Art Forms

I am so proud and astounded as I witness my daughters develop their creator selves; my oldest with a pen and pencil, my younger with any instrument she can get her hands on.  Their relatively uncluttered mental storage units seem to allow for this ultra fast, uber flexible learning curve.  I see changes and development that takes me months, happen for them in moments. 

I am stacks of rocks that must be lugged and wrestled aside to carve slow new paths.  They are new trickling rushing streams across sand, forming patterns almost instantaneously, then washing over and forming anew.  My daughters give me that courage to try new things.  Because of their fearless endeavors at personal growth I feel I must at least attempt piano lessons, grant writing, korean cooking... Here's to moving many more rocks to build many more paths.

a theory I'm working on...

I learned about Quantum Entanglement sometime last year.  Entanglement occurs when photons interact physically.  Just what physical interaction implies in the world of quantum physics is beyond my grasp but for example, a laser beam can be fired through a certain kind of crystal that can cause a photon to be split in two.  The two entangled particles remain affected by the actions of one another regardless of how far apart they are.   Einstein dubbed the phenomenon "spooky action at a distance". 

When I consider this phenomenon it makes me curious.  When I visit magical places, when I spend time with magical people, if the light is shining just right through the little rain drops on the maple leaf or the window pane, if I happen to be standing just so in the path of light, could particles of me be split and left behind, entangling me with places and people in a magical mystical sounding way that is actually hard quantum physics?  I sure hope so.

Only Thing I'd change would be the name...

This video is is at once profoundly beautiful and concisely truthful!  I kind of wish is was called The Mundane Secret to how Most Amazing Things are Made.  Okay, that's not a great renaming, but watch it anyway!

lessons from a seal

Just a few days ago, I got to witness this seal demonstrating how to utterly relax and immerse one's self into one's surroundings.  Since our return from Monterrey Bay I have been holding this vision of the seal in my mind, a liquid shimmering beacon.  I, all to often, tend to resist, grapple with, and attempt to reshape my world.  Sometimes I want to be the seal, basking unabashedly on the rocks.

a perfect birthday

I know, from personal experience, that avoiding structured birthday plans can be risky.  On past birthday's I've ended up regretting that I didn't schedule a special lunch date or an evening gathering.  I've found myself feeling that melancholy wistful birthday self pity.  Yesterday though, I took that risk.  These past few weeks have been so filled with traveling, visitors, and organized gatherings I just didn't feel up for an event.  Spring Break was over.  It was a monday, back to work and I felt barely equipped to embrace the mundane multiplicity of my day.  It turned out to be full of small unexpected pleasures.

NPR started my day by revealing to me that I share a birthday with one of the members of Salt and Peppa.  Who knew? And she is older than me by nearly a decade!  Josh cooked me breakfast, and brought me tulips at the end of my class.  Fifteen fourteen year olds sang happy birthday to me.  After work I had an hour to myself. I sat at the piano and rather clumsily plinked out Musette by the great Johann Sebastian Bach.  I stitched a little.  I received the many facebook, email, telephone, and texted birthday wishes and felt profoundly cradled and loved by the amazing community I get to be a part of.  I had a planning session with a coworker and rode my bike home along the bike path breathing in spring and feeling genuinely excited about the classroom plans we made.  I opened cards from my family and sat down to dinner with them.  I read a chapter of Harry Potter to my youngest and kissed her slightly sunburned now pealing (from our recent California adventures) forehead goodnight.  All the little gestures, interactions, undertakings, and visions that insert themselves into my days, like a string of multicolored beads I get to wear.

Feeling Grateful

It is such pure joy to fix myself a cup of morning coffee, shuffle across the yard and open the door to my waiting work space.  It smells so good in there to me, when I first open the door.  Is it the smell of solitude and intention?  I cannot hear the phone ring, or access my computer screen.  I build a fire, put on some music or a podcast and work in my down vest and wool slippers until the fire heats up the room.  By 11 am I am usually in a tank top with the door cracked a bit.  The routines and rituals that spring from my new work place feel almost holy to me.  Wadding pages from last week's Weekly to start the fire, turning on the little electric kettle for a cup of tea, sweeping the bare wooden floor, stoking the fire, moving from sewing machine to ironing table to hand stitching in the rocking chair.  I imagine time lapse footage of my work movements.  What shapes am I making across the wooden floor?  I hope one day there will be worn paths in the soft fir planks.