max's old t~shirts

max got it in his head that it was just a disaster that his tshirts from last summer weren't going to fit him next year. i think i might have mentioned this before, and so in the midst of tears, and i mean some of the saddest tears i've seen him cry (children can feel some of the most profound existential pain, as well as babies. it is kind-of amazing because we tend to think they have to have lived a long time to come to know that kind of pain, but no! not so. we come in knowing so much about so much, you know?), i offered to make him a blanket from his old tshirts, so he could still have them and love them for as long as he wanted to. that sounded good to him....so the very next day, he remembered this idea, and we trekked out back to our funny shed, dug out the summer clothes, and picked out all of his tshirts.
he went through them one by one.
trying them on, checking them out, and then picked which ones he wanted to go in the blanket. he was so so sweet about it. so thoughtful. and excited for what they were going to become. man, am i glad this idea came through me, and that he resonated with it.

it's pretty sweet! with flannel borders, and a soft organic cotton back. he really loves it.

i surged the edge. this was actually david's idea! i was going to do a hand~sewn binding, and i was not sure how i was going to do it quickly enough to satisfy max. david was like, 'don't you have a serger?' max was asking me everyday when it was going to be done, kind-of having a hard time being patient. i mean, it's made from old tshirts, so i realized pretty quickly that it doesn't need to be archival. i was happy to rethread the serger and finish the edge in 10 minutes.

it's pretty cozy! zhi loves snuggling under it, too. guess who is wanting a new blanket now.

and here my boy and i are, at the children's hospital in denver last week. we went to get some more opinions on what the best ways to help him get his right heel down to the ground are. there are so many many opinions, and i have been gently reminded by a loved one that this is not a life and death situation, just to calm me down, and keep me conscious. you know that fierce wild~mother animal archetype that comes out when someone simply looks at your child funny cause maybe they have some dirt in their eye? well, she's been coming out a lot around us making these choices for what kind of surgery we feel is best for him. my heart pounds and tears pour out of me a lot around this. i need tears. they bring me back to my body, and my heart. and my boy is just so amazing. he is telling whoever he feels like it now, that he is going to st. louis in march to have a surgery to help his leg's tightness. he knows they will give him medicine that will make him go to sleep and not feel the surgery, and he likes to act out how it will make him just fall down on the bed and close his eyes. you know boys. he is keeping it real in his own way. (he doesn't know yet about the wheelchair he might need for the week after, or the intensive therapy he will need to learn to walk again, and build up his strength, but i know him, and he will work at it so beautifully). i am keeping it real in my very emotional mama~like way. and david is keeping it real in his very papa~like way, which is with so much confidence and faith in the doctors that work at the children's hospital. they did save this boy's life in a pretty miraculous way in the days after his birth, and david doesn't forget that for a second. we are a team.

dance monday post....

i am such a dork! when i look at these photos and realize i am really posting them on the www, i realize how truly dorky i am. and i love it.

i did not want to do this today. but you know how it is when you say you're going to do something, and you feel like if you don't do it you will feel even worse? well, that's why i made myself turn on lauryn hill today. i would have turned on jane siberry but something is up with the remote stereo thing, and i had to play a real disc, in the real cd player. the song...forgive them father, really got me today. as i was listening to it, i remembered it was martin luther king jr. day, and it felt so right. here is a link to a nice cover of it on you tube. i really grooved out to everything is everything, though. like i started jumping and rooting down, and seriously shaking it. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. i shifted my depressed energy so completely that it is really difficult to understand why i have resistance to dancing in the first place. F!!!! why d i resist what is so good for me? why?

heart stuff

a friend just sent me a song from this fairly new album by jane siberry. he says after three or four times of listening, it will begin to take effect.

i am sharing this because:

1. music heals.
2. and i trust this friend's advice and music sense so much. he is a magical friend. he is a singing teacher and master singer himself. i am lucky to know him.
3. and in case anybody who stumbles across this little post is needing some heart medicine, here is some. jane allows people who do not have the normally requested ten dollars or whatever market price is, to pay whatever they can, and still download or order the music. she is so special and cool. her mission is clear.
4. this is medicine, don't forget. i am taking it in for the first time right now and i can totally feel how this is medicine. don't forget, medicine can be powerfully intense. especially in intense times.

you can be sure i will be moving to these fresh new sounds. i am sharing this picture below because i feel like it. i was rooting it up this weekend. and it felt good. and the contrast of me and my warm burdock root tea and bright orange life~filled carrot root, compared to the scenes from haiti that i keep seeing, is just so much. this contrast is evoking my heart.

i was just reading this article, and this part below feels so touching.

With no electricity, stars offered the only illumination in the city, which, with its suburbs, is home to nearly 3 million people. For some of those lying on the asphalt or in the parks, cellphones provided a brief glimpse of light.

Then the singing began. Those gathered outside tents, on lawn chairs, sitting in the middle of empty streets, sang their hymns. One phrase in Creole could be heard repeatedly both inside and outside the hospital walls, as if those voicing the words were trying to make sense of the madness around them.

“Beni Swa Leternel,” they sang. “Blessed be the Lord.”

what what what what what

we attempted to get a family photo this weekend. we got close, but i want to try again. these feel too posed, i think. david was grumpy and not really into it, and i kind-of made this happen without his joy, and he ruined all the pictures! just kidding. he didn't ruin them, but it was hectic. that might be the best we can get though. i'm too in the front, also. and olive is too far back. and zhi is just perfect. with pie in her arms. and max was like his dad and just not into it. what what what what what does it take to get everyone on the same page? geez, someone is always grumpy. (yin yang). and i will own to my own grumpiness when it happens, for sure. oh well. i'm glad i at least got these. i know they will make me really happy some day, and if i use one of these for our very funny random late new years cards, they will make a few other people happy too.

maybe i will just use this family photo instead. my thrifted owl collection. (spell check doesn't think thrifted is a word.) and say we have learned to shapeshift.

zhi asked me this morning if there are still witches. i said yes, but that i feel like most witches are good. she asked if a witch caused one of the forest fires that happened in our area last year. i said no, that was an accident.

olive has been dreaming about a dog. for the past week. she woke up the first time from the dream one morning and went running out of the bedroom saying, 'where's the doggy?' after a few questions i figured out that she was looking for a dog from her dreams. she then did it two more times over the next few days after waking. then yesterday morning, she said she saw the dog again. then, she asked me for my camera, saying she wanted to take a picture of it to show me. i kind-of lost my breath for a second. she is so clever. i said i didn't know how to take pictures of our dreams, at least not yet, but this world is so amazing, it might not be long till we know how. zhi then showed her cleverness. she said, 'i know! you draw a picture of the dog, and then take a picture of that!'

okay. i have a feeling today, after balling all day yesterday, that i want to dive into the joy now. i feel like i actually can now. i made her joyness some space. it felt like it was physically and energetically impossible to be joyful yesterday. so i just had to go with what was up, and that, no doubt, was pain and tears. whew. hmmm. funny. i just looked up from the computer here at the trident, and the art on the walls this week is someone's rendition of chinese characters, and i'm sitting under the character for 'delight'. de light. the light. the light. the light is here. i have found it! whenever olive looks at the sun lately, she says, 'mom, isn't the sun happy?' isn't he? i feel like the sun is psyched! i was panicking a bit the other day cuz i guess i dreamt that the sun only had a million years left in him. but i didn't know i got that information from a dream, and i told david i thought i had heard that somewhere. we were out on our date night. so we got out the iphone, and looked up how much longer the sun is going to burn. 5 billion more years. whew again. that really made me feel better. isn't that funny? knowing the sun is middle aged, and not in ancient old age comforted me. but to my human life, a million years and a billion years doesn't make any difference. but i could tell david felt some relief too, when we read 5 billion more. isn't the sun a miracle. so much energy. so so yang. de light.

delight. (i think it's chinese.)

freshest corners of our home

i have found myself riding the earthly wave of clearing and freshening our home lately, and i'm working on clearing out some of my psychic chaos and dust too.

i moved the playstand out from their bedroom to the living room. it feels like a smart move for now. olive has been playing in it so much more. so have i. isn't it cozy feeling inside with that quilt over it?

my sister and mom came over recently and helped me clear out these closets. shoes and coats and hats and gloves had been spilling out and we pretty much weren't using the closets at all. we were just dumping everything on the floor in front of them. thank you so much mom and claire for that help. it feels so much better now. so much!

this new little thrifted dress i just posed here cause i like it so much, and it feels good to dream about warm weather. just a little.

i cleared off this one shelf in the root cellar and organized it with clean jars. all my jars for filling up with joy, and love! i'm ready for a lot!

i burned my diary from high school today. i didn't like reading it, ever. every few years i would open it and cringe. i was over the top boy crazy, yet all in an unrequited way, and it just wasn't fun to read my sad obsessions. i guess i still feel the pain too much and just don't feel like reliving that yucky phase in any way other than what i remember on my own. but then i read some other journals from my college days when my inner artist really bloomed, and i kept those. and also from when i met david, and my trip to new zealand. i appreciate my writing from those times a lot. i wonder if i will some day regret burning it, but i really doubt it. looking at it for the last time today made me scared for my kids to be teenagers. but i started soothing that worry by telling myself i am in a position, because of all the therapy i have been blessed to receive, and all the healing work i've been blessed with doing for myself, to be there for my kids in a way that my parents just couldn't be for me. i hope my kids won't feel as alone and scared and basically screwed up like i did in those crazy years of high school. but i might be fooling myself. but i am damn hopeful that i'm not. so yeah. burned it up. gone. i don't miss it. i feel less scared. it must have been a good thing to do. i have to trust the feelings here.

i really wanted to post a dancing picture today, but i guess it's not the day, cuz my hardrive is full. not one more picture will it hold. these here were already on the computer from a few days ago. i am currently backing iphoto up, and about to change the way i store photos. i'm about to have my first external hardrive for photos only. so maybe tomorrow i will be blessed with more space for photos too.

making all kinds of space aren't we. the womb is making her space too. just for next months blood. nothing else meant by that. just saying, it's happening on so many levels. burning. bleeding. clearing. freshy fresh fresh.

***now, a day later, i am clearing out even more. with tears. i have cried today like i haven't in so so long. this song has been on repeat. along with this one. (can you tell i was listening to christy's baby shower mix?) my therapist told me to work out like i've never done before. so i did. and i wailed while i ran on the elliptical runner. wailed like a baby and it felt right. i was thanking all the intense workshops i've done where i really learned to cry, out loud, with my whole body. jesus. i tapped into every mother's pain and it is so much. i love music, and i love moving my body. and i love my therapist's advice. almost every time.

thank you, camilla!

camilla, i love my new camera strap so so much. it helps a lot that i've wanted a pretty one for so long. you know that feeling. i waited like a good little girl, and i won one! thank you, friend!

now, i need to keep waiting for this new dress from a fancy catalog i have my eye on....how can i win it??