where are the doors?

i cannot figure out how to be here!!!!

one minute i am writing one thing and the next i'm writing something that feels contradictory.  then i can't seem to feel like posting anything.   i kind of want it to all go away.  this blog world of mine.  just my own.  not any of yours.  but then i keep being reminded of the great connections i have made through l & m.  just yesterday i got a package of cds from old blog friend farmama.  i am one lucky girl with lots of new music now.  thank you sara.  how nice it is the perks of blogging.  what is my deal people?  what is my freaking deal with blogging lately?  why am i weirding out?

answer:

it's a process.  i am in some sort of deepening process.  some sort-of reclaiming my space.  my self.

that is cool.  sometimes deepenings throw everything up in the air for some powerful reevaluations.



this envelope i pulled out of our junk drawer the other day.  it is perfect for how i feel right now.  i've got this MASTER key but i don't know where the fucking doors are!


max captured me reading recently.  i like this photo...





love.  deepening.  that's what's going on.  takin my time.

real

not feeling it.  still not feeling it.  smiling as i write that.  so that's good.  in accepting the lack of inspiration for my writing, i'm able to feel happiness.

so, a little report, i guess of small tiny things that i am feeling/noticing.

• mirrors.  keep looking till you get to where it's real. 
• just keep looking.  switch mirrors if you have to!   it's all a mirror.  i think?  
• yesterday, i had strong pms.  because of this book's, the art of happiness, with the dalai lama, perhaps, ideas in my mind, i noticed that it kept being particularly funny, the reactions i was having to the people in my day.  i didn't stop having them, but at the same time as feeling infuriated by someone's seemingly idiotic request or statement, i felt my fury to be hilarious.  i would say that is a rocking way to pms.  i don't know if i've ever pms'd quite like that.  it was almost fun.  can you feel what i mean?  hilarious fury.  
• here is a small excerpt from the book that i like:   ~no matter what activity or practice we are pursuing, there isn't anything that isn't made easier through constant familiarity and training.  through training we can change, we can transform ourselves.  .....p. 43.     i looked for a while to find a quote that just oozed power to share here.  it was hard to do.  the  book is oozing richness for me, but taking a quote from it, isn't having the same effect.  but there you go.  there's an attempt. 

springing

openness.

i can't find a way to write anything that i am not instantly fearing will be judged.  i haven't felt this way in so long.  so long i can't remember.  i can't even post a photo right now without this large fear about how it will be interpreted.  what.  the.  fuck.

the goal is to open.  but i can't force it.  at least i don't want to.

but it's my practice.  opening.  and i'm at a point in my practice where i can't open on up here so easily.

being patient is all i can do i guess.  feels like something might be changing.  it's hard not wonder if i'll ever get that urge again to write out what's in my head/body and share it.  i've kind-of been forcing it for a while now.  my bet is that i will, though.  i mean, i've been doing this for so long.  and i've gotten so much joy out of it for so long.  but i'm not so much anymore.  probably just need a break.  maybe a long one.  i have no idea.  in combination with that fear stuff, i also though, have not been feeling like saying much at all.  and i guess when i do get the desire, i get kind-of weird and just don't feel it anymore.  not feelin it basically.  weird weird weird.  but it's okay.  i have a little plan.  it's called read.   i don't want to go nuts without my normal routine of all this.  gotta figure out what to do instead.

love.

well, I'm gonna allow you all to judge the hell out of these two photos, and these words.  but i am gonna try really hard not to fear the judgement.  ha!

practical

eliphante.  and again.

i just randomly discovered that place from this library book i checked out.  i am so inspired by many of the homes in it, but something about eliphante made me high.  makes me want to go scrap together some rolls of wire and some cement and get busy.

here's my girl.



my love bucket.  she rocked it out as dopey dwarf!  her confidence in performing for an audience is so much greater than last year.  she was awesome last year too, but this year, i could tell she had some fun.  relaxed fun.  after the play, on the way home, she told me that was the best day ever.  and then at home, she said, 'you know, i could do that play all over again right now.  i just need 25 more people.'  mmmmm.  she was feeling that great feeling people feel after doing a big thing.  along with a big ole sugar buzz from the after play party.   breaking my heart with the joy and love.  joy and love totally break hearts.  which means breaking hearts is what we're after.  that certain kind of break.

yay.

some things i want to do over spring break:

• sew on my dress.
• get some photos printed, and put them in frames. switch out a few old ones with come current ones.  keep a few old ones up of course.  but we need fresh current photos on the walls.  i want that. 
• do a trip to the recycling center.  i did a little today.  but there's more.  
• make a new garden bed with the pile of cardboard i've had breaking down outside since last summer.  it drives david crazy.  i like it. i like to to drive him crazy in harmless ways.  he does the same to me.   i like it to seem as if the yard/house is in a constant state of evolution.  not all neat and perfect with a bow around it.  david likes the finished feeling thing.  
• feel into my feelings about max's schooling for next year.  he's missing out.  he didn't get to be in this play this year, because we decided to send him to a better school for him academically.  a private school for kids who aren't learning and keeping up with the rest of the class.  a school where there are 4 kids in a class.  4 kids 1 teacher.  he could actually thrive in a one on one situation.  but 4 to 1 is cool.  but another way my heart broke coming home after the play last week, was in feeling how max lost out on that opportunity.  that really hurt my heart.  and max and i both got pretty sick the next day.  makes me wonder.  how can i give him the best of everything?  howhowhow?  it feels like it's killing me sometimes.  i feel like focusing on the bright side of how things are going for him is my way.  that's what's gonna help me keep my balance while feeling into what is best for him for next year.  yeah.  feeling it.  fuck.  makes me crazy how hard it is.  
• read.  read.  read.
• cook?  whatever.  i couldn't care less right now about cooking.  
• watch lots of tv.   do some serious lounging.  we need to lounge.  
• play.  i have a friend to visit with. an old lovely girlfriend.  she's back in colorado now.  we almost hung out saturday but max was sick and then i turned out to be.  
• make leonard a new pouch.  improve design.
• play some more with another friend.  she suggested the kids hang out and care for leonard, and watch us sip tequila.   sounds nice!
• play a few practical jokes on david.  that sounds good.  and on the kids too.  googling practical jokes.  it's like thrifting.  not so easy to find slew of treasures all together.  geez!  
• take a break from posting posts.  ha.  i thought about no computer at all, but that isn't feeling so fun.  but i would like a break from my own blog.  mmmmmm.

if you know of any awesome practical jokes, please tell me.  i'm in the mood to make some laughing happen.   why do they call them practical?  

mail

ummmm.  thank you friend.

soft soft soft.  how nice are you courtney?  making me the most caring thoughtful package a lady could ask for.  you are so talented.  and so giving.  i am really lucky to have connected with you.

this blog is sometimes weird for me.  as you can probably imagine.  but  another good blogging friend said last night, that the positives outweigh the negatives, and this is just true.  i mean, come on.  this love in the mail brightened my day like a double rainbow.  heh.   ok, maybe not exactly like that, but you know what i mean.  it made me really feel good.  and i have sweet gifts around my home reminding me of all the connections i've made through this weirdness that is blogging.  i'll remember that, and not the negative uncomfortable aspects that come with blogging too.  basic stuff, like exposure, and self~questioning, self~criticizing, low self esteem days, stuff like that.  k?  k.  i'm gonna try.  remember the love, h.  thank you courtney.


my new knitting journal, i've decided.


and  silver crane that is adorning a rock in the hallway now. zhi put it in just the right spot.


knitting pattern love.  created by the master herself.  and olive has claimed the sewing pattern and has picked out her first outfit from it.  she wants to bare some midriff.  alrighty.


my favorite is this spring chicken.  made by miss courtney.  i'd been coveting this for a while.  i feel so lucky to have it in my own hands now.


here i am saying thanks courtney.  your timing was magic like i said.

that was the most awesome spirit lifter, to arrive to me on the equinox, just as i came home with two hours to spare to myself.  i hung that sweet chicken up by my threads, and got right to sewing.  with joy.  a new dress for me.  it'll take a while like all crafty things do for me lately.  but it felt great to sit and sew.  not depressing like it often does.  (can you believe i said that?  not sure why really, but sitting to sew sometimes feels so sad to me that i just can't do it. )   i sat in quiet even.  i tried music.  i tried a shadow workshop disc on grief.  none of it was working.  quiet.  quiet was it.

  if i get to sewing a lot soon, i will be stoked.  that's sometimes a barometer for how i'm doing.

maybe i'll try doing some witchy stuff to invoke the sewing fairies and moths to come on and assist a girl.    that book is making me happy these past couple of days.  i just discovered it at the library.  i like to read about stuff like that.  sucks me right in.

and here's the first zhi zip in progress, pattern by courtney too.   zhi is so into it.  she's tried it on 5 times i think.  even though it is warming here.  i bet we'll get another few snows before the last frost.


i just spent 3 hours taking photos of the school play's dress rehearsal this morning.  holy crap.  that is hard work.  photographers are not messing around.  too bad i don't know what i'm doing.  i try though.  and i will be at it again tonight for the real deal.  school plays are awesome.  i love school plays, my newest bumper sticker idea.




a little sunset photo i took on the equinox here for ya.  we took a walk after dinner.  i'm so glad we did.

loveuloveu.

flabbergasted happenings

in a new world.  we here are in a brand new world.  while in the beginning of spring no less.  it is layer upon layer of new.  and i dreamt recently that david's dad was here.  he was telling us something he hadn't before.  telling us in a way he hadn't, that he was dying.  and giving us his dying wishes.  the main one i remember is that he wanted me to have a new car, a nice reliable new car, with pretty blue, personalized license plates.  he said that.  to get the pretty blue ones.  i did just get new plates, for the new reliable car,  but not the pretty blue ones.  hmmmmm.   he told me what he wanted them to say even:   everything is impossible.  he was filled with calm light and love.  and joy.  he loved us so much.  i can hardly take the grief when i feel our love for each other.   crying in the coffee shop as i write.  hope people don't look over.  what kind of aphorism is that, pawpaw?  everything is impossible?   when i felt into it in the dream, and right upon waking, i felt like he was saying that everything we wish for, that we want, often feels impossible at first.  AND even more, that everything that is, IS, is impossible at first.   but somehow the implication was that it's not impossible.  he wanted to give us the message that that is just the illusion of all great things. and small things.   the impossibility~ness that comes along for the beginning of the ride, the dream.  maybe it  even comes along for the whole ride right up to then end,  when the 'miracle' of manifestation occurs.   knowing him, and the kinds of impossible things he accomplished with his career in health care, in his state of residence, making it the most progressive state in the nation in terms of equal access to health care for all, i do not feel daunted by his statement in this dream.  everything is impossible.  i feel he's actually saying everything is possible.    that's how i felt it.  optimist much?

the new world we are in, here in this family, is a world i never would have guessed us to enter.  i would have said 'impossible!'  but the son of my father~in~law said otherwise.    he seems to do the impossible right and left , just as his father.  and in the lineage, then, comes max.  the master of the impossible.  cry.  i cry for the miracles i have witnessed and felt and seen by all these men.  it is all so beautiful sometimes.  so so beautiful.  and now, in the lineage of cohen boys, comes this new boy, leonard.  (and of course there was mac.  pawpaw's dad.  max was named after him.  david's granddad who i never met.  he sold toys.  owned a toy store.   he had a basement full of toys david told me.  how neat and magical is that?  pawpaw used to say that grandchild max reminded him of his dad.)

so.  leonard.  maybe i'm taking this too far, to stick leonard into the line of the human men in the cohen lineage.  i'm sorry if that is true.  taking things too far is just something we do sometimes i guess.  or something i do.   yes.  now that i think on it.  i certainly do that a lot.

david and olive went to seattle two weekends ago and came home with leonard.  a baby wallaby.   heart is aflutter thinking about him.  we've been connected to him since he was visible in his mom's pouch, about 7 months ago.  seeing him in photos since he was just a little bitty pink guy.  we contacted the breeder out there about a year ago and signed up to adopt.  well, david did.  this was his heart child.  i was involved of course, however, i simply stood by his side in support, as he followed his dream to live with wallabies.   it all happened after seeing a grown one, a year and a half ago, at a little feed store outside of denver where we went to fetch some chickens one sunday afternoon.  the sunday before the wildfire, which i will probably never forget.  very strange happenings.  very very strange.  i was following my gut, and on a whim, i went on craig's list and saw the only chicks available to buy on that sunday were a long drive away.  but we were up for it!  or i was, and i sweet talked david into it.  a sunday drive to the boonies outside of denver?  come on, i said!  and we all climbed in the car, hauled it out to some place an hour away that felt a lot lot arkansas country.  meaning, deep thick country town, deep thick country folk.  one of whom happened to have a wallaby living in a barn near the chickens she had for sale.



and now we are here?  the unpredictable paths we take are so mysterious to me.  the happenings.



 taking time to feel what i feel here, as i tune in to myself, as being one of leonard's guardians,  is what i am craving.

so:

i am feeling scared.  scared of the unknowns.  allowing myself to acknowledge that but also allowing myself not to dwell on all those endless unknowns.

i am feeling gratitude.  this is a very unusual experience to be having.  to be raising a baby wallaby.  i do love unusual.  this is a very precious experience.  nuzzling my face into his soft fur, kissing him and being kissed by him.  this is a rare lovely gift.

i am feeling like hiding.  i do not want to hear people's disapproving opinions on our choice to be guardians of this animal.  i am not wanting all the attention, even the good vibed attention, which is mostly all we get, that he brings when we are out in the world outside of home.  being unusual draws eyes.  i like to hide.  such a funny predicament.

i am feeling in love.  in love with the new life.  in love with the tenderness.  in love with the cuteness.  with the pouch that baby leonard sleeps in, hanging on our headboard.  between our heads.  in love with the idea of him someday lounging in the house,  comfortably existing with us.  with the idea of him hopping around the house to get from here to there.  in love with the idea of a very secure, fenced in area, for him someday when he is a bigger boy and ready to spend lots of time outside.  electric fencing.  layers and layers of fencing.  a fortress.  cement walls 60 feet high.  a 10 foot wide moat around the perimeter of the house.    in love with the idea of keeping him safe.  and happy.  in love with the idea of wallaby number two, who i feel we will get in another year.  he needs a bud you know.  i am liking the idea of naming the next one 'edit'.  or naming some animal that.  edit!  how awesome is that name?  in love with the idea of a barn for their outside time.  in love with the thought of them coming in our home to sleep with us at night.  i'm gonna dream here.  sleeping with grown wallabies in the house is a fine dream to have.  don't knock it.

and mostly right now, i am feeling flabbergasted.  this husband of mine has just manifested something very flabbergasting.  is this a midlife thing?  is it a way to keep me from going wacky at being cut off from child bearing anymore?  not sure.  all i know for sure is it is a soulful deal.

feeling flabbergasted  feels ungrounded.  kind-of a spring~like feeling too.  like the joy~panics i've been having.

the times the flabbergast goes into overwhelm is when i worry.  gotta work on the worrying.  i can hang with the flabbergast.  that kind of feels like flying, which for me is a little scary, but exhilarating and fun for sure.  worrying feels like looking down in fear instead of enjoying the ride.

to get myself out of a worry outlook, i can go into my heart.  that is a sure trick. little baby leonard is good at helping me to do that.  holy crap is he good at that!    other tricks for coming out of a worry black hole, are :  trust    and     prayer.          heart      trust      prayer.   repeat all day.

cry.  cry.  cry.  for the vulnerability, the precious ness of life.  the beautiful creatures this earth has mothered.  love.





(no, he did not travel in a suitcase.  david found a way to fly while carrying him in his pouch.)

 in terms of crafty related leonard happenings, i've made two pouches so far.  i have a feeling i'll make about 20 more.





more photos will come.   daily wallaby?  heh.


LOVE.
HOP.
SPRING.

flow not coming

ha.  that sounds dirty to me right now.

david is mad that the girls are still awake.

can't get the flow to come.

zhi and david both tried to get this well pumping.  it's the y2k well the previous owners of this house had put in.  flow no come easy.



when flow no come easy, i feel sad.
not so sad, in all places in my life.  but here.  blog place.  no flow.

i will just post on no flow.  friend told me tonight to go with the anti flow.  trying.

the anti flow tonight says don't go do sewing homework for the school play.  just fuck off and eat cereal and watch tv.  anti flow is actually fun all of a sudden!




maybe we will figure out what's wrong with it since it's 2012 now.

just kidding.  i am doing my best not to think the world is gonna fall apart soon.

watching some movie called thrive.  gonna go watch some more tonight.   new agey feeling thing.  but we are both curious.  feels like a cousin to the secret movie.