Tag Archives: streamline

~summer shorts~ molting

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I passed the tub of paid-for veggies to the outside of the sneeze guard and the customer turned sideways to me to pack them into her bag. I dipped my gloved hands in bleach again, looked around at the customers standing six feet apart, the colorful fabrics of their face masks. As I turned back towards her, her earring caught my eye – a beautiful piece, rose colored stones, the kind of earring with a tear drop shaped central stone and many little jingly bits of metal and beads dangling, like a musical feather. “What beautiful earrings,” I said.

“Thank you, they were my mother’s. When I was little, I would hear the sound of them, so now when I wear them, I hear that sound and feel surrounded by her, and by those happy memories.”

Hearing of mother connections is especially poignant as I grapple with separation, and her story came as an unexpected gift. I feel surrounded by my mom’s love when I am wrapped in one of her quilts. I have been delivering care packages in my own attempt to wrap my love around Quinn as well, as we approach five months of separation. Snacks, books, a box of seeds to grow, feathers.

It’s molting season for the birds. Every few days I look down during our bayou walks and discover a new feather shed by one of our local jays and once even a raven! This ritual shedding of items that are no longer useful seems apt. Mom and I have been talking about how we both base a lot of our worthiness on our usefulness. I am underproducing for work and powerless as a parent, so my usefulness is quite diminished. Perhaps it is time to molt, to let go of old ideas about worthiness, like feathers that need to retire from service. These feathers have done their gravity-defying work and have performed valiantly, but their ragged edges are no longer streamlined, no longer serving to decrease resistance to the flow.

The day I found an owl feather, I had really been missing Quinn, and it was a small comfort to find a trace of his favorite animal that I could pick up and hold in my hand. Its softness and lightness brought a lift I was needing. I held onto it for a week or so, but when the time came to deliver another care package, I tucked it in a ziplock bag with the latest stash of feather finds.

That same afternoon on my walk with Rich, I found one more owl feather, in the very same spot I had found the first one. This one I think I’ll keep.

Quinn will be the first to tell you that birds are dinosaurs. I would fill his care packages with live baby dinosaurs if I could, but feathers are the closest thing I can surround him with, my nestling who has fledged too soon. Of all the ephemeral things, a feather, when as a mother so much of my energy has been spent striving to overcome impermanence for him. He is a sensitive person who was a bit devastated when the peep we microwaved could not be reconstituted into its previous form – things that are fun for other kids cause him grief. He explained that he did not want to study the woolly mammoth, one of his all-time favorites, because he really wishes he could see a live one, and their extinction hurts too much. Change, transitions, extinction, impermanence. Throwing anything away is a struggle for him, so every week he went to his dad’s I carefully removed detritus from his room just beneath his limits of detection.

I have been realizing that my mom did this for me as a child, too. Thinking of birds and dinosaurs and peeps just reminded me that she once learned how to poke a pinhole in each end of an egg to blow the contents of the egg into a bowl, leaving a pristine egg surface for decorating that would not spoil. I have a feeling she might have been wishing she could just put her feet up, but she strove to overcome some impermanence for me when I grieved the demise of my colorful easter eggs.

Part of the devastation of this time is there is no protecting our children from these losses they are enduring. However, protecting our children from learning how to handle loss might be another idea that is ready to be molted, replaced with some new plumage. We will just have to trust that it will grow in brighter, stronger, readier for streamlined flight than that which it is replacing.

~thankful thursday~ in which we sing the last verse

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11/23/18

~30 days of gratitude~ day 23

today i am grateful for a full day to relax and cook only with my microwave.

 

11/24/18

~30 days of gratitude~ day 24

i am grateful for color; the rainbow veggies of market, the orange and yellow leaves of the vine maples, the red violet of my strawberry-beet smoothie and my rose elixir. i’m a rainbow person, but red violet-colored lenses help me see the world with an attitude of gratitude.

 

11/25/18

~30 days of gratitude~ day 25

today i’m thankful for animals, who remind me that it is important to play.

 

11/26/18

~30 days of gratitude~ day 26

last night after a wonderful spontaneous mid-day date of doing nothing, which turned out to be some of the very best something, watching seals and whales play in the ocean surf, rich and i watched christopher robin. i was reminded how grateful i am for winnie the pooh. i loved pooh as a kid, and i remember re-reading pooh when i was a teenager and realizing there was more substance layered in those stories than i had realized. which paled in comparison to how i felt when i started reading the same book to my two-year-old, who gobbled up chapter after chapter. when he had reached the limit of his attention span, he would shift into incorporating pooh stories into every aspect of his imaginitive play. we played pooh sticks whenever we found a nice bridge over a stream, we hauled piglet up to the letter box, we found a new house for owl, we pounded eeyore’s tail back on, we hunted for heffalumps and woozles. the hundred acre wood took up a good percentage of his internal landscape from an early age. i of course had tears rolling down my cheeks over the movie last night, not necessarily sad ones, but the ones that have everything to do with the inevitability of little boys growing up.

 

11/27/18

~30 days of gratitude~ day 27

i am grateful for all of the twinkly lights bringing light into the lengthening darkness.

 

11/28/18

~30 days of gratitude~ day 28

today’s facebook memory was an all-photo post about dolphins from gratitude 2016. it reminded me of my gratitude for their existence in this world, and how they’ve been a symbolic guide for me this year. i chose the word “streamline” for 2018, and of course, there is no better mascot.

i wrote about this on my 40th birthday, as the days were lengthening rather than the nights, and as the first trilliums were blooming, rather than the last blossoms drooping.

“…in a more metaphysical sense, streamlining is a term that makes me think of the ways i spend my life energy, and ways i could conserve it more efficiently. dolphins have been friends of my spirit for more than half my life now, and provide the perfect mascot for becoming more streamlined. some of the definitions of the word focus on how the motion of the fluid around the object is smooth, or the condition of being free from turbulence; however the more i think about it, the less it has to do with the status of the flow of life around me, and more to do with shaping myself in such a way that i present less resistance to the flow.”

this was only part of what i wrote, but i’m focusing on this excerpt because out of all the ways i intended to use this year to streamline, the part about getting out of our storage unit and finally getting all the way moved into our house was not the part i achieved. however, i think i’ve improved on the part about presenting less resistance to the flow. so i’m grateful to my spirit friends who’ve helped inspire me in that area this year.

11/29/18

~30 days of gratitude~ day 29

it’s penultimate post day! it really flew by this year, it doesn’t seem possible that november is already coming to an end. it seems like i’ve only just begun to notate the things for which i’ve felt grateful recently. some of the ones i may not yet have mentioned:

i am grateful for saving 13% on my groceries today because my fairy mother-outlaw snuck a handy coupon onto  my passenger’s seat. best outlaw mother in all the land.

i am grateful to feel like a real adult, depositing my little supplemental income paychecks from my farm job into my son’s savings account. i think the two dudes doing their banking were slightly jealous that he has almost earned enough scottie saver bucks to get the light sabre!

i’m grateful my husband is always burning holes in his clothing so my sewing machine motors don’t seize up due to lack of use. mending isn’t my favorite sewing to do, but for that smoking hot guy i’ll gladly zigzag his clothes back together. i am also grateful to have learned a useful skill set such as sewing from a panel of very talented women while i was growing up.

i’m grateful when the sparks only burn the clothing layers, not the man. (he barely notices, but still.)

i’m grateful for kitties! and wood stove fires!

okay, maybe i’ve mentioned some of these before, but are you sure it was this year?

finally, i’m grateful my son comes home to me tomorrow. i’ll give you three guesses what we’ll be having for dinner on gratitude day 30!

11/30/18

~30 days of gratitude~ day 30

gratitude is powerful stuff. three years of doing this have taught me that gratitude is a self-perpetuating spiral; i keep being pleasantly surprised how many times the words just flowed, because the feelings were so easy to access, because… practice. you get to where you’re just so darn grateful for gratitude.

but now it’s time to sing the last verse of the song for this year. the part of the song where it all comes together metaphorically and the sound waves ripple through the air to touch your heart, and though it has the same melody as before, there are several strains of harmony woven in now, and when you get to the chorus, you reach down to your toes to send the last few notes up a third or a fifth or an octave. you take it higher, you take it on home. you know, that part of the song.

(30 days isn’t long enough if i haven’t been grateful for music yet! good thing we’re squeezing it in before the finale.)

this is where i stall briefly in writing today’s gratitude, because PRESSURE! because finishing a song is something to take seriously and anyone with a perfectionist side can find this to be an obstacle. i believe i finished day 30 sometime in january last year, but i promised myself i’d end on time this year.

so i have been thinking about it for days, and i can’t think of a better way to close the circle on this 30 days than by coming back to where we started, with a certain navigational aid called Buoy. Buoy was stationed in one spot in the sea, but sometimes when he was ready for a nap, he would travel in his mind down the long chain that anchored him all the way down to the sea floor… each color of the rainbow would fade away as he dove deeper, until only those creatures who could create their own light dwelled…

“then down the chain. to the seabed. and there, rooted in the depth of the Sea, Buoy felt a humming. a hum that seemed to come from deeper than the Sea. it reminded him somehow of the song of the Whales. but he did not hear this song. he felt it. it seemed to be a part of who he was. he did not understand that it was he who was a part of the song.”

thanks for singing along, friends.

~rainbow mondays~ delphinious

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it’s the merry month of may, with flowers brought to you by april showers, and the most likely month of the year in which rainbow mondays will take place on tuesdays.

red: there is now more light reaching the leaves of our little japanese maple tree, because sometimes my husband participates in unauthorized dangerous activities while i am away at farmer’s market on saturdays. he built his bridge and walked out on it with his chain-saw-on-a-pole to saw a few limbs off of this cedar. always trying to let more light into our lives, that guy.

red: red-legged friend in my rainbow garden

orange: california poppies with forget me nots and herb robert flowers.

orange: this bee thinks comfrey flowers are the bee’s knees. you could see her orange saddle bags a little more in some other angles, but i had to choose this shot because i love how she has dived into this flower with such abandon. busy bees are certainly an apt mascot for this busy month!

yellow: the golden chain tree has bloomed its curtains of flowers.

yellow: mustard-covered fields viewed from the passenger’s seat.

green: i got to play assistant chef to the guy in the trex shirt, as he arranged plates of lemon-filled crepes with strawberries, sliced moro oranges, and whipped cream.

green: a bayou friend sipping from the newly bloomed twinberry flowers.

green: rich and i are both fascinated with the dramatic stages of budding and blooming on this chinese snowball tree. one of my favorite stages is when the flowers are still green, on their way to becoming snowballs!

blue: speaking of snow, several fields full of white flowers threw us for a loop under the warm blue sky of may when we drove through the valley. we saw signs for radish seed nearby, and i think radish flowers are white. otherwise, it could be some sort of fun flowering cover crop.

blue: also on our valley drive, we stopped at a favorite place to rest and found the wild delphinium in full bloom.

blue: it was good to immerse myself briefly in their setting; cool, blue, blossoming right where they are meant to be. their name, synonymous with the effortless, gliding grace of a spirit friend of mine, reminds me of my word of the year, streamline. a timely reminder, that i am unfurling my petals right where i need to be, too.

purple: i am grateful today for my husband’s way of knowing when i need a little aromatherapy (when he steers our walking path past the lilacs in bloom), or therapy behind the lens of my camera (making possible this here rainbow post), or simply need to be hugged for a long time and told i am loved.

~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

a pirate looks at 40

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i’ve been spending hours each day in a walk-in freezer, straddling two different lab jobs which is marginally better than a lapse in funding. the arctic cod eggs in my care are beginning to hatch, and the spring equinox felt like an auspicious occasion for their entrance. when i emerge each day from 2 degrees celsius, i am grateful to retain the use of my extremities and to be useful and efficient.

at the dragon house, we’re excited about the return of longer daylight hours, so we can take our after work bayou walks. my birthday blossoms are in bloom, it’s the season of trout lilies and trilliums!

as life seasons go, i am ready to fully embrace my 40s. as i embark on a new decade, i would like to write more, complain less about not having time to write, and streamline….

streamline is my word for 2018, by the way, but i never had time in january to write about it. i’ve been doing a terrible job of implementing it in certain areas, but making some headway in others. in the physical realm of streamlining stuff, i have donated lots of books and other unneeded items, and created more physical space, which i’m realizing i value more than even books. my goal is to have my household reflect those values one day, but it may be a work in progress for some time. in the cyber realm i’ve unsubscribed from any email subscriptions i receive and promptly delete; i figured there might be around 10, but i stopped counting at 50 and i do a lot less deleting these days. i kept a small handful of subscriptions i actually click on and read, and this streamlining effort allows time for that.

in a more metaphysical sense, streamlining is a term that makes me think of the ways i spend my life energy, and ways i could conserve it more efficiently. dolphins have been friends of my spirit for more than half my life now, and provide the perfect mascot for becoming more streamlined. some of the definitions of the word focus on how the motion of the fluid around the object is smooth, or the condition of being free from turbulence; however the more i think about it, the less it has to do with the status of the flow of life around me, and more to do with shaping myself in such a way that i present less resistance to the flow.

2017 was such a momentous year, that my only resolution for 2018 was to have a very mellow year, one in which i can take moments to reflect on the year just past. so far, 2018 has been intense in its own ways, with little time for reflection, but with spring, often comes more energy for me, and i anticipate a flurry of wedding and family visit catch-up posts soon. in fact, my intent is to carve out some time for that as a birthday present to myself!

i expected turning 40 to feel like a bigger deal, a little more biblical in proportions. you know, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights… take a walk in the desert for 40 days and nights, hike up mount sinai for 40 days and nights, etc. it turns out that 40 may just be a biblical way of saying, “umpteen,” and not necessarily a numerical value. which seems to more accurately describe how old i feel. a vague, abstract, age that is not quite eleventy-seven and not that much older than my teens, yet with a sense that a lot of years have gone by. and i’ve developed the ability to nap on cue (40 winks?), which i think is a good sign that i’m ready for my 40s.

in other areas of cultural significance, 40 is the highest number ever counted to on sesame street.

a glance back at four decades…

1988: when i turned 10, i had a birthday party with all of my friends. i was allowed to get my hair permed and start growing it out. my favorite color up to that point was pink. i was into art and music. i was counted on for my work around the farm. i had one of my favorite teachers of all time for fifth grade.

1998: when i turned 20, i was on a tiny island called rum cay in the bahamas which i reached via schooner! this was during my sophomore year of college, the spring term of which i spent on a semester-at-sea. the title of this post is also the title of a jimmy buffett song i first heard at that time, half my life ago: “mother mother ocean, i have heard you call; wanted to sail upon your waters since i was three feet tall.”

2008: when i turned 30, i was mama to a beautiful one year old boy. i was looking for jobs on the oregon coast so we could relocate here, and spending the rest of my time being a mama and busing around portland with my little guy, managing to work part time sequencing dolphin dna with him strapped to my back. within months i was moving, with a restraining order in my hand, my baby helping me keep my integrity as my compass bearing and my course set resolutely to onward and upward.

 

perusing the hieroglyphic dictionary

hexahexaflexagon!

2018: now i am 40. i am married to the most wonderful man in the world. i’ve grown my son to age eleven and 5’1” tall, and we really like spending time together, currently studying such fascinating subjects as hieroglyphics and hexaflexagons. though i’ve become paradoxically both more cynical and more hopeful as time has passed, the bottom line is that i’m filled with gratitude each night as i climb into bed.