back to work

Gearing up to go back to work. Why did it have to get so cold right before I am supposed to go back? I feel entropy of the warm couch. The dishes gathered around the sink watch me evilly. My suitcase still lies open from my trip. I've got to get ready to go back - it's like balancing a checkbook, being ready for work is part of the equation. Am I shallow if what I really want is a whole closet full of new clothes? At least a pair of new pants would be nice. All I ask for is a pair of pants that can go in the washer and don't really need to be ironed that much.

Facing the Difficult

What to do with the challenge that that we feel is taking us away from happiness? How do we meet that knock at our confidence and patience with maturity and kindness? When a situation does seem to take away our happiness do we have the right to complain? I think I could philosophize about patience here, but that's not really what's left at the end of the day. What's left at the end of the day is how I walk away from the problem, deftly sticking it into my pocket like a treasure to be found on another day. What's left at the end of the day is swiftly turning a corner into another reality, like the feeling of when it suddenly begins to rain.

Do something about the cars

The cars rumble away from here, away from my back door balcony. They rumble at a street far away, but not so far away that I can't see them. They rumble away to their jobs where they will sit in parking lots while their owners recalibrate in office buildings. They rumble away and then another one comes and another one comes. Above is the sunrise. The clouds are plated in gold that flakes off as the water rises from the earth and the stories of the people rise. Inside the cars and office buildings people's days are different from each others. My cats sit on the balcony and it starts to rain. Lightly. Not even so much rain now, just a chilly summer morning.

No new nails for you!!

Today I wish ..... Today I wish I lived in Beverly Hills or some other posh neighborhood in California and I could just go the coffee shop. Wait....I can just go the coffee shop. Right around the corner however is a pile waiting for me. Literally behind me is everything I need to bring into my classroom.!! It is one tremendous pile. I'm like the ant. I'm moving this stuff and it's heavy. I'm going to be met by another ant that helps me out along the way. I firmly have to believe that or else it's going to be too much to try and get this into the classroom. As teachers, we have to start the ground sprinting, or at least jogging as part of a marathon. My nails can get done on another day. This year, I think, is going to be about working hard.

Artiste I Am Not

It's tricky for me because I always get ideas for stories and artwork. I am so busy I never think I can bring them to fruition. And also, I don't want to do the work on them. I know how much work it takes to create something in that way. Then there are other times I just enjoy the beauty around me. I feel paintings, enjoy their source of life that they give. I imbibe. I feel refreshed. There is so much pressure all around me to be an artiste, to conceptualize something. I feel scared that if I don't nothing will be left behind. However, it is being in the moment that is really the most uttermost important thing. Enjoying and looking and learning are the most essential.

Grateful

Beautiful clouds today and it's still warm enough to go bouncing around in the pool. Even though I don't live in a rich, lush neighborhood I love the drive to my house towards the mountains and along train tracks. There is one train track that I almost always miss seeing and send the car into cyclon space over the bump. Black eyed susans grow up along the side of the road. Without my ex-roommate it feels hard to be home here, but this is home. Leaving the richer Park Hill side feels sometimes like I am driving into an oblivion, but this outpost is home. I think everyone around me feels the same way: is this really home? There are so many townhomes here for sale. Maybe my next deeper question is: do I need to move? Maybe I just need a different kind of problem. Before in my life, my friends were my home. Now this shell doesn't feel like a home. A real community can be a home. Venturing out from the community with your heart open can lead you back to it. It may be a slightly different community that you go back to, I may end up somewhere different when I venture back.

Caterpillar

I made caterpillars out of eggcartons and stuck them in a vase. Flowers all eaten up!

Pine Beetle Blues

Experiencing of the forest's dead trees, some already tipped over gray and rotting, the forest's floor made mature by all the falling pine trees. There are some trees that are supple and bright green and bendable. They are about as tall as my shoe. There are also darker green tall mature trees. The pine beetle only carves through trees that are between 60 and 90 years old. The rest remain standing. In this picture in the right corner you can see a pictue of one of the small new trees. It is right by the edge of my sleeping bag.

Duldrums

Is summer really supposed to be this boring? I feel like a hound dog. In the south, with no mystery yet to come upon me. Hot dogs passing over my nose. And there are two cats here to boot. They contracted me to hunt raccoons, but I want mysteries. I'm tired of myseries. I'm wrinkled up like an old tee shirt. I'm all wrung out too.

And unless I'm chasing a raccoon up a tree I'm tired and depressed. Maybe more people are tired and depressed than I know about!!!

Swimmingly Nice Afternoon

I go to the pool with my neighbors and their two boys. We stand on the steps. I hold their baby and swing him back and forth in the water until he laughs. The water is warm. We practice different strokes: backstroke, butterfly. Brenden learns how to float. Then we head over to the hottub. They are scared of yellow jackets and I am not. They are very tender with both their sons and it is beautiful to see.

Roller Skate Heaven

A group of roller skaters lives in an underground cave. Their world has been taken over so they live down in the cave, work on computers and wear roller-skates. They are an intimate team. One day one of their members decides to go back to Earth to fight the blight that drove them underground in the first place. Her mission: how the power of vision can restore what has been torn on earth.

Listening Project

I am practicing this intensive listening project and instead of finding that I come closer to those around me I find I hear dissonance. I've usually reacted to the dissonance but now I am even more aware of it. The way that people don't listen to each other is apparent in conversations. I feel angry and I feel the need to calm myself down. I have never heard before how much in my mom's speech that I am always to put myself first. This doesn't fit for how I live, that community is the most important. It is too much to deal with, this darling, ambitious, first place seeking, wonderchild that she roots for me to be. She wants the world for me and she wants me to have the world. I feel extremely unmotivated to live to her standard, especially since she is a workaholic and doesn't put the same "be number one" requirements on herself. Forgiveness is not living a life of rebellion but rather one of stability. It's forgetting about how much I do not like constantly being pressured to be Number One, but to realize I am already living inside a different life and that I am still committed to my listening project.

I don't know which way to turn

Someone I am dating has started to make demands: slow down, enjoy the roses, you are too busy. I here comes this lubber, masterful, advice swinging guy and I guess I have to admit I am less than impressed. Great! Aren't we supposed to be in this together, helping each other to do "stuff." He has had a beautiful relentless patience in sitting on his ass waiting until the exact right time to tell me that I am too busy and too ambitious. Oh, I despise myself for being this irritable. It is going to be a long week until the drugs are fixed. It really didn't help to feel smashed last night. Forgivness means standing up again and not just Xing the person out of my life. Forgiveness means I don't feel threatened anymore.

Cambrian Rock

I found out that the rock I took back from the campsight is from the time that little things living in oceans moved from being little sticks of cells hovered together to little swimmy things with shells and claws. There was more oxygen in the water at the time and so animal's bodies could have a bigger surface area without having to gasp for the oxygen they needed. Thank you to the New York Natural History museum. I remember sitting in a room, overhead hearing the sound of lapping water, being surrounded by paintings of tiny creatures and watching an animation of Cambrian creatures. It was that that gentle introduction that first got me interested in the life stages of the Earth. Now I have a real rock from that time. Incredible!!

Camping Trip

I slept last night under the stars. The big dipper, or the Drinking Gourd as it was know to African Americans following the North Star to freedom along the underground railway, poked its head out among the stars first. Then one by one others made themselves known to me. I felt a voice whisper would I come with Him. I said no. I'm a sinner through and through. I am baptised by the Milky Way, by no other church. Now, I feel ready to live my life. It was a tiring night - I didn't even stay awake long enough to see the Milky Way in which I was baptised. My tiredness came from the day. I had spent the day on the shoulder of a Mesa doing trail restoration. In my path were Cambrian Rocks (lava rocks from the time of the dinosaurs), dust, wild roses, and sometimes at the top of the trail a view of the Uncompadre (stinky, dirty) river and mountains in Utah.

Avatar

I finally saw Avatar. I am back with my credentials as a full card carrying American in my society. There's a lot of good messages about alternative ways to go through life. There's messages about courage and beauty. I won't write about the plot of the film, since everyone here has seen it. I will say that I really like the main character and his video logs. I hope that literacy learning for my students can be as interactive next year as it was for him. Especially for those boys who seem to be locked into their minds as much as that character was locked into his body. As a teacher, and now an Avatar junkie, I have to see myself as a native of the forest. Guiding and living.

Drew Barrymore

I admire Drew Barrymore so much because she had problems with drugs and now she as successful as she was in ET without the hunger of Hollywood's dark-side drooling over her. She is in fun movies and she is also a movie producer. I love thinking about how much she has won in life.

Marijuana

Colorado is a state that has legalized medical marijuana. Literally a few days after the law, many mini medical marijuana storefronts have opened. Seriously they are as common as Starbucks, which means there might be 2 or 3 of them in one strip mall. My favorite marijuana, just because I think it pisses some people off, is a Colorado flag with ganga growing in the middle. There are others that seem really just a slight step from legalized drugs to marijuana for pain. I know that my country will eventually go that direction, so just like Starbucks, I had better get used to it!

Tomato Biological Clock

Someone I met in my community garden today was ranting about how her tomatoes have a biological clock. Her logic is this. First, the tomato plants were mortally wounded by an early but quite potent snow storm. Next, the plants survived, but wilted beyond recognition. Third, the began to madly make tomatoes. Her logic: the plants are dying so they start to make seeds and procreate with the intention of passing along life to the next generation because they would soon be done with this world. You can tease me as much as you want about tomatoes not having a brain, but I at least half agree with that crazy woman!!

Grief

I am moving. I am morphing. The person who I once was is in hibernation and a new me is coming alive. I had a dream of an apple tree that had apples all over the ground around it. Each apple on the ground had a bite taken out of it. The apple tree was growing in soil that was weak. I feel this dream represents the grief I feel for everything that is changing. I have knowledge now, represented by the apple tree, but too much knowledge that is spread all around. In this time of many changes I am going to look for a transfer at work. This new me realizes that I don't have to be perfect. I like the decision.

rabbit

I am used to a horizon that is flat and unvarying against a clear sky. Driving and walking through these flat places has taught me that when you are in a space expecting very little that the slightest variation can be very exciting. One time I was walking in a flat Idaho prairie, for example, and a jack rabbit sprung out of the landscape and bounded off. He had such big feet that stuck up like exclamation points. This I think is similar to how we have to have low expectations for what we think will happen in our lives, so that when something does happen it is always a pleasant surprise.

Roommate

I'm getting ready to rent out my room to and have a roommate. I have wanted to do this for a long time. Now, I feel nervous. What if things don't go well? My townhouse is not really that big. What if they are loud when I am trying to sleep? I know this is a good idea, it just seems a little overwhelming. The extra money aspect can't be denied. It's a small thing to be brave about and it could have potential great benefits. Maybe better to be brave about small things than to have to be brave about something BIG.

Spanglish Two

Spanglish is kicking my ass. The Spanish class I am taking is whipping me. The joy of knowing a language is being able to communicate with people. Someday I might be using Spanish as my method of communication, but I have so much work to do to improve my grammar. I see now why language should be taught through games. It's just too strenuous otherwise. Also, I see more of the developmental continuum. I see people who don't speak English write in English and it doesn't make sense. From doing all of my own translation excersizes, I see why. You think you are making sense, then you realize that you are not, not really, not really truly. It's like your realizing your brain is scrambled eggs in someone else's world. No summarizing comment from me tonight, just a report: going to drink some tea in the tradition of "Elegance of the Hedgehog" and do a little typing for what is due tommorow at my real job. Tomorrow: recording myself translating to help an actress playing a cancer patient in a hospital.

Spanglish

I am taking a class in medical translation and I have decided how horrible my Spanish is. It sounds like a I have a metal plate in my mouth and like I am drunk. This is the result of Spanish boyfriends and learning street Spanish, not real, really Spanish. One's failings are always a
reason to reflect and become better. We live so close to Mexico in so many ways, and not to mention Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica. They are in the air in Denver through the people who live in Denver, the radio stations, the restaurants, the dance clubs, the social needs and fabric of the city. I wonder how many people have been polite to me despite my terrible Spanish. Some is better than none, but so many times I have dreamed of being fluent in Spanisn and I find myself standing far from my goal.

After spending Spring Break with a brain freeze, I have decided to publically announce that I am not a writer, despite dreams that I might be so. It is just too complicated to do, and I feel paralyzed after I write something good. I don't wish to subject myself to the pressure of writer's block, of being clever. So this is my official resignation. I will keep up my diary and this blog. Other than that all my energy goes into other people and to living out other dreams.

Gentle Horse

The best advice that I had ever received was try gentleness.

Story

In my head there's a girl picking up sunflowers in a flower shop. Their in a metal antique milk carton and she lifts them up to the counter because a man has come in and rested his daughter on the counter. Her legs in white tights hang over the counter. The woman working behind the counter places the sunflowers on the counter on a piece of crinkly clear cellophane turned to the side. She picks up each flower to separate it slightly from the rest. The sunflowers have wide, strong stems and heads curled under. She talks to the man's little girl. She thinks about her home. She has had an early miscarriage, and there are toys all over her floor that her husbands daughter uses when she comes to visit. She feels something inside her womb when she looks at the yellow leaves of the sunflowers. They have such a simple name. She picked her husgand because someone told her to pick what made her happiest and he reminded her the most of what she felt like when she dressed in the dark to run in a long skinny park that was behind her house.

Rain

The snow is silent and doesn't whine, until you listen closer and then it is a barrage of small, stinging complaints with great power. I prefer the rain. Right now in my life there is nothing that rain does that is helpful- I don't have a garden, I don't use it for water. None of the properties of rain help me. However, I still feel exhilerated when it rains. I feel this exhiliration whether I am indoors or traveling somewhere outdoors and hearing the hammer of rain strike me. The rain is soft and gentle like a lover.
Someone I know made a comment about how a book wasn't good because it wasn't moral, and now I don't want to write as much because I know my writing sounds moral and is overmuch about right and wrong. I listened to her too much. I am full of comlaints right now about myself. It's so hard for me to get started on anything, every minute I feel like a big hand is throwing dirt on me. I love the rain because it tells me which direction to grow, what amazing things lie in store in the heavens, and just generally which way is up when I am groping in chaos. It's a visceral thing, a small appreciation of the earth and weather, that I am glad is part of being a human being.

Changes of Circumstance

I've written on here a lot about how important it is to me that people care about me. Things with the important people I work with have been really haywire lately. It's hard to realize that people really do care, everyone is just in their own world. I have clients that I have to care for- and doing a semi decent job of that is helping me to get through. There a changes in my schedule, in how I am perceiving things. It's like being on the subway, rushing through a tunnel. Some things move and some things don't move. Passengers and poles stay steady while the tunnel outside is a blur too dangerous to enter becuase of the speed of the train. The passengers would be my goals for next year, the poles the values that I will need to accomplish them. The speed of the train in it's liminal-like form are the changes of circumstance that I will encounter. I like that speed when it is on a real subway, it exhilirates me. I pray for my inner turtle-like spirit to begin to like that speed as it relates to changes in my life. I want to be a hero in a John Cheever story, traveling on a subway to some metaphorical shimmering of gold, to some Spring day in Central Park that ends with a beautiful subway ride home.

Lakesteam

Denver has an old bathhouse that has been around since the thirties. It has a hottub that feels like a habernero pepper, a gigantic dry heat steam room that has ancient wooden benches and a huge metal oven door that lets heat flow into the building. There's a eculyptus room that is full of steam. There also dressing rooms which breathe with a kitschy luxury. There are plants, posters from MoMa, a few mirrors, mosiacs, hand made signs. I ate a delicious egg salad sandwich in the cafe and drank a cherry seltzer that tasted like jello. It's a mix of tradition, comfortableness and relaxation.

Telling life that you care

Scraggly tree branches reach out over the pond. The sun sets over Denver and two Japanese people take a picture of it. I am still feeling incredibly grateful in my life. Grateful for meeting some funny people, grateful for the strength that people seem to give me. I still feel at work incredibly supported by those around me. I also feel myself giving support. I am you and you are me. That's the lyrics from the last song in Yoga Tuesday night and tonight it's still so true. It's good to tell life you care.

You don't have to agree....

One of the most useful phrases I tell myself is: You don't have to agree with everyone but you have to respect them. I'll leave it at that. I just had some delicious bananas from Target and yoplait yogurt. I know that bananas are not a good purchase for the rainforest, but I love the banana and they all come from a similar looking tree. Same thinking goes for the unrecyclable, will be here in 1,00,000 years, teensy tiny individual yogurt container that I bought. I wanted the key lime yogurt. I'm going bananas.

Village Inn

I want to go to Village Inn. I am thinking about going to Village Inn. Village Inn was the place to go and high school and feel friendship being drummed up. We went before we had jobs and when we were starting our first jobs. We went at 4:00 in the morning after school dances. I feel nostalgic about the little hearth that we warmed our hands on there. Village Inn for me was a part of America that brought me back to being an American after I made all my fancy trips to Africa and Latin America. I couldn't deny my Americanness there and I didn't want to. Now I hardly ever go in one because I am going to fancy themed restaurants or eating fast food. There is a lot of creativity in a Village Inn. It is a very basic place, with frilly pies, in which you can delare: I LOVE WHERE I AM AND WHO I AM WITH. I haven't been to a Village Inn in a while and I'm not so brash to be making declarative statements of love these days. Hopefully there will be more of Village Inns in my future.

Gratitute Journal

When I feel gratitude, I feel a sense of adventure - like when I am driving home during a snow storm. My inner man comes out when I do that and I feel so grateful for the opportunity to just drive. It's not a brash or out of control feeling, mostly it's just an amazing one. More about my inner man in further posts. He's a little shy about coming out. I don't know his name or what he looks like. I know what his mind is like but not really important things like how to tell him to sit out or be quiet if he is getting into my affairs.
He is a flower with roots.
I think my mind is just so imaginative because I made a mistake at work and I am afraid that I will have to face up to it in a really castigating way. Those kind of things make my mind stretch out. It feels uncomfortable. It happens even though the place where I work is supportive when mistakes happen, and of me. Is writing these crazy words about silly things like having an inner man what makes me scared that people won't support me? Can I walk in a humble path that God made for me and still explore the idea of an inner man? Once someone talked to me about my inner man before I was ready to hear about him and it almost killed me. From both of our visions he is a football player with wings. American football.
Here is a toast to the life of my inner man and inner woman.

Grateful Journal

In the Barnes and Noble books there was a kitschy "Grateful Journal" which was on sale. Excercise One: List everything you did during the day and celebrate it. I bought a new mattress and decided for something super soft. I bought new goggles (always losing them) and went swimming. I ate a good breakfast and I babysat at church. Last weekend I was so tired I didn't do anything. I looked at some of my demons: I'm worried about such and such. So and so person might say something about me. There's a very defensive and reactive part of me. I can play my defensive off as a wise problem solver. Really I'm crumbling inside cause I'm scared. Like a flower that's been picked. Scared I will wilt. According to this grateful journal I will know that I am grateful when I am no longer scared. Or angry. I will have hope.

Arizona

Well...so far I've learned about Arizona that the 2 canals running through the city were first built by native Americans and then abandonned. Many times they have very low water supply because of some of the same water issues we have in Colorado - everyone needs some. Been having dreams about rooms, my bedroom but shrunken, my sister's bedroom where I was going to spend the night. When I was looking at the Zenhouse (the bed and breakfast) in Arizona, I was thinking if I had money I would really step it up around the house and create some rooms that were really imaginative and restful like theirs. This period of my life, where I am starting to be open to so many possibilities, deserves to be surrounded by kitsch luxury. For sure. Or maybe even by something more - by a meditative house with a young vibe.

Looking forward to

Found online a bed and breakfast that rents bicycles, has a solar hottub and is run by a gay couple. It's in Phoenix where my big conference is in March. In a few days, I will book there officially. Hopefully my camera will be working by then or I will have figured out how to download from the camcorder so I can put pictures from there up here on the blog.

There is a boy I have run into once at the cafe I like to go and write at. I haven't been there is a while. Since it's 17 degrees and past my bedtime I don't feel very motivated. And woooonderful, I just realized that it's Valentines Day. Oh non, non mignonne!! Oh wait - seriously?? Do I really have to let Valentines Day trouble me? Sometimes I still feel tied up in my old relationship. It feels so safe. But I realize it is like a plane circing toward the ground. It's got twirly bird sickness in it. I feel like I'm holding onto the seat, expecting a crash landing. I want to fly like a bird with someone.

Let's hear it for morals (and sour patch kids)

did some reading today on why people do things. is it self interest, interest in preserving the group so they can go on? or is it morals? morals make the most sense to me .... morals motivate people. not some sort of calvinist morals, but the kind of morals that you could make a good exciting movie out of. (you pick what you like, and what you want in your movie.) i guess i have to see, how can i mesh with the fabric of my workplace, which is very much about showing up for moral reasons. described as being able to be present for other people.
these are a little bit of lonely times, maybe that is why i am focusing so much on my work. at home i don't have the same moral instinct, even though i know that rest, relaxation and recuperation are what i need for the next day's work. i still feel lonely though. maybe it's time to explore how my resting and recuperation here can lead me to be open to other people around me. i am a sour patch kid that i want someone to suck on. maybe i just am not letting the right people in.

Day in bed

Spent the day in bed. Hope this does not keep happening. Wish I hadn't written that about my parents. Called the old boyfriend who was mentioned in post "Charging Elephant." Always good to talk to him. It's around the time of his birthday. Maybe that's why I was thinking of him.

Charging Elephant

Staying awake and alive last night thinking about an old boyfriend. Yuck! Many thoughts about why such and such happpened, what we meant to each other.....trying to wrangle some meaning out of the wreckage. Trying to do this crazier than trying to jump on a charging elephant's face. The elephant doesn't like it, and you feel like, why did I do that?

So no new meaning was discovered last night, except I miss him. And I think he is a good person. Today was an overwhelming day. Spent mostly on the couch and then had a phone call from my parents that was as if they had specially picked out today to call and give me a guilt trip. Similar to when people call you to wish you a happy birthday, but this was like a happy "guilt-trip eve" call.

Late Nights

I love Late Nights. Late Nights with David Letterman isn't a show I watch, but the psychology of naming it that, naming it something that speaks volumes about the feeling of extending my day past when it gets dark, of watching my clock swing by the hours where children have to go to bed, and wallowing in hours given to do the miscellaneous stuff that doesn't get done during the day. There should be more late nights.

It is SO Friday

My head is in a jumble. I went to a South America/ Central American art gallery and bought some loteria cards that corresponded to this exhibit they had of giant silk screen loteria cards on the walls. I THINK I'll use them for cards for people when something nice happens. They are really beautiful though, maybe I'll just keep them. They remind me of my grandmother - elegant and exotic. I often give away valuable perspectives which I hold or my knowledge. Instead of more of this giving away business, maybe I should keep the loteria cards just for me. Damn - I was wanting to buy some little notecards for thank yous. Will I not use the loteria cards? Am I going to have to go to Target and hunt, because it will be a literal hunt, for thank you cards? Calgon, take me away!!!!!!!!!!!

Details

So I had another great day. Not in anyway perfect, still feeling challenges from those who think I did not do enough to accomplish our shared goals. Feeling the burn of this, and feeling my own groping toward what my responsibility is. For this period in my life, or maybe alwyas, I think I will have that need to balance those feelings and my thoughts. Then just this big question - how to get everything done? I'm half joking half serious if I said I don't want another 20 years to pass before I get a maninure. I'm waiting for the internet to come up so I can write this blog while I'm smelling the cat box. I'm thinking about my secret buddy at work and the amazing secret buddy Julia vs. Julie gift I am going to get her and when, when, when I am going to have time to do that? The list of things to do is absolutely zany. Things like that are both important and not important.

Ramble

It's the end of a really good day, but I still feel a little spacy. I think I'm tired. I can always tell I'm tired because my imagination starts working overdrive. I'm glad for knowing all the people who care about me. I'm glad that I had two or three times to laugh today. Because today was a day when we met in teams at work and talked about our progress I left feeling underappreciated by some. I felt frustrated by what I saw other's role was in group results - then, on the other hand, tonight after the end of this long day I was asking myself 'What am I doing to contribute to those results?' I think I need to keep doing my yoga and walking to be in touch with myself about these questions and feelings. I also need to get up in time for my carpool so that in the early morning I am with people who support me and help me balance the questions and feelings. I can't let my imagination be the writer to the answer of this question. I have to let it be the head, because "we only value what we think about."

TV Dinnah'

Tonight I am having dinner out of a box because I have been too busy to cook real dinner and there is also no food in the house. I've had an ambivalent relationship to food all day today. I actually lost my breakfast, I put a carton of yogurt in my jacket pocket and then put my jacket away.... For a snack I had some M&Ms, for lunch I had a tuna salad prepackaged with crackers and one co-worker gave me half of his Fanta which was a wonderful surprise. So there's been lots of sweets and packages today. I wish there was a grocery store closer and I could go buy a big ................. yam and put it in the microwave.

More of that TLC

Today again, even for it being a Monday, I could not help but feel the love of those who surrounded me. I feel blessed to work where people care about me, and I can care for others. Idid have my list of Monday woes - my mind started to work too much which is my biggest problem. Other than that it was a good day.

People Carin'

I met with my bookclub today. We spent 2 1/2 hours around a table discussing the book and our lives. Today in the afternoon I was reflecting that through the bookclub, and a couple of other people who have really cared about me in their lives, I have had the experience of being incredibly nurtured. I feel so grateful for these people, and experiences.

One thing can lead to another

I was feeling trapped by the city yesterday and to relieve some of my itchiness, I went to the Sante Fe art district to go to the galleries which were open gratis for it being the third Friday of the month. There was one gallery where I lingered. It was an artists' collective where the walls were hung with small oil paintings and watercolors which depicted Southwestern and natural scenes. I was drawn into the paintings as I looked at the slope of a hill in one, the bushiness of bushes in another, the tallness and shape of trees in another. The images stayed with me on my drive home. When I drove home, I still felt ensnared in city life, but as I winded my way through my route home I noticed the tree branches which were bare and holding their fingers up for the light to shine through. Just like Snow White in the Disney cartoon who was caught by the evil tree branches in the forest, I was caught by the branches of these trees. They were good trees though, life giving trees that helped give me back the breath of life and desire to keep living in and exploring the city.