Zoo Tunes

Lucinda was wonderful. Older, rougher, exquisitely unpolished. I love her. And Sterling was quite the opposite. Younger, smoother, polished, and adorable. We had a great time. I rocked out in my new chair and we had chicken, strawberries, raw macaroons, (Sorry Bruce), mango, Coconut La Croix, (yum), and some left over sushi from Billy Beach lunch with Simon. What a fabulous day. Oh, and my past showed up and pretty much what delighted me was that she was just that, part of my past. Wish you well, darlin' and my best to anyone in your future.

More Crushes

These women will always have my heart. I love it when they sing to me like this. However, fickle me, tonight is a sweet night with Lucinda and Sterling and Crested Screamers singing right along in their wild and not so melodic but, in my mind, completely appropriate way.

Haha New Story People

Brian Andreas - Story People

Lucinda

One of the most beautifully perfect and honest love songs ever written.

Lucinda Williams. Thursday is my date with Lucinda AND Sterling!! ( I have a crush on both of them and Bruce AND Patty Griffin ) Maybe it's my month year for crushes. Music has been my open road and savior and serenity pastime. 

Blessed Wrens

Yesterday. Laundry, cave cleaning. Discovery Park. Scolding wrens and adorable tiny black mice scurrying across trails in the filtered sunlight. Studio. Finishing my yellow striped piece.

This morning scrumpled bedclothes. Old words darting in between the folds of minds and dreams and memories. Hard to tell them from one another. Woke up scattered and glad to be alone. Remembered dreams of writing personals ads and laughing out loud in the early morning stillness. Then the soft piano alarm sounded and called me into my day. First time I've written here before I am fully awake.

   

                                                 

Creating Memories

Just got tickets to see Patty Griffin in October. Bruce, my concert buddy, says he didn't realize how much of a crush I have on her. I guess you could call it that. A crush does kind of define the ways someone can make you feel. When she sings, I fly, and the world has this crisp realness that, especially in it's most sorrowful and darkest moments, makes me understand love and hope and reminds me of who I truly am. That's also my definition of Sacred.

Cave Laundry

The thing about doing laundry in an apartment or laundromat vs your house (other than all the quarters you have to steal from your coin jar that will, now, never add up the way they used to) is this.... TIME. You can't just leave it and come back after you've taken Lorca out for a good run around the lake or down the Burke. There are no servants to switch it from washer to dryer before the next tenant gets there and piles everything up on the top of something or, god forbid, the floor. So when I have every other day off, like this coming week, I do my best to remember that every day is a Friday AND a Monday and just flow with it. Besides, it's still early and two loads of laundry won't take my ENTIRE Sunday. We'll head out when it's cooler or maybe it's a day for Discovery Park. In the meantime, or can we say kindtime instead, I'll go pick luscious cucumbers from the garden and eat some Arugula.

Solitude

I am an introvert. More and more I'm beginning to understand what that means in my world. In me there is an ever deepening awareness of the complexities of my love for solitude and my desire for relationship and the bonding of those two pieces of who I am. My friend Jade always reminded me of this Balance. I'm realizing this Balance requires creativity and openness and deep thought and compassion for myself and those in my life. Within these realizations I'm coming to grips with my own learning curves about it. My developing understanding looms immensely when I visualize all the moments that have brought me to this one.

To any of the loves in my life, my son, my lovers, and my friends that I have hurt in any way because of my misunderstanding of myself and my/our relationship with solitude, and therefore my inability to communicate about it in a clear and loving way, I feel deep tenderness and I am heartily sorry. And because we can't go back and insert the kindness I wish would have been, I can only humbly thank you for the gifts you've shared with me. I will always feel blessed by them. Sincerely.

Making Sense

This lovely video gives me an even deeper understanding of my dreams and reality. Spiritual and material coming together in a home and a lifestyle. She shows me how to have a studio. How to keep the things that are important to me and still live the dream.  (Like her high end tea and immersible bath)

Prayers For Some Dark Parts

460 Sq miles of a fire with smoke all the way to Chicago. Devastation for those that have lost everything in the Okanagan. Such a gorgeous valley. I would gladly give you all some of our beautiful rain.  

To Israeli  and Palestinian leadership, your people are dying and have been for such a long time. Please make peace somehow. 

Putin, relax. There is enough to go around. Drunk Russian sympathizers covering up evidence of a Malaysian plane crash? Will you men in power just keep getting away with murder? 

I'm going to go sit in my garden and visualize how to make arugula last through the winter. Right after I create something beautiful in my studio. I'm blessed. I don't know who/what to thank but I am grateful.

Rain Sweet Rain

The potato flowers

What a gorgeous day. Love the changes. Seattle has a way of creating a passionate variability in temperature, in scent, in air. And the garden, oh my. (I read somewhere you should never start a sentence with "and" but it's how I think, sometimes) She's in love with the tropical feel of the rain and the warmth.

The sunflowers

The arugula flowers

Kitchen Garden

Apparently arugula is a perennial and not only that, I've pulled two of the many, many plants I have growing at Shiga Garden and put them in a glass of water and I have instant garden at my fingertips. Yum. Cut a few leaves any time, day or night, and I'm fortified with a wonderment of fresh, spicy, tingly goodness.

Piano In A Tree

Another Etsy find. I might have to buy a print of this. Not sure why I love it but I do. The author writes, 

"This photo was taken at the Park Hill Orchard in Western Massachusetts one foggy summer morning. You may ask why anyone would dangle an upright piano from such a stately tree. It could possibly be some wanton art installation, but it's more likely an unorthodox technique used to give upright pianos a more "baroque" temperament."       Sabato Visconti

Road Trip #2

Ferry time. Southworth. Jeez I love the air with the scent of salt water and the wind in my face. Stood on the deck both ways and it made me high. This was a time to check out Belfair, Grapeview, Port Orchard. These places I can get land and home for cheap enough to keep a nest egg intact. The more I look, the more I'm apt to believe that buying some land and building a tiny bungalow might be my answer.

There are pre-fab and stick built. I haven't decided yet, mainly because there are so many choices and I need to walk inside of several of them before that happens. One of the cool things is I will probably have to do some traveling to find them as they are all over the country. That's pretty exciting. Maybe part of this exploration I can do some of the long distance walking that still dances around in my dreams. This is one of my favorite designs from Tumbleweed.  It's called the Harbinger and after calculating, with the help of Tumbleweed and Building-Cost.net, I figure it'll cost about 70,000 to build. That includes contractor, materials, permits, and equipment. Total square footage on this tiny beauty is 770 sq ft. Plenty of room.

The other one I love is The Z-Glass. The one pictured has rolled hot steel siding. Kinda suits me. Both of them do, which is why I can be pretty complicated sometimes, I suppose. This one is 370 sq. ft. Somewhere around 30,000 to build.

Hmmm, scooting back to the topic of road trip.... what a gorgeous day and I was delighted with the finds. I love doing this even though, at this point, it's just window shopping. Feels closer, though, since some of the hurdles of selling my house are just about to be cleared in Olympic fashion. Still, I'm not really in any hurry. I realized that when I started getting impatient. Funny how that works. This whole process reminds me, continually, that every moment is perfect. There were a couple of pieces of land that were calling to me and I so wished I was free to get myself entangled with them. When the time is right....

Someday I'll try to get pictures of the water they were next to. The Sound, creeks, rivers. That'll be when I go with my realtor, Jayne. What a roadtrip that will be!!

Road Trip

Took one of my favorite women with me on a day road trip to Camano Island. Gorgeous, graceful, and so talented, Patty Griffin. She sang to me the entire way and I swear I fell in love with her more with every mile. After 100+ miles, that's a lotta love. Her voice has got to be one of the most beautiful sounds in the entire universe. With the sound, from rock to country to gospel, and with the her ability to tell a story, my faith in all beings grew.

Camano was the choice because it's one of the places on my list of where to move next year. There is this open road adventurous spirit that is cradled in me. She, in the recent past, hasn't been very well but lately she thrives and blooms. She also continues to remind me of the long walk we'll take. So may that come true.

Patty and I stopped at a restaurant in Stanwood. I gather that it was created by Vikings because that's it's name, among other artifacts. The food wasn't memorable but the customers were and the waitrons.

Although the day was scorching, the islands breezes blew sweetly and we cried and laughed and sang loudly to the music. The country was ripe with cattle, sheep, eagles, hawk, and osprey. I suppose nothing is perfect, though. In a gorgeous, dancing field of windswept grass a little building intruded. 

Next road trip might be over to the peninsula. Maybe my entire music collection will join me. Ah the likes of Chris Pureka, Manu Chao, Bach, Frou Frou, more Patty, and many others, on shuffle.

Yeah.

Amazons

I'm too tired to write much and I don't have any pictures. Lorca and I went to work and back today. Musta been about 110 degrees. But before I pass out I wanted to share one of my favorite blogs and the days entry.

Today I Found Out - Did Amazons Really Exist?

Sweet dreams to all.

May you be happy.
May you be loved.
May you be healthy.
May you have peace.

Summertime

Hopped on Lorca early morning heading to a training for Dr. Haushka and a few other health and beauty dignitaries.The ride was gorgeous. Pedaling down Ravenna it only took a few minutes. It was really difficult to sit for 4 hours, as if she were calling to me. Afterwards I headed home but soon thereafter we went out again and headed back to the lake and we were gone for two and a half hours.

Sun and breeze played through the trees, especially the birches. Light freckled through them like dancers on water and air. For a while I sat on a bench hypnotized by the movement. Then I would close my eyes and just breathe it all in.



We stopped at the kiddie pool. whew. That was wonderful memories as this place was one of Simon's favorites. He always loved to play wherever the water would originate. At the ocean he would build canals and channels. At the pool he would carry it in buckets and take it to different parts of the pool. He was guardian of it's journey. And here again, all the newest beings, diapered and in tiny trunks, t-shirts and sun bonnets, herded the water here and there while learning, not always quietly or selflessly, how to share the scoops, the shovels, or the water itself. In their innocence they were all beautiful, and happy, and wet, and cooler than the sun had intended.

Life. The sky. Beauty. I feel so blessed and grateful.

Deadwood

I love this show and it's language and characters and, apparently, it's historical realism. In the 3rd season and it's got me enthralled.

"Deception don't preclude the search for fuckin' conviction."  -  Sy Tolliver

"Change ain't lookin' for friends. Change cause the tune we dance to."  -  Al Swearingen



Sol Star: I don't suppose you need me to say it. But if there's a Heaven, your brother see's what you did and he's grateful.

Seth Bullock: Perhaps he sees me borrowing his life so that I didn't have to live my life.

Sol Star: People have made good lives out of borrowed ones before

Hair Today And Tomorrow

White hair. Short hair. Hair that makes me smile and hair that will eventually be alabaster tipped. In the course all my strands transformation my artist, Nila, and I talked about volunteering and all the places that could use my energy. Maybe the energy of all of us. She is a love. I'm glad I've made her acquaintance. It's one of those sacred ones.

Story People Angels

Story People Website

There Will Be Cucumbers

The first baby cuke and many many flowers. Woooot!! Also the first Artichoke from the new plants. Freakin' adorable.

Endorphins

Another brilliant day. All over the U-District on Lorca (that is my sweet bike's new name) doing errands, having mid-day meal at Chaco Canyon and just exploring. Wonderful, wonderful. In the middle of it all I stopped at the tattoo shop and made my body a canvas, once again. Hans, my artist, is adorable, and in my somewhat endorphined state I got a bit of a crush on him. I think it was mutual.

There were going to be more words but this place over my heart is not that big. So we had to re-think it and get more concise. I like this and it feels indescribably healing. 

The Trickster is one of my favorite mythologies/archetypes. I hold it dear to me along with Raven, Crow, and the Sacred Fool. The aspect of teacher by trick is pretty often my M.O. It's not a particularly easy way, but it's mine and seems to work fairly well. This time I'm taught to slow down, trust my Self,  listen to my heart, remember that Connection and Vulnerability are soul mates, and that the realm of the soul is rarely tidy. It's messy and not always polite, correct, or aware. And so it goes. We'll see what happens next!

Restraining Order

It's now seriously on my bucket list to order one of these drinks!!

I love Roxie's. There is a huge painting on the wall of Jewish cowboys herding cattle. The painting has a frame around it, painted, that looks like wood but it's not. Hanging from the "wood" is a pendant of a Jewish star. Wonderful!!! Now I have to go look up Jewish cowboys because I've been watching Deadwood and there is a Jew, Sol (pronounced Saul), that I adore. He's like an angel in a sea of humans only he's human too.

Oh, and I don't think that I've ever mentioned it here but I am Jewish too. I didn't find out about this until my cousin Gloria spilled the beans when I was twenty something (pretty sure even though I'm messed up with my chronological history) I grew up Catholic, my father was Jewish but he converted to Catholicism because my mom didn't know that SHE was Jewish until we found out that my great grandmother changed her name and pretty shamefully, but successfully, assimilated. At this point in my life I'm more of a born again Pagan/Sufi/Traveler which suits me just fine and I like I chose it myself. One of the best things is I don't have to go to mass every Easter or do Novenas on certain Tuesdays to guarantee that I'll not wind up in Hell. Something like that. However, there was something strangely ethereal, and almost erotic, about the things my body felt when they walked around the church with those big containers of smoking incense on a chain.  Was it the fasting? Who knows?

Sunflower Love

Here she is on a much more vibrant day bringing out the depth of the light she gathered from the sun and rain.

15 Miles

In a few minutes I am on my way to get into a hot tub for as long as it stays hot. Me and _____________ (she has yet to be named) went 15 miles today and I'm am deliriously happy and exhausted. We rode about 10 miles and came home. Then... I had the crazy idea of trying out the route to work. Oh lordy. I didn't make it up some of the hills but soon I will and on the way back, I got lost so we went who knows how much longer. It didn't matter. It was all worth it.

Sitting in front of the fan, cooling myself off, I had this satori about pain and how it would have been impossible for me to do this ride last year or have the vision of getting up the hills that I couldn't do today and feel happy, excited, and confident. Made me cry tears of joy as well as some sadness because I also realized the pain that physical pain causes. Emotional, spiritual, and all the rest. Excruciating for the ones with the pain and difficult for those close to them. My own personal teaching from this, my hope, is that I hold this awareness and always remain compassionate and non-judgmental. 

Today is a day that makes gratitude come easily! 

Just Purely Powerful

She Emerges

The sun was setting and I walked down to water the garden. What a transformation to the bud on the Sunflower. She's so elegant. Tomorrow when there is more light I'll photograph her again. She was turned away from the setting sun. Maybe she was ready to sleep. Wow. I'm amazed.

Glorious Day

In the past, the hottest days have just been draining. Beautiful but able to suck the life out of me. Today was different. Such an exquisite breeze off the canal and walking from the Studio to PCC to meet a friend was a delight. The friend was also delightful.

As supreme luck would have it, I got a call from the bike store and my beauty was ready so after lunch I went and picked her up and we went on a couple of little adventures into the U District. This, of course, was after a few trials and errors in gear but such is life and it seemed perfect for the day.

Also decided to re-create the tattoo engraved over my heart into it's evolved meaningfullness. (the computer says that's not a word but I'm not buying it) and with this edition comes a deeper gratitude for all the moments of my life. All of them. Thank you all for your blessings.