Breath by Breath

Holiday Haiku ::: 11

Celebrate the Solstice

Let go of what's not needed

Welcome light and love.

Holiday Haiku ::: 9

It's a rainy day

No carols, just John Williams

Soon ::: candles and calm

Holiday Haiku ::: 6

This is the eighth year

Gathering for the Solstice

Tamales...love...light.

Advent ::: Days 21 through 25

"Little House Christmas" at the Main Street Theater in Houston. Silas and I read all 9 books together this year, so it was fun to hear is very detailed analysis of all the liberties they took with time, place, persons and events.

We FINALLY got to ice skate at Discovery Green and Santa showed up!

Afterward, we had a quick bite at our favotire Mission Burrito and went to Silas' piano teacher's family concert, full of piano, basoon, bell choir and lots of singing.

 

Silas, the Star Wars lego-loving Ninja (new balaclava and ski goggles in his stocking this year!).

Taking the break from the holiday joy, wearing new safety glasses from his very own real took kit and his new sweater & pj's.

Oh, no!  Auntie gave Silas the new version of "Battleship"! 

On Christmas Eve I did a lot of food prep for Christmas and we enjoyed a lovely evening of holiday cheer with friends at their gathering.  On Christmas morning we had a slow and sweet time with gifts for our tiny family, a breakfast of cinnamon rolls, and later a festive lunch and rousing game of Timeline with family, and an adult viewing of the Christmas premier of Les Miserables.  Foosball, lego and other fun stuff ensued for the little one and his daddy.

I hope everyone had and continues to have a peaceful, companionable, and joyful holiday season.

 

Advent ::: Days 13 through 21

 

Scenes from the Season

Dinner with a dear old friend and Mr. Darcy.

The funny pancake maker!

Gingerbread men & such.

Making tamales.

Silas takes a portrait of his family.

Traditional Christmas miniatures.

 

Silas finds a home at the North Pole.

Some making at Silas' school Christmas party.

Note card making.

Singing in public (!!!) at the Solstice Tamale Fiesta.

Not pictured...reading "Cops & Robbers", watching "Rudolf" & "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", wrapping presents, giving presents, the beautiful Solstice Tamale Fiesta ceremony (fire & candlelighting outside this year), making snowflakes for Newtown, and on and on....

 

 

The Stocking Project 2012 ::: Advent days 1 through 4

December 1 ::: Decorating, Festive Votive Holders and Bay Area Chorus Concert at Villa de Matel Convent

For some reason I have a blurry picture, here, but these are not new.  The stockings were up on time and we're working the Advent joy one day at a time...

Favorite holiday and winter books, movies and our solstice hand-held candles.

The Santa shelf.

The iron tree with family heirloom ornaments.

Experiments with Mod Podge and tissue paper votive holders.

December 2 ::: Trimming the tree & kite paper snowflakes

This is our second year with a real tree and I love it.  Our kite paper snowflake tradition continues with every-advancing sophistication as Silas understands how they work and has greater dexterity with his scissors.  This year's big innovation and all his idea?  The "ultimate" snow flake.  Using an entire sheet of kite paper trimmed to a square, we collaborated on a bunch of these, which are in several windows in our house.  

December 3 ::: Shop for donations, send e-vite for Solstice Gathering and Kids' Cookie-Decorating Party

Our advent activites are focused on making, doing and giving.  Today we shopped for toys to give to Toys for Tots.  We debated over what to get that would not conflict with our values, but also would be fun for kids who might not share ours.  We went through books & board games and settled on Lego.  Lego is Silas' favorite play activity and he has amazing skill at following the "kit" instructi0ns.  But, what I love is how he abandons the kits and makes his own super cool, zany, and often very functional stuff out of the combo of pieces he has accumulated and the Mindstorms robotic kits he has via his engineer Dad.  So, we are sharing the Lego love this year.  Our other "giving" is in the form of monetary donations (which will happen another day and for a specific set of reasons, which I'll go into later...).

Silas asked for a party to make cookies with his friends and I'm always up for a party.  We will be making salt dough cookie ornaments (and a few sweet treats, too!).  I've decided that 6 and a 1/2 is the best age for all this holiday fun.  I'm sure the fun will continue to grow, but he is just so into the spirit and anticipation and is beginning to understand our traditions and really make them his own. 

This year's tamale fiesta will take place on the actual solstice, which coincides with the end of the world/end of Mayan 5000-year cycle thing.  We can't wait.  Where would we rather be if the world ends than at home, surrounded by our friends and family.  Several people (including me) have already committed to sharing music or other forms of creativity after the observance circle and yule log, so I am looking forward to a very festive, celebratory, close, warm and connected evening.

December 4 ::: The Nutcracker & letter to Santa

The Houston Ballet does two daytime performances of The Nutcracker for school groups.  We joined with others to form a group of 8 "home schoolers" and were rewarded with very inexpensive tickets and Box Seats.  This was a first for me and for Silas.  His highlights

::: the snowflakes, which he analyzed via binoculars and determined were "laminated white paper, so they sparkle"

::: looking for the "winds" in the orchestra pit

::: the mice - soldier sword fighting

I asked him if he liked the dancing.  He said, "What part?"  I said, "All of it; the whole thing."  He said, "Yeah."  What can I say, he's a detail kid.  Actually, I think it was all a bit overwhelming and certainly not something we would attend every year. 

After our "snow day" from school, we had lunch and Silas wrote a letter to Santa.  One thing is on his list.  Yikes!  'Nough said.

 

 

 

Spring scenes

Sometimes life is just so very full. I've written before about the notebook I keep of my "accomplishments", big and small. As I review my notes from time since I've last posted, these are some things that jump out at me.

::: Teaching yoga two, sometimes three times a week and growing in intimacy, caring and engagement with my friends/students.

::: Managing tons and tons of financial and personal matters (insurance, retirement, education savings, taxes, mortgage, wills). I take all this on so that I am completely in the know about our situation and have educated opinions, suggestions and advice to offer.

::: Decided to buy a used car and then decided to get energy efficient windows instead. They still aren't installed.

::: Knitted a kindle cover, a scarf for a gift, one sock, and finished knitting a shawl my mother started but couldn't finish due to her arthritis. Spool knit another rainbow garland for the party supply box.

::: Finished stripping and staining our old 15-drawer dresser and another piece of furniture.

::: Silas spontaneously switched from a "join us in bed every night" kind of kid, to a "sleep in his own bed most of the time" kind of kid. We are all sleeping better and I feel great about how we've evolved.

::: Read several books for pleasure (all on Kindle) -- The Paris Wife, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, The Sense of an Ending. I've now tackled The Brothers Karamozov.

::: Read The Science of Yoga, (also for pleasure, but of a different kind).

::: Cooked and cooked and cooked some more. Our CSA is abundantly supplying us with vegetables and we are trying our best to eat them.

::: Sewed some jammies for Silas. Repaired three skirts, hemmed pants. Finished and mailed the last of the Picnic Rolls I made for gifts. Cleaned out the closets and donated all the discards.

::: Started voice lessons and love my teacher. Hard to practice with discipline.

::: Play groups, play dates, volunteering at school for every party and event, hosting egg hunts, checking out and booking after school and summer activities, field trips, strawberry picking.

::: Rose tending, palm pruning, tree trimming supervising, front entry way courtyard tearing down, vegetable garden pot planting and maintenance, kishu orange tree learning.

::: Spring deep cleaning, rearranging furniture, aquired a lego table off craigslist, finally chose a kitchen paint color.

::: Coordinated a fantastic mini-reunion with 3 college friends in the D.C. area.

::: Lots of visits with local and semi local family and friends.

::: Got up close and personal with Alice Waters and Sir Ken Robinson.

::: Said goodbye to the Byzantine Fresco Chapel.

::: First visit to Galveston of this year. Trekked at Brazos Bend State Park, visited Shangri-La in Orange, TX, spent a weekend in New Orleans.

::: Booked our whole summer vacation.

::: Riding bicycles everywhere -- school, library, grocery store, for fun.

::: Flying kites out on the green space behind our house.

::: Lego, lego, lego.

::: Star wars, star wars, star wars (and he hasn't seen one movie yet!).

::: Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter (we are halfway through book 1).

All is well.

Practice Notes ::: practicing practicing

I missed my Saturday check in. Lots of reasons. Garage sale, lots of stuff to do, misplaced camera (can I post without a picture of some kind?), blah, blah. The truth is that it was a challenging week and I have failure (learning? observations? insights?) to report.

The big news: be careful what you put your attention on.

I learned this week (again for the hundredth time) that putting my attention on food, makes me eat food! I had a terrible summer cold last week, my periodic visitor arrived, I was prepping for a garage sale, craigslisting, and parenting through it all. I tried to journal my food, but kept grazing and grazing and grazing and stopped writing.

So, I decided this weekend that the flaw in my plan is that I want to focus on doing and documenting what I am increasing in my life. I'm still going to journal my food, but put my attention of what I am doing, not eating.

I know from experience that if I fill my life with the things I want, I become too engaged to go to the kitchen. There's no shortage of things I want more of, but wanting is not enough. I am learning again and again that if you aren't doing (practicing) the things you want, then you aren't really living. So, this week my focus is on the act of practicing practicing the things I want in my life.

::: physical activity (bike riding on errands, playing games and sports, water activities, etc.)

::: creative and/or productive projects

::: music

::: fun and laughter

::: water and green vegetables

::: inspiration (conversations, reading, the arts)

::: romance

::: courage to face the "full catastrophe" of living without numbness or insulation

Let's see what happens next, yes?

Weight: +0.5

Home crafts ::: Ode to a home

A house and heart full of love.

We will most likely never live in this house again. I feel like I can't breathe from the upswell of emotion (is it grief, gratitude, loss?) as I am flooded with thoughts and memories. I have to let it go, leave it behind.

I know I will remember a lot, but the truth is that I'll forget more than I can hold on to.

I've known this house since fall 1998, when it was an old, if solid, dated house full of thrifted and inherited furniture, a slow growth of mildew, no central A/C and no sheet rock in much of it. Oh, the memories.

::: Those first visits in the early dating period with the refrigerator loaded with apple cider, peanut butter and a Tillamook baby loaf and a freezer full of individual servings of enchilada pie and tamales.

x ::: All the places and ways I fell in love in that house....dancing, conversation, lounging, cuddling.

::: Moving in and insisting that all the house had to be ours. We couldn't just add my stuff, we had to integrate, purge and add.

::: Leaving for a month for yoga teacher training and returning to what was now my home, and the decision to have a wedding.

::: Training for the Marine Corps Marathon and waking up for a 4 am run to find the entire street up to our second step flooded from tropical storm Allison and two flooded cars.

::: Completely rennovating and updating the house--together. Learning so much about each other in the process of doing the design and much of the work ourselves.

::: Leaving this house in the hands of a tenant for two years and exploring other lands.

::: Returning home with a 4 week old baby and all the adjustments to a life that was at once familiar and completely alien.

::: Creating a room of my own for yoga, sewing, jewelry-making, etc.

::: The kitchen--thousands of nourishing meals made and consumed.

::: The garden--experiments in enriching our diet and our lives by growing our own food.New friends, deeper friendships, expanded circles, new rituals.

::: The initiation of the Winter Solstice Tamale Fiesta and the ever increasing sense of autheticity, closeness and willingness to share amongst our community.

::: All the milestones of early childhood witnessed and shared here--babbling, crawling, walking, sign language, talking, climbing, building, creating.

::: All the growth of my niece and nephew from tiny little ones to great grown teenagers and adults.

One can never capture a life well-lived all of a piece. As I write each of these memories, my mind associates with dozens more, most of which are so personal and deeply intimate that they can't be captured or shared in this forum.

By nature memory is fragmented. Moments blend with memories, certain things crystalize while others are held as mere impressions. Some reside in our senses alone. It's all in there, though. Every moment. The daily joys of the life we live, with our chosen family in a home we've made, is a precious thing, indeed.

As I let go of our house last week, what struck me most was that all I remembered were good things. The perfect moments. The shared love. The openness. The joy. I wondered why this was so? We certainly have had our share of strife and upset.

Perhaps it is the good that actually lasts. What endures is the essence of a thing. I hope so. If this is true than the essence of our life there is love, engagement, sharing, learning, giving, growing.

I accept the gift of my life there and the memories that we made there. Nothing can take it away. As we move forward to the new, all that we have ever been is part of all we will become. Goodbye house and home that I love. Thanks for everything.

Hello new house and new life. May you become (may we make you) a true home to gently hold our hearts and our love.

 

 

Nourishment ::: in praise of summer fruit

We are on the cusp of freedom. We've spent several months fixing up our former house and settling into our new life.  Just as the burden of the old is about to be released, it's time to embrace the fullness of the sweltering, humid, semi-tropical Hurricane season here in the Gulf Coast, even though this year has been odd and almost Phoenix-like ::: hot, dry, and windy. 

We live 30 minutes closer to the beach than we used to, and we are only minutes from Clear Lake, a beautiful body of water that dumps into Galveston Bay.  We've yet to explore the riches of the water culture here--sea kayaking, wind surfing, kite surfing, sailing, fishing(?)--although Scott and I had a lovely date one night sitting on a high outdoor deck over the water in Seabrook listening to a surprisingly terrific Rolling Stones cover band.  We felt as if we were on vacation, a mere 15 minutes from our house.  I had to wear a sweater!

The burdens of this winter/spring gently urged us against planting a garden at our new house.  Given the amazing drought conditions, I'm glad we didn't.  We now have time to really think about where and how a garden will succeed here, and we've also discovered some new and loved sources of local products. 

Today, as I wait for my fresh blackberry scones to bake, I savor the most remarkable local, juicy, sweet, succulent peach.  Do any words exist to describe the perfect peach?  It must be experienced. I all but devoured an entire cantaloupe before I made my coffee.  The melons this year have been perfect.  I heard that dry years, counterintuitively, produce incredible watermelons and cantaloupe(s?).    

 Fresh Texas watermelon.  Peaches.  Blackberries.  Blueberries.  Mmmm.  Cantaloupe.  Tomatoes!   

 I want to send a special shout out to some of our most recent providers of nourishing produce:

Rudy's Peach Orchard, Neal's Berry Farm and, our regular CSA, Wood Duck Farm.  These incredibly hard-working folks promulgate a cherished tradition of local farming against amazing odds in the sprawling greater Houston area.  They are encroached upon by surburbia and all the environmental hazards and challenges posed by a metropolis.  They are terrorized by fire ants (and other pests), and they are at the mercy of the elements in so many ways.  Rudy and Neal are not young men.  I only hope they have apprentices who are willing and eager to learn and who will have the courage to preserve and carry on local farming traditions for generations to come.

I send you all a heartfelt, "Thank you!"