Taking on the world

We are each other's shelter

2011-09-11T23:47:00.000-07:00

Tribute to Light: memorial lights turned on every year on 9/11 at Ground Zero

I waited to tell her.

She was born into a post-9/11 world and I never knew quite how to tell her what had happened 18 months before I was lucky enough to become her mom. Every time she's ever been through an airport, she's had to take off her shoes, put liquids into baggies, wait through the long lines. When she was four, she had to poo in her pants even though she was potty-trained because once they put you in the high security line, you are not allowed out, no matter how badly your child cries. And you can't get anything out of your bag, not even a clean pair of pants or some baby wipes. And believe me if the others in line start to complain on your behalf, well your bag gets searched even longer.

But today, after hours of watching the footage over and over again, the very first CNN coverage when no one had any idea that people would take over planes full of other people and use them as weapons of mass destruction...today, I gained empathy for the TSA agents I felt were torturing my child beyond anything they would make an adult endure. Because today I realized that as shitty as their job is, they are trying to protect a people against another attack. Not on their watch. And I have come to respect that now.

I've seen people all day bellyaching about their civil liberties that have been taken away ala the Patriot Act. I myself have reacted in outrage for 10 whole years at how our leaders cowboyed up from the very first press briefing, through years of searching deserts for non-existent weapons and hidden terrorist leaders, draining our coffers to finance a war on terror, a phrase that from the moment I heard it I thought it was a ludicrous oxymoron meant to instill fear not fight it. How can you have a war on an emotion? But my point is, I have played what many would call the "unpatriotic" tune for a decade but today watching those videos, inwardly I nodded when W called them "acts of pure evil" and inwardly I cheered when he vowed to "hunt down those responsible and anyone who harbored them." Seeing the wall of faces of first responders who lost their lives, hearing the names of parents read aloud by their still too young children, it finally hit me why and how the desire for revenge could run so deep.

I still wish we had chosen a different way to respond. I still wish, as my friend Robin said today, to "let kindness fill the breathing space of our differences." And this is the message I wish to somehow convey to my daughter. So on this day, ten years later, at 8.5 years old, I decided maybe she was old enough for me to tell her about it. I'm not certain that it was the right choice at all, now in hindsight. I started by watching the CNN footage with her, with a lot of age-appropriate narration from me. Then switched to NPR for some of the tribute footage from today at all 3 locations. Then looking at video tributes on YouTube, with and without cheesy music accompaniment. Then we played some games, went to the park, but on the way home, she wept. She told me she didn't know if she believed in God after all, if he wasn't able to stop such a thing. I explained why I think God lets us make mistakes and then allows us to learn from them, that there are some things that are definitely wrong in our world and when something like this happens, the people left behind can either live forever hurt by it, or they can chose to try to change it. I offered that maybe she and I could be part of those people who stand up and insist we stop doing the things that make other countries hate us (though all day I grappled at even being able to explain to her what those things are). I tried explaining that while we have bad things in our world like diseases and disability, it is because of those bad things that people have learned how to make medicine and wheelchairs and surgeries that heal and help people. I explained that if God swooped in and stopped all tragedy, that we would never change our world or learn to fix the broken things on our own. She said she didn't want to talk anymore and just held my hand from the backseat of the car until we got home.

Hours later, she still she needed to be rocked to sleep like she hasn't needed in years. My big eight and a half year old girl who barely fits in my lap anymore.

That's how I spent my day and night. In between it all, I'd scan what my friends and acquaintances were sharing about 9/11 on Twitter & Facebook. Then I treated myself to a sitter after my girl was asleep and I went by myself to hear to Ray LaMontagne in concert, outside under the stars and the full moon overlooking the ocean. Ray crooned "When you came to me with your bad dreams and your fears, it was easy to see you'd been crying. Seems like everywhere you turn, catastrophe reigns. But who really profits from the dying? Now I could hold you in my arms. And I could hold on forever. And I could hold you in my arms. I could hold on forever." That song is called Shelter. While he sang it, I looked around at this sleepy coastal town that is my shelter and I counted my blessings. It's all I could think of doing. I thought of loves lost and lives lost and maybe a little too much of my daughter's innocence lost. I feel both lost and found in this town, sometimes. After the concert, I walked down the steep path to the parking lot, deeply inhaling the chaparral and sage and olive trees that grow on the hillside and I felt lucky, so lucky to be alive, to be smelling these beautiful smells here in this beautiful world, and lucky to have a sweet, small girl who depends on me to filter the heavy smoke of this story from her eyes and her lungs, so that she can breathe the sweet night air without fear.

And I realized how every mother's child depends on all of us for this kind of protection. It's the job of each of us to do what we can to bring peace to this world. We cannot sit back in our comfortable worlds and think that this has nothing to do with us. We must never forget and we must hold on to one another and never let go until we all feel safe, until every last one of us can fall asleep finally without fear. We are each other's shelter.

Setting it free: My poem 10 years later

2011-09-11T01:52:00.001-07:00

It's 1 am and I can't sleep.

4am on the east coast.

I walk to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

Place a finger beneath my daughter's nose to make sure she's still breathing.

Can't shake the feeling that something's not right.

4am on the east coast, 9/11/11.

Ten years ago, thousands of people still sleeping in their beds.

Deep in their peaceful REM cycles on a crisp fall morning,

Unaware that they'll leave their homes for the last time that day.

Unaware that something is just not right.

What did those people leave undone that day?

Lawns unmowed, fish unfed, dishes unwashed?

Last month's electric bill past due and fallen between the desk & the wall.

Who were they and how did they live, how did they love?

And how do the people they loved continue to go on without them?

And what, I must ask, what in their names, have WE done?

How many times has a mother in Bagdad felt every day for the past 10 years

What the mothers of this nation felt on that one terrible day?

Waiting to hear if her children have survived a battle zone.

Waiting for someone to walk thru the door who will never come home again.

And what, if anything, do we still need to do, 10 years later?

Is it even possible for us to choose peace?

Is it possible for us to rise up and say that we were wrong?

Can we ever convince our leaders that a war on fear

Is like smacking a kid to teach them that hitting is wrong.

It's 2am and I might sleep.

I might dream of the stories of my friends who have started to share

Where they were and what they saw and what they remember.

In the sharing of memories and emotions, we breathe it out, and we honor it.

We honor the dead and the grieving and the wounded by sharing and setting it free.

refining

2011-08-08T21:24:00.000-07:00

It all started when a friend made this her Facebook status:

"I am everything I never thought I'd be and disapproved of in others. Someone tell me that's a positive thing."

To which I replied:

"i have to say i am feeling the EXACT same way. and i think it has so much to do with what a commenter said above, caring about who you are and scrutinizing yourself harder than before. or finally being mature enough to handle facing the things you want to improve about yourself. we spend a lot of our 20's and 30's thinking the problem is the other guy. somewhere right about now, i think we start getting real and seeing we may indeed actually have bad traits we want to fix. i am trying to learn to rise above simply stopping there and being harsh on myself and trying to find my way to problem solving those things...that is the hardest part for me, not condemning myself so harshly. so maybe you're there too and we just need to keep aging and finding our way through. i think it's something akin to taking a rough gemstone and grinding, cutting, polishing it to a beautifully cut jewel. i am sure if the jewel had anything to say, it would say that the process of refining hurt like hell."

And then I realized I maybe a lot of people who are 40-ish might be feeling something similar. So this is my call for submissions. I'd like to open a conversation around this. Ladies, gentlemen...any advice? Anything similar going on for you? How do you think you might go about solving it? Anyone beyond their 40's who's "been there, done that" have any words of wisdom for us?

If so, please consider sharing your thoughts or struggles in the comments below. Maybe something good can come of sharing and witnessing with others around the world who collectively are going through it too.

blessings to you and yours!
~hipmama

And p.s. new visitors, please disregard my swearing post at Google below as well as the lack of any photos on this blog (refraining from swearing at Google one more time, because case in point, I really was the dodo who didn't read the fine print!).

damn you Google+

2011-07-11T23:11:00.000-07:00

Crap. Google owns Blogger. Google came out with new social networking site, Google+ recently and I just got signed up for a Beta account yesterday. Noticed that without trying, I had some photo albums there, that Google somehow pulled thru feeds of mine that they own and decided to help me out by putting up some photo albums to me, sort of a house warming gift, I suppose, to welcome me to Google Plus. Well without reading the warning, I started deleting these albums, because I never put them there and they contained photos of my child, so I was feeling protective, when suddenly I realize that the fine print says "are you sure you want to delete these photos? doing so will delete them from all Google owned sites, including Blogger and several other sites, and will be irreversible."

What???

So I come over here and yes indeedy, all the photos I've uploaded in the nearly 6 yrs that I've been blogging are gone. This was supposed to be a tribute to all these years of mothering my girl and poof! the photo journal aspect is vaporized. Why the heck did they need to link it all like that? Why would the action on one Google site affect the content on other sites? Who would be expecting that? Kinda scary how much Google controls and can link together like that.

Ugh. Hope I can find these sweet photos still...

lightening up

2011-03-02T22:39:00.000-08:00

wow. it's been a loooooong time since I hit a stage in a dance piece. i mean a long long time. before Sophia was born in fact. Sophia and I are going to dance in a flash mob performance here in Santa Barbara in the coming weeks, and we've been rehearsing every night. i have many observations.

1. First, I am watching myself in some of the videos and I am twice the size I used to be when I danced. Not kidding, I literally wear double the size I used to wear. I realize how much more I carry around with me and how that affects my posture and the accuracy of my movements. I am slower and I look less sharp, less crisp. I look at other dancers in the video and in my mind, I think I move like them, think I look like them, but when the camera is on me, I now realize, in watching it, that I do not look or move like them. Woah. It's a major wake up call for me to get into shape. The elliptical machine has been dusted off and plugged in. I am going to start working out again. Please blog followers, help keep me honest!!

2. Teaching the moves to Sophia is hard! I already have my own personal frustrations with how hard it is for me to learn the piece. And poor thing, she has them too, her own insecurities, but then mine are layered on top and she is learning to stress about not picking it up fast enough by seeing me do it. I used to use dance as a cathartic therapy, where I faced my self-doubt demons and fought hard with my dad's voice in my head and found myself near tears at the most unexpected moments. And right now, for the first time ever, I am going thru all that with a little witness watching me, soaking it all up like a sponge. Not sure it's the best thing for her. Or for me. Maybe I need to reserve dance for it's own special medicine that it is for me and not do this together with her. Or maybe I need to suck it up and step out of myself and just do this for her. But since we both are performers in this piece, it's very hard not to go into my own process around it. Let me point out that all of this is internal, not much of it shows on the outside, but my girl, she's pretty in tune with me, so she's feeling it. Not sure if it's better to make this all about her, and then be inauthentic with myself, or to just be real and be me and maybe that's better for her.

3. Poor thing, she has a lot of stress around getting it right. She always has. I gotta learn how to support her in that...but sadly I have that too and haven't really learned how to support myself in it, let alone someone else. How do I make it fun for her, and not all about working out our neuroses?? When and why did she develop her own neurosis/es in the first place? I thought I've always tried to instill self-confidence and playfulness in her, fighting hard to not raise her with body issues, self-consciousness and perfectionism. Are those things just contagious, so she got them from me subliminally?

Well that's pretty much it. Tough stuff for what is supposed to be a lighthearted fun experience. Working on lightening up in so many different contexts here. Hopefully it will just end up being fun!!

Here's a video of our piece so far:
http://www.flipshare.com/view.aspx?nRecipient=&nFrame=QjkxNTE3QkEtRDEwNy00RTQxLTg3MDItOTAyMzU5MUFGM0M2&nMedia=QkU4NjY2QTgtOUY2MC00QUI5LTkyN0YtMDgzQUFCRjg0NjM5&nT=

Pretty cool, right?

blog spawn

2011-02-20T21:13:00.000-08:00

Woke today around 6:30 am to the sound of "Mom, Mom, MOM, come in here!!!" I come running in, bleary eyed and half-robed, expecting blood or fire. Instead I find Sophia beckoning me to get in bed with her and look out the window. "Look Mom, you can see evaporation!"

It has been raining hard here for a few days and our patio furniture cushions have gotten soaked. This morning the sun broke out but it was still super chilly out. Sophia noticed the steam rising from the cushions and got so excited, since they are studying weather and water cycles at school right now. She wanted to know if I could take a video so she could show her class. So I pulled out the iPhone, we threw on boots and bathrobes and went out in the cold to film it (couldn't see thru the window so well).

Then she asked if she could make a few more science videos on her own. Happy for a few minutes to jump back under my comforter, I showed her how to work the phone and let her at it. The result was 8 videos she made all on her own. After showing them to me, I suggested we make a blog with them, since she's been wanting to make a website for quite some time. Apple fall far from the tree much?

So one day after my own blog renewal, here is the spawn of my blog, er the blog of my spawn, um the daughter of all blogs...well ok my puns are drying up so here's the link, if you wanna check it out!

http://anothersciencevideo.blogspot.com/

Enjoy and feel free to comment or post, she'd love it!

purifying

2011-02-19T16:15:00.000-08:00

What is it that cleanses our psyche

the way a long, hot shower

washes away the sweat from a hard run?

Sometimes it's a good cry

or months of crying

that washes away the residue left behind

from one experience to the next.

Some people shop,

shedding last year's skin

for the fashions of a new day.

Me, I move.

I pack it all up into boxes and put it away again

into new cupboards and closets and shelves,

touching each of the objects in my life,

one at a time,

deciding whether to keep it

and if so, where does it go now?

Transferring the dust

gathered from one chapter of my life

into the next,

watching it wash down the sink

in little gray drops

every time I wash my hands.

fast forward to 2011

2011-02-19T16:12:00.001-08:00

Thought I'd drop back in here and write something. It's 2011, February. I moved to SB originally in Feb 1993, so something about February always gets me to reminiscing. Just in the midst of a house move, moved into a lovely place and am buried under boxes, slowly but surely unpacking them under the drizzle of rain and distant rumble of thunder in the hills. I wanted to write something and thought to myself, where do I write these days? On paper? On Facebook? I looked at my friend Pema's blog (www.storycharmer.com) and then I remembered, oh yeah, I have a blog!

So here I am, back on the blog, with somethin' to say. See next post!

I claim this day for joy

2009-08-30T14:40:00.000-07:00

Been harping too much online about the crappy things happening. wah, whine...but no more! today I stake my love flag in the ground, I claim this day for joy!!

dive right in

2009-07-19T20:40:00.001-07:00

Sophia, my girl, someday I hope you get to read this blog, that the technology will still be the same, that I won't get too old to remember my password, etc. etc. (just kidding). The reason I want you to read this is to feel proud of yourself for how you always just dive right in, fearlessly, to everything you want to learn.

like swimming. at first, as a baby, you didn't like pools or the ocean. but one day, something clicked and you were no longer afraid. you just went underwater and started to swim, do flips, sit on the bottom of the pool, hop waves, boogie board in the ocean, etc. fearless, you just wanted to do it and you did it.

like writing. at first, as a preschooler, you'd ask me over and over how to spell things. but one day, something clicked and you were no longer timid about the written word and you just started writing sentences and stories on paper bags, post-it notes, little books you'd staple together yourself. fearless, you just wanted to do it and you did it.

like loving, like climbing, like math, like dancing, like everything you become impassioned about...my fearless girl, i will always admire the side of you that dives right in and grasps hold of what you love to do.

Easter eggs

2009-04-10T17:09:00.001-07:00

This year, we tried a new technique, thanks to my friend R from work. We picked various flowers and leaves with interesting flat shapes from around the neighborhood, mostly our own yard:

Simply place botanical on a hard-boiled egg, wrap with nylon pantyhose, tie snugly:

Then dip the wrapped eggs in any kind of dye you like. We used traditional Paas dye from Kmart, my friend R went way cool and made her own natural onion skin dye. Both turned out beautifully!

See my Flickr page for more photos.

And here's the happy egg artiste, with her collection of found eggs after Easter egg hunt 1 of 2 so far this year:

Family Photo

2009-04-10T17:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, the classic "camera at arms length" photo, this one taken in the boat about to go into "It's A Small World" ride at Disneyland. Went there for Sophia's 6th birthday, her dad came with us. Fun time was had by all!

growth circles

2009-04-10T00:34:00.000-07:00

we're social creatures by nature. not quite pack animals any more, but many of our cultures were at their best when living intergenerationally or in tribes. and why is that? because part of our growth comes from giving and receiving with each other.

these days, friends and family are blown to the four corners of the earth. when we do have those rare chances of finding people we truly connect deeply enough with that we can carry on meaningful and growth-inducing conversations with, they usually live across town, across the country or around the world. these moments do not come effortlessly as often as we need them to. we rely on technology to help us achieve it, but those come without the perks of eye contact, human touch, or the warmth of an embrace at a much needed moment. so our growth is stunted. we need these exchanges to grow, we need full sun, but we've placed our pots in the shade of the distance between us, so our roots don't go down as deeply as they should, our stalks grow thinner than is healthy as we stretch yearningly toward that warmth & light we don't get enough of.

tonight, i had the thinned out version of one of those conversations, watered down by the medium of Google chat, a conversation 8 months later than it should have been on the last time we saw each other in person, by mere virtue of the fact that we live 100's of miles apart. if we lived in the same camp, bathed in the same river every morning, gathered wood for the same cook fire and cooked over it each night, we would have discussed this already. but anwyay...

tonight my friend C and i talked about our relationships. she was talking about a recently ended love affair, how she'd lost herself in it, and what she was doing to find herself again. i shared some tidbits of wisdom wrought from my own rendition of that same experience, which i've repeated several times in my life so far. i'm about 3 years older than C. i shared with her my two cents, and then after we stopped chatting, i realized how sharing those insights with her was giving me so much to reflect on for myself at this point in my life. and it was then that i realized that by sharing our wisdom together, we teach both ourselves and the other person at the same time. we grow together. and think how much more quickly we would grow to be strong healthier adult plants if we did this more regularly for each other? if we'd had this conversation 8 months ago, how much further along in our own self-discovery would both of us be?

we think in this civilized modern age, we are so much further along than our tribal ancestors. i beg to differ. i think we lost about what (or more than) we gained when we forced our "civilization" upon our forebears and stripped the tribe from the tribesmen.

-----

what i shared with C tonight was that sometimes when you've been not yourself, you need to return to the place where you found yourself in the first place. for her, and for me, that place is Santa Barbara. well, for me, it was first Nashville, then Santa Barbara. i lost myself when i went to Iowa, had to go back to Nashville to look for pieces, then continued here to SB to find the rest of me, the whole me. a few times now, i've left (to San Diego and Portland), both times chasing something that wasn't me, and i had to return here.

and now, i am here and never really plan to leave. i tell myself it's because i want to give my daughter roots and somewhere stable to call home, rather than the constant moving around my parents gave me as a "foundation". but tonight, after chatting with C, i wonder if i am merely digging my heels in and staying here is because i am scared to death of losing myself again?

see, tonight, i shared my insights with C, she found them helpful, and then in turn, i also helped myself to dig a little deeper into my own path and my place on it at the moment. and i'm sure when C has more to share with me next time, it will reciprocate back to her as well. but i sure hope it doesn't take 8 months again...we're not getting any younger!

end of a historic year

2008-12-15T15:20:00.000-08:00

Every new year creates a bit of history, now doesn't it? But this one is holds so much, both personally and for the world at large.

Sophia & I did our part in electing the nation's first African American president. I am so proud and awestruck that we did it...hard working volunteers around the nation pitched in and made it happen. My 5.5 year old learned so much about the electoral process and about fairness and what we as a family value in the world, by talking about what Obama represents, why we are so lucky in this country to have a chance to vote, and how far this nation has come in regard to how we treat people with different colors of skin. She watched as I volunteered, she even pitched in herself numerous times. It's her 2nd presidential election to volunteer for, but the last one she rode along asleep on my back for most of it.

Then there's Prop 8 in California and all the other anti-gay ballot initiatives which took us backwards in the civil rights movement, in my opinion. These were stunning blows, I worked tirelessly in phone banks on Prop 8, and it paid off here in Santa Barbara county, the only southern California county to vote No on 8. I'm still working for the cause and will not rest until this issue is moot. I for one am not willing to pass this fight on to my daughter. I pray it's resolved before she even thinks about going on her first date!

This year, personally, I have come to realize that while I have come a long way, I still have a long way I'd like to go on my journey. I want to stop being so critical. I want to feel happier, laugh more, love more, work less, live in my gratitude more. I have gotten a bit weighed down. I want to shed those things that don't lift me up and I want to dance, rejoice, giggle, cuddle and play more. I don't want my daughter to feel disconnected from me. I want to meet her where she's at, even if that means giving up on cleaning the house or volunteering for a cause, and sitting on the floor playing Littlest Pet Shop for an hour!

So if you don't see a blog post for a rather long time, you can imagine I might be having a tea party or dressing these way too teeeny tiny Polly Pocket dolls in their itsy bitsy rubber dresses. I sure hope that's my excuse next time!

fall

2008-10-04T22:55:00.000-07:00

it's fall. i was talking to a friend tonight briefly about what we both love about fall, why we love it. right now, fall in santa barbara means a shift in the weather, a cooler crispness to the air, some leaves (not many) on the ground, and today, rain. not heavy rain, but rain.

i know it's fall because i hear the wind. i hear damp leaves being blown around in the cold night air outside my door. in the air, i smell the plants giving over to the change of seasons. leaves falling, rotting, becoming earth. i sense the trees going dormant, the gardens shriveling up, the ground getting fallow and sleepy, ready for winter. i pile another blanket on the bed, close the windows i have had open all summer, and i feel the dread in me of longer nights, less sunlight. i feel myself shrinking inward, wanting to get into the warmth of hearth and home, out of the darkness and cold.

fall is about going inside, turning inward. i love this and need it on a deep level, though at the same time, i grieve the loss of the light and time outdoors, face turned upward, heart turned outward. now is time to reflect, recharge, and hibernate, later to emerge into the glorious sunlight once more.

insert recent picture here

2008-09-28T15:05:00.001-07:00

questioning a blog

2008-09-28T13:51:00.000-07:00

long time, no bloggy. i know. i say it every time i come back from a lapse. but i think this time, i get why i go away and then come back.

i think this blog no longer matches what i want/need to write about. there is a shift in me, whether planetary or just in terms of my own personal growth path, from what this blog has been about in the past. this blog seemed a dumping ground for me in my path as a mother. a place both to ponder and wax poetic about motherhood, but also, and more often, a place to whine, complain, seek guidance, or just dump all my grief, pain and tiredness that i collected along the mothering path.

so my quandry now is this: do i start a new blog or do i shift this one to match my own shifting? i would feel more energized by a new blog, give it a fresh facelift and start anew. but i started this one as a tribute to my path with Sophia, a legacy to hand her one day that she could read thru and get a glimpse of a time in her life which she may not have clear memories of. so why not show all the twists and turns that path contained? why not keep the good and the bad together, as a real composite picture?

i'm leaning toward that latter option, just riding it out. i might give it a new design to help infuse new energy and reflect how i really feel in my journey right now. it is in its 2nd graphical look since inception anyway. i've changed my hair color at least that many times since i started this blog, so why not the design too!

ok i talked myself into it. new look on the way. but i really have to make sure that i don't let the energy of what i know is lurking in the archives drag me down. because i really want to keep writing here. so if a new blog is what will help me keep coming back, then i might have to keep that option on the back burner. but for now, i re-commit to the original intention of this blog. onward!!

Help!

2008-09-15T21:16:00.001-07:00

Not sure I even have readers out there anymore, but I am stuck. Sophia started kindergarten last month, and comes home in tears almost every day. Usually because of older kids teasing her, mainly because she doesn't know how to fit in to this huge school full of so many kids from so many backgrounds and who really don't want to play with a kindergartner. She's in a K-1 class at one of our local alternative charter schools, but it's still so hard. There are rough, mean kids in her class. They tease relentlessly. They steal stuff from her backpack. She should stay away, but she is drawn like a moth to the flame, wanting to play with these older kids. But they want no part of a little kid hanging out with them.

She also attends the afterschool program, since as a single mom, I need to be working to support us. So it's a long day for her. At 3pm, the older kids (up to 3rd grade) join the afterschool program and then there are even more big kids for her to be drawn to. Wash, rinse, repeat.

But I am ready to challenge my status quo. Do I really need to work fulltime? Do I have it in me to do what it takes? And what, precisely, does it take? I know so many of my friends have done it, but how? I have no idea where to begin and I am soooo not used to not knowing that. I have a good paying 9-5 job, really good for this area. And this is one of the most expensive places in the US to live, so it's not like I can just start knitting from home for income. I don't know what to do.

If anyone has ideas for me on how to transition into homeschooling, please send along. I really appreciate it!

Apricot Peach Cobbler

2008-07-08T23:06:00.000-07:00

A friend gave me a huge bag of fresh apricots and 3 peaches picked from her backyard today. Way more apricots than we could possibly eat, and quite a few of them were very ripe, so they needed to be made into something. So I consulted 3 different cobbler recipes (2 found on Foodlab, thanks Cyndi and Nittany) and one from a gluten-free cookbook. I then made up my own recipe, to account for my personal tastes and improvisation due to not having all the ingredients.

Two notes for you to factor in with your own personal tastes:
1. Some recipes call for adding sugar or starch to the fruit filling, but I really think fresh fruit needs no additional sweetening, and don't mind the juiciness. However, if you like a thicker, more pie-like filling, you might consider adding sugar and/or starch to the fruit first.
2. I wanted a topping that was sort of nut meal-y/oatmeal-y (without oats) and that was also sort of cake-y/crumble-y. I'm happy to say that my 5 year old actually asked if there was oatmeal in it, so I think I achieved that goal.

I am making up words left and right here, but let's just say it's part of the creative process of making up a recipe. And for the record, this is my first ever recording of a recipe of my own invention, so I am a little nervous about others trying it, but here goes! It's also my first food photography, so some are blurry.

Apricot Peach Cobbler
This recipe is vegan and is gluten, dairy, egg, soy and corn free!

Filling:
- 26 apricots, 3 peaches (freshly picked)
- 1 orange (or a lemon would work too)
- Ground cinnamon

1. Cut apricots in quarters, and slice peaches (cut so all are even-sized chunks).
2. Spray rectangle baking pan with canola or other non-stick spray.
3. Spread fruit evenly across bottom of pan.
4. Sprinkle with cinnamon.
5. Squeeze the juice of lemon or orange over the fruit (I did this to offset the sweetness of the apricots, I wanted it to be a little more tart. If you use more peaches and less apricots, you might not need the citrus juice).
6. Set aside. Preheat oven to 375.

Topping:
- 1/3 cup vegetable shortening (I used palm shortening)
- 1/4 cup organic raw sugar (optional)
- 1/2 cup each of potato starch, flaxseed meal and finely ground walnuts (or preferred nut)
- 1/4 tsp gluten-free baking soda
- 1.5 tsp xantham gum
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 gluten-free vanilla
- 1/2 to 2/3 cup milk (I used almond milk)
- 1 to 2 tbs honey

1. Mix together all ingredients except milk and honey by hand.
2. Slowly add milk and honey until consistency is thick, sticky, but smooth (like thick biscuit batter).

3. Drop the batter all over the top of the fruit in the pan, either by the spoonful or by hand.

4. Bake 15-18 minutes or until topping is lightly browned. Allow to cool and serve slightly warm, with ice cream (soy dream, rice dream, etc) if desired.

Turned out really tasty! It gets less liquid-y the cooler you let it get. I highly recommend serving with tea in tiny princess teacups and serving at a tea party in your daughter's bedroom. Wearing evening gowns, high heels and tiaras, of course.

yuh-um

2008-07-07T00:11:00.000-07:00

I made Cyndi's dairy free pesto tonight, over brown rice spaghetti with sauteed mushrooms and spinach. Amazing, delicious, and really, really easy! Sophia picked basil, arugula and mint from our garden, and she helped chop the mushrooms too, so that made it extra yummy!

don't blink...

2008-07-05T22:52:00.000-07:00

In the blink of an eye, children change. Seriously, in a single instant, they grow, they move on to a new stage, and things never go back to the way they were again.

This post is written to all the people who sneered, chided, disapproved or in any other way discouraged me into thinking that I was spoiling my daughter by continuing to co-sleep into her fifth year, that I'd never get her out of my bed. Hooey, is what I say to all of you.

I practiced nursing on demand and then child led weaning. Sophia nursed until she had her needs completely met by it, and at age 2.75, she gave each breast a goodbye kiss and a little snuggle in the bath one night, and told me that there was no more milk for her. She only asked to nurse 2 additional times after that, for only a few minutes each, in the week following. Blink...done.

For the past month, at her own unique and developmental/age appropriate timing, my daughter has been asking to have her own bed back (I bought her one more than a year ago, it got moved to the playroom in the garage since she never sleeps in it). Finally over the 3 day weekend, I took her up on it. We live in a small one bedroom apartment, but I knew the day might come when she'd want her own room, and have been prepared to move myself to the living room. This weekend, it just felt right. I knew she wanted the bed for sleeping in this time. So I moved my bed to the living room (soon to be replaced by a futon or fold out couch for me to sleep on), and moved her loft bed into the bedroom. We transformed our former bedroom into "her" room (my dressers are still in there and we share the large closet).

And the result? My first two nights in a row ever of putting my child to bed at a decent hour and having "mommy time" to myself after she's asleep! Whoot!! I have been seriously mal-advised and mis-informed on what this was going to be like. Everyone talked about what a struggle it would be, how we'd have to ramp up for it, be prepared for several sleepless nights, be ready to sleep in her bed with her then gradually move to sitting in the room until she fell asleep, then finally tiptoeing out. Supernanny has several episodes of all these techniques poor young parents struggle with for weeks with their 18 month olds. Hmm...maybe Jr. just isn't ready yet or being allowed his own perfect timing in the situation? Because when it came to Sophia's time, she climbed in her bed, gave me 3 real kisses and blew me 2 more, and rolled over and went to sleep. We've got a nightlight on, which she has never needed in the past, but for 2 nights in a row, there has been no arguing, no crying, no fuss, just straight into bed and to sleep.

And this is my kid who woke every 20 minutes for the first 2 years of her life. This is the mom who has never been able to get her daughter to sleep without me also sleeping next to her in 5 years. Two days ago, that was my story and then, blink, the next day, it's completely different.

I've heard all your criticism and naysaying. And sure, I have been friggin' tired for the past 5 years. But that's all it's been, 5 short years. I've got 60-70 odd more years of being her mom, so that's a far cry from never getting her out of my bed. I've got plenty of time to recoup my rest and sleep by myself! Yes, reading my book on meditation all by myself last night without someone bouncing on the bed or asking me to look at her latest magic trick over and over again was definitely pleasurable. But would I have wanted to force this on her years ago, just to have that momentary pleasure? No! I was tired, I never got alone time, but did I really in my heart hold those needs above completely meeting my daughter's attachment needs until she no longer needed to be in my bed? Not for one minute! I never felt cheated or burned out from not getting my alone time at night for 5 years. All along, I knew that I had something much more precious going on that would be over in the blink of an eye, and who was I to rush that?

(this all happened on "Independence Day"..and above is Sophia wearing her patriotic PJs which has "lil miss independence" stitched on the shirt!)

Vegan, Gluten-Free Quiche, Omelette, Burgers

2008-06-29T11:54:00.000-07:00

Top 3 recipes I found this week for scratching some of the food itches I've been having since going vegan:

Crustless, Vegan Mini-Quiches

Vegan Omelette

Black Bean Burgers

Going vegan

2008-06-29T11:23:00.000-07:00

After nearly a year of Sophia requesting to become vegetarian, I finally decided to grant her wish. I was hanging out near the edge for some time, but 3 things kicked me over the edge:

Late one night, I couldn't sleep. Turned on TV and was flipping back and forth between the original Planet of the Apes (have you seen that as an adult?) and an episode of 30 Days. 30 Days is a smartly-made reality show that puts someone in an environment quite opposite their own lifestyle for 30 days. In the one I watched, an avid hunter, NRA type guy lives with a vegan, animal-rights activist family. It showed graphic video of cruelty on dairy and poultry farms. The mix of that with Planet of the Apes and it's depiction of man's treatment of animals was a big kick in the pants.
I told my vegetarian neighbors about this and they loaned me a copy of Skinny Bitch. Have you read this? If not, let me mail you a copy! On the surface it sounds like a book about eating well to look good, but at the heart and soul, it's about getting smart about what you put in your body, loving yourself enough to do that, and about eating vegan. It has a painfully honest chapter about the cruelty of the meat industry, about inhumane slaughtering. Thinking "oh I try to eat free-range organic meat"? Try this thought on for size: even free-range animals are taken to the slaughterhouse. Even in the most humane slaughterhouse, the animals hear & witness the pain and dying of other animals around them. Sometimes their young have just been ripped away from them. Those animals are filled with fear, rage, panic, grief, stress, adreneline, suffering. If "you are what you eat", think about eating fear, rage and grief with every meal. The book then drives home the crap in found animal products - hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, etc. It also takes a hard look at corruption in agriculture, even in "organic" product lines, the EPA, FDA and more. With 2 basic premises: "read the ingredients" and "trust no one", it was an eye-opener to say the least. Even if you don't give a flip about animal cruelty, the unhealthiness of eating rotting animal carcass and carrying it around in your colon for years was enough to drop me completely over the edge of vegetarian and into the land of vegan! Since we already don't eat dairy, it's not that far to go.
Lastly, I went to the chiropractor recently and was weighed. I'm like 6 pounds shy of what I weighed when I was 9 months pregnant! That was definitely a wake up call, so here we are, vegan.

So in keeping with this, I rejoined my former online haunt, Foodlab, a support slash idea/recipe sharing group of mostly parents looking for a way to feed their families with food sensitivities, allergies or dietary restrictions. Great people, check it out if you need help or inspiration.

And there I found my new favorite blog, FatFree Vegan Kitchen. I'm going to start storing recipes from there on here, as I need a place to track them, and might inspire others at the same time!

Frank the horse

2008-02-28T19:54:00.000-08:00

Sophia gets her first horseback ride on Frank the horse. El Capitan Ranch, Santa Barbara. Feb 2008.

Toys for a modern world

2008-02-28T19:41:00.000-08:00

There are some things that just shouldn't be made into toys. Take for instance, the Playmobil Security Check Point.

Product Review: "I was a little disappointed when I first bought this item, because the functionality is limited. My 5 year old son pointed out that the passenger's shoes cannot be removed. Then, we placed a deadly fingernail file underneath the passenger's scarf, and neither the detector doorway nor the security wand picked it up. My son said "that's the worst security ever!"

But it turned out to be okay, because when the passenger got on the Playmobil B757 and tried to hijack it, she was mobbed by a couple of other heroic passengers, who only sustained minor injuries in the scuffle, which were treated at the Playmobil Hospital.

The best thing about this product is that it teaches kids about the realities of living in a high-surveillence society. My son said he wants the Playmobil Neighborhood Surveillence System set for Christmas. I've heard that the CC TV cameras on that thing are pretty worthless in terms of quality and motion detection, so I think I'll get him the Playmobil Abu-Gharib Interogation Set instead (it comes with a cute little memo from George Bush)."

Read more hilarious reviews

first French braids!

2008-01-23T19:49:00.001-08:00

OK the part is not exactly straight, nor centered on the back of this very wiggly head, but, drum roll please...we did manage something resembling French braids...ta dah!!!

argument for homeschooling?

2008-01-22T21:31:00.001-08:00

It's time to tour kindergartens, if you are someone who plans to enter their child into public school at age 5, like mostofamerica. Those who know me know that at my heart of hearts, I am an unschooler and that I always wanted to homeschool any children I ever ended up having, way way before I ever started trying to conceive. Well fast forward to the present day, and I find myself a single mom who relies on a school system during the day so that I might work full-time.

And fast forward to my daughter, almost 5, who is now asking me to be homeschooled. 2.5 years of preschool seems to have been enough for her. It almost breaks my heart. I've been talking to her about the 3 local schools which are top of my list that we will be touring over the next week and she again makes the plea to homeschool. So I finally laid it all out for her. I told her that mommy has to work and asked her if she would just try this, one year at a time, and if she hates it, we will find a way to change the situation. I explained that it's because our family is so small that mommy has to work, but for instance, maybe I might find another job someday which could include her (we both dream to live & work on the organic farm pictured above), or maybe mommy will get married and not have to work full time, etc. But for now, we are going to look at schools and try to choose one.

And out pops the funniest thing I think she's ever said, which beautifully alleviates the small grieving we both feel about the situation.

Sophia says "OK mommy, I think we should look at schools and I think we should look at men. Maybe you'll find one you want to marry."

Out of the mouths of babes....!!!

catch up post

2007-12-26T14:07:00.000-08:00

well, it's been a long time since I have blogged, and that last one was sounding pretty depressing! here's what's been happening in hipmama land since then:

got a raise, think I mentioned that. helps the work burnout a bit.
my office moved to a new location, more posh than we had before, but I am sharing an office (had a private one we had a really great xmas party, crazy fun!
our house-mate of more than a year moved out, which has been like losing a family member. the hunt is still on for a replacement.
my dad had 2 heart attacks in mid-december. we are in Pennsylvania now with him and the rest of the family. he's doing ok, but scared us for a bit there.
Riccardo is back in CA, we had a mini-Xmas with him before we left for PA. Sophia got to see him for a few days, which was nice.
I'm resolving to get back in shape for the new year. It's my way of taking what has happened to my dad and learning from it. I know he would never want any of us to go thru what he has been. So my tribute will be exercising and keeping both heart and body in good shape from now on.

Well that's the nutshell version, but there's always so much more than a few bullets can convey. But that's the catch-up, stay tuned for further philosophical ponderings or photos!

one hell of a good time

2007-11-10T00:39:00.000-08:00

I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult. - E. B. White

Great quote, just found on a homeschooling mom's blog. I am on vacation for a few days, in San Diego visiting my Japanese grandma & her husband who are on their way to catch a cruise to Mexico. I live 3 hours away, so we drove down and are doing Sea World and the Wild Animal Park.

So far, I've been having trouble reminding myself to have a good time. Even on vacation, it seems I am still grumpy & tired with Sophia. I think it would really take an actual 2 week vacation for me to mellow out and feel like I was having a hell of a good time. I need to do that, take 2 weeks and just be with my girl. Let the stress melt itself away like butter sitting out on the counter all day. We've got the upcoming holidays and somehow I've let myself get talked into going back East and staying with my parents for that time. A whole other stressful situation in itself. Not work, rather dealing with them! I would much rather lie on the banks of some beach somewhere and do nothing but collect rocks all day and let Sophia spend as much time as she wants getting as dirty as she wants. And then let it all wash away. And do it all over again the next day. Until I just don't get so angry anymore over the littlest things.

Anyway...in thinking ahead to tomorrow, my intention is to plan the day for both of the above, changing my own little world and having one hell of a good time. We are going to have fun. I am going to relax. I will not yell at Sophia. I will just enjoy the little things. Feed the dolphins, let her choose our pace, chase her around if she asks me to, instead of saying "Mommy's too tired," like I have been saying for at least a year. Just 24 little hours. I am making a pledge to myself to keep this all in check and to just have a good time. I think just this conscious shift is going to make a world of difference for both me and for Sophia.

I was moved tonight by a quote from a blog I stumbled upon:

"...if I put off swimming with my kids until my stomach is flat again, I’ll never be able to teach them how to jump waves. And I know that, in the end, my hesitation is going to be remembered a lot more clearly than how I look in my bathing suit." - Missy, from Life Without School (LWOS)

So so true. What do I want her to learn from me, that hesitation to run, jump, dance, be silly, and enjoy life? Where did that hesitation come from anyway? How did I let this full time working thing run me down so completely? I know I'm just tired and I know it won't always be this way (I hope), but I don't want this to be what she knows of me, what she remembers and carries with her about what it means to be a mommy. I can turn this around. We both deserve it.

how long since I've blogged?

2007-10-25T22:07:00.000-07:00

holy smokes, did I really not post for 3 weeks? entirely possible! i am another year older since i last blogged. had my birthday. had a few lunch dates before. not sure if it entirely counts as meeting that goal, because while all were enjoyable, none have produced a 2nd date thus far (though one may soon materialize, but we are both very busy people and keep getting jinxed by disappearing emails and other high tech dating quandries). isn't quandries a word? not in the blogger spell check dictionary...hmmm....

the leaving early thing has started to get better. as well as the taking lunch and breaks at work thing. i'm not back to a reasonable work schedule yet, but i can see it getting slightly better.

BUTTTTTTTT...something really good happened at work. well, 2 things. 2 weeks ago, i asked for a raise. well i pretty much gave an ultimatum for a raise. and it was not an idle threat, believe me. i was all prepared to abandon ship should i get anything less than a nodding boss ready to completely embrace my request for a 22.5% salary increase. and guess what? SHE DID! she went to the mat for me...processed my raise in 4 business days, which normally takes 3-4 weeks. she gave me the entire amount i asked for, didn't negotiate me down, didn't blink an eye. (i probably should have asked for more!!). but hell, as more than one friend has told me, the amount i asked for is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of replacing me. thanks to all who supported me in asking for what i deserve, you know who you are!

that was wednesday, the day she told me about my raise, which i'd only asked for the previous thursday.

then on friday, we had our quartely all-hands meeting. the whole company is there, from all over the world, either live or on the phone. they give status on the company's fiscal performance, highlights of what good things happened last quarter, what's on the horizon for next quarter, yadda yadda. then they give out awards. Ten "Values" awards and one "Bellringer" award. It's a peer nomination process, anyone can nominate anyone. I have twice nominated someone, but the competition is tough and my nominees haven't made it. This Friday, they called out the winners, and I'm on the list! 11 of us go up there, and they recognize 10 other people before I realize I'm the last winner standing. Brett, the CEO, looks at me and goes "well there's only one award left..." and he starts ringing this bell. The bell is symbolic of this big bell we have (many software companies do) which is rung when a product is released. Everyone who made the release happen get recognized, there's pastries and product schwag and it's a big party.

so the CEO says "this award is for the person who made the biggest contribution to the company in this past quarter, biggest impact to the bottom line, etc. etc...." and then my whole team comes up and presents this award to me. my co-worker Kris says way too kind words, like "all the awards our products get (from PC Magazine, CNET, etc) can all be traced to the work Laura does" (even though that is NOT true, we have a killer team which is far more than just me), and "Laura had some pretty big shoes to fill when Carey went on leave, and shortly after, when we found that changes needed to be made after we went into Beta, Laura single handedly re-designed a complex feature in 2 weeks, which had taken a very senior designer 6 months to design in the first place." (OK Carey if you are reading this, he was so obviously EXAGGERATING!!).

then the CEO said that I got more nominations for an award this quarter than anyone in the history of the company!!! every single person on my team nominated me without realizing the others had done so, and then some other people around the company did too.

and THEN on top of all that, my boss, kristen comes up and says we'd also like to give a new award, the "Awesome Techie Kid Award" to Sophia, "in recognition of your many late nights in the office helping Mommy get her work done. We thank you!" and she'd made this cute little award thing, pasted to a gift bag, which contained a sparkly princess crown and a stuffed kangaroo toy. the amazing thing about this is that it was the very toy that Sophia had been saving up her money to buy for at least 6 weeks! it was utter coincidence, my boss had seen it at the fancy toy shop in town, and because it's a kangaroo, wearing an apron, with the baby in the front pocket, it reminded her of a mama taking her baby with her to work. she had no idea that Sophia has been wanting this forever! so it was truly a magical day, and Sophia really deserved it, as she has been such a trooper, putting up with me putting in so many late nights and weekends lately. it was such a high for me too, the rest of that day, all these people, some i don't even know, coming up and congratulating me. i'd forgotten that the whole company was watching me get this award!! it was very cool.

so...now i feel fairly compensated, valued, etc. my sleep deprivation still exists, but it's getting better. my team at work is going wine tasting as a group bonding activity tomorrow, that should be fun. then my birthday parties are the next day (kid-friendly brunch at the beach in the AM then a grown ups only dinner & dancing party at night). still no date for my party, but i am going to look like a million bucks...bought a sexy outfit and oh yeah, i cut my hair super short & punky and dyed it black with some bright reddish bursts of color here and there. sounds wild, but the color is actually subtle. it's pretty cool, may have been an "oh shit, i'm 37" move, but what the hell, right?! i colored it on my actual birthday, monday.

friends from work threw me a happy hour that night, and the only real person i am interested in having a date with showed up. but since it was a work/group gathering thing, i can't really count that as a date, can i? i did get a hug when i walked in. and he did come because i had the balls to flat out ask him one day in the break room "i'm having a birthday party, would you like to come?" and since he couldn't come to my party this weekend, my friend Jen threw together the happy hour on my actual birthday, really all a veiled effort to get us together outside of work. so does it count if i'm the only one of us who thought of it as a date? as usual, stay tuned...

:)

hilarious Mom song

2007-10-04T20:32:00.000-07:00

OK this is the best thing on YouTube right now, in my opinion (which could change every .047 seconds as new video is uploaded to YouTube):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxT5NwQUtVM

books to read and daily goals

2007-10-02T20:21:00.000-07:00

I'm making a list of books I want to read. Maybe I should make an amazon.com wishlist for my upcoming bday? Well this is a place to start for now:

1.Byron Katie's A Thousand Names for Joy
2. Don Miguel Ruiz's The Voice of Knowledge
3. Earth Prayers, I lost my copy of this 2 years ago, need to find it!
4. This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men & Women
5. Ani DiFranco's new poetry book, Verses. (bought it, haven't read it yet)

And now for the daily check-in on my recently established goals:

1. I am leaving work at 6 pm every night. I left at 7:00 - bad!
2. I am taking a lunch break every day. Part of an hour, sitting at my desk, blogging and making phone calls. Not exactly what I intended, need to leave tomorrow!!
3. I will take a ping pong break once a week. I played today, only briefly, but fun! Laura M is my new ping pong buddy. Yay!
4. I will go out on a date sometime before my birthday and enjoy it. Well...I started emailing with someone new tonight. I hate to email and tell...so I'm going dark on this topic until there is something to write about (see long ago post about the jinx of blogging about a date...bad juju!)
5. keep breathing. I played the song alot today. My boss told me I need to relax more. Does that count?

the angel herself

2007-10-02T17:36:00.000-07:00

And here's a picture of the angel who spotted the wings below. Who let her grow up so fast?? I used to have a baby (see post below for proof of this)! What happened?!!

Do I sound like every mom on the planet?

angel wings

2007-10-02T17:12:00.000-07:00

I finally realized I can get the photos off my camera card without the camera working, because I have a card reader in my monitor. Finally I get to see the last pix I took before dropping my camera! Still waiting to get it back from Pentax :(

This pic is from last week. Sophia was outside swinging and calling for me, "Mommy get out here, Mom, you'll never believe this!!" I am expecting to find her sprawled on the ground, skinned up knee or peering over a dead bug or something. Instead she is staring up at the sky and says "Mommy it looks like angel wings all over the sky." Then she asked me to take some photos, one of them above. Moments like this one are priceless!

broken camera

2007-10-01T21:23:00.001-07:00

OK my camera is broken, and I haven't posted any photos for so long, that I had to pull out some old ones. Someone suggested online dating to me, so I am looking for photos of me, but I have none without Sophia. These are from our "professional photo shoot" we had in Nov 2003 - but the photos are 4 years old!!

Well just in case any of you are taking my last post seriously about setting me up on a blind date, you can tell them what I look like. Only I cut my hair shorter and mostly wear glasses these days.

new commitments to me

2007-10-01T21:12:00.000-07:00

1. I am leaving work at 6 pm every night.
2. I am taking a lunch break every day.
3. I will take a ping pong break once a week.
4. I will go out on a date sometime before my birthday and enjoy it. (bday is in exactly 3 weeks)
5. keep breathing.

OK these came to me in the shower this morning. How did I do today?

10/1, how I did on my new commitments? Today's results in pink:

1. I am leaving work at 6 pm every night. I left at 7:30 - bad!
2. I am taking a lunch break every day. I did this, though not a full hour. I sat out in the sun eating my packed lunch and gossiping with some co-workers. That was fun.
3. I will take a ping pong break once a week. I played ping pong in the break room at work on Friday when I'd just about HAD it with my week. First time I did that in the whole 11 months I've worked at Citrix. Crazy how fun it was! I really felt refreshed after. Those ping pong guys really know something!! No ping pong yet this week, but this is only Monday.
4. I will go out on a date sometime before my birthday and enjoy it. OK, this one is going to be tough, not sure what my stategy is yet, but I am committed to having a date while I am still 36. I've got 3 weeks less one day. I am taking all offers of fixing me up on blind dates...someone throw me a line here, so stay tuned...
5. keep breathing. Not sure how to measure this one, I mean clearly I have not gone into pulmonary arrest yet, so check I did it. But what I meant is slow down, breathe more, etc. I think I am getting there, but still need to keep working at it. Playing the song over on the left nav over and over again helps ("all that I know is I am breathing"....that music is so soothing! Click play to see what I mean.)

a real reader

2007-09-30T18:45:00.000-07:00

oh yeah, of course after my "ME" post, I forgot to announce the most exciting thing that happened to us this September...Sophia is officially a reader! As she says it "I'm not a guessing reader but a real REAL reader!!"

we're both very proud...she has wanted this so badly, all on her own, no pressure from anyone. she worked and worked at it, and then it just started clicking. oh and she loves to say "and I'm not even four and a half" (which now, as of today, she IS, so it was pretty funny that she got it a few weeks before that date, and was bragging about it!).

time for me?

2007-09-30T18:28:00.000-07:00

ugh...it's been one of those days (or months)! I just don't feel I am getting any of my needs met ever. I am constantly at work, either at the office (on average 10 hrs/weekday,) or cleaning the constant dust & laundry my house accumulates. Sophia thinks I never play with her, which I rarely do. And I am 100% broke all the time. While at work, it is just a constant stream of multi-tasking, no let up, and I hardly EVER leave for lunch because I am always feeling behind & relish the chance to catch up. But I never catch up!!

Some days I think I want to give it all up for some mindless job, like digging trenches.

I need a raise. I got the standard "we only give raises at the end of the year" line. But to be working this damn hard and not be able to afford to order take out when I am too pooped to cook dinner is a crock. I am behind in all my bills, getting disconnect notices. It was NEVER this bad when I worked for myself. In my own business, working 50-60 hr weeks meant I was rolling in the dough. I'm friggin' exhausted and trying to squeeze in side work after Sophia goes to sleep to make ends meet. Which means never sleeping...not good! Something's gotta give soon, and I don't know what it will be.

I am just venting like a steam engine here...phew! It's good to get it out, bad to populate my blog with all this negative mojo. I just can't seem to get my head above water right now, and need some serious re-assessment soon. I simply can't go on like this for much longer, it is totally not sustainable. Thinking of getting married to some anybody just for someone to split the cost of living with!! Or even worse...taking my parents up on their usual and constant offers for us to come and live with them across the country. Anyway, no I am seriously not serious about these ridiculous thoughts. I would never do either of those things! I'm too much a believer in true love and too radically opposed to letting my mom and dad have that much access to Sophia! I am just needing something to change and so utterly uncertain of how to manifest that change.

Feel free to send ideas...no comment will be considered outrageous, all advice welcome!

retrograde

2007-09-03T09:52:00.000-07:00

"You are where you are in your life because of what you believe is possible for you."

Quote from Jacob Glass' email signature. Not sure if it's him, from the Course or someone else. Attributed or not, this is the quote which struck a chord in me this fine morning. Do I not have the kind of partner I wish for because I do not believe it is possible? Can that be true?

Certainly it can be, but is it? I used to do a lot of visioning for the perfect partner, but who I am has so substantially changed since then (read becoming a mother!) that maybe I just have never taken the time to reset the manifestation, and the universe "knows" that that kind of person would just never do as a parent figure in Sophia's life. So maybe it's time to start re-visioning.

As soon as I typed "re-visioning" I had a hit to find out when the next Mercury retrograde would be. That's always a good time for doing things that start with "re-". So I googled and found this site - amazingly on target for exactly what I just typed. If you have an interest in this, click on the upcoming one in October to see more...sounds like I know what I'll be doing next month!!

who would've thought? a poem for my mother

2007-08-28T23:25:00.000-07:00

giver of life, mother.
you are such a mystery to me.
little do I understand about you.
your inner workings
confound me.
your sense of spirit
eludes me.
your passions & priorities
completely pass me by.

but here, now,
in this moment of motherhood,
somewhere in the distance,
I hear you,
and I know you understand.

giver of life, I
now give back.

written sometime in the summer of 2002,
belly full of baby, head full of reflection

i have not slept

2007-08-28T23:02:00.000-07:00

you crawl through space and time
to reach me
moving slow enough for
fate to catch you.

invisible to swords and samurai
untouchable by wands and wizards
stopping the movement of planets
long enough to grasp my hand.

did i dream it all one glorious night?
through midnight blues and scarlet reds,
through jade and tourmaline,
through bone and skin,
bringing together air and water
in a brilliant cascade of color,
exploding in the night.

did it wake you too?

i have not slept one night since
the visions keep me dancing
all night through.

7/14/02

time to write

2007-08-28T22:30:00.000-07:00

all this time on my hands. not sure what to do with it.

took a few days off work to get this thing removed from my right breast. last remnant of a part of motherhood i may never experience again. it was a lump that evolved from an amount of dried up milk which was never expressed when Sophia stopped nursing very abruptly. it gave me quite a scare while we were up in portland, part of what drove me back to the sunny shores of santa barbara and to the arms of people i love. well it never really went away, and finally i was told i needed to have it removed.

so i'm on a borrowed laptop from work and finding that Sophia will actually fall asleep to the dim light of the screen if i am lying in bed next to her. so now, after weeks of crazy hectic full days at work, i can actually find time to blog at night. and listen to new ani difranco music. and find some alone time (well mostly alone, if i can ignore the incessant snoring from a certain small person in bed next to me!).

spent similar alone time this morning while she snored, in the time between dawn and when my sleepyhead wakes up. a morning of reverie, rather than rushing to pack a lunchbox, getting ready for work. i spent it re-reading old journal entries from around the time sophia was conceived. i'll post some of my writing next. i think i'm ready to actually share some of my own writings. but before i do that, wanted to share what happened when sophia woke up. in this journal, there is a folder pocket, which contains scraps of things from that time: post-it notes with Ricco's cell phone numbers in Europe, business card from my midwife, a train ticket, receipt for my EPT tests. and among all that, are the ultrasound photos. the only photos of sophia's lost twin. i was staring into these distorted images, finding a face for the first time staring at me thru the technology. it was a strange moment, i think i'd always just tucked those photos away, trying to tuck away the loss at the same time. when i found out i was carrying twins, i was a 32 year old single woman, overwhelmed already by early pregnancy, trying to continue to run a business thru the haze of morning sickness and hormones, as well as coping with the fact of loving someone who was, in one way, all i had ever dreamed of, but on the other hand, was likely to never show up for me or our child in the ways we really wanted him to.

add to that whirling swirling head space not one, but two babies. and one of them with something severely wrong with it physically, only one fifth the size of the other. well it just felt like good news to find out a few weeks later that the smaller baby did not have a heartbeat, would not survive. at that time, i felt some loss, but mostly relief. and not until now, nearly 5 years later, do i pull those ultrasound pix out again and really feel that there was another life in me which never made it out to see the light of day.

oh my baby, my small small child. you join so many other of your brothers and sisters who passed into me, but not through me. i told sophia, your big sister about you today. showed her your photographs. she wants to know why we never saw you. she thinks maybe she saw you inside once. thank you for accompanying sophia on part of her journey to this world. we're sorry we never met you, sorry we couldn't hold you and help make your passing easier. we hope you are safe and warm and loved somewhere. i am sorry as your mother that i did not see your face any sooner than this. i was so sad about losing you, i think, that i just couldn't open my eyes or my heart to you before now. we love you little one.

she goes underwater!

2007-08-16T21:25:00.000-07:00

After 2 days in a row at the pool, Sophia finally went underwater! She's so proud of herself, and it was really fun to watch her go from being so afraid to get her ears wet to dunking herself totally under, over and over and over again. We had to practically pull her out of the water.

It all started while playing "Shamu" with her dad. He would do tricks and she'd pretend to go underwater to get fish to reward him with. But she wasn't putting her face in, just holding her nose and pretending. Then about 20 mins later, something clicked and she just went all the way down. She kept doing it and doing it, and yelling to the lifeguards, "Eric did you see me, I went underwater! I just learned!" Then she'd go under while holding her nose shut, then let go of her nose, lift her knees to her chest and start paddling with her hands and feet to resurface. This was all in water that was just at chin level for her, so she could stand at any time, but that made her confident enough to take the "plunge", pun intended!

We're scheduled to go again this coming weekend, so stay tuned for progress reports! There's no doubt, folks, this girl is growing up for sure!

carey's last day

2007-08-09T20:15:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow is Carey's last day at work for a while. When she comes back, she'll be a mama. So this is a tribute post to her, both for all she's done for me to help me grow professionally in my new career, and to the journey she is about to begin. It's a river that you only cross once, and you can never ever cross back again. You will now and forever always be a mom. As I heard Oprah once say, "becoming a parent is learning how to walk around forever with your heart on the outside of you."

Carey's blog is here: http://careycaulfield.blogspot.com/

At work, Carey is known as the UI Goddess. She's taught me many things about making decisions, putting a stake in the ground, keeping it simple and how to wrangle engineers, managers, marketing people, and fellow designers. She introduced me to being a gutsy girl. Mentor, role model, all around great person to have your back in a new and sometimes precarious new position. Hats off!!

Outside of work, she is very crafty and starting up a side hobby doing digital scrapbooking. It's a cool techie spin on the massively popular multi-billion dollar industry. I know she's going to have an awesome site on this one day. Keep this blog bookmarked for the future!

So, it may be sayonara for now, Carey, but your influence and wisdom will live on, rock on, and carry on until you come back to work. Now go on and get ready for the ride of your life, which is about to begin!! :)

Quilting project with a preschooler

2007-08-08T13:18:00.000-07:00

Sophia and I made a quilt for my friend who's having a baby soon. It was fun, a great project to do together with a 4 year old, because she loved putting the squares together, totally "got" the concept of making patterns with the fabric colors. It was right at her artistic and geometric comprehension level! I highly recommend quilting to home schoolers, as it involves so many skills and learning opportunities. I think it came out pretty great!

your boss's boss

2007-08-08T12:29:00.000-07:00

I've recently come across a revolutionary book "Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead, but Gutsy Girls Do" by Kate White. I call it revolutionary because it is revolutionizing how I see myself in the workplace.

Click here for a quick synopsis of the finer points of the book

Really good stuff, including tips such as:

- Does your boss's boss know who you are?
- Dress as if you were in the job you aspire to
- Close your door for the same hour every day for "big goal" time

A friend recently gave me the book, which offers so much more than just the cheat sheet above. But even reading that short list helped me to get a new computer last week even though my boss said there were "budget cuts" affecting our department. And it's going to help me get a raise next week. Stay tuned for a post after I ask for THAT!

My colleague passed the book on to me in a veil of secrecy, asking me to not let her secrets out of the bag here at work. But since it's the best thing I've done for myself as a working woman and the sole income provider for my family, I couldn't help but empower the other working mamas reading this blog with it as well. Why not help you gals rise to the top in your corporate worlds along with me? (But shhhh....no one mention this to my boss....!)

This book caused a light to go off in my head, regarding the "good girl" concept, under which I was raised, as likely most of us were. This book is not only helping me rise in my career, but the bigger impact is that I am becoming a role model for MY daughter about how to be a gusty girl. I think it's one of the greatest gifts I can give my daughter is to learn how to be this way in the world. Cut to the chase, rise to the top, be anything she wants to be. In school, career, relationships, and more. I'm lovin' it!

Focus for my blog

2007-08-05T11:25:00.000-07:00

I've decided I want to focus on something with this blog. The first rule of writing, I've heard, is to write what you know. I also know that in my life, when I've needed support, the best way to get it is to create it. So here are the areas I am considering focusing this blog on, which are both things I know about and areas I'd like more support in:

1. food allergies/sensitivities in children
2. being a working mom
3. being a single mom
4. how to make money off your blog or website

OK that last one I am not an expert at, but I want to be, so putting it in my list to start manifesting it that way!

This list also comes from what I want to "get" out of the internet, first and foremost. I spend my days hopping around the internet in a random, non-focused way and I have only so many hours in a day, so these are the areas I feel I can learn the most from and which the internet is a great tool for.

However, if I can both make money by creating a blog on one topic, and if I can also actually help other people with my knowledge acquired thus far as a mom, that would be incredible. So the first two bullets are my top choices. I know a lot about food allergies, but not sure it thrills me to write about them. And in my new career path, I am starting to realize that women in the workplace still have a long way to go, and that there is little support out there for working women, and even less for working moms. So I'm going to start a few posts on these two topics and let my "readers" decide which they'd rather hear more from me on. I hope I have a few readers left out there!

"I want to change the world" - Sophia

2007-08-01T20:28:00.000-07:00

If you haven't listened to the song I have in the little music player on the sidebar of my blog, click it when you have a chance. The reason it's there is because when I was listening to it, Sophia said to me:

"Is that song about me? Because I want to change the world. I want to change the world because I don't think anything is belonging right. Because I don't want there to be any war and no guns sticking to people's pants. Isn't that so weird?"

Straight quote. I typed it as she said it. That's enough reason for a mama to put a song on her blog, isn't it?!

A few weeks ago, we were at a fundraiser where kids could make a wish from a "Wish Fairy" if mom or dad made a cash donation. Her friends asked for a pony, a Barbie car, a little brother. Sophia wished that there could be no more war, only peace.

Some days, I think I haven't a clue what I am doing as a parent. Other days, like these, I know I am doing just fine...

lifting heavy rocks

2007-07-31T00:35:00.000-07:00

This weekend, we found time for a day at the beach: jumping in the waves, making killer sand castles and braiding seaweed bracelets. What a gift of reconnection to the things that matter most to me: my daughter, this beautiful earth, moving my body, and creating things with my hands.

So in that same spirit, in case you didn't notice already, I spruced things up around here a bit! A facelift for my blog as I have been inspired lately by some really great blogs, and also feeling a little less than creative in my work, so I want to get back to this outlet, among others.

Also (cringe) I am starting to add some advertising. Lemme know if it bugs you. I am finding moms out there who make a living for their families simply by the advertising on their blogs. And they are doing hella creative cool stuff, blogging about it, and having a blast. With children in tow. So here's my stab at it. I know nothing about building a readership, but my pal Laureen does, so maybe I can pick her brain!!

So stay tuned to cool new things here, and also check out some of these cool blogs on my links at the left (not the right anymore, phew, such change)!!

Having a sister

2007-07-27T12:39:00.001-07:00

In case you missed it in the last post, Sophia has now met her half sister Bianca. Bianca is 7, lives in Denmark. She and Sophia share 2 of the most distinctive things about themselves: an on-again/off-again traveling Dad and severe eczema resulting from wheat and dairy allergy. Likely the two things they will wish they could change about themselves. Now they have just met someone who shares their exact own pain.

They've not met in the past for two reasons, what with that giant Atlantic separating them and then because the mother was very upset when Riccardo had another child with another woman, and she was reticent to even tell Bianca about Sophia, let alone meet us. But each girl, both an only child of a single mother, have longed so desperately for a sibling and for simply "more" family. We convinced Maria (Bianca's mom) to let the girls meet when they came to the US for a visit this month. We had one weekend together last week, and are about to have another tomorrow. Then they will return to Denmark and we will miss them too, along with Riccardo, who will go back to Europe for another 8-9 months.

We all got along very well. At first there was the obstacle that neither girl expected, which was the language barrier. Bianca has learned a scant few words in English thus far, and we tried to learn a little Danish in a 30 minute crash course, but of course none of it stuck when we met them. Both girls had expectations of a sister, which did not include not being able to talk to each other, so they were a little unsettled by that. But Bianca started picking up English like a wildfire, which was great.

After that, it was just intense. Very, very big emotions. It was either a super fun and exciting big sisterly love-fest, or then just one small thing, a stubbed toe, or finding out the sherbert at the ice cream store on the wharf had dairy in it, and each girl would take turns bursting into tears and absolute meltdown. Feelings were raw and at the surface. For both, this is just what they have always wanted, to spend fun, quality time with both of their parents together, as well as with a sister. But it was a true testament to the tricky nature of getting exactly what you've always wished for. It was so overwhelming for Sophia, combined with too much sugar and no napping all weekend. She was maxed out. I've been brain dead all week, vegging in front of the TV every night after work.

And we're about to do it again this weekend too. Whoosh. I am not sure I am ready for it, but we'll manage. And then they will all go away and we will miss Daddy for a while, probably have potty accidents for a few weeks (just Sophia, I hope, but who knows about me!!), and then we will get back to our nice quiet life, just a mama and her girl. Like we always are.

Interesting final note, I asked Sophia this week if she wished she had a daddy that was always here with us. She first said yes, and said "because then mommy you wouldn't have to do everything and you wouldn't have to pay for everything." Not sure where and how she picked up on the money thing...so other than me being sad that finances have invaded her little brain on some level, I was so touched that she understood or empathized a little how it is for me. But then, to add to the moment, she said "but usually I like it when it's just you and me." You could have knocked me over with a feather! I've never considered that maybe she is happy with it this way. I am always angst and guilt ridden worrying about this weird life I've set up for her, worrying about needing to fill the daddy gap, etc. But maybe, just maybe, sometimes she doesn't feel a gap at all.

Ahhh....

flickr site

2007-07-23T17:36:00.000-07:00

I started posting photos to flickr.com and so far only using the free service. I like it because it's easy to upload photos in batches. It's supposed to be compatible with my blog site, but until I figure that out, here are some recent photos of us:

Check it out if you want!

Photo above is Sophia with her half sister Bianca, age 7, who lives in Denmark. The two girls met for the first time this weekend (July 21-22, 2007) and will have one more weekend together next week. Pretty intense but fun time was had by all!

~

One sunny day...

2007-06-07T18:58:00.000-07:00

Dragon Riders

2007-06-07T18:28:00.000-07:00

As most who know me know, I've been involved in an arts workshop/parade every year for about 14 years around the time of the Summer Solstice. It's a rejuvenating, exhilarating experience for me to create art bigger than myself, using just my hands...a land where there is no copy, paste or undo.

Sophia of course has been in the parade all her life. I met her dad there and the creative energy coursing thru us at this same season brought a life into being, 4 years ago.

So this year, Sophia designed her own float. Inspired by the Eragon stories, she wants to be a dragon rider. So mama is making not one but 4 dragon sculptures for Sophia and her friends to ride on. Sophia is our only "boy" character, all her other friends are going to be princesses. But that's my girl!! (little white kid in the photo above, short hair - "like Eragon")

Below is a story I wrote on it for the local paper. More photos here.

**********
When asked what she wanted to make for Solstice this year, 4 year old Sophia Smith-Morrison told sculptor mom Laura Smith that she wanted to ride on the back of a dragon. Sophia proceeded to demonstrate with her hands how she wanted the dragon's mouth to open & close, and for cardboard fire to come out of its mouth. After being a passive participant in the parade for her first 3 years, Sophia designed her first float at the ripe old age of 4!

At 3 months of age, Sophia rode along with mom, wrapped up in a sling carrier, which Laura made from the same fabric as her own costume, and they danced up State Street together. At age 1, 2 & 3, Sophia napped thru the parade, in a stroller decorated as a Pegasus, a flower, and a clownfish respectively. This year, she will ride atop a dragon of her own design, along with many of her friends. Sophia prefers the "Eragon" style costume, while many of her friends have chosen princess or knight attire. The float will be comprised of 3-4 large dragon sculptures which will seat 2 children each. Other costumes include carry along dragons (hobby horse style) which will be ridden by older children on skates, roller blades and scooters, as well as dragon costumes for parents who will carry their infant "riders" on their backs.

While Laura and Sophia are Solstice "old-timers" (mom has been both on the staff and the Board of Directors of Solstice in the past), they have created the ensemble this year side-by-side with another family who is brand new to the Solstice experience. The Erringers, mom Anu, dad Alan, daughter Katja (age 5) and son Nicolas (age 2), have been instrumental to the creation of the 3 large dragon floats, as well as a dozen or more dragon masks and costumes. Alan has been in the parade once before, and offers his broad technical, engineering & construction skills to the float. The rest of the Erringer family are new to Solstice, and are having a transformative experience as their 2 year old son learns to use hand tools, and their 5 year old daughter opens up to the creative experience. Anu is enjoying overseeing the painting, papier-maching and production/decorating of dragon masks.

"Our children love having a "job" that they are responsible for. It's been a wonderful experience to watch our 5 year old daughter grow up a little by taking on the responsibility for carrying Dad's tool bag into Solstice each day, or being in charge of certain projects, like painting or papier maché," says Alan Erringer.

An interesting contribution this group of parents has made to the Solstice parade is the concoction of a non-toxic papier maché paste. The wallpaper paste typically used for large maché projects contains toxic chemical preservatives. The moms decided to research alternatives and tested several paste recipes, settling on a very simple, inexpensive mixture of cornstarch, salt and water. Traditionally, papier maché paste was made from just flour and water; preservatives have been added to prolong shelf life. This team took it one step further, since one of the children has a gluten allergy, they found a way to make an equally durable paste not only non-toxic, but also wheat free!

This ensemble offers many opportunities for those interested in getting involved with Solstice. We have had volunteers of all ages helping with this float, from toddler to teen to grandparents. If you've always wanted to come down and get creative at Solstice, come to the workshop and look for the Dragon Riders. We'll be sure to find something fun for you to work on! And we are starting to recruit adults to help pull the dragons on the day of the parade (the "Dragon Draggers" as we are calling ourselves). Come down, decorate a mask, whip together a costume, and enjoy Solstice dragon style!

so long cindy sheehan

2007-06-05T17:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/28/12530/1525

http://theexcellentadventure.com/elementalmom/2007/05/29/thank-you-cindy-sheehan

I just can't believe it.

They've finally driven Cindy Sheehan to give up.

I'm unable to type much more than these links, but I think they speak for themselves. Sometimes I slip into blissful forgetfulness, with this paradise all around me, and then the background music screeches to a halt and something like this reminds me of the utter insanity that has taken hold of the land I live in.

What are we doing?

What am I doing about it?

Sadly, nothing more than crying behind my computer screen for today. Tomorrow, who knows...

do less, make more....do MORE!

2007-06-05T14:49:00.000-07:00

this is what i want to do:
http://www.dooce.com/

a SAHM (short for Stay at Home Mom or a Shit Ass Ho Motherfucker), whose family of 3 is supported by the ads on her blog.

she just writes funny stuff and gets people to read it. that's about it.

do less work, make more money. then do so much more of what life is REALLY about.

ahhhhhh....nice vision!!!

Mega Update

2006-12-02T16:19:00.000-08:00

Goodness, looks like I have not blogged in a while! So, the update in a nutshell:

• I closed down my design business of 6 years and returned to full time employment. I am proud to announce myself as a User Interface Designer for Citrix Online, maker of fine products such as Go To My PC and Go To Meeting, among other things. I design the software and research how to make it easier to use. It's a whole new direction for me career-wise and it's a lot of fun!

• Love life = well nothing really to report. Prior post didn't completely pan out, or is still a big question mark, so I've decided against posting on dating again until something like my 1 year anniversary with Mr or Ms Right...whattya think?

• Bad news = I had a car accident 2 days before Thanksgiving. I totalled my car and hit 2 other cars. I came out of it pretty lucky, as Sophia was not with me and my injuries, while pretty darn hard to deal with, were minor and recoverable. Injuries include heavy duty whiplash, bruised ribs, some bulging discs in my lumbar area, and some ligament & soft tissue damage which all adds up to a lot of pain and missed time on my new job, but it's getting better. The crappy part is that my used car obviously was in an accident prior to my purchasing it and the damage was covered up by the slimeball who sold it. There was no airbag, and the insurance adjuster found that the airbag light had been jimmy-rigged to be turned off, so that no one would know that the airbag was missing. Apparently they are very expensive to replace so some people don't. Losers. Anyway, this prior accident also comprised the seat belts, so mine flew off of me at impact. Which means at the time of the crash, I was unrestrained. I bounced around the front of the car, that's why my injuries are so tough. Likewise, the other seat belt which was engaged at the time, the one holding Sophia's empty car seat, also popped out on impact, and her carseat went plummeting upside down thru the car. So so so lucky she was not in it.

Someone said to me that I was really lucky to have found out about the unsafe state of my car in a relatively minor accident. I mean it totalled my car and caused about $4000 damage to the other cars, but what if I had been in a head on collision with a car without proper belts and airbag? Whew...I don't even want to think about it. I bought this car before the day of Carfax and the extensive information available online about used cars. Please take my experience to heart next time you're shopping for a used car and do the research!

• This has all got me thinking about durable power of attorney for healthcare decisions, a will, who I'd want to raise Sophia if anything happened to me, and all that jazz. More to post when I get to that stuff...as I am sure I will want to record what I find and how I make my decisions.

So that's the state of things here. I am slowly recuperating and getting some mobility back but am in constant pain. I just started physical therapy which is helping a great deal and I found a really amazing young new doctor, a mom of 2 kids under age 3, who is refreshing my few on medical professionals. That's cool. And I have a swank holiday party to go to next Friday, without a date. But I'm gonna dress up to the nines anyway just for the hell of it! Something tells me I'm past my days of caring about things like that and happy to just have fun. Probably will meet more of my new co-workers without a date anyway!

Better Late than Never: Mother's Day post

2006-06-01T01:08:00.000-07:00

I just read the best mother f-ing blog post (pardon my pun) about the origins of Mother's Day...I will not say anymore more but to have you read this. It completely made my night...my completely exhausted mother-worn night. Read on...

http://womensspace.wordpress.com/2006/05/14/mothers-militant-mothers-day-as-resistance-2/

reflecting on a blog

2006-05-14T23:08:00.000-07:00

happy mother's day everyone. we went to an amazing church service today, with urging to let go of any old crap you still think your mother owes you and move to the now, move to a place of love. it was much a bigger and better message than that, but this is the piece that stuck with me. it's true. the primary thing all mothers gave us, whether they were good, bad, indifferent or absent, they gave us life. what they did from there on varies with each of us, but one thing i think is true, is that our mothers did the best they could with what they had. not all of them had the best tools, some had too much of their own pain to see thru. some had misguided ideas of what was best or right. but what we decide to do with it from here, that part is up to us.

i started this post as a reminder to myself of my initial intent with this blog. i happened to go back to my first post tonight and saw that my intention was to use this to reflect on my day, my life with sophia, and to create a kind of gratitude journal for us to look back on. i strayed from that course a bit and this had started to become the chronicles of my move to portland and back.

so tonight, i reflect on a beautiful 24 past hours. first a babysitter and a night out for mama, perhaps only 4th or 5th time to do that in 3 years. went to a fundraising gala for local arts workspace, all dressed up and dancing under the stars. was taken cruising with 3 handsome men in a 20 foot 1960 cadillac, stopping along state street for tequilla shots...then back to the dance floor and 3 different propositions for a "ride home"...hah! what a night for a single mom, eh? i went home with known and beloved riccardo, father of my child, with whom i've been somewhat estranged for the last 2 weeks. we're finally navigating the tough choices of our relationship and finding our way. i've been trying to reclaim myself, my sexuality, and all things relating to riccardo. but last night, the magic was in the air, and perhaps something about others wanting me did something for him, who really knows, but a ride home turned into a powerful physical reconnection, then he left at 5 am to take his mom to vegas for a few days. not sure when we will see him again, we are working out at least 1 night a week visitation.

whoosh, got way off track there...just a little update, but back to reflecting...so fun night of drinking and dancing and a chance to step out in heels and an evening gown...all to the tune of flattering compliments from so many people i know and love. great music, full moon, and all the time, the lovely Pema had my sweetie pie out on a date of her own, dancing and drumming until a pretty darn late 11 pm for a 3 year old! Pems spent the night and she and Sophia made me a mother's day breakfast in bed! then we all went to the church service, saw so many more people i know and love. wild that i'd never even heard of that church and its less than a half a mile from my house. after sophia and i went to the library and had lunch out, then back home for a long nap. tonight i made sophia dinner in bed because she liked this concept so much!

overall a lovely mothers day. i have a deep gratitude for the messages coming my way about divine love. i have been searching for a spiritual path for some time. the crazy thing is that now it seems to be searching for me. i am deeply grateful for my biggest teacher, my sweet and beautiful sophia. i am at every moment simultaneously proud of her, in awe of her, in awe of me, and scared out of my gourd! i want so much to give her a golden childhood, and also see the effects that single motherhood has on that dream. i want so much better for her than what i am often able to provide. i guess every mother feels that way. i just pray a little, breathe a lot and keep on trying harder.

and i wonder how often my mother did the exact same thing.

$2000 vs just a little piece of land

2006-04-26T14:45:00.000-07:00

i'm looking for a place to live in santa barbara, my homeland. y'all know that. so as it usually goes in this little big town, i got a word-of-mouth referral about a house for rent. 2 bedrooms, 1 bath. walking distance to preschool. small but nice. just a regular looking house with aluminum siding, with very little of the charm you can usually find around here. funky details inside, not quite cute details, just funky. no garage, but a big, water-tight storage shed as well as a detached art studio space with electricity. it could be just storage, but it has a nice big picture window overlooking the spacious back yard, window is framed by cactus and aloe plants...far too inspiring for simply storing boxes!

so the backyard is about as much square footage as the house: one third is a covered patio, in red Satillo tile; two thirds is grass bordered by raised garden beds, oak, palm & lemon trees, with the backdrop of a steep but very picturesque oak and nasturtium covered hillside. this backyard and the art studio, these are the things that make the house. the things that i want for my daughter and i. the things that make me start to consider paying rent of $2000 per month.

then i step back and think whoa nelly, what the hell? two grand a month? to rent someone else's house? with their ugly carpet choices and their unwillingness to part from stark white walls? where i come from, paying even half of that is considered a mortgage on a very nice house. add that to the fact that i've been struggling to pay $1000-1200 for the last 4 years. what then possesses me to start even thinking about $2000?

it's that yard that's seducing me. how sophia's room has french doors leading right out to it. how there is no other house behind it, just the wilderness coming down to meet its neighbors. plus some spaces for us. sophia to have her own room. me to have a studio again.

i shake the fairy dust out of my eyes, blink a few times and realize i need to keep looking. for $2000, i'm finding THE perfect place, not a bunch of weird details to "settle" on. for $2300, i could likely find a 3 bed/2 bath spot, something easier to rent a room out and share the rent. Or for $1200 maybe i can still find a one bedroom in this town and I get a nice futon couch and give Sophia the bedroom, like many single moms i know in this town.

next time you see me, remind me to not give up the dream for that little piece of land for me and my little piece of girl to set our roots down in and bloom.

it's out there, right?

hmm well hmmm

2006-04-12T14:46:00.000-07:00

Just haven't blogged in so long, I felt I needed to post an update. In no particular order.

So we did not get that house down in the previous post. Our dream home still eludes us here. But we found a fun landing place for 3 months, until mid-June, which gets us to a better rental time of year, when students are leaving, etc. In the meantime, we can take our time looking for the perfect home and for now, we are in a really nice 4 bedroom, 2 story house, with fireplaces (plural) and granite kitchen countertops, 2 car garage...all for pretty cheap because it's a temp rental and the landlord is a nice guy. Photos here are from Sophia's recent 3rd bday party at our house. You can see more photos here.

Riccardo is back in CA visiting us, in between going down to LA for work. He's been down there for a few weeks. For spring break, we went to SF with our friends, Jack, Diana and 3 year old Santiago. Visited the aquarium, saw sea lions on the pier, went to MOMA (great Calder exhibit!), the huge Apple store, Berkeley & the Children's Museum there, lots of bookstores & toystores & an art gallery & the Art Institute (got a tour from Michelle!), and rode street cars, the trolley & even a ferry across the bay! Saw our friends Michelle and Laureen (& all of team Hudson) up there. Fun, fun but ever so urban.

We're planning a trip to Sea World in San Diego for the last weekend of April. Sophia is currently obsessed with beluga whales, as well as her other favorites: orcas, dolphins, octopi, manta rays and anything you might have seen in Finding Nemo. She got a fish for her birthday, named it Dory of course, but don't tell Sophia it's only a betta!

All in all, in case I haven't said it yet, it's good to be home. Thanks to everyone who has checked in with us. We're doing well! And what's funny, I have a humungous house here, and I seem to find every bedroom full almost every night. We have one paying roommate, Aubri, and then there's me, Sophia, sometimes Riccardo, every once in a while an artist friend down on their luck or a visiting professor from Europe or all of the above at once! A friend noticed that I seem to have built a little village...and how it's funny that I went up to Portland seeking intentional community, and yet I probably had it all along here, I just couldn't afford a large enough house in Santa Barbara! But my personality type is one of open doors and hospitality, with a soft spot for the lost puppies of the world, so with any luck, I will be able to continue to manifest this kind of community and generosity, leading to always having a full table at dinner and finding all of my sheets in continual use!

homeless but home again

2006-02-25T21:05:00.000-08:00

well we have been back in santa barbara for almost a month. still looking for a home, but having a roof over our heads thanks to the gracious generosity of friends. the house hunt has taken way longer than I'd anticipated, but thankfully Jack, Diana and Santiago are in Argentina and needing a house/pet sitter so we're on our way to tend gardens, chickens, snakes, mice, turtles, fish and a dog.

crossing our fingers that this might turn out to be our new house, so if anyone is seeing this, send us your good vibes around 2 pm tomorrow when i will hopefully find out if it's ours or not. we're meeting the owners and seeing if they like us and my credit report.

other than an insane amount of time-consuming house and preschool hunting and also the ever present trying to work without childcare, being back has been great. seeing our friends and being in this glorious sunny weather has been tonic for the soul. interesting to see what has changed here and what has stayed the same. most of it is probably changes within my own perceptions really. above all, i still carry the gratitude in my heart for being back home and am riding the waves of this transition with a positive outlook.

the return has been good for sophia, she is really happy to be back, but it's also been a lot of transition for her. and i am learning to forgive myself for that too. parents can be really really hard on themselves for their choices and i am no exception. i look forward to the calm that will hopefully settle back around our lives soon.

until then, it's springtime here and everything is blooming.

lupin growing on the roadside >>

"Spring has returned. The earth is like a child that knows poems."- Rilke

RENTED!

2006-01-21T15:36:00.000-08:00

OK the house is rented, someone signed a lease, we're on our way back home!!! Off to get boxes and mattress covers...hurrah!!

And speaking of reading...

2006-01-19T19:48:00.000-08:00

OK got a crazy call tonight from my doctor, who apparently doesn't know how to read mammograms, and they want me to come back in soon for another round. There's a disparity between what the radiologist told me and what the dr sees there so I need to go back in. Lucky for us, I'm at the end of my menstrual cycle so the little bugger is bigger than ever, shouldn't be hard to spot. It actually feels lumpier than before, or bumpy, so that's odd and I haven't told them that yet.

I got a "mostly" good news report last week that it was likely just a clogged milk duct from Sophia's recent and rapid self-weaning. She just decided there was no more milk in there and told me so, then nursed a few more times over a few weeks and was done. So they said likely some milk is backed up in there and forming a little cyst, which should be monitored for 3 months and then drained by needle aspiration if necessary. Could even clear up with a few menstrual cycles, or could get worse, so we have to keep on top of it.

Tonight, the doctor called and told me they are unclear and want to retest. For those who have had the old boob-o-smoosh-o-rama fest, I've got smallish breasts (but boy I loved nursing, they were up 2 whole cup sizes for a good 3 years there!!) and the lump is high, above the fleshy part of the breast so difficult to capture it in the smooshy plastic chomper thing. If you haven't had one, just imagine trying to make a Xerox of your breast sideways, but the thing that is pressing down is like a machine driven vise grip...it smooshes your breast flat so they can take a picture, and you have to stand still, topless, and not breathe while this thing compacts you with pressure. Maybe not so pressure-y for larger breasted women, but I was leaning in with all my might just to get the lump area in. Of course there are other pains with larger breasts in the chomp vise, but I will just stop here!

Anyway, as I've said, I'll keep you posted. Funny tidbit, Sophia started puking when the doctor was telling me this...is that a sign? OK gross enough, and TMI for one post, eh?

Reading signs?

2006-01-19T19:05:00.000-08:00

OK OK how does one discern what is and is not a "sign"? Today, on one hand, I got a zillions signs about one thing that all seem crystal clear now (of course in retrospect) but then have had so many confusing signs on another thing that my head is spinning.

First thing, it looks like all signs were pointing all day that I was not going out tonight. Had a Mom's Night Out and a babysitter planned for a month. Then at 3 pm, the sitter called in sick. For an hour, I call the other 4 sitters I know, no one is free. At 4 pm Sophia said her tummy hurts. At 5 pm a friend calls and offers her babysitter. At 5:15, Sophia pukes all over me, she obviously has the stomach bug that had me down and out for 2 full days earlier in the week. So I wasn't supposed to find a sitter or go out, my baby needed me home. Clear as a bell, cool to see how the universe just spells things out if we're listening.

So what does this whole rent my house drama mean?? Signs...are they signs? I decide to move after what seems like the biggest sign (a marble in my right breast, that's braille you don't want to be reading). See sign, read sign, act on sign...check. Universe starts to unfold with job opportunities in new location, friends opening their doors to me, Uhaul being MEGA-cheaper one way to CA than out of it (welcome to the hotel cal-i-fornia...you can check in anytime you like....). All signs seem to be blazing ahead bck to Santa Barbara. OK so then what's all this garbage: 2 different renters fill out applications, even pay $40 per adult (that's been $120 so far) for app fees, then they bail out. So far, I have no one to rent my place. If I don't find someone, I'm holding the bag for the rent here, so I can't leave. I can't afford rent in two places, and have invested so much planning in this Feb 1st thing that I am counting on my deposit refund and don't really have enough to even make the full rent here in Feb. Blah...what does it all mean? Slow down? It's weird, I have had two distinct times now in a week thinking I've got a tenant, I'm about to announce my move date, then BAM, they back out. Then it happened again, today. Does any of it really mean anything?

It's a cute house, right? Come on someone, rent this baby!!

I was being such a true believer in signs earlier. Now I'm back to my bah humbug approach and "nothing means anything" attitude. I'm breathing. Taking big deep ones and trying to just allow the universe to part the waters, show me the way. I'm lumping stuff in boxes and proceeding mentally as if my plan is manifesting and I just have to get out of the way and let it happen. But I also feel a bit like a fool and wondering if Craigslist is just not enough, should I be paying out more money to advertise the house, etc? Putting up cute little signs with tear offs of my phone # in coffeeshops? (Gawd please tell me those days are over?!) I mean, come on, am I supposed to be putting up signs or just reading them as they are handed down to me from on high?

I guess sometimes, we all just need a healthy dose of feeling the fool to get our perspective on straight. Right?

where I've been, where I'm going

2006-01-11T10:41:00.000-08:00

Ah yes, it's been a looong time since I've posted and many have asked where I've been all this time? Well life just keeps swirling and dancing with me, taking me on many unexpected twists and leaps lately. I was gone for a few weeks visiting family, had a really crazy time getting thru airport security, past a few illnesses, and thru a few major financial hurdles, but we made it back here safe and sound. Broke, but healthy, right?

Hmm. Right? Hey universe, I didn't really hear your answer there, it was kinda muffled. What was that you said?

So a few days ago, I found a lump in my right breast. It's small, but definitely there on one side and not on the other. I have a mammogram scheduled for tomorrow. I keep hoping it is nothing, just something to do with recently stopping nursing. (Yes, Sophia stopped all on her own, about 3 weeks ago was the last time, sniff sniff! She was just ready and told me there was no more milk in there. Who knew it would be so easy?)

But whatever it is, this sort of lentil sized lump has brought everything in my life into an alarmingly crisp focus...it's time to go back home. Back to where the people who love you live. Back to where you know where to go for every conceivable medical office, know how long it takes you to drive from there to your preschool, where there are people close by who Sophia loves who could be with her if, heaven forbid, I have to stay in the hospital overnight or something like that down the line. Just simply I need to be in a place where I feel strong and on my home turf if I am about to be fighting something with all I've got. Home court advantage. Clear as the nose on my face.

So I gave notice on my house and at preschool. I'm trying to find a replacement renter here for Feb 1. So all you Californians take note...we're coming home! I can't tell you how relieved I am for the agonizing and decision making to be finally over. I am ever so grateful for all I've learned here and the phenomenal people I have met. It has been illuminating in so many ways. And hopefully I am coming back with a story to tell of this silly health scare that turned out to be nothing. I ask for your prayers and healing thoughts my way, especially tomorrow around 3pm Pacific time. I will keep you posted!

fortune cookie

2005-12-05T19:51:00.000-08:00

it's been a while since i have posted, got caught up in my crazy life. i was feeling pretty low, really at my lowest point as a mother ever. in a depressed, overwhelmed moment one night last week, i ordered chinese takeout. used to always be comfort food for me, but here i hadn't yet found a local favorite chinese place. had a few not so lovely tries, and hadn't thought of it in a while. so anyway, i really wanted chinese and thought i'd give the one nearest my house a try. it's named uninspiringly "norm's garden" and so far, i'd had a bias that anyone named norm could not make authentic, good chinese food. but i got totally blown away, it was GOOD! sophia and i gobbled it down, saying "um yum yum" the whole time between bites. it was great.

then i got to the homemade fortune cookies. and here's what i got:

incorrect gender reference aside, this is actually the fortune cookie i got. i did not photoshop that! well this smith can take a hint...that one little 2.25 x 0.5 inch piece of paper was all i needed to remember that it's me who creates my reality, i'm in charge here and this ship needed some serious turning around! things started looking up from that point on.

and thank god, norm makes a bitchin mu goo gai pan!

making felt people

2005-11-22T21:11:00.000-08:00

glueing teeny tiny eyes on teeny weeny felt people...that's sometimes what it's all about. ok so the man and the kid didn't get eyes yet, but you wouldn't believe how mutha f-ing difficult it is to glue felt together. that stuff just doesn't wanna be glued!

gypsies and vagabonds

2005-11-21T12:36:00.000-08:00

One response I got recently asked if moving again might be traumatic for Sophia. I wanted to think about this a bit. Now, I am taking this advice with a grain of salt, because this is a friend without kids, who does not know Sophia well at all, nor me really anymore (we used to be close before I became a mom). But I do wonder about it, and it is always hard to think of how my actions could negatively impact my child. So I'd love to hear if anyone else has thoughts on this.

My friend Lauren said "Sophia needs a happy mama, whether broke in SB or not." And I do have to say I tend to agree with this perspective much more than worrying about possible negatives. Moms worry all the time, and I think its one of the least healthy things we can do for our children. At her age, a move will only be traumatic for Sophia if it is for me. And I have seen her become much more relaxed and happy in the past few days since I have gotten more at peace about wherever we are. She went to school today joyfully, not crying and resisting, as she has for weeks. I have seen since infancy how much more affected she is by the internal climate between us than anything external in our lives.

I don't want to instill early gypsy roots in the girl, I know moving a lot as a kid was hard for me. She does have it in her genes with a nomadic father and a mother known for occasional bouts of needing to learn life's lessons the hands-on way. Not to mention fairy godmother Pema, also well known for her wanderlust, and our countless other friendships with kindred travelers and seekers along the path (you know who you are!). I also vaguely remember the two years I lived in North Carolina (when I was 8-9 years old) as being very unsettling and unhappy for me. I remember good stuff too, but I remember this inner sense of not belonging, going around our neighborhood trying to make new friends. My mom told me recently that she and my dad were both unhappy there and longed to go back closer to their family. So I think even in my really disconnected family, there is something to the fact that I really picked up on their emotions and when we moved back to a situation more stable and secure for them, I remember it as the best place we ever lived. Velly velly interesting....

first year of my life

2005-11-20T20:35:00.000-08:00

ahhhhh...aha....light bulb dangles in the breeze....

i used to say that my life might really begin at age 35. this was because i spent 17 years under my parent's control (read: strict Christian upbringing, along with healthy doses of self-hatred & denial) and then at the end of my 34th year, i would have spent 17 years on my own. so 35 would be like the very first year of my life with an even score. so now the libra's scales have started to tip in a new direction, and just look what has happened. i only turned 35 a few weeks ago!!

when cons turn to pro(se)

2005-11-20T19:22:00.000-08:00

last night i said to Pema that oddly enough, if i could pull out my old pros and cons list for reasons why i wanted to leave santa barbara, many of the former cons have turned into the exact opposite now: they're on the pros list for reasons to move back. crazy eh?

for instance, one of the cons for staying in SB was that I had friends who know me deeply, yet most of them do not have children. i thought i needed to change this, needed a different support system. so in Portland, 99% of my friends have children. but here, i have realized that in those truly stressful, bad mommy moments, when I run out of rope and need someone to be with Sophia while I walk out and scream, those child-less friends of mine were able to be there for me in a heartbeat. parents can't just leave home spontaneously, there's dinner to make or kids to put to bed. i think what i was really wanting was some mama/papa wisdom. but as i've learned since i got here, mama advice is only an email or call away. from the wise ones I've met here to my friends around the world, email has been my main connection to fellow moms all along. so why not go back to where the friends are, and keep the email mamas with me as well? (~photo is of Steven, my childless beloved friend a few hours after he'd helped bring Sophia into the world. i wanted to show the sunlight streaming thru the rosy windows of the cottage)

one more example: shortly after sophia turned 1, we moved to downtown SB. we lived on a very busy street corner. i used to say i wanted to live somewhere safe enough that Sophia could run outdoors and let the screen door bang behind her, that i wanted to be surrounded by easy access to nature and wild-ness. after hearing that there is a chance of the las canoas cottage being for rent again, and after my epiphany moment this week, i realized that the cottage has just the swinging screen door i was imagining all along. well, on the "move from santa barbara list" i was envisioning an old farm house in a field somewhere, that i owned. but i just realized that the cottage screen door opens onto a lawn toward the barn in one direction, and out onto the secret path to the citrus trees and the main house in the other direction. i realized i could teach her now how to navigate the driveway to even go up to the hay bale house to visit Pat & Nancy or play in the garden. and there is not much wilder or more nature-y a spot in SB than one's own private access to Rattlesnake trailhead & creek via a big grassy field full of huge rocks to climb and gopher holes to jump over. (~photo of aforementioned Pema with aforementioned 1 day old babe, near aforementioned open door)

these are just two examples of how this move has actually helped me manifest what I was looking for, as well as helped me to see what I was overlooking all along. what a blessed life i now possess. i am so grateful for this move and the gifts it has given me, above all, the vision to see my future, with both hindsight and foresight. i feel as if i'm on the upswing of the beginning of my life.

the other side of the mountain

2005-11-20T17:59:00.001-08:00

the bear went over the mountain...one of Sophia's favorite songs...well here's a photo of my mountain, the view from 1810 Las Canoas Rd in Santa Barbara, where Sophia was born. i've got mount hood on here, so i might as well get the "mountain from whence cometh my strength" in here too (ok that's from the bible, more recently from "The Sound of Music" final scene). these hills in santa barbara have such power over me, even still. more so when i used to see them, smell them every day. there's something visceral in my emotional & physical body that is connected to these mountains. my friend Carol has given me past life connections, for which she has done soul retrievals on me, to release me from the hold this land has on me, but maybe i can never truly be rid of santa barbara in my veins.

today, during a long day out in the cold sunshine, i felt a bit more drawn to Portland for all of it's big city attractions that we haven't even begun to fully explore. we went to the zoo today, near the children's museum and other cool kid places. we drove past the famous rose garden and Japanese garden, with dense and immensely tall forest all around us. it IS beautiful here, no doubt about it. and as a city, it offers a lot of really cool stuff for kids, parents, anyone. and tonight as i shiver under a sweater near the heating vent, warming my cold extremities and muscles tired from a day of play in the brisk air, i remember in my body what winter feels like. memories that must be from my childhood. it's a nostalgic feeling, kind of nice, a little haunting since there is so little i remember from my childhood. but all in all, winter is just not a feeling i am used to, nor do i really think i enjoy. to be perfectly honest, the idea of seasons is lovely in my head and i used to think it odd to not have them in SB, but here in the full fledged fall to winter transition, it's just not my cup of tea. i need sun on my body and drier air. maybe its my ayurvedic disposition, maybe it's my inner reptile, i dunno, but i do know that i feel more at home sunning naked on a rock than slipping on damp, muddy, fallen leaves while dashing to my car in the pouring rain.

Las Canoas Road...i have been dreaming of my home there for a few days, weeks...the sun-filled cottage where i spent my pregancy and early motherhood, the big rock on the hill overlooking Skofield Park, Rattlesnake Canyon, and the entire city below fading into the place where the sea touches the sky. home of kamaze hummingirds and red-tail hawks, Matilija poppies, sage, rosemary, lavender, ironwood, oak. home of bobcats and coyotes who ate all the chickens and some of the cats. coyotes whose song matched mine during childbirth and echoed together thru those canyon walls. where meyer lemons, mexican limes, oranges and mandarins drip from the trees year-round. the location of births and deaths and lives of so many people i have loved. the barn with the big word PEACE on the side, in whose upper loft, countless traveling artists and wayward wanderers have found a night's rest. where i can go to sleep in the springtime with the sound of this creek rushing nearby and wake on summer mornings to the smell of the ocean, see the light glinting off its ripples as I sip my morning java.

so yes, my longings are more in santa barbara. my be-longings are in portland. where does this leave me? well...still fine with letting the cards fall as they may, but knowing that my strongest desire is to be back home. that's what it's at for tonight.

meandering musings on "to move or not to move"

2005-11-19T17:22:00.000-08:00

1. realized last night that it's more than just not having friends here, but that there is no one here to give or receive love from/to. other than sophia of course. but not having anyone you love around...that's a weird place for me. they used to call me the honorary mayor of santa barbara because i knew nearly everyone in town. so here i am having nowhere to shell out all that love i have inside me, and likewise no one lighting up when they see me or sophia either. i mean i've got newish friends/acquaintances, but not people who love us deeply.

2. when i moved here, to ostensibly set up an intentionally communal living situation with the mullen family, right away we knew it wasn't working out, or it was going to take a lot more work than we'd envisioned to make the situation work for everyone. we had an awkward first week or so, then finally had a big talk about what wasn't working, which I thought was going to be the conversation that ended the living situation, but then, oddly enough, once we cleared the air and talked about it, everything felt a lot better and i actually considered for a while staying there (I ended up moving out a few weeks later for those who don't know the full story).

i'm sharing this because this same weird phenomenon is happening again. last night i made my decision, i had my epiphany moment and decided i was officially moving back. i couldn't sleep, at 3 am Sophia woke and for some reason was chatty so we talked about santa barbara and her friends, her old preschool, the cottage she was born in, the beach, and she really remembers it all so clearly and wants to go back. no prompting from me. then i toss and turn for a while, and 4:30 am get up to the computer to write or look for housing on craigslist in SB. my friend lauren in norway was online and we had a really long chat about my decision, it helped me gain so much clarity about moving, and there it was all out in the open and decided upon. right?

well today, it's like the mere conversation was the clearing i needed. somehow today, portland looks beautiful to me and i spent the day in 2 different neighborhoods with sophia, at a cafe, at a park, in an art supply store, taking a walk & playing in the fall leaves, just driving around a bit lost but still enjoying the beauty of the town and its distinct districts. i started thinking about how my sister wants to come out here and how maybe i should stay to give this place to her, to be her gateway drug into this new west coast reality. i started thinking my only problem is that i'm in one damn ugly neighborhood with no real cool factor nearby. if i just moved to one of these cute neighborhoods, how fun it would be for Sophia to have seasons, and how much more house for the buck we'd get here, more of a house than a studio or room in SB for the same rent. aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!! pulling hair out.....

3. what happened to my decisiveness? last night i was making moving truck plots...tonight i am just grateful to be a bit more at peace, happy with either city for now, and just waiting for the universe to unfold its will to me. maybe Patrick or Michael will email me and let me know that the cottage is available soon, and I'll go to SB. maybe Ursula will decide if she is coming here or not. maybe a really great rental in one of the really great neighborhoods will come my way, or i will find a homeschool collective or a office or job share here...or there. maybe i will fall in love. maybe i will even just have one date where i have some kind of chemistry in my veins that serves to warm me thru this winter, instead of the sunny shores of CA. or maybe i'll find warmth inside and outside, either via global warming AND falling in love in Portland or moving AND falling in love in SB. who really knows. but the hooray theme of today is that right now, i am feeling peaceful and happy to just wait. ride it out. see what fate has in store instead of kicking fate in the shins like i usually do, trying to jumpstart and get in the way of whatever is supposed to happen to me.

it's not my style to be so laid back about my life. i usually take it by the horns, command the ship, want to KNOW what the cards hold, yet forget all about the sheer magic in just the reading of them. interesting sensation, and perhaps what this journey has been all about from the beginning. the changing of the guard...releasing MY control and giving in to "love's confusing joy".

( "I never learned to distinguish between illusion and miracle. I didn't need to. I trusted in love's confusing joy." ~ James Broughton )

hugs

2005-11-18T22:37:00.000-08:00

OK this is truly not meant to be a "poor me" post, but I just realized tonight that I have only given/received 2 hugs in the last 2 months. And one was from someone I met thru an online dating service. Is that sad or what? I need to be around people I love enough to hug and who know me well enough to want to hug me when they see me. This is what life boils down to: who you love and how you love them. Forget sunshine versus rain, blue skies vs gray, small towns vs cities, new vs old...for me, the heart is the most important terrain to cultivate. The pros and cons list of where I should live pales in comparison to this overwhelmingly strong fact. I am not really sure why I wanted to complicate my already full life with the layers of moving to a new unfamiliar city with no true friends for miles around. It's something I never thought about. And the blessing of this move is that now I have. And if I return to Santa Barbara, it is with the benefit of having seen it from the grass on the other side.

babysitters and alone time

2005-11-16T22:11:00.000-08:00

hmmm....i am by no means good at either of those things. i really WANT to be, and i am starting to see how much i really NEED to be, but it's not been my strong point, as a single mom. but i am just starting to get how much the breaks away from being a mom so greatly improve the resiliency and patience that it takes to BE a mom. even if it is to go to a preschool parents meeting to talk about her all night...it is still a break! and i know i need to create more time where i do something just for me, that has nothing to do with motherhood at all. i think this is crucial to my sanity and sustaining the level of mothering that I do now. Sophia, if you are reading this someday, please do know that it's only been a handful of times that i've even been away from you for a few hours. but i truly do want you to see me taking care of myself, which ultimately takes care of US better. i don't think a martyr truly serves anyone but themselves, and in the long run the martyrdom is a disservice to everyone, even the martyr. i grew up with that kind of mom and know you deserve a different role model from me. i also know i deserve it too.

so now, the hard part...manifesting the kind of support system in my life that will allow me to take these breaks. i need to increase my flow of friends and babysitters that i can fully trust will take as good care of Sophia as I would. each in their own way, both similar and unique to my way, to give stability & consistency in the way things are done, yet giving her some variety in the types of adult personalities in her life. i have to find those people here, because i left behind people like that in santa barbara. not sure what the logic in that was, but i had reasons at the time! i just have to either remember those reasons and re-connect with them, or decide to move back to where that source of support lies.

ahhh...no small task, but that's the task at hand!

moved by portland

2005-11-15T18:48:00.000-08:00

No, that's not a typo. I know I just moved *to* Portland, but tonight, for the first time, I was moved *by* some of the natural beauty of Portland. Completely unexpectedly. Was driving across the Willamette River that divides this city into east & west, on my way to pick up Sophia from preschool. Usually not a fun commute. (more of my thoughts about being a work at home mom with a commute later...)

Tonight, the view at twilight took my breath away. To my left, a beautifully full and glowing moon, perfect and round and luminous. On my right rose the stunning snow-covered Mount Hood, a pure white jagged peak, rising up above the buzz of the trafficky urban maze. The sky was at least 3 colors, melding from periwinkle to lavender to pink and the first stars began to twinkle in that rosy upper layer.

I have to say, it's the first shot in the arm of natural beauty equivalent to the daily doses I got in Santa Barbara. Yes, the fall colors are amazing. Yes, the fir lined hills hold a more quiet grace than the palm-lined beaches. But mountains have always held some sway over me, and living in them, being cradled by them in Santa Barbara always left me speechless. The constancy of warm sunny days which bred flowers and plants like I'd never seen before always captivated me. And the smells...of the ocean, the dusty chapparel, the night-blooming jasmine or the intoxicating orange blossoms...indescribable. And not yet matched by Portland's natural fare.

Yet...I said "not yet", because I just don't know what Portland smells like yet.

Keeping my nose open and my eyes toward the sky...

2nd Birthday pic

2005-11-15T15:52:00.000-08:00

Heh, I don't have any recent photos...here's one from Sophia's 2nd birthday but that was in March!

a blog, how hip is that?!

2005-11-15T11:23:00.000-08:00

Alright, I succumb...I've finally given in to the urge to make a blog. Everyone needs an outlet right? I used to journal, now I have a child. But have been doing some thinking lately that I need to spend a little bit of reflective time everyday, to clear the mind, review my day, give gratitude for the ways in which I made life wonderful today (thanks Marshall! www.cnvc.org). So this is it. And perhaps will double as a gift, a legacy of memory to hand down to my daughter someday.

Oh yeah, so who is Hip Mama? Me, Laura, age 35 now, single mom to the lovely Hip Babe, Sophia, age 2.5. We live in Portland, OR, just moved here a few months ago from Santa Barbara, CA, my warm and sunny home for the past 12-13 years. But more on that later!

and...cut, publish, that's a wrap!!