Urban Organica

on the water

 

Somehow I erased this post, likely in a 4am date with my mouse & a tall bottle of sparkling water.  I don't remember it at all.  I think it was something like...3 happy things:

*I love his curls.  He reminds me of ads that make me want to head to Polynesia.  Kids that look like love & sunshine.

*These lobster buoys.  We have yet to head to a thrift store to find some for home.  They are just so beautiful to me, & I think that shipping should cost about $3, since they basically are just styrofoam with chipped paint.  I suppose we can make our own.  But I have a love affair with the work that went into all things old around here.  Fisherman.  My brother Bryan is a fisherman.  Up at 4 am & heading out to the ocean, for years.  I so respect all that.

*Laundry lines.  After a long night of mama work, & a full day of the stuff that makes our life a working vacation, there's nothing like going back out, grabbing our suits off the line & Being with Earth.  Getting quiet & watching the tides come in, or go out.  She is the Spirit's most epic display of force.  I see the beaches full of folks looking for a reprieve from the labour of our souls.  With a grateful prayer & a bit of sun, the sand is an everyday temple, & these lines hold our Weekday Best.

And...after that last post....

*We have a bug-squisher son, too.  He sits in the dirt for hours with a stick, getting everything that doesn't fall into the categories of "Ladybug," "Caterpillar," or "Dragonfly."  For those, he calls his big brothers, who come
 running, because if they don't, he will squish those, too.  Exactly the "invasive sort" that so disturbs his eldest brother.  Just in case you thought it possible to raise an entire brood of peaceful children who respect wild things & that I might know anything about that.  Nope.  

beach cookout

One look at this labrynth of a fire pot & we all shoved into the car to find something to heat on it.   We found ourselves on a 3 1/2 hour, baby-nap-inducing jaunt to all sides of Sandwich, Cape Cod, including about 45 minutes lost in a gorgeous low-end neighborhood surrounded by tidal marshes.  The salt-eaten homes with chair-covered lawns were just my idea of charming, but for the boys, not so much.  But never mind how they felt. (Not really, of course.  I was lost, after all)  We were on a mission to celebrate our family & D & I married for 10 years.  sigh. 

by d

They just wanted to get home & eat the fudge, rub the salmon & burn the wood planks we found at the Gallery Gourmet.  If you ever pop in there, ask the owners how to prepare your goods - they really know their stuff.  She helped me pick out a selection of ridiculously inexpensive wooden planks to infuse our fish with olive, cherry, maple & walnut.  How cheap?  25 single-serving rounds for under $20.  And, if used correctly, they could be used again.  The local fisherman bring in their daily treasures & pick their woods accordingly.   Being a Maine native, her husband suggested I find a bit of slate on the beach to lay on the rocks.  I didn't find any, & at one point the fire went all raging on me, but my inner-fire-starter gets all proud of that kind of thing, so it was fine.  I'd like to get my hands on some slate, though.   

More important than all that, though, was the small bottle of green sushi rice they handed me.  Green.  Sushi Rice.  green sushi rice!  If I had to listen to one soundtrack for the rest of my life, I couldn't pick.  But if I had to look at at one food item the rest of my life, it would be a sticky-sweet-short-grain the color of the foamy tea that gathers at the edges of rice terraces & water-loving bamboos.  I never knew this.  But now I do.  And the most most magical part, aside from the very adorable darker-green dots that live in the corners of each grain?  They actually taste like all that.   Green tea, bamboo, fresh herbal fields with a bit of the sea.  Perfect for salmon & jumbo prawns rubbed with a powder of black peppers & maple syrup.

by d

Goodies from the shop...

And the seafood, which speaks for itself, was from Joe's Lobster & Fish Mart by the canal.   We drove all over town, & apparently folks only go to one place for their shells & fish.  The line was long, the girls who worked there adorable & the selection was being brought in while we waited.

There's nothing like learning about the local eats, putting a bit of effort into the meal & then falling asleep to a bit of sandy fudge to say I Love You Guys.  I do  I love you guys.

Barnstable Gardens

Well, that was fun.  I've discovered where Plenty lives.  In community.  The home of Enough.  It's in the Land of Gratitude.  And Joy?  She camps in the Garden.  And that's where I've been.

(I've gotten a few funny questions about what exactly I was doing that wasn't so appropriate anymore.  There's several answers to that, but I think it comes down to doing so much on my own.  This is the default status of most females, I think.  We are prone to gathering friends & ducklings, attracting helpers & heros - then exhausting ourselves by taking care of them all to the very best of our abilities, at breakneck speed.  Putting off pee breaks & our most coveted bites of food until the very last possible moment.  And the friends, ducklings, heros & helpers step aside, not wanting to get run over.  Then they take that last bite of food off our plates, thinking we didn't want it.  SO... enough of all that.)

Here's a bit of Joy in the so-called sandpit of Barnstable, Cape Cod.  (Yes, that's what I think, too.  Not a grain of sand from my lens view, either.  But that is what they say here.)  No, this is a place of verdant soil, giant-seeking beanstalks & countless studio-worthy back buildings crowded by snapdragons, daisies, lillies-of-the-valley.  Everywhere is a hand-carved wooden welcome sign, a bird-beloved feeder, a whimsical weather vane to let you know or guide you home. 

Oh, the East.  A strange  & magical land to me.  Where hugs are rare, but meaningful.  The locals are quick to smile & quick to brush you off.  They are both generous & brusk, their kitchens smell of creamed soups, baked goods & fried fresh catch.  Their ancient homes are full of handmade love & welcome.  Signs of nothing less than real work done with real hands.  And not just long ago, by some far-away sock darner, but last Winter.  Through the Spring.  This morning.  Easterners work their a**e* off.  There I said it.

(More than Californians, they might wonder?  Uh, yeah.  We have sun all year round.  'Nuff said.)

This is the first year in 13 that it hasn't hurt sweetly to look at every shed.  That I haven't felt pangs of gratitude & longing to know every moment that went into shingling every grey cottage.  This is the first year that I haven't been so totally & completely bowled over by the beauty of it all that I can actually discern the differences between one property & the next.  I can actually hear the logic in not buying a 300 year-old barn before I've really lived here in the Winter.   It's good to feel in love & then to laugh at oneself, I think.  It's that laughter that Joy offers.  A bell in the garden.

 

woodworking :: mt washington

A couple of weeks ago True & I were having a midnight mom-&-boy serious talk about our Christmas Village.  You know, how it was going to go, how the train was going to go around the entire yard & we'd cut holes in the walls & tracks up into the trees & all that.  How we'd have goats & chickens by then & how the railroad would go around the animals, upsetting them with all those good train noises.  And it would pass by our homeschooling & studio yurts on the way into the house, where it would eventually make it's way up onto our train table, because, that's where train tracks go.

Oh, it's sooo hard to hold back my instinct to shut down those ideas with a few "warnings" that we wouldn't be able to make it exactly like all that.  Or really, anything like that, actually.  I just don't want to disappoint him when he sees what we end up with.  But I did my best, & managed to throw in my own fantastical ideas - like the yurts, for example.  (We will have those. We will.)  I was feeling very proud of myself as his picture became clearer & clearer, & could actually feel his trust in me building, to hold his idea fully.  As a whole idea, not a chopped-up, mama-modified one.  Yes.  I was feeling quite proud of myself.

Then he sat bolt upright, looked at me & clapped his hands together.  "Okay, Mom, now we have to do it this time.  You always say we're going to do this kinda thing & we always don't get to it.  WE REALLY GOTTA GET OUR BUTTS IN GEAR!" 

Okay.  Gulp.  First he calls me on that thing.  That thing all moms hope their kids don't notice - all the things we say we're going to do, but "don't get to."  Then he cracks me up with that.  That declaration.  Inspiring.  Like a little army general or something.  Then I realize he means it. 

"Well okay-then.  Let's talk about it in the morning."  

 

The next day we drew it all out & it became clear Luckily his plan required some serious handy-business, so there was that very important cushion to help out.  We had ordered a bunch of real child-sized wood-working materials through his public homeschooling charter.  Other moms with toddlers are somehow able to do everything under the sun.  And there is just no possible way I could find time to show him how to use those things safely, let alone make the time to really build with him.  We called his GranPops, the firefighter & electrician to set up a woodworking date.  

So I sent him off to make the beginnings of his Christmas Village - maybe a little shed or something.  And what came home?  The Mount Washington.  In our family, happiness is the Mount Washington.  For the last 6 years, the island neighbors shared that top one up there.  Then 2 years ago the one above appeared two cabins down.  And now.  He has one to share, too.  

Pretty much a perfect Christmas, already.

 

 

destiny of hope

I just saw this mini-documentary by two American teenagers & was delighted to see some footage of my darling friend, Dr. Wilfred Cadet.  What I love about this short are sprinklings of the unusual perspectives of hope & joy, solidarity & playfulness.  I am reminded of my dear friends in Haiti & especially Cadet's lovely daughters, Maja & Hale.  That's Hale up there, climbing a garden hill in Annisquam, Mass. with Free in 2007, when he was still the baby.  Oh, I love those little top-heavy, bottom-heavy toddlers, & how they work so hard at every thing they do.  Precious.  Enjoy!

texas men

This weekend, D's best friend from high school is coming out for a little belated birthday love.  I have a feeling it's a tiny jab since D skipped his 20-year reunion last month, but I'm so delighted to have him celebrated this way.  Look at these guys this past summer.  You can take a boy out of Texas, but you can never take Texas outta the boy.  At least the ones I know directly.  They are a charming, confident, playful & gentlemanly lot.  You know, the marrying kind...    

Secret Message to Kim :: I'm going to miss you & your gorgeous girls this weekend!!  Just come out!! Come on!! Look at your sweethearts, here.  Too much.

woodstackers

I so enjoy watching young men jump for their work gloves when there's wood to stack.  Everyone participates on his own terms, & this is Real's first year fully participating.  It doesn't matter if they're 1 years old  or 91, men do love to provide.  

One of the great things I learned from the Celebrating Men, Satisfying Women Course last year: for men, nothing is worth doing, but everything is worth providing.  

I really have so much more appreciation for all the things my fathers, brothers, sons & male friends do when I remember to stop voting on whether or not they are doing the "right" thing.  When I take the time to look & notice, I see that they are always, at all times working to provide something for others.  What was most striking to me at that time was to see how the other women in the course, all much older & more experienced than me, went from feeling unsafe in the world because of men, to realizing that they are so much safer in the world because of men.  That it's just a matter of working with some of our fundamental differences.

D did the Understanding Women course this past weekend.  And what's come out of it is a man who's so in tune with what I can & can't do, that I'm feeling like I can do anything.  The first thing he did was apologize, "for not realizing what a gift it is that I will sit & listen" to him for hours, given how diffused my attention is between my other accountabilities.  And then he said he finally got that I can do anything, but not if I'm cold, because then I'm miserable.  And that he's sorry he asks me how he can help, instead of asking what he can do. Then he had us sit down and make a list of things where I have full veto power.  Of course, I've always had veto power, but I tend to not veto things, because I'm committed to other people's full self-expression.  But I have to say, I really feel empowered by this list!  

This was all in the first 20 minutes, & needless to say, there's been some big & subtle changes around here.  It's all had me so inspired, to feel partnered with in these small ways.  I've gone into some kind of protective nesting mode, & my house is sparkling clean.  He really wants me to take the Queen's Course, to support me in having all of my needs met, because he understands now that it's not just me!  All mamas feed others first, hold their pee to do 10 more things, & shovel food in their mouth, ravenous, because they have put their own needs last.  He wants me to be full & overflowing.  Lucky me.

People think too much.  But then I go outside & see the squirrels doing the same nesting, changing, protecting & providing.  It all works in the same ways...

Annie, a fellow crafting Fishy in the Fish Bowl, & who also had the same midwife as us, has me in East Coast considerations, again...

And this mama is reminding me to keep it real...

kayaks! #1 + (maine)

We took a drive up to rain, I mean, Maine, on my birthday, because I've always wanted to see the islands, the lighthouses & the beaches.  We missed all that, as it was pouring down by the buckets, & the very thing I love about NH - that the freeways & towns are hidden from each other by large tracks of forest - is the same thing that had Maine looking like one long highway.  We went for it, though, & drove a full 6 hours up to see our girl Rhea at Alewives.  What a sweetheart she is.  

We're laughing because she's featuring her new engagement ring in the picture.  I suppose that's not quite fair though, so...

But seriously, do you know Alewives?  Or their blog?  I'm getting ready to use thier free vinyl shopper pattern, on the homepage.  They have amazing, modern fabrics & great crafting books.  They sell online & I think their selection is unique, worth the 6-hour drive in the rain.  We're making it an annual party.

We also stopped in Portland at Maples for organic gelato.  Having just read Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, we also stopped in at their production facility for a little tour action.  We called & called, but there was no answer, so we stopped by.  A distraught 20 year-old with headphones on answered the door, saying we weren't supposed to be there.  She let us peek in & I thought she was pretty nice, considering she was at exactly the point in one's life where there's not much compassion for an ecstatic, wet homeschooling family of 5 from California who just drove forever to peek in.    Really I could say she was a party-pooper, but we weren't supposed to be there.  You gotta take chances, though!  Maple's retail shop is very nice & their business model is impressive.  It would do really well out here.  Portland feels like Berkeley to me, D says it's more like an East Coast Seattle.  He's right.

Halfway there D saw a bunch of whitewater kayakers & we pulled off the road to get as drenched as possible & have a looksee.  In crazy  rapids, a group of 12 year-olds were zipping up & down the river & we were hooked. 

This was to be the year of the kayak.

There's nothing like laughing & pointing with your freezing cold children in a soaking wet sweatshirt at the edge of a river in the pouring rain & looking up at your husband's awed face.  It seemed totally ridiculous & completely right to have all that sensory input at once & to feel so alive, but As a Family.  All Together.  I think this was a Friday, if I remember correctly.  This is why we chase freedom, are life learners & home-based entrepreneurs.  So we can find ourselves in a surprise moment, in a surprising place, breathing clean air & seeing something new to us.  So we can have enough time to notice when something "Clicks."

"look, mom! a rootbeer river!"

rocks, live water, pine needles, moss: if i could just stand in this spot for the rest of my life i'd be happy

soft pen pal sets

Next to "kitchening," "selling," & all the many forms those things can take, "mail" has been the number-one most played game in our home for years.  Because my father is a retired carrier, & they have ambushed several men in uniform, we own several of what Free calls "Real-Deal Hats."  These include: UPS, FedEx Land & FedEx Air baseball hats, plus two large, heavy bucket hats in steel & white.  We also trip over felt mailboxes, linen mail bags, a crazy tote collection, blue & white-striped blazers, dad's beeping stud-finder masquerading as a scanner, & buckets & buckets of mail.  I have sent out letters 6 months late due to innocent swiping for the mail game.  This is how True learned our address, how he learned to write his name.  How Free learned the letter "B," by "looking for the little bum."  But no real letter writing, as of yet.

I always wanted a pen pal.  My dad would give us exciting books outlining all the free things you can get in the mail, including letters postmarked at Christmas Village.  He collected stamps from all over the world & saved them for my collections & bought me books like Griffin & Sabine.  I so wanted to be a part of this ancient art.  But I never told my mom about these interests, & so, I didn't have much help. 

We'll see if the kid's desires to keep in touch with their friends back home isn't all the help they need.  But just in case...they helped put together these Pen Pal Sets.  Each set consists of two envelopes cut from one larger cloth envelope.  So one has a notch on the left flap, while the other is notched on the right.  Each envelope has two pockets: one for letters received, & one for supplies.  We've filled them with 12 pre-addressed, pre-stamped envelopes, stationary, stickers, an address card & a colored pencil.  We'll send one to each friend & keep the other here with us.  We can't wait to see what comes back.

**Tip **  When the kids are with me, we use masking tape instead of pinning.  It's fast, it's easy, it's safer, &, if you'll humor me, it's masculine. 

camouflage

We came home, but we are hiding out.  Blending in, slightly shocked to find our feet clean at the end of the day.  It actually hurts to have this pavement between the Earth & I.  I feel lost without her genius.  Please do notice the pine-needle stripes on this wood frog.  The bark-textured mottle on his legs & his birch & shadow coloring under his eyes. He is vaguely metallic & see-through, making him disappear like a trick of the light.  I mean really, what the eff?  How does that happen??  Lake Winnipesaukee - Smile of the Great Spirit.  I have to believe Spirit still smiles on us here, too.  But we are trying to find our way back home.  The home we just left.

New Hampshire is so sparsely populated, landing there is an instant psychic cleansing. You breath in once, & all the years' past is forgiven.  You breath in again, & you are your purest, strongest self.  You live in your one outfit until it begins to rag.  My boys miss this part of them, the part that breathes so  deeply & freely.  The part that is trusted by the littlest of their playmates.  Such as...

9 merganzers.  2 bald eagles.  1 red-backed salamander.  1 baby wood frog on Lake's pillow, 1 hopping across the braided rug at 3 am.  Our pet snake, in it's usual spot.  Many argumentative red squirrels.  3 perch, quite a few minnows.  Several egg-weilding 3" dock spiders. The world's baby-est lobster (1/2 cm baby crawfish).  1 screaming kestral.  1 moose's tracks.  1 bat in my livingroom/bedroom.  1 possum.  1 racoon.  Some divinely cute dogs by the names of Pretzel, Calvin & Hobbs.

So many things to love about this moth: The shaggy haircut, the ice-queen robe, & what is that fuzzy mass she's protecting, anyways?

Whew.  Nearly drowned.  Didn't know frogs could drown.

We swam to this tiny beach, on a faraway island with our friends.  D thought he stepped on a slimy rock, which turned out to be a huge catfish.  Suddenly the kids all squealed with delight: the black maple leaves decomposing in the sand turned out to be 500 half-inch black baby catfish.  They fluttered magically & each one looked like a fairy-sized Chinese goldfish.  We realized we were accidentally beaching them, all the adults & kids rushed around for 15 minutes trying to gather them up & return them to their mommy.  Then the mama fish swam out & gathered them from the 10 x 6' space in about 2 minutes.  Awesome.  To see a mama at work like that, with no hands, no yelling, in the midst of freaked-out humans.    

crazy beetles that fly into things & fall on the ground - notice the flowery antennae, bright metal shell & striped furry underside

huge loons, jet black with snow-flaked backs

toddlers learning to share gently, due to the fragile nature of this:

large, live nayad (very rare to find) which of course becomes:

giant dragonfly

powdered inchworm

rock mermaid