bumpy bumpy bumpy

here i go, diving into a subject i am a beginner in..... forgiveness for myself. i am sadly an expert in beating myself up, and just becoming a student of for-giv-ing. it's for giving. for giving to myself, in this case. for giving to others is certainly of utmost importance, but all i am looking at now is how to give to myself. i thought about this for most of yesterday afternoon, because i was in a state that usually causes me to take a hammer to my head (awful image, but pretty accurate in terms of how cruelly i can talk to beautiful me when i am fucking up). SO, i was not doing so well meeting the annoying energy of my children, and sometimes when i am in a hard spot, with parenting especially, i think of mother lions. and yesterday i was thinking of all mothers. deer, cats, sheep, horses, whales, chimpanzees. and i kept asking myself what they would do when their babies start bugging. they walk away. they roar and swat. they give a clear signal or message that the annoying baby animal behavior is not liked. and here is what i kept coming back to yesterday.....they don't give it a second thought! i know that the mother horse who keeps walking away from her foal, because the foal is getting all up in her face and acting like a baby (which is fine, cause she is), i know that the mother horse is not thinking to herself what an awful mother she is for not being more patient and tolerant of this headache inducing behavior. i KNOW she isn't. she's just walking away, feeling 100% fine about it. let me repeat..... 100%.

every situation is different, and we are not horses, i know, hehe, but we are animals even under our humanness. so i don't justify to myself that, because the mama lion swats her child that it is okay for me to, altho i have swatted before, truth be told. but the human in me just can't go along with the idea that it's a good idea to hurt my kids as a practice and make them fear me in that way. the roaring, though, i am actually inspired at how the mama lion can give a nice firm roar and her kids hear her loud and clear.

so in some ways, in the case of parenting children who are annoying the hell out of you, i guess i am saying i don't even need to forgive myself. i actually need to feel confident in my instincts that tell me be firm with the little rascals, or that tell me to walk away. i need to feel confident, and know that losing my patience is sometimes a natural animal behavior, just as their childish behavior is natural.

i am not saying that i do not strive to exercise daily my patience muscles...and i can find much inspiration in the animal world for patient mamas too, which i need to do some looking into. anybody have some examples??

but, what does it look like when i come upon a bump in the road that makes all my sane, adult reasoning abilities fly out the window, and i do something pretty horrid, like scream at the TOP of my lungs and scare my children badly, sometimes even scaring myself. or when i have thoughts go through my head that i will not even mention, thoughts that are bad enough to even think, let alone share. that's when i really have to forgive myself. and how do i do it? at this point in my development, it really just looks like moving on, picking myself up, brushing off the dust from the wreck with the tremendous bump, telling myself it is totally normal to fuck up sometimes and hit the bump in the worst way, and breathe through the aftershock.

usually it takes time, like till the next day, before i have stopped beating myself up about the awfulness i committed. but my goal, and i feel like it is pretty realistic, is to begin to sense when something up ahead looks like it might be bumpy, and start taking action then. start some deep breathing way ahead of time. do a yoga pose. pray for guidance. whatever might bring in sanity and support, ask for it, bring it on. and that will hopefully prevent me from doing anything that i need to forgive.

but something i learned yesterday in the SHAPE OF LOVE book, is that the water crystal that formed after being exposed to the energy of the word 'despair', was actually a partially formed, beautiful crystal. it was on its way to becoming complete, just not there yet. and the author, Masaru Emoto, said the crystal is teaching us 'that any despair has hope within it.' so that's another way i worked with myself yesterday, when i was in that place where i tend to beat myself up after having hit a huge bump in the road, i thought about this crystal, and i was actually able to feel the tiny bud of hope that was hanging out in the energy field. that felt like forgiveness. energetic and without much thought associated for sure, but it shifted my state in a pretty cool way. i hope it continues to work that way. according to Emoto, there is about 20% hope in the feeling of despair. always.

now, for anyone who has read this far and is interested in sharing, how do you forgive yourself? what does it look like? i am so so wanting to learn as many ways as i can, cause i have to do this so often. deep inhale. long exhale.

thank you.

i don't know much

today is 9/9/9......999

but i know i loved this trip from last month. i am just gonna reminisce a little bit here.

this flower in particular spoke to me. actually took my breath away. i wonder what kind it is. it reminded me of my grandmother instantly. she used to notice the tiniest blooms and say something about how they just amazed her. how precious they all were. i'll never forget that about her.
this creek was fast and magical and had a huge waterfall we hiked up to. some other hikers were crossing it, and one lost a shoe. david tried for probably half an hour to help them find it, but they never did. but they didn't mind so much. it is summer, they were young and tough.
this mountain also took my breath away. it's not messing around. i wonder what's going on inside of it.
i love him.
i love trails. and i love going offtrail too. i could write a lot about why i love both. you know? you can camp anywhere you want up here. as long as you stay 100 feet from the water, and out of sight of the trail. love that. i am beginning to plan our next summer's camping trip here in my head already. i actually began dreaming about it on this day. i have big dreams of all our closest friends and their kids coming up here for a week or so, and just sinking into this life a bit all together, in the woods in the summer, and swimming in the love and joy we all create when we're together.

we went to a play this weekend. this one. it was so beautiful and inspiring for all of us, and i mean kids included, that we all went to see it again a few days later. i am in love with the boulder fringe festival. on our date night, we went to an adult piece that we both appreciated and were completely engaged in throughout. and i'd say it had quite an impact on us actually. i know we have both thought about it today. and then we watched 'this american life' on instant netflix last. our first viewing of it. it is so awesome. we have both thought about it as well today, and spoken of it a few times, the story they told just keeps coming up...about the first cloned bull, that was not actually like ferdinand anymore.

and i must also mention that david revealed his talent for speaking in all accents from around the world. name one, and he will speak like he's a native. ha! well, he's trying, anyways, and it was definitely funny watching and listening.

this book that i just got from the library inspired my thoughts this morning on vibration, and how sensitive we all are to the vibration we are immersed in, especially considering we are 90% water.

9/8/9

This sweet dress….was made while olive was growing in my belly. I sat down one day with some gumption and said I will challenge myself and make something with a zipper. It will be good for my brain, and hopefully good for the baby to feel me exercising my mental capacities like this. I was always extremely (hyper)aware of my experience and vibration when I was pregnant because I knew the baby was basically swimming in the same vibration with me. Like a little hostage. I felt so so responsible for making it a good ride for the babe in my belly. And because I am human, and so so imperfect, the ride was really not so fun all the time. But I tried really hard, and I was really aware and had high intentions, and kept coming back to them after straying and tripping on whatever bump I would inevitably stumble over. And since my 3 have all been born, and no longer (literally) swim in my vibration, I’ve realized that they do continue to swim in my vibrational field. I am still their container in a sense. I hold their space most of the time, and they DEFINITELY feel my state of being, and are definitely still little hostages to it. There is nothing more motivating to me in the world than knowing how much I influence the feel of the waters they swim in still. And there is no better exercise than this to give me endless opportunities to learn better how to forgive myself when I catch myself having a disgusting vibe. So! Back to where I started…..

The intention behind making this sweet little dress was to create a focused, intelligent, creative problem solving type vibration in my body so my baby could benefit from it and begin to feel that energy a bit on her journey into her earthly life. I hadn’t sewn a zipper in something without someone guiding me through every step, so this was a good challenge. It was a great little exercise, and this dress turned out pretty well. I have loved seeing my girls wear it for 2 years now! Thrifted linen. and a vintage metal zipper I found at an estate sale, in a box full of zippers a sewer had saved, many of them salvaged from old clothes, and carefully ripped out with a seam ripper. I hope to someday use them all up, to make good use of all the time and effort she put into saving them from the landfill.

first worn by zhi
and now olive wears it.

silly woman vibrations are definitely my kids preferred state for mama to be in. perfect remedy for teaching me to stay away from the depression. they are such beautiful teachers, and healers. i am so grateful to them for inspiring me everyday to be my best. thank you tiny loves. thank you.

looking for inspiration today in the iphoto library

here is what i found:

water

color

paper

open mind

inspired heart

joy

contemplation

gratitude

squirreling

walk out this door, and you enter the world below......

after you've gardened with your girl, hammocked, admired the new~to~you quilt found at the thrift shop, and peed (which i like to do outside for some reason, maybe a natural instinct to mark territory) you turn around and come back in, below.

you come back in and eat a little snack, play a little piano, listen to the sounds of the wild loving and intelligent animals you live with.
spot some beauty and feel proud that you made it yourself. baby kindergirl's vest.
take note of the screenplay for the up coming movie to be filmed on the weekend.....
then make some dinner, with your first soaked~over~night chickpeas, made into a concoction of your own rendering, with garlic, onion, coconut milk, curry and celery, in the cast iron pan so you give your family a little extra iron boost to boot.

feel good about the homeyness, savor it, say thanks for it. cause it doesn't always feel so good. and when the beauty isn't so easy to spot, you come back to memories like these, to wake up that remembering, to tell yourself it will be good again. this tiny storm will pass. and when it does, you might just look outside that door, and see that the garden was fed, and shaded for some much needed relief from the brilliance of the light. understand that you can't thrive in only the light, you will eventually get burned. understand that these little storms bring you inside for a reason. you gather yourself up, you get quiet and still. and when you start to see the beauty inside of yourself this time, cause you will, say thanks for that.

this is how i am talking to myself today. cause i am feeling good. i am stowing away sweetness for the winter. i had my first good cry already that summer is ending. it felt good to cry. it feels good to talk to myself.

yoga and movie making

i love yoga. just thought i'd jump on that train publicly. it is like giving yourself a massage from the inside out. does that sound gross? it is not meant to. i am getting so serious about working on my depression, and so i started yoga again. yay, for one of the many beginning steps out of this lifelong pattern.

i ALSO love making home movies. last weekend we made our second superhero movie. this one starred the hulk...can you tell? and there were two mean mean witch girls who stole the baby princess's toy from her. papa cohen has some amazing directorial skills i discovered this weekend. the inspiration to make these came from the constant (and annoying) requests to watch a real batman movie, but there are not any that are suitable for people this young. so we went for the distraction method of parenting and channeled the superhero movie obsession into making our own. we all love watching these, altho this one hasn't come out of the editing phase yet, where david goes in and does some magic with music and special effects (lots of slo-mo, the kids love that for some reason).

okay. see you later.

this is for the last challenge from apples for poppy anne. i'm kind-of slow at my homework this week. i edited this thing a hundred times, and feel like i want/need to go back to creative writing class now. but whatever. this was good for me. thank you to the mystery woman in the photograph.

She was a rare bird living in Memphis, Tennessee in 1929. Here, she was 21. The photographer for this picture amused her because of the way he bounced his right leg with such speed and gusto, while sitting on the stool behind the camera. It was like he had to keep it moving to keep the flies away, the way a horse twitches it’s skin nonstop in the summer. When he snapped this photograph, there actually was a fly insisting on him, while he repeatedly swatted it away, and this whole scene, and the way he said ‘SCHEW nasty’, gave Ellen an irresistible urge to laugh. But look how cool she is, she held it in pretty well. And if you look deep into her eyes, you'll see the laugh peeking out.

Ellen was close close close with her younger sister, Evelyn. But Evelyn and her newish husband, moved away to Nashville in 1941. Evelyn’s husband, Charlie Brown, always imagined someday playing the country music songs he liked to write, professionally. He loved having Ellen and Evelyn sing his songs with him. Ellen had a lovely mysterious sound to her voice, and she usually sang the lower bit. Evelyn had a velvety higher voice, and they sounded so pretty together. Over the years, they did make a name for themselves, but it took 5 years for Ellen to get herself to Nashville.

For those 5 years, Ellen often deeply missed Evelyn. The days of having a someone to sing with, walk with, eat lunch with…the days of having a someone to sit and sew with while talking about all the strange things people do, were over. Ellen and Evelyn had made an arrangement before Evelyn and Charlie moved. To promise to keep sewing, and send the other whatever they made (They were the same size). That was how Elly, got through those sad days. Go to work at the Dairy farm, sometimes go to the library (she was reading when she wasn’t sewing), go home and sew.

Ellen had never married or really even had a serious relationship with a man up until the grand old, whopping, over the hill age, of 34!!!!…..

……… this one day, June 17^th of 1942 to be exact, on a routine trip to the post office during the first year after Evelyn and Charlie moved, Ellen briefly met Theo Greyson. a popular young jazz musician. They were in line together and when the post man told her the amount she owed, she was 20 cents short. Theo was the man behind her who held out his hand with the 20 cents. She said, ‘Oh, thanks so much. And I will definitely be paying you back.’ Theo was captivated by her intense, oceanlike eyes, and the pleasant earthy sound of her voice.

Ellen knew Theo would be her husband after she visited his home that first time to repay him. She had already noticed him to be a good-looking man, which really did nothing for her in terms of waking up that crazed-feeling inside, the one that makes it so you can’t stop thinking about another person every second you’re apart. It wasn’t until she saw him with his puppy, Eivie, that she noticed herself all of a sudden really liking the man. Theo was a gentle caring man, who did not think himself superior to smaller creatures, but was rather softened and charmed by them. Ellen actually wondered if he might be gay after seeing him with his pet, until he, feeling brave and turned on, kissed her on the cheek as she was leaving. It was the rare kind of cheek-kiss that gives the recipient goosebumps. And hence the crazed-feeling began.

They were both quite shy at first with new people, so it really took a scenario like this for them to move beyond their social-inhibitions. When they had children (and obviously weren’t feeling shy anymore), Theo had everything to say about their naming. It drove Elly nuts, all the opinions, and all the ways he sounded the names out, even sounding them out backwards. Her name backwards was, Nelle. Theo loved that her name was so magical that way. And nothing but a name that magical would suffice for their children. They named their two children Nelle, and Liam. They both loved what Liam spelled backwards, because after all, it was the mail that brought them together.

It was in 1946, when Nelle was 3, Liam was 1, and Eivie was 5, that the young musical family up and moved their home to Nashville. Theo had always wanted to move there. Ellen and Evelyn were together again after 5 years of being apart. They never lived in separate towns again. But it was their separation that pushed Ellen into her frequent visits to the post office.

Ellen Greyson lived to be 93 years old. She was a lucky lady, who died with her children, and their families all around. Nelle and Liam played some of Charlie’s country, and some of their dad’s jazz records at her burial. No speeches, no formal service. Just loud music at the green cemetery as they buried her themselves. In her next life, Ellen Greyson has become a gray whale, and is back with Theo, for the 56^th time (but their first as whales!), and they are psyched to be learning how magical it is to be whales. However, they can’t stop thinking about the very nasty polluted places in their watery home. They pray their beloved saltwater will not get any grosser. They are the most famous whales in the oceans today, singing these prayers at the biggest venues, always selling out.