Tag Archives: nourish

~summer shorts~ give rise

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“Some people have an aesthetic of delineation and symmetry, of keeping each vegetable distinct from each other vegetable. That’s great, and it works for them. My philosophy, though, is abundance. I want to draw people in with color, and piles of overflowing vegetables, spilling forth from cornucopias, piling into one another, blending into a rainbow.”

I stacked sopping wet bunches of carrots, cold water droplets sprinkling the multicolored veggie-print fabric on which I laid them. The new staff member painted by number, adding veggies to each basket I had laid out with a representative of what I wanted there.

Laurie had asked me to help refresh the vibe of our market booth. When she asked me to make a rainbow display, it flipped a switch for me. My pandemic farmer’s market year-plus has been a continued effort of showing up, devotion, doing what I believe in – food security, organic growing, getting food to the people. It used to be more about enjoyment than just devotion. I haven’t been making displays, much less rainbow ones. I have been letting the crew who handled the veggies handle the veggies, while I handled the money. An important job, but not soul-nourishing. Emerging from the pandemic has been halting and awkward, as predicted, but it’s been dawning on us that we can revive some things, like big, beautiful displays. The prospect of making a sweeping swath of veggie artwork before me, I was back to excited.

Cascading eggplants, purple onions, and purple majesty potatoes, purple carrots with their orangey-red lateral root scars. Fragrant basil, parsley, dill, and mint flooding green leaves around four kinds of zucchini, two kinds of cucumbers, and broccoli. Pattypan and yellow summer squash the color of sunshine blending into goldenrod-hued sweet Italian peppers, their tapered tips and seductive shoulders peeking from a basket near the center, making their summer debut. A mountain of orange carrots, golden beets blending into red beets, red Norland potatoes, dryland (non-irrigated) tomatoes, concentrated red succulence.

While searching for the term for the lines on a carrot, wondering about that specific feature of rootiness, I stumbled upon a Plant Ontology forum (as one does) and learned they can also be called root periderm scars. I guess they have been called root lenticels, but it is now understood that they do not conduct gas-exchange. They are formed when lateral roots emerge and initiate a wound response in the periderm – the peripheral cell layers. Cells proliferate, heal over this wound, form a new layer. The plant ontologists decided a new name, root periderm scars, was warranted.

It makes me think about how forming new roots can inflict injury. How wounds can result in scars, in tissue that cannot breathe. But also how injury can give rise to new growth, new layers.

~rainbow mondays~ smolder

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“How many fears came between us?

Earthquakes, diseases, wars where hell

rained smoldering pus

from skies made of winged death.

Horror tore this world asunder.

While inside the bleeding smoke

and beyond the shredded weeping flesh

we memorized tales of infinite good.”

~Aberjhani

 

~rainbow mondays~

a splash of color on monday morning

a photo study documenting the colors of the spectrum: the balance points between light reflected and light absorbed

~rainbow mondays~ nourish

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~rainbow mondays~

a splash of color on monday morning

a photo study documenting the colors of the spectrum: the balance points between light reflected and light absorbed

educational priorities ~ a mamafesto ~ 2020 remix

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Quinn recently attended a six-day online Dinosaur Discoveries camp and at the end earned the “Most Likely to Become Everyone’s Favorite College Professor” award. It launched a great conversation between Quinn and I about how online learning does not necessarily have to mean pushing a bunch of “submit” buttons to enable the instructors to assess his learning accomplishments. The instructors provided materials for him to immerse himself in, trusted that he was absorbing them, and then detected his absorption of said materials through conversations, group discussions, and other contributions (voluntarily written and presented). No grading or testing occurred. And yet, both Quinn and I felt the instructors had somehow managed to glean a lot about who he is as a learner and an individual simply through six days of connecting with him over meaningful curriculum, meaningful because it was chosen intentionally by Quinn.  As for the assessment of Quinn’s likelihood of becoming everyone’s favorite college professor, Quinn said, “I think it’s extremely accurate.”

In 2012, I sat down and wrote out my priorities for Quinn’s education, a valuable and worthwhile exercise that received a lot of positive feedback at that time, and that I have returned to at times when I’ve felt a need to check the calibration of my compass concerning Quinn’s education. Each time I’ve returned, I’ve been pleasantly surprised how well that list concerning my going-into-kindergarten five-year-old still fit, say, when he was transitioning from second grade at our living school to third grade in the public school, or when he was moving from there up into the middle school. These transition points pushed me to revisit my priorities for Quinn’s education more than the years in between, but when I did so, I found that what I valued for him at the beginning of his school years are the things I still value, and each time, it has helped me orient my efforts in advocating for his learning needs in each context in ways that aligned with those values.

2020 is a different year in every way, and it is exceptionally different in terms of how education is being and will be carried out. Quinn finished seventh grade pushing buttons on a computer screen, disconnected from his teachers and peers, isolating himself at his dad’s house in the woods. However, for the month it took for the school to transition into distance learning mode, he had a fresh chance to direct his own learning, and it was an oasis between the overscheduled school year to that point, and the button-pushing specter of school on a laptop that limped across the finish line. As we envision what his eighth grade year will be like, his last year before high school, it has been on my mind to revisit the priority list yet again. (Click here to read the original post.) With years of additional insights into how Quinn learns, I decided it would be a good time to do a fresh rewrite, although once again my revisit reconfirmed that everything on the list still resonates for me. The first priority, however, is the one that stopped me in my tracks this time: “Safety- A learning environment where physical safety is a no-brainer.” This cannot possibly be assured this coming school year with any physical presence in the school building. Though the language of that priority once centered around booster seats and sunscreen, the language of school safety has grotesquely mutated into how we can carry out active-shooter drills during a pandemic. Safety will always remain priority number one, and hence, this year will look very different from other recent years while Quinn has attended public school.

Still, I wanted to write this 2020 version from a place of naming what we want to move towards, vs. what we want to move away from. This is how I approached it in 2012 when I was feeling a visceral aversion to Quinn attending public school while he still needed quite a lot of social emotional support a good portion of the time. At that time, I tried to hone in on articulating the goals I have for his learning environment rather than just describing the outcomes I wanted to avoid; instead of focusing on how likely a differently-wired kindergartener is to be misunderstood in public school, I focused on working towards an organic learning environment where choice is central, the whole child is nourished. In 2020 I want to focus less on COVID-19 risk and more on crafting the best learning options for him given the circumstances. Still striving for an organic learning environment where choice is central, the whole person is nourished. The long-term goal is still and always a thriving lifelong learner.

Many things have changed in eight years, but so much has stayed the same. Most of what changed in this list is an organization of the original 12 separate items into 3 categories they seemed to gather into naturally: safety, connection, and self-direction. A disclaimer I would attach to this and all posts of mine: this is a description of my own values and is intended only as a means of articulating them for myself; if they resonate for you, that is a pleasant outcome we can enjoy, and if they do not, feel free not to let them slow you down as you scroll on by.

~Educational Priorities~

As Quinn’s mama my priorities for his educational experience are to surround him with nurturing environments and people and to protect and feed his love of learning. While I do not distinguish between learning and the rest of life, as I believe the two are inextricably linked, I will do my best to list my priorities for how I believe Quinn can best be supported so that he may thrive as a lifelong learner. I believe this will be achieved by prioritizing:

1. Safety

A learning environment where physical safety is a no-brainer. As drastically different as the content of this paragraph may be in 2020 than it was in 2012, the first sentence is the same first sentence. Physical needs must be met before learning needs can be fully realized. At Our Living School, we repeated a mantra concerning safety, “Our bodies are safe, our thoughts are safe, our feelings are safe, our work is safe,” and this is still a useful list.

Physical safety: Quinn’s physical safety is secured in his learning environment to enable him to focus on learning. The physical safety of educators must also be paramount. The presence of my learner in a school is possible only when teacher health and safety, and the health and safety of the families of those teachers, and the health and safety of other students and their families, can be ensured.

Mental safety: Quinn is in an environment where he can express his thoughts freely and knows his learning needs will be respected and supported.

Emotional safety: Quinn is able to feel, express, and care for his feelings.

Work safety: Whether it is what he was building out of blocks at five, or a research project he is getting ready to present at thirteen, the integrity of Quinn’s work will be honored.

2.Connection

I believe that a positive learning environment for Quinn will flourish when it grows from strong roots of connection and belonging. Several of the 2012 priorities focused on specific connections; between student and teacher, parent and teacher, student and peers, student and others of all ages. In 2020 I can see that these one-to-one connections are impossible to extricate from the web of community surrounding a learner, and while these individual bonds may stand out from the web when highlighting learning priorities, they all perform their roles in the best ways when the whole web is strong and stable. Strong connections will help Quinn develop empathy and compassion, and a realistic understanding of others’ realities. They will also help him self-reflect through relationship with others, and to continue to build healthy relationship skills.

Student-teacher connection: A bond between student and teacher ensures priority #1 through open communication and positive regard of one another. From connection flows the sense of nurturing, unconditional positive regard, and feeling of equal dignity that all humans deserve and require in order to do their best learning. I believe safety and equity for all other students is necessary for Quinn to experience the benefits of a connection to any teacher. If he can see that his peers of all identities and abilities are all being treated with that positive regard, then he will be able to trust that lighthouse when its beam is directed towards him.

Student-teacher-parent connection: Open channels of communication among those involved in Quinn’s learning endeavors allow for his strengths and areas needing extra support to be known so that all involved are attuned to his unique learning style. Parental involvement in learning is ongoing and meaningful.

Student-peer connection: The stronger the connections between Quinn and his learning community, the greater sense of belonging he will experience. Quinn feels ownership of his school as a place that is Home to him, with a positive sense of caring for his fellow students, who in turn care for him as part of their community. Values are instilled by the teachers towards this end, and extend outward to include his greater community, in which his school is an active participant. These values of community care are best realized by distance learning in 2020, protecting all learners and teachers, and finding creative ways to still foster belonging. Peer connections may take the form of online paleontology discussions and online D&D gaming sessions this year.

Connection to others of all ages: Quinn is connected with older teens and young adults who have skills he has yet to acquire to look up to, admire, and imitate, and kids who are younger, to keep things infused with imagination and wonder. He has involvement with people of all ages from the surrounding community, because the real world is a place where people of all ages interact, to everyone’s great good fortune. In 2020 we’ll have less in person interaction to be sure, but this will be good to keep in mind as a guiding principle, that while peer interactions are very important to developing teens, interactions with others of all ages matter as well, even if they have to be emails and video calls for a time. Grammy and Grampy, Mario and Luigi, I’m looking at you!

3. Self-Direction (trust)

The rest of the 2012 priorities group themselves comfortably under this heading. In 2012 I wrote about a whole-child approach, an emergent curriculum, a Yes environment with emphasis on play, developing an internal moral compass, and nurturing an intrinsic motivation to learn. In conversation with my teen about what works and does not work about schooling for him, we keep circling back to the need for choice. I want to strive towards a learning situation that prioritizes self-direction for the learner. (The heading contains parenthetical trust, because this path requires a large amount of it on the part of a parent supporting the self-directed learning journey of their youth.)

Whole-child or whole-teen approach: In my worldview, children come into the world as fully intact beings, destined to grow into their innate competence, as well as prosocial beings whose default desire is to cooperate, belong, and get along. Other worldviews exist in which children are born deficient or damaged, needing to be filled with knowledge and morals through a hierarchical top-down approach. My worldview encourages deep trust in the child’s inevitable trajectory towards competence, while the opposing one often requires proof through standardized testing or other means that they have reached competence.

I like a phrase coined by Marji Zintz that says, “attribute to children the best possible motive consistent with the facts.” Giving kids the benefit of the doubt in their intentions and abilities empowers them to grow into their competence.

Whole-child or whole-teen approaches to learning must acknowledge the following: Academics, while held at high priority, do not eclipse other important lessons. Some of the lessons/skills I value most, in no particular order, are:

  • social/emotional skills
  • healthy bodies
  • mindfulness practices
  • self-confidence
  • compassion
  • writing
  • relationship skills
  • empathy
  • communication
  • movement
  • sustainability
  • fine art
  • creative writing
  • world culture
  • cooking
  • sports
  • drama
  • reading
  • conflict resolution
  • scientific reasoning
  • practical life skills (everything from gardening to making things to voting)
  • being a citizen in a democracy
  • critical thinking
  • math
  • social justice
  • music
  • community-mindedness

Many of Quinn’s skills will be honed at home, e.g. woodworking with dada or sewing with mama, and at private (dance/music/art/sports/karate) lessons or through outside-of-school classes, so I apply this concept to Life in General as well as educational goals.)

binary hand-counting in the wilderness

Self-directed learning: I referred to this as emergent curriculum in 2012, while in 2020 the term self-direction feels more resonant for the same set of ideals around choice, maybe because it emphasizes his agency in bringing about what emerges. Quinn is able to learn what he is drawn to, and the purpose of teacher guidance is to help him create meaning for himself about what he learns. He is able to approach each component of academics as he is ready for it, in a way that he can absorb it efficiently because it’s meaningful to him. He has the freedom to opt in or out of lessons he feels compelled or uncompelled by, and there is plenty of enriching material for him to engage with and be challenged. Further, the lessons offered are set at a level that is most likely to compel him, given that they are based on his/the student body’s emerging interests/intrigues/questions/thoughts/votes. He sets his own balance of autonomous learning time to cooperative group learning. Quinn’s preparations for his life/career goals (college, trades, conservatory, world travel or whatever they may be) are in his own hands and he is confident in his ability to craft his own educational curriculum, one that will land him squarely where he desires to be, wearing a set of wings to take him far beyond.

Consent: As mama of a young man, I see it as one of my most important roles in his learning to make sure he is aware and competent around the concept of consent. By honoring Quinn’s integrity, boundaries, and self-direction in his learning, I am modeling consent. If Quinn’s stance on a given subject or learning objective is no, it means no. Often choice is seen as something a teacher “allows” a learner, but that still creates a top-down dynamic which, instead of preserving choices, in fact limits them; if one of the available options is not “no”, the choice is not freely chosen. There is an illusion of choice that is created when someone says, “I will let you choose” but then the power rests with the person “letting,” not with the person doing the choosing. Forcing someone to learn, to press the “submit” button, is one way that consent is overridden in young people routinely, and I strongly suspect it contributes to a culture where consent is undervalued. Where students experience teaching as something to be done to them, they learn not to honor their own signals, but instead become resigned to others’ demands on them. Instead, by being clear on his boundaries, Quinn is learning where he ends and other people begin, and not just knowing about it in theory, but practicing and embodying consent.

Yes Environment: Yes means yes! A Yes Environment means that opportunities, space and materials are available to him whenever he takes initiative to express and explore. When he reveals an interest, the tools and materials he needs to follow that line of inquiry appear in a timely manner so he can continue and take it as far as he wants, until he is satiated. If he is engrossed in dinosaurs today (/this week/this decade), books and activities (games, videos, camps, virtual museum tours, ecology simulations…) show up in following days based on that theme and are strewn in his path for him to gobble up. His teacher’s role is to observe what is sparking his interest and tend the flame, requiring an individualized approach and attentive observation. This is best achieved in small class sizes where curriculum can flex and adapt. Instead of “no” stance on deviations, a “how can we…?” approach is the default. A Yes environment also provides structured and unstructured time and space to play. Play is of extreme importance to learning, and not separate from learning. Play is learning. Beyond K-12, Quinn is encouraged and supported in his life goals and help is always available to guide him in the right direction to meet them.

Internal Moral Compass: Quinn gets to grapple with right and wrong based on his own inner knowing, as he practices and calibrates his internal compass. He receives lots of guidance, information, and suggestions to help him navigate territory that is new for him, but never force, coercion or bribery, rewards or punishments. In areas including but not limited to consent, it is increasingly important for him to make morally right choices when nobody is around to police him or direct him in the right decision. He will do that if he has been exercising this muscle all along and his moral compass is well-calibrated and strong.

Intrinsic Motivation to Learn: His desire to learn comes from within, and that is honored in a way that maintains its integrity within rather than pulling it outside of him and replacing it with an external stimulus. Rewards and punishments are avoided in order to protect this intrinsic motivation to learn. Self-reflection around daily experiences, triumphs and disappointments will hold more meaning than grades, test scores, diagnoses, labels.

It is my belief that by prioritizing these values in Quinn’s education, Quinn will be set up to lead a fulfilling life. He will know himself well, always having been aligned with his own internal motivators, conscience, and self-knowledge. He will have confidence that he can achieve whatever he sets out to do, and will have obtained skills and knowledge that are required for that journey. He will know what it is like to be surrounded by supportive, encouraging people, and will recognize them in society. He will be attracted to workplaces with inclusive atmospheres and friendships featuring positive regard and nurturing. He will be unwilling to tolerate injustice because of his intimate experience of participating in a compassionate, justice-promoting community. He will know how to be respectful as well as to live in a way that inspires respect. He will know how to be flexible, how to think critically and creatively, and how to navigate real world situations because the real world is the place he will always have dwelled. He will be fully competent in making choices, as self-direction has been a key component of his entire educational experience- he will know that life is made up of choices, and he will be empowered to make them. These approaches to Quinn’s education will produce a strong, capable, caring, well-rounded, enthusiastic, empowered, joyful human being.

~thankful thursday~ exponential

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Saturday 4-25

Grateful for coffee…. biscuits and gravy… lounging and talking. A gray and overcast morning drive to pick up veggie box; a meander home along the bay road, no tail gating, no rushing, fog and vibrant greenery, rhodies starting to bloom along the way. A bayou walk, then some weeding. Always grateful for a nacho dinner.

Sunday 4-26

Another beautiful day; most of which was spent in the garden. With all of the extra light Rich has enabled to enter the garden, I can expand the dahlia habitat across the whole rainbow terrace bed. He studies the angles of light; at one point today he had to go outside at a certain time of day to “research” whether the garden would be in the path of light by this time if he rents a man-lift for a day to reach the next level of branches of the cedar so he can remove a few more. He concluded this plan is good, that it will result in even more light for flowers.

I am thankful for my husband’s patience with me when I overthink all things. He lets in the light to my garden and does the same thing to my mind, and finally the butterflies can find their way in.

Monday 4-27

I am grateful for Rich’s hugs; “I was giving you lots of energy.”

A gray drizzly day in which to wander around the yard yelling at deer and murdering slugs.

I am grateful to feel like I am back in the groove with routine. Attending to the little things. Not trying to solve the big ones.

As we climb into bed I ask Rich, “should I clench my jaw? Should I hold my breath?” And let him tell me I should let it all go. I am grateful he knows the answers to these questions.

Tuesday 4-28

I had a laugh at Glennon’s morning meeting ditty, “Jesus loves me this I know, for he gave me lexapro.” I’ve certainly been finding lovejoy’s “herbal rescue remedy” to be a gift from the goddess right now.

Work from home struggles: typing with a 20 pound cat lying across my arms. Both cats are sitting on me.

Chapter infinity of zero is read, and I mentioned quintessence theory to Quinn, as the final chapters were all about the universe’s end, but the book was twenty years old and I wanted Quinn to know the theories have expanded maybe as much as the universe itself during that time. Quintessence has such a nice ring to it, and feels hopeful to me, the idea of a fifth dynamic fundamental force, an unknown mystery exerting itself in the cosmos whose impact on the speed of the expansion of the universe is an open question. Open questions in physics feel like hope, like that little thing with feathers can fly right into the opening. Also, for obvious reasons, one of my sources of hope in the universe goes by a name starting with the same letters. Quinn told me his ideas about black holes, wormholes, and time travel, and I will save the details for a lifelong learner post, but he is the quintessence of the human race, in my opinion.

One of the memes I particularly enjoyed in the early stages of the pandemic was the graph with “month of 2020” on the x axis and “time spent looking at exponential graphs” on the y-axis. The relationship was…. exponential, of course. This doesn’t hold true for me, as a person who works in a microbiology lab at least sometimes, I actually looked at them a lot before 2020. One way that I am keeping science alive for myself is that I began my very first sourdough starter a little over a week ago, which means that I am just about ready to use it to make some bread. Culturing a wild yeast is something I’ve done before (I’ve made things like blackberry wine and apple cider vinegar) but I have baked bread with store bought yeast all along. I am reaching the end of the 2-pound package of yeast I bought several years ago, which has lived in a plastic tub in my freezer. I am down to about 3 teaspoons and the baking aisle is as bleak as the toilet paper aisle now, so it was time to start a new experiment. The first few rounds of the culture get mostly thrown away, as you capture wild yeast (in my case off the surface of dried apples, apricots, cherries and raisins I had lying around my cupboard), and feed them on water-flour paste in a jar. After a day or two, it’s time for another feeding, but you only bring over a small portion of the original mixture, seeding a new jar of paste with just a half teaspoon of the live bubbling culture you began. After the third round of this, you’ve diluted any impurities out, while nurturing a healthy culture, and it’s time to build it up. Now instead of throwing away most of the material each time, you’re just feeding it, and it doubles in size with each feeding. Fast-growing organisms with short life-cycles grow in this manner – exponentially. You start with just a few tablespoons of flour and water, but just two days later, you have a quart jar full of bubbling flour paste. If you don’t cut away some of that and bake with it, a few more days of feedings would start to take over your kitchen!

Some more nefarious organisms exhibit exponential growth much like my jar full of wild yeast, but I’m trying to stay focused on the growth curves of things that are beneficial and life-giving: the love I see and feel around me grows and expands much like my dough, given the proper ingredients and conditions, sweetened with honey and kneaded well. Quinn’s maturity level, how he is finding new ways for us to be together, his expressions of love in new ways, these are seeing rapid, vigorous growth and I’m so grateful. I have fears about him wanting to stay at his Dad’s forever and never return to me, but when I can return to what I know within me, it’s that we cannot be separated. There is no undoing that. It’s baked in.

~thankful thursday~ fall crops and late bloomers

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11/7/19

~30 days of gratitude~ day 7

Today I am grateful for a sunny estuary walk during my lunch break and the way the sunshine reflected so brightly off the bay that I had to squint my eyes. I am grateful for my husband who never seems to tire of walking around our yard with me, remarking on the angle of the sun, the way the light falls on a certain plant, tree, or object, the antics of the hummingbirds, or the antics of the cats looking out the window to spy on us. I am grateful to have farmed out the task of teaching my son to swim to a trusted mama friend, since I’m just a former lifeguard/swim team member/SCUBA certified marine biologist and couldn’t get him there. I am grateful for the good book I sat beside the pool reading, and for the window through which I could see a square of the pink-red-orange sunset sky while he worked at coordinating his limbs and breath. I am grateful I have one more night, this night, to spend with my kid at home before he goes to his dad’s. I am grateful for so much light today, a respite from contemplating the shadows.

 

11/8/19

~30 days of gratitude~ day 8

I am grateful for date night. Live music, shepherd’s pie with cheese and hot sauce, and the very best company. Together we will sail into the mystic.

 

11/9/19

~30 days of gratitude~ day 9

Today I am grateful for fresh veggies and favorable market conditions. While summer is an exhilarating rush of conversation fragments, fall proceeds at a more deliberate pace. The fleeting fruits of summer, the heirloom tomatoes with muscular sun-tanned shoulders that must be eaten immediately, the intoxicatingly fragrant basil that will wilt if you forget about it for a day or two, have been replaced by the sturdy parsnips and rutabagas, the stout kabochas and butternuts, friends who can cope with a little neglect while you are also moving at a slower, more ponderous fall pace, with perhaps more frequent nacho nights inserted in the weekly menu. This is not a competition between summer and fall crops, and if it was, it would easily be won by the sungolds and shishitos, sweet corn and charentais, the succulent fruits that accumulate the most summer sunshine into their cells, and these fickle friends are preserved in my chest freezer to see me through until they can be fresh again. But each year my appreciation grows for the sustaining roots and sturdy kales, the pie pumpkins made to have and to hold and to store and to keep us fed through the long winter. Today I participated in another of my favorite mindfulness practices, one concerning impermanence, like sand painting but with squashes, already scattered and but a memory. Tomorrow I will fill the slow cooker with leek and potato, celeriac and parsley root, and some imaginal cells to remind me that next summer will unfurl its colorful wings in time.

 

11/10/19

~30 days of gratitude~ day 10

Today I am grateful for getting to sit in my trusty Adirondack chair in the sunny backyard, by the wedding trees, talking to my mom on the phone. I am grateful for Rich sweeping the whole house (just one way that he sweeps me off my feet) and doing my laundry for me while I was catching up with Mom. I am grateful for a Sunday drive date along the Bay Road to pick up movies, and grateful for a moon date, again in the back yard, again with Rich, who called me to come outside and watch the nearly full moon rising over the ridge. I am grateful for the moon itself, bringing light to the darkness. I am grateful for a day with minimal agenda and maximum fresh air. Time to ladle up two bowls of gratitude soup from the slow cooker, slice some warm bread, and pop in a movie.

 

11/11/19

~30 days of gratitude~ day 11

It was my Mom’s birthday one month ago, and I was leaving on a visit to go and see her for her birthday (I got there the next morning.) I am so grateful for my Mom. She was the subject of the 3rd gratitude post ever, and has been mentioned numerous other times, but I think I’ve been over how I feel about repeating my gratitudes: kitties, wood stove fires, and nachos, oh my! I’m still grateful, so they bear repeating!

Mom has had a rough year, health-wise, and as the darkness starts to wrap around us for the season, the horizon is finally starting to lighten up for her. The health stuff is her story to tell, not mine, but what is mine is my concern for her, and my difficulty being so far away when things are hard on her.

One thing about my Mom that I am more grateful for all the time, is that she is willing to be vulnerable about her feelings. Without knowing to appreciate it, I think I absorbed a lot of the wisdom of that as I grew up. She wears her heart on her sleeve, and there is something so refreshing about that to me. When I have raw feelings, she is one of the first go-to people I know I can say them to; she’s not intimidated by them. I think she knows I can handle hearing about hers as well. She didn’t unload them on us as kids – her parent/child boundaries were good, and she never asked for us to take care of her emotions. However, now that we’re both grown-ups, I think we both appreciate each other as sounding board. Our chat the other day ranged from B vitamins to systematic executive functioning scaffolding removal to coparenting challenges to sewing projects, but all with attention paid to the emotional landscape.

Mom is also an intrepid learner, and that includes topics such as looking inward to see how she can grow as a person. I witnessed some amazing butterfly-level transformation in her this year in that realm. I felt lucky to be included in the inspiring conversation.

She is the best Grammy, and no heartstring pluck can compare to the ones I experience when I see Quinn enfolded in her arms each time they are reunited.

 

11/12/19

~30 days of gratitude~ day 12

I started typing this one month ago, but it seems fitting, so I finished typing it today.

My ears popped. I opened my eyes to see the horizon through the window of the seat in front of me. Above it pink, below it, what my eyes told me was ocean. Sunrise, coming in for a landing in Newark. The way I remember New Jersey is from the waters around Cape May, 20 years ago. On this day it would just be a layover on my way to New York. I remembered a butterfly landing on the deck of a schooner off the Cape, wondering whether it was off course or had intended to fly so far out over the ocean.

Migrations. I was flying back again in October where I had just been in August. The blue part of the world below the horizon resolved itself into land in addition to ocean, smokestacks and urban clutter, orderly chaos from so high up. Land, sea, sky, the edge of everything, the convergence of elements. We flew towards the eastern horizon until the sun stabbed spears of red light up over the horizon, its rising accelerated at exactly the air speed velocity of our plane. The quickened sunrise cast a pink glow throughout the upright seat backs and tray tables as we prepared for arrival.

Arrivals. The butterflies are arriving in their wintering grounds, but it would be slightly amiss to call it their homeland. The ones arriving in Mexico now have never tasted that air until now, though they somehow knew how to get there. They are the concentric circles, the tree rings, containing the previous three generations of monarchs who flew North last spring and summer, living, reproducing, and dying in three-week intervals, brief flaming orange wings barely a flicker of existence before their lives funneled into the lives of their offspring, their own flame extinguished. The overwintering super generation are the great grandchildren of the monarchs who left there last spring headed North. Like their great grandparents, they will live eight times as long as their parents, the one generation in four who will fly over the whole migratory path, and not just a fraction of it.

I have flown a lot this year, thousands of miles, so perhaps it makes sense that monarchs have become my mascot for this gratitude season. The timing of our August visit to New York happened to coincide ever so well with a peak of their travel through the neighborhood. The October trip I took solo, and I saw one single monarch, a late migrant. Warming in the colorful tree canopy when I got near, it fluttered down to the ground and landed on purple clover. After a snack, it rose once again, this time hurtling over the canopy and off to the South, Mexico or bust.

I am grateful for the safety of the flights my family have made this year, the miracle of flight itself, overlapping generations, and late blooming kindred spirits on the wing.

 

11/13/19

~30 days of gratitude~ day 13

I am grateful to live in such a beautiful place, where I can stop before work to see the full moon setting over the ocean, and then stop again after work and see the sun setting over the ocean. Some days I just need to look upon something bigger than all of it.

~thankful thursday~ shadows and butterflies

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11/1/19

~30 days of gratitude~ day 1

I am grateful that it is gratitude month! It’s year number four of me NanoPoblano-ing my way through the month of November on the subject of gratitude, and this year I found myself looking forward to November, which is an odd sensation for me, hater of the cold darkness that I am. This is not just because October was haunted house month, aka Exhaustion and Lack of Free Time month, and November means haunted house season is at its end. It’s also because the best cure for autumn exhaustion and ennui that I have found is a daily bowl of thankful soup. (Haha, just kidding. A plate of gratitude nachos is what we eat at our house.)

I am grateful for the way the band boosters haunted house showed me the generous side of this community. I met and got to know some wonderful people throughout the past few months. Whether it was watching a team of guys build the whole structure to plan on a Thursday, for free, then having the lead builder walk up and insist on paying for his ticket, handing my child over to the moms who do know how to apply makeup each night he participated, or having a football parent hand me a big donation check, this whole experience really made me feel grateful for this community.

Last night was the final haunted house for the season and I am still processing the toughest moment of the whole experience for me. I sold a ticket to an adult sized male child. I counted back his change, and as he turned to get in line, I noticed he had on a large backpack made of the same authentic looking materials as the fatigues he was wearing. I said aloud to my ticket booth teammate that I was concerned about his backpack, and kept my eyes glued to him while he joined the end of the line of 50 or so people, set his backpack on the ground, unzipped it, and pulled out a gun.

I flew out of the booth and over to where he stood, inches from him though he had quickly tucked the rifle back into the pack, and as he had showed it to some teens across the rope from him, I had noticed an orange tip. The situation de-escalated quickly, though the teen seemed unable to understand why I wouldn’t allow him to enter the haunted house with his backpack. “It’s just an airsoft rifle. I won’t take it out in there.”

Though there are many things that unsettled me about this experience, about the common sense gaps of this apparently harmless kid, who concluded that it would be a good choice to brandish a non-lethal but extremely realistic and not completely harmless weapon on public fairgrounds at a school function, I also learned a lot. I know I fancied myself a person who would step up to help in a real gun situation, which as a mom in our current day and age, you know I have imagined a time or two. In that moment, the shape of a gun was being pulled from a bag, and I was in flight towards it, the various disarms, blocks, and strikes I know flashing through my mind, simultaneous with the knowledge that I do NOT know all I would need to safely disarm an active shooter. (How grateful I am that this was not that scenario cannot be really expressed in words.) I now know that I am actually that type of person, not just in imagination. Even though this situation was a false alarm, for the seconds it took me to react, it was all too real.

I’m a little bummed to start off the gratitude challenge with being grateful for this new, albeit heavy, self-knowledge. I almost want to change topics, but one thing I have learned with mindfulness practices is that I should really handle what’s foremost in my mind right now, to stay as human as I can, as whole and integrated as I can.

I also wonder if this is the point of the gratitude challenge. We’re heading into the lengthening darkness, and yet we have a choice how we perceive the passage of the dark, wet, months as well as how we process difficult events and experiences. I think it is all part of choosing a thought process shaped by gratitude, even when peering into the shadows.

 

11/2/19

~30 days of gratitude~ day 2

In August Rich and I visited the corner of my parents’ farm where the migrating monarchs were a kaleidoscope of wings wheeling among a rainbow of tall flowers. I took a million photos, journaled descriptive language, and vowed to myself that “as summer floats south on the wings of the magical creatures we witnessed, I will reserve a part of my heart as a sanctuary for the butterflies of summer.”

Dwelling on gratitude as the days grow very dark and cold is, to me, a bit like keeping the habitat open for the butterflies, holding space for what needs to take root to foster their ability to thrive. It doesn’t mean I can ever keep the clouds from passing over that habitat, or stop the clock on the passage of the seasons. What I can do is watch the clouds passing over, trusting they are not here to stay. Contemplating darkness doesn’t mean it will become a permanent condition. And indeed, I seemed to have launched this round of gratitude posts by delving into the shadows. While it was summer, I watched the butterflies alight on each flower, pausing to drink in sweetness, lifting upward on the next air current. While it’s winter, it takes all my courage to descend into the dark, but I trust that I will emerge next spring transformed by whatever develops in the darkness.

The caterpillar entering the chrysalis is of course not an activity/metaphor of fall and winter. Still, there is something about how they go inward and turn into caterpillar soup (caterpillar nachos don’t sound any more appetizing) that resonates in autumn. The chrysalis is a slow cooker of broth seasoned with imaginal cells, those bits of the crawling being that code for the dream of flying it has always known as its destiny. A little trust in the process, a little rearrangement of the molten materials, and out comes a winged creature.

It may take more years of this practice before I can truly feel thankful for darkness, or the meltdown it initiates in me. Simmering in my slow cooker today, I’m grateful for memories of summer, excellent walks with my husband, and butterflies.

 

11/3/19

~30 days of gratitude~ day 3

I am grateful for the extra hour today, as long as I don’t think about what it means about the brevity of daylight during upcoming evenings. I used it to catch up on a seriously backlogged grocery list. I left my son to his homework. He is rising to the executive functioning occasion so majestically right now, planning his work and then actually following the plan, setting his own timers and hearing them go off. I wandered off to re-stock baking powder and vanilla and all the autumn baking needs. As I watched the fragrant curry powder, cumin, and coriander fill the paper bags in the bulk spice section, I pondered the soap opera phrase about sand through the hourglass. I remembered back to when Quinn was mostly unsuccessful at joining any preschools, due to his refusal to adhere to anyone’s agenda but his own. As one group moved obediently to snack time while Quinn persisted in pressing playdough through his garlic press, unable to move on just because someone suggested it was cleanup time, I mused how these moments of three-year-old parenting were moving more like playdough through the garlic press than sand through the hourglass. Fast forward to now, and time seems to be moving more like the zesty chipotle, the flaky oregano, rushing out of their jars in great dollops and clumps.

Tonight, I decided I hadn’t used my extra hour yet and took a bath. Winning at daylight savings, and feeling grateful.

 

11/4/19

~30 days of gratitude~ day 4

By day four of the gratitude month, gratitude starts to become the predominant lens through which I view my day. It becomes easier to really taste the layers of flavor in that gulp of coffee rather than just pour it down the hatch. It is a joy to be able to take the overflowing compost container outside to the pile before work, because the daylight has shifted to the before-work segment of the day. Seeing memories pop up about “cracking the homework whip” just one year ago makes the progress I’m seeing in my kid seem even more sweet, having retired my whip some time ago. A Roy Orbison serenade and a wood stove fire started out my Monday just right, and it has stayed right all day. Before and after work hugs are bookends to contain my internal pages, regulate my breathing, keep my overthinking in check. The boy has decided on a night off from homework after a long day of testing, and is diving into the next book after Ender’s Game. The man is sipping whiskey and reclining. The kitties are basking in the glow of the wood stove. And I am playing with words, one of my favorite things to do.

 

11/5/19

~30 days of gratitude~ day 5

Quinn and I drove to school, gray sweatshirts the unanimous clothing choice of the gray dawn commute. He was probably imagining his into a flash suit, deeply engrossed in Ender’s world. I was imagining the silver-gray Arctic cod I would be measuring all morning. As I pulled into work, the sun was partially obscured behind the sleek blue-gray clouds, like the still-sleeping eye of a great blue whale, buoyed along on a slim layer of pink krill. Before I could park, the whale had plunged below the surface, taking the krill with it, and all was back to gray and smooth and placid.

I am usually more of a rainbow type of gal than an appreciator of gray, but as I look around for ways to be thankful for what is, my appreciation of this subtle hue family grows. The photo I did get (not the sky whale) was from the afternoon; still gray, but I notice there is usually some silver, gold, or even pink hiding along the edges of the grays, whether in muted skyscapes or the flashing sides of tiny fish, and so much texture and nuance. I think it is a worthy cause, this consideration of the gray areas. Today I am grateful for new perspectives.

 

11/6/19

~30 days of gratitude~ day 6

I learned that the monarch butterflies on their overwintering grounds are called The Souls.

A soul cannot be assigned to an organ system or even to the body at all, though it seems to be tied to it by the most infinitesimally thin heartstring.

You can’t point at your soul, but you can feel a tug on the string every so often. Like when I walked into the break room at work earlier this week to find a pile of donated Halloween candy on the table, m&ms and milky ways. My Nana, who died when I was 4, always had m&ms and milky ways for my older brother and I to choose from (he usually chose a milky way and I usually chose m&ms) when we would visit. Tug tug. This time I chose a milky way.

She is always with me, within me like rings of a tree, like if you look at us in cross section, each of us might be made of concentric circles holding inside the generations that have come before.

You can’t really point at gratitude either, but you can feel it. I spend November blabbing all about it, trying to point at it with words, but they are approximations at best (still, a worthy pastime that keeps me out of trouble). The more I contemplate it, what it is and what it means, the less it is about each discrete item I’m thankful for, and the more it is an awareness of being swaddled in a blanket of blessings, a coating of live butterflies surrounding my tree, encrusting its bark with all the joy of flight, the hope of survival through another winter, the optimism with which I look at the next generational ring growing outward from me, and from the source that is also my source.

~rainbow mondays~ spiral heart tunnels

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why i love spring: metaphors for rebirth literally growing on trees; the mascot for lightness of being zooming past my head each time i walk out my door; the spiraling of life curling outward into the light; and oh, the light!

rainbow flash!

perhaps inspired by spring, my husband and i are purposefully taking brisk walks, and some slower but longer walks… on the beach!

so nice to catch a sunset on the beach!

lightness, light, and pink blossoms!

baby pink: i am having fun being a nana.

petal pink

red: this rufous male has been showing off quite a range of colors! he is pictured multiple times throughout the post.

red-orange!

orange: moths and bumblebees fluttering in the flowers.

orange: this was amazing to witness! hungry robin (with rusty orange breast) yanking on a worm!

orange: flashy face with backlit tail feathers.

yellow: skunk cabbage in bloom

yellow: angled to shimmer like gold…

green: and emeralds!

green: dusty rose fairy gown columbine foliage emerging!

green: skunk cabbage after a spring rain

green: trilliums! we are amazed at how early these have bloomed this year!

green: i think i am somewhat related to plants in that i only start to feel alive again this time of year. grateful for the light activating my chlorophyll!

green: even the trout lilies are up! depending on how you tilt your head, you can see their curled leaves as spiral heart tunnels.

green: trout lilies almost ready to bloom!

blue: i spied the first forget-me-nots yesterday!

blue: i also witnessed a bald eagle flying overhead stealthily, because i just happened to be looking up.

purple: this young anna’s male has a striking plum color to his plumage.

purple: and perhaps a little candy pink mixed in for good measure?

tan: sand like dragon scales. love the texture!

brown: dahlia spiral memory; in addition to the benign neglect creating habitat for beneficial insects, it provides a  frequent perch for the hummingbirds.

white: spring rebirth inspiring me to dust off my heart-shaped lens to look upon this beautiful world!

~rainbow mondays~

a splash of color on monday

a photo study documenting the colors of the spectrum: the balance points between light reflected and light absorbed

slope stabilization

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how does one establish a relationship that is built to last, what with all the ephemerality of the world? the passing of days into memory or forgetting, the hurts and slights that have the potential to erode at what originally connected two people, the quirks and morning breath and neglected leg stubble that could garner disproportionate attention when days seem mediocre or less than magical.

impermanence could be something to fear when it comes to relationships, if we start to think about divorce statistics, the real faces of broken families who have crossed our paths, our own experiences in such families, either as children, helpless to keep their parents together, or as parents who tried everything they could think to try and still fell short of finding a way to “make it work”.

i take heart in those second marriages i’ve observed that seem to have a higher happiness quotient than the overall married demographic. of course, this will only be my first marriage, but it will be rich’s second, and having had a child with my coparent functionally bumps that into the “might as well have been married” category. rich and i talk about how we’re aiming for the kind of longevity and dedication of johnny and june, while we’re speaking of second marriages that went well… this is of course in addition to all those fabulous first marriages that are going strong!

one saturday while i was working at farmer’s market, rich pruned some trees to allow more light to reach the apple orchard. some of what he cut back was wood i could use for the terraces i am building, so i spent time the following afternoon moving some of the branches into place. this pattern has played itself out numerous times now, but i realized on that particular afternoon that stabilizing the slope and minimizing erosion is a metaphor one could apply to relationships.

the metaphor has layers…. literal and figurative. i am building my terrace garden into six levels that span the backyard slope. first, i laid cardboard as a hindrance to the ivy and morning glory that will want to make a swift return if i don’t impede them. along with this weed barrier, each level has a set of stakes pounded into the ground along a contour, and a series of limbs and brush tucked in behind the stakes, horizontally layered to hold the soil inside and provide a wall of sorts. behind the branches, more branches, twigs, brush, and mulchy bits are piled to provide bulky organic matter and generally fill out the space. next, a layer of raked leaves helps the soil not trickle down into the twiggy abyss, but stay on the surface until roots can establish and help hold it more firmly; as the leaves break down, they will provide nutrients for the roots, while the branchy twigs should hold extra moisture as they break down more slowly. finally, some top soil, in which the rainbow flower bulbs and seeds will be tucked; the icing on the cake.

before the layers could even begin to be laid down, some stuff had to be pulled out by the roots. there are things in our pasts, for example, that we have no use for. these ivy invaders and morning glory stranglers must be hauled to the dump, with no other option to keep them from getting carried away and making a nuisance of themselves. there are thought patterns and habits we all have that simply must be eradicated before forward progress can be made. while ivy can keep a slope in one place after a fashion, and toxic relationship patterns can keep people cyclically involved, there are much healthier replacements for slope stabilization.

on the other hand, the layering of cardboard and brush brings to mind the way that some waste can be gleaned and turned into useful, strengthening stuff. the pounding of discarded limb stakes into the hillside allows the hillside to remain in place, slows erosion, and provides a substrate on which a garden can flourish. while some maladaptive habits and thought patterns have to go, there are also old hurts and pieces of scar tissue from the past that can actually be turned into something useful, something that feeds the beauty of the garden, that strengthens and stitches together new connections, rather than continuing to poison. the shining example for us is oregon country fair, an event that i believed was poisoned for me beyond redemption. instead, it has become a place of trust, love and some of my happiest memories. with the right person, letting a vulnerable hurt place be loved on can result in some amazing healing.

the idea of pounding in stakes, actually piercing the ground, in the interest of stabilizing the slope, is one i’ve been mulling over in the scope of my metaphor. i think it applies in the sense that relationships involve some hard work. it shouldn’t feel like hard work all the time, nor should the work ever feel impossible, in my opinion, but there is effort in showing up for another person daily, saying yes to them with your being, pulling your weight and doing your part in the household duties whether you feel like it or not, showing gratitude that your partner is doing the same. picking up their slack when they are sick, and acknowledging when they do the same for you. it’s a conscious, enthusiastic turning towards one another in words and actions. sometimes there are conversations that don’t go well the first time. coming back and doing the hard work to get through the process and come out on the other side with a better understanding of one another’s points of view, while it can be a piercing experience, undoubtedly leads to a strengthening of the relationship, an act that prevents erosion. while the ground is frozen, it may not be time to pound in stakes; being able to discern what matters, how much it matters, what needs to be dealt with right now, and what needs to be tabled until after a thaw, all come into play in various seasons. gentleness in handling these topics, sticking to the subject, and attributing the best intentions to one another consistent with the facts helps minimize erosion as well.

layering the branches, twigs and leaf litter into the terraces reminds me of what we do for each other to feed the relationship. consciously, we both ask ourselves what we can do to support each other, and to support our friendship. i make a point to know what flavors my sweetie will savor when i cook our meals, while he makes a point to stoke up the woodstove in the middle of these chilly nights for my cold bones. i might be content to eat rice and beans, and he might be content to let the house cool off at night, but we prioritize each other’s comfort. aside from the creature comforts are the less tangible emotional needs, to be heard, seen, recognized, accepted, supported. we had an especially nice conversation after family had all departed from christmas festivities, and covered a lot of topics, talking at length about each of our kids and other family members, sharing our observations and insights that we had been having throughout the festivities but hadn’t gotten a chance to share. both of us felt a sense of what a great friendship we have, to be able to range widely in conversation and complement each other’s insights. we also make a concerted effort to make each other laugh with great frequency, and as we all know laughter is like water for the soul’s garden.

all of what we are feeding each other, these layers of friendship and comfort, must be held in place in the right kind of container for the relationship to work. building these terraces creates a wall structure behind which the layers of organic matter are safe to settle in and nurture the soil and the plant life. the sides breathe, there is no lid to stifle growth, moisture is retained but does not stagnate, instead the walls provide a richly nourishing, secure foundation in which the growth can proceed. this container finds a balanced porosity that both prevents erosion and encourages individuality. the magical blend of components woven together to form this container, such as trust, trustworthiness, unconditional positive regard, attentiveness, hugs, and refusal to indulge negative self-image on the other’s part, provides such security that the growth flourishes and positive fruit can spill over to bless the surrounding family, friends and community.

embedded in the creation of these layers is the way we share the labor. our partnership has always pleasantly surprised me with how smoothly labor divides itself to the great good fortune of all involved. i stood around the other day watching him split and stack firewood, vaguely wondering if i should help, but content to watch the show, knowing he expected nothing of me in that department, and knowing i’d be serving him a hot dinner later that i wouldn’t expect him to lift a finger for. i would never in a zillion years have thought that serving another person would bring me such joy, but when he asks me if i want to fill his water glass, i find that yes i do genuinely want to. i think an attitude of gratitude is something we both intentionally promote in ourselves. i endeavor to notice the way he wields power tools and cuts the brush and branches without complaint, and he makes a point to comment on the progress i’ve made weaving the branches into the walls of the terraces. we don’t lavish praise with the intent to procure more work or results from each other; this appreciation is simply acknowledgement of what’s done, not a subliminal manipulation to extract more.

the seed for this post was planted a few months ago, and i’ve been tending this seedling ever since. this past weekend while we worked as a team to fell trees and clear brush, then add more layers of stability to our terraces, i was reminded once again of the metaphor, and feeling gratitude for the many years ahead of growing together on this stable foundation.

~rainbow mondays~ finding the color

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colorless: right around this time of year, things start to feel about like this for me: washed out gray birds in a gray sky flying south without me. my rainbow practice becomes increasingly important for me to strive to do, so i can remember there is actually still a lot of color in the world!

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even if it’s artificial coloring. spoiler alert: all the kids in our lives are getting playdough for christmas! quinn helped me make the first four colors yesterday.

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rainbow: mindful tea arranging. this way the tea becomes a self care exercise multiple times.

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red: one of our frequent visitors.

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red: cranberries getting ready to be sauce, for what turned out to be a very mellow and laid back thanksgiving with more of our kids than we thought we’d get to have around.

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orange: glad there are still some of these hanging on.

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orange: false chantarelle in our forest. still hoping for some true chantarelles but no luck yet.

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orange: quinn’s week off of school for thanksgiving was a week of much game playing. after enough rounds of loot and risk, i decided i wanted a word game, so we invented thanksgiving scattergories.

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yellow: apple tree leaves.

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green: extra water in the bayou over the past week or so.

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green: the first of my rainbow terrace plants has sprouted! i planted 3 bleeding heart roots at the base of the apple trees, and they are already up! i hope they did not jump the gun, and that they do well next season.

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blue: this kid makes me happy.

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blue: i re-purposed my baby baptism blue jar and baby’s breath as a thanksgiving centerpiece. never mind that it looks more like christmas than thanksgiving! that’s what i could find in the yard for a fresh cut arrangement.

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purple: mashed potatoes at thanksgiving ended up lavender, since i had a few purple potato stowaways in the mix.

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purple: deep in thought in mama’s purple chair using mama’s purple computer. for christmas, i’m thinking: new socks!

~rainbow mondays~

a splash of color on monday

a photo study documenting the colors of the spectrum: the balance points between light reflected and light absorbed