lovers rock

the value of the personal relationship to all things is that it creates intimacy.... and intimacy creates understanding.... and understanding creates love.

the role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.

i disregard the proportions, the measures, the tempo of the ordinary world.  i refuse to live in the ordinary world as ordinary women.  to enter ordinary relationships.  i want ecstasy.   i am a neurotic - in the sense that i live in my world.  i will not adjust myself to the world.  i am adjusted to myself.

~~~~anais nin wrote all three of those above quotes

i drew the lovers card yesterday.  how weird.  or how perfect?  david and i have been fighting all morning.

what are the benefits to fighting?

• in the end, when the resolve happens, we are closer than we were before the fight.  
• stuff that was bottled, gets out and has room finally.
• hope returns once resolve has occurred
• a lot of tears get shed, which is a good thing
• deeper relaxation follows the making up
• if the fight really was in the interest of truth, both sides feel very heard, which is everything
• if you are fighting, you are not alone  (this can be argued both ways for sure)
• the clearing
• the clearing
• the clearing

oh my word.

i love that saying.



what are some things i love?

• listening to my deepest inner desires, and simply dreaming about them, if that's the closest i can get to them
• forgiving
• sometimes forgetting, but not always.  sometimes remembering is what is necessary to move forward into that new higher state of awareness.  you know, so you don't keep doing the same dumb ass thing over and over and over and over and over and over forever.
• how despair can turn upside down into hope with a little time, a lot of breaths, and putting one foot in front of the other
• the miracle of how i manage to put one foot in front of the other, most of the time, refusing to dwell in the place where i am stuck like a tar baby
• how did brer rabbit get unstuck from the tar baby?  with cleverness, finding a way to get himself pulled out of it, even by his nemesis.   here is a fun read on the tar baby, and more.  

random notes:

on the plane ride back from baltimore, a woman wearing a ton, a TON, of perfume sat next to me.  i stood up instantly and just stood there leaning forward into david's row.  so i could breathe.  david said something to her.  he said, ' i need to broach a sensitive subject with you.  the perfume you are wearing is very strong.  would you mind moving?'  the lady got so mad.  it was surprising how mad she got.  but she moved and cussed under her breath as she did.  it was awkward, but that awkward discomfort was so much preferred over having to breathe her perfume the whole flight home.  i was so grateful to david.  i could have spoken up myself, but he just did it for me.  guess who sat down next to me next?
the dreamiest kind of person.  a young music student, who wrote on music paper and drew those fancy S things at the beginning of the bars and wrote pretty music notes the whole time.  aaaaaah.  so nice.

if i could do anything right now, i'd go home and sew.  but i can't.  i have children in school to wait for.  and my husband has given me some space for a bit to come and write it out instead.  (another benefit to fighting.)

winter is really here.  yesterday, on december first, we arrived home after a snowy day out and about, made a fire, made tea for all of us, put the kids in front of a movie on the couch, and then i went and stood as close to the fire as i could, and did some yoga.  aaaaaaaaah.  very nice.  actually before i did all that, i went and stood by the space heater to get a little warmth so i could get myself moving enough to do all those other things.  our house heater broke.  our house heather broke too.  the parts for the heater will be in in a couple weeks.  when will the parts for heather be in?  sometimes it's cool to break.  we do things differently when something breaks.  we have to improvise.  it is an inconvenience, and it is refreshing.  i LOVE refreshing.

we are losing our second grandpa.  my dad died over 7 years ago.  being in this space with the dying is so god damn trying and intense and beautiful and i am fearing that it is beginning to happen faster than we want it to for him.  it is sometimes hard for others to know how to be around those who are losing a loved one. when i find myself in the space of a person who doesn't know how to be around the pain, i want to get far far away from them.  they take away from the depth of the pain, and make it trivial.  which hurts even more.  i had a run in with someone the other day who did this.  i hated his response to me saying that david's dad is sick.  i wanted to throw up at his stock reply, and then his statement that he had a meeting to be at, so he'd better get a move on.  he really did nothing wrong.  i might have done the same thing to someone years ago.  he hasn't lost a parent.  he has no idea.  no idea.  i had NO idea what this terrain was like before losing my dad.  i mean, obviously.  how could i have known?  it's unfathomable.  oddly, weirdly, similar to how unfathomable it is that having a little baby will turn your world as upside down as it does.  how unprepared are we all are for becoming parents, no matter how much we prepare?   birth and death rock us.  ROCK us.  there's kind of nothing to do but smile and cry and feel.  and choose your company carefully.  be with everyone's feelings, and cry when the tears offer themselves.  i really wish we could go and live with david's parents for the rest of his dad's time here.  i would do that.  i don't think it's realistic.  i wish it was.


TGIF.  actually, TFGIF.


i am not ready for a christmas tree.  i'm just not.  i want to wait till next weekend.  i saw one today at the retirement home we go to for swim class, this christmas tree that reminded me so much of my mawmaw's christmas trees.  it made me feel her.  how beautiful is that?  anything that makes me really feel her is beautiful.

what is this beautiful song that just came on in here?

who likes mustaches?  i am noticing them popping up like mushrooms these days.  i cannot imagine taking david seriously, EVER, if he had a mustache.  i would like him to try it out, just so i can laugh a lot.

my hair is so dirty.  my outfit sucks ass today.  it looks like something you would pull out from under the bed, cuz that's all you had time for.  that's what it is.

i am drinking white pu-erh tea.  detoxifying i was told.  great.

birth and death are mystifying.  as they should be.  right?  uuuuugh.  it's almost too much to think about.

again, TFGIF!!!!!

after reading this, i feel nervous that my words could be received in a shallow way.  words are never enough.  but what else am i going to type?  i want to erase the last sentence.   instead i just rewrote it.  i could rewrite it forever.   

exposure

i totally freaked out last night after rereading that last post!  how hard is it to expose ourselves sometimes? it's crazy hard.  and i'm feeling some small part of it hurting so good, a very small part, so i'm gonna move with the feeling, not away from it, but dang is it hard.  i went and edited a bunch out of that last post, only to hear from my sister that what i took out was her favorite part.  the part about led zeppelin and zhi.  what the hell?  who are we?  what are we doing?  turn off my head and my ability to be embarrassed please!


whatever.  i'm just glad i have another chance, and hopefully many more, to embarrass the crap out of myself over and over.  yep.  i do hope so.

anyways.  trying to relax the ol' shoulders, the neck.

just had to save the cat.  she was hanging on the rail in our living room by her two front paws.  max had swatted her away from his computer and she fell like that.  so sad!  i caught her.  and then i made max check in with her and apologize.  all is better now.  he did a good apology.  good boy.


isn't it all just a blur in so many ways.




tis.

and tisn't.  but tis.

hi.

i am being a bad girl.

not going to elaborate on how cuz i'm done with embarrassing myself.  but it sure feels good to be bad.

max and i carried five buckets of water over to the duck pool this morning.  the hoses are all disconnected for the freezing nights, so it's a chore to carry that much water over.  but one of the ducks was so dirty, we just had to help him out.  it was a lovely chore.  i made max do it with me.  i have to make my kids do a lot of stuff.  that's just how it is here.  they do it though.  and i don't have to be as wicked and scary as i have in the past to get their asses up and being helpful.  wicked and scary.




alrighty then.

last day of november.  13 days left till i'm 35.  i'm trying to get myself all together so i feel so good about me on that day.  right.  no.  but i am doing things here and there to boost me up so i feel better about myself.  like clearing off my desk.  slowly doing that.  mailing my sister's package yesterday helped.  the post man was so nice.  why is it so much cheaper to mail books than clothing?  i almost lied, but then i didn't.  beeing honest everywhere.

having a birthday is such a huge assessment process now that i'm older.  kind-of sucks.  did we assess where we were and how successful we felt we were at 6 or 10 or 18 or even 30?  not like i do now.  get off my back pressure!  get off.  i'm going to hiss at you!  and spray vodka in your eyes.  get away.

it won't leave if i do that will it?  will it?  my shadow doesn't typically respond well to me beating her up.  she is mother strong and kicks my ass so much harder when i treat her poorly.  do i have to invite pressure into my loving arms?  cradle baby pressure?  little sweet baby.  so scared.  uuuugh.  that means i have to sit and feel more hard feelings.  fine.  for two minutes.  i'm going to do this.   cradle baby pressure.

bye.  love.  then i'm going to get back into being bad.

bee honest

hello.

here i show off how i almost opened up one of the hives the day after we got home.  it was warm!   so warm, that the other hive was buzzing all around.  they scored the sunnier side of the bee yard.




(that bunch of sage there is their entrance reducer for the winter.)
see.  they are so jazzed i guess.  tons of flying bees outside that hive.  but not the other one.  it was clearly not getting any sun though.  just 5 feet over, and it's a different world.  in the summer though, they are happier i think.  that hive in the shade, did much less bearding on those hottest days.   it'll be interesting to watch and see the differences in these two hives and their placements with regard to the sun.  assuming i keep them as they are.  i am pondering moving them a bit.  going to ask the bee guardian teachers about my idea of moving them though, before i do it.

so i went in and thought i was going to move that one comb, that i posted about last time, how i gave it from one hive to the other.   i need to move it in closer to the middle of the hive so the bees don't have to travel so far to get to it on the coldest days.  sweet things, don't want to have to move very far.  god do i relate.  i really feel i might be a bee in a human body.  it's hard to feel that way.  and magical you can imagine at times, but dang, this human world and the way it's set up.  all the driving.  anyhoo, 'i'm making the best of the situation, before i finally go insane.' (ha!  i just took the words right out of the song from layla that is playing here right now, they fit too well.)....



well, i went in to check on this hive and had intentions of moving that one bar up in to the middle more.  like my outfit?  my pjays, tucked into socks, in cowgirl boots.  nice.


i'm not sure what i was showing david here.



i loosened up the top bars, cuz you know the bees seal them in pretty well with propolis.  such good insulators.

this is when it hit me, it was not the day to do this.  i pulled up a couple bars an inch or so and just peeked in.  they were active in there.  4 cute cute ladies crawled out on the top of the bar, looked around a sec, then flew back in through the front entrance pretty quickly.  something came over me and told me this was not to be done today.  i was going to attempt this maneuver without my usual bee suit and hood on.  i went into it really feeling it.  really feeling at one with the bees.  i don't know if it was me or them, though, but it became so clear, it wasn't the right time after that small peek in.  i shall wait for the next sunny day > 65 degrees.  david was nice and tried really hard to be patient with me as photographer.  i pulled him away from some other thing he was doing.  he whined a lot, but he did it.  ha.  thanks d.  i like the photos you took.



here's one pic from baltimore.  cousins.  i love the cousin connection now that they're older.  it's so easy and fluid.  there are some real bonuses to these children growing up.  i have to remember that as i grieve their babyhoods being a thing of the past.  yah.  to be alive is to grieve every other second or so, right?

and those in between seconds, rejoice.  hallelujah.  look how beautiful everything is right now.  how perfectly extreme it all is.  i am about to be on the moon.  it's all very extreme today.  my poor sister.  i just mailed her a package and the letter in it might make her worry for me.  or laugh.  i don't know.  but don't worry, cbear, ok?  i just vented.  i've noticed, when reading back through this blog how much i vent on here.  it is embarrassing.  but you know, venting though writing is maybe what keeps me from going insane.  i mean, if i'm gonna be pissed and blue, to 'make the best of the situation, before i finally go insane', that would mean sitting down and writing it out.  (layla again).  that's my way anyways.  but reading back on here, the number of times i have vented and freaked and let it all hang out, really made me shudder.  i don't know what to do.  we'll see.  at least i'm aware of how often i do that now, though.  i mean, i knew i did that, i just never really realized how often i did it.  i'm just so fired up when i'm angry and sad, that's when i have energy to write.  poor you guys.  my dear friends. poor sister.  i hope you just laugh, or maybe cry when you read my letter.  crying is so good.  i cried today and felt very different afterwards.  thank god for that.  thank god for salt water.  

a good friend sent me a link to an inspiring talk this morning.  it arrived in my email box, just after i typed out that crazy letter to my sister listing all the things i hate.  i was in such a mental box, it really felt like my head was in a box of metal, hating every living breath.  i played the talk right away.  it was so inspired and perfectly suited for my energy.  it was medicine.  the best kind of medicine.  soul medicine.    i want to finish listening to it, and then i'll link to it next time maybe.  i'm just saying this because, i love the timing of stuff like that.  i love the way people reach out to help each other.  the simple easy ways we help each other.  often just by thinking about each other.  without forcing it, but just because we can't help it.  i love it.  i often wonder if fairies are involved.

we came home from our trip and baked off some of that apple crisp, from the wild apples growing behind our house.  magical.


last night, olive unearthed this package of tracing paper i'd bought so long ago, i don't even really remember buying it, and the staggered trio of my womb, set off on a grand adventure discovering the magic of tracing paper.  olive was just fascinated by this paper that was see~through, when she came to show me what she'd found.  she was holding it like it was china.  it was sweet.

so.  olive chose to trace that book.  she has no idea what it really says.  their grandpa read it to them once, cuz david and i slipped it into the reading pile as a trick for him.  he rolled with it, while chuckling to himself, and improvised.  sweet man.  that's a funny picture though. olive tracing that book cover.  all on her own.  i had nothing to do with it, except appreciating the humor of it all.  humor on top of humor.  ha.  i'll take humor on top of humor any time.

the kids watch a lot of pink panther cartoons lately.  and then humm the song.  david ordered the sheet music and has been playing it himself to add to the ambience.  he is wanting to teach a child to play it.  but he isn't pushing.  we are both waiting and hoping these kids show some interest in playing music.   are you guys freaking ready to learn to play an instrument yet?  ok.  your dad won't,  cuz he says that is not a good way to be introduced to music,  but i am going to force you into music lessons soon, so please, just come on and say you want it!  nah, i don't know if i'd force it.  i really should just force myself back into guitar lessons, and play all the god damn time, and then david would play more, and then the kids would be begging to play too, cuz they just want to be involved in whatever juiciness is flowing in the moment.  why don't i just do that?  tell me, why don't i?  why do i not do the things that are so good for me?  that is a very good question.  WHY?


i love how zhi reads.  it's awesome.  she loves it.

and so.  the words are beginning to return.  today anyways.  nothing to do but be honest here.  the truth does set us free.  yes it does.  biggest cliche in all the world perhaps, but it is true, right?  i've felt very free, in an odd way, though the past month or so, going into my personal darkness.  maybe because i was honest about it.  here and in my personal life.  and i was met with nothing but love.  i sought out support.  we went to therapy so david would not be freaked out by my latest descent, and it's been fine.  i followed my intuition and read a novel, and started another.  i put aside all pressure to be a crafty inspired homemaker and tended to my soul.  pressure.  it's such a tricky force.  sometimes it's necessary to push us through some precipice, but other times, it's incredibly forceful and inappropriate. it's up to us know which kind of situation we're in.  i feel like the way i know which situation i am in is to check in with how the pressure feels.  if it fucking sucks through and through, it's probably not the right time for pressure like that.  it's probably some sort of self-inflicted ego pressure.  if some part of it, any part of it,  feels kind of good though, like it hurts~so~good, then it's a good pressure.  it's a pressure that is very likely pushing me into a higher state of awareness.   that's my formula for today.  that's my way of avoiding all unnecessary pain.  and my way of sneaking in a link to see john mellencamp  thrust himself.  ha.  you have to watch that link through minute 1 at least.   and then reenact it and sing it to your children later today.  k?  i keep looking around here in the trident completely paranoid someone can here that song playing through my headphones.

love.  i drank white tea.  i am able to have a little tea here and there.  i think.  we'll see.  my body will bee honest.  that is some truth.

the flower seekers

here is what i did.  sometime in july, i removed a bar with honeycomb from the first swarm's hive.  the one on the right.  the hive was full.  i had to.  i saved it however, and did not process it.


in october, on the very last warm day before our first snow, i gave our two hives their insulating panels.  before i did that, though, i put that built out honey comb, into our second swarm's hive.  that swarm came to us later in the season and their hive might not have been full enough to feed them through the winter properly.  so their neighboring hive gifted them.  how sweet they are.

it's only half full of honey comb.  a little brood there in the middle.  but that's cool.  it's perfect honey.  we tasted it.

i am so grateful for these bees.  before we left on our trip out east, i went to the hives and gave them a gentle tap.  i just wanted to say bye, and hear them buzz a little.  just to check in.  you know, like how you check to make sure your baby is breathing when asleep.  each hive gave me a sweet buzz, just loud enough to hear with my ear up to the wood.  i hope they are enjoying their restful months.  in that eery, etherial, dreamy space of this time of year in the northern hemisphere.  i hope we all are tapping into that space, as we go deeper and deeper into the darkness.  the time of year i was born into.  in some ways, i am more comfortable, oddly, in these dark seasons.  so weird.  they feel like home.  spring and summer, i feel like a visitor, on a splendid blissful holiday.  a holiday i look forward to all fall and winter long.  but i really do feel at home now, with the trees bare, my depression front and center, asking me to chill out and cozy up under the shelter of our human hive.  this depression, for me, my personal unique manifestation of it, is seeming to point me in a specific direction.  i am listening this year like i haven't before.  it is fucking hard to sit and let go, so that all the feelings can finally flood in.  once i do, i am finding i am not afraid of the slumber.  the winter.  the dark.  oh it's so f'd.  the resistance i have to stopping.  it's this culture, i am sure of it.  it doesn't stop for winter.  no mam.  well, i must resist that.  i am resisting what is not me, and embracing what is me.  i am eating honey, and staying warm next to my mates.  and you know, our house is kind-of in the same shape as those bee hives.  pretty much.

i love.

i love.

i love.

look what i just bid on.

ha!

if anything, this weird holiday is cool for waking up the gratitude in us.  i just say, let's take it deeper.  somehow, take it deeper.

roots

the root of happiness.

what is it?

something about not resisting.  because resisting is the root of suffering.

i can be a good resister.  like i can win contests in this category.  no wonder i fall down into the pits of depression like i do.



but still, depression will come for me like a cycle, i predict, no matter how close to enlightenment i get.  HOWEVER!  the less i resist it, the lighter it is.  then i can mess around in the fodder it has to offer.  the  fruits of depression.  there are some.






this morning, max and i sat together at the table.  we chopped the tiniest apples up, from the sweet tough trees behind our house that the girls and i picked a while ago, which stored very nicely in the cellar up till now,  into pieces for some pies.  we, meaning, i,  listened to a pema chodron teaching on fearlessness while we knifed.  it was some kind of peaceful bliss.  max moved on after 20 minutes, and then came back and did some writing work as i continues on the chopping block.  right at the end of the 80 minute cd, he declared we were listening to some boring stuff, and can we please change it.  ha.  how'd he make it that long?  makes me laugh what i put my kids through sometimes. (like demanding they wear corduroy on a random day just cuz i say.  haha!)   i did change it.  we listened to some music from my magical swap partner.  and as it happens, she got her package from me.  yesterday.  what the heck happened there?  that's about a month in transit.  i was sure the box was confiscated cuz i sent some dried sage.  but no, yay!!!  maybe soon she'll post on it and you can see some of what i sent her way.  i'd just begun putting together her second box.  you almost got two there girl!





(shoot!  i just realized i forgot about making vinegar from the scraps!  poo. i threw them out for the birds.)

here's a good article that relays some of what i was listening to this morning.  if only i did a practice like this  daily.  hmmmmmmmm.

look how much turkey girl has grown.....so sweet.

cleared out the freezer of some old peas. the birds and the rats were very into them.

david yelled out the door this morning, to me in the chicken yard, 'where are olive's monkey socks?'  like it was a serious thing, but i could tell, he was aware at the same time, of the hilarity of this question, and it was a funny moment that stopped me, and made me laugh.  i knew where they were, like all good moms with virgo playing heavily.  olive was relieved.  it was not gonna do to have any other socks today.



you know, i've been in a state for a while now.  a reflective state.  at first it was depressing.  but then it became rich.  rich with light and weight and me and slowness.  a big part of this state, was about me not wanting to make anything.  i all of a sudden was completely averse to knitting.  to writing.  to putting any energy out.  i saw how much pressure i put on myself to put out.  why?  because often, putting out brings me joy.  i put pressure on myself to find the joy!  taking the pressure off, mostly i think, by slowing down and living without caffeine, which for me, is just ONE of my personal ways of resisting myself and my world, was cool.  it was sad too.  it's sad to not be able to meet my highest dreamiest expectations of myself.  but by stopping activities that had pressure infused into them, i started to feel myself in this way that has been pretty nice.  i'm not made of pure sadness.  no.  but i am tuned into a lot of sadness.  and then around the corner comes a child, or a funny husband, or a sister or friend on the phone, or a caring mom/grandma, or a friend to have tea with, or a fun friend who introduces me to a fun new photo app, or a good song on the radio, or another.  along come these butterflies of energetic change, and i feel happy.  it's the nature of the game, right?  my personal game anyways.  don't resist the sadness, and then miss butterfly is bound to appear sooner or later.

and those songs i searched to link to, led me to this hilarity.   had me crackin up out loud in the trident.  aftershocks even.  yikes.

well.  that was kind of nice. to sit here and mess around with myself and some words.

we are off to baltimore in a couple days.  maybe i'll check in from there.....

love.

hello from the land of no internal inspiration

i'm reading one of zadie smith's books.  i googled her to learn more about her, and found this list she made.  i like it a lot.  i'm fillin up my inspiration reservoir with others' creative works.  i guess?  i'm hoping that's how it works.

i made my whole little family wear corduroy friday.  it wasn't easy.   not for olive anyways.  she was so mad!   she did it though, for me, and then took the dress right off.  ha.  zhi keeps talking about how this day won't happen again for 100 years.  but, she is wearing that corduroy jacket again today. hmmm.

being off of caffeine like this is insane.  i haven't gone without tea, some kind of caffeinated tea, in so so long.  pretty much since max's surgery.  and that was such an altered time i didn't have time to sit and feel myself really.  well i am now.  sitting and feeling.  that is what i am doing.

  it is so cute to me that max will watch fairy movies with the girls.  and he enjoys himself.  such an open mind!  ha.  i just need to get the husband on board now with watching some girly movies with me.  now that my sister is in brooklyn, i don't see girly movies anymore.  miss.  gotta change that.

we got a new couch.  i look forward to posting about it next time.  david actually spotted it in the furniture consignment shop as he walked to the bank the other day.  so we said good bye to our old love, big brown.  our first couch.  that was hard.  but it feels good to have this fresh change.  new color.  style.  it has a sanguine feeling, and color too.   (zadie smith is teaching me lots of new words.  david says i must not have gone to junior high.  wah.  i did.  and i could have kicked his butt in math.  but vocabulary, i totally admit i didn't even try.  well, now i am.  you may just need your dictionary here and there, if and when i get that sweet writing bug again.)  we can still get cozy just fine on new snaguine.  it's a lot smaller.   we need a couple cozy chairs maybe?  so we can all cozily sit by the fire.  they will come eventually.

serious

we really need to step it up people.  on our corduroy wearing. of course.  biggest holiday ever for corduroy is this friday.  get it together!


 


okay?


    


 okay.