am to do. This is doing.

I hear the whispers of truth, "you are on your path."

But it has been a bit uncentering as this kind of traveling can be and I have felt a bit like I am up on the tightrope holding my own and someone suddenly turns off the lights in the big top. My only option? Breathe and be patient.

So that is what I have been attempting to do.

And, tonight, the lights were raised by a little music I hadn't listened to in years paired with the rhythm of moving the scissors at the cutting table.

As I sung along with Alabama and Randy Travis then George Strait and finally Ronnie Milsap, I realized that these men sing part of the soundtrack of my life. I was transported to the many trips I have made from Indiana to South Carolina and back. I found myself:

In the middle front seat of a white Bonneville singing "40 Hour Week" with my mother and cousins as we tried to find every letter of the alphabet in the signs along the Kentucky interstate.

Spotting the mountains of Tennessee and turning up "Smokey Mountain Rain" so my mother and I could sing along as my brother groaned and turned up his walkman in the backseat.

Driving alone to my grandparents' house for the first time as George Strait kept me company singing "The Fireman" and "I Cross My Heart."

Tonight, singing these songs and remembering the goodness in the past, I found my footing.

As I turned the music off and then the lights in the little room, I realized that I felt grounded in the joy and beauty of the little moments that make up this life…in the moments that make up my life.

I am blessed.

home

The return


You are
the sliver of blue behind the grey
the yellow stripe on the crocus
the pungent plum tree blossoms
the insistent call of the plump chickadee
the arching green tulip leaves

Today,
I whisper prayers of gratitude
to Spring
as she awakens
and brings
you

postcard from chicago

Front:
A pedestrian sidewalk eye looking up view of the black steel-striped window-lined John Hancock Building.

Back:
I think and I think and I think, think, think, think.
And I breathe (for a moment).
Then, I think and I think and I try to sit in the quiet and not.
But I think and I think and I think, think, think, think.
And I breathe in so that I can…
Talk and talk.
And I sit in the quiet and I think.
And, today
As I think, think, think, think
I think that
It is time to quiet.
I think that
It is time to rest.
I think that
It is time to do.

postcard from indiana (two)

Front:
The reaching, soaring Lake Michigan-grey wing of a great blue heron.

Back:
I am pirouetting in midair
I am stillness within the light
I am the harbor of spirit
I am folded into darkness
I am beyond what is known
I am strength
I am wind
I am fragile
I am unburdened

postcard from indiana (one)

Front:
A landscape of snow-filled rows in fields that once held corn and soybeans surrounded by woods full of naked, brown trees with a highway running through it. The setting of the winters of my childhood.

Back:
"I come from / a tiptoeing, still, winter home." A line from a poem I wrote almost a year ago…I have walked back into that line as I traveled by plane and car and foot to all that I used to know. Walking down the roads that led to patterns invites an awareness to why the patterns continue even on a blank page of all that can be. I have allowed the samscaras to create a rhythm that is not inward resonance, but instead has pushed a feeling of off-kilter that has become my life on certain days, in certain moments.