Ahhh for the love of Saturdays...

This morning I awoke at 6:20am to unusually golden sunlight scattered across my pillows and the alive, fresh end-of-spring-almost-summer-minus-the-heat air blowing in on me from my window. This is quite possibly the very best way to wake up- a beautiful weekend stretched out ahead of you... Inspired, I got out of bed and went for a run, cut my hair, showered, went to the farmers market for my delectable fresh veggies and coffee and am now eating my Reids Orchard strawberries in my yoghurt and it is all of 8:30 in the morning!! I feel so wholesome, so accomplished, and STILL the weekend is stretched out in front of me! After last weekend-spent on a farm- I am ready to reconnect to my morningperson self. (That fresh air and six o'clock sunshine dancing on my eyelids certainly didn't hurt either)

LAST Saturday morning I awoke even earlier (5:00!), snuggled close to Rita for warmth in Katie's chilly, electricity-less cabin on Caretaker farm in Massachusetts. Up to the farm house for a quick cup of coffee before the work day- which starts promptly at 6:15. We spent the morning snipping the third stocks of squash seedlings out of their little seedling pots. (they plant 3 seeds, but once they come up, the weakest link must be cut out), squishing flobber worms (cucumber beetles, if the truth must be told) between our fingers, (well, so, back to being truthful, I pointed them out while Rita and Katie fearlessly squished them in between their fingers. I like to think I'm tough, but squishing bugs is NOT my idea of being tough. Its gross. I left the massacre to K&R). We painted the barn door, cleaned up an old pile of roofing materials, planted endless rows of little bitty lettuces. Sweet lettuces! And weeded... and helped with fence posts. And I don't know several other farming odds and ends. Shoveled mulch into a stall for chloe and her calf. 

We did break for breakfast around 8:30- a delicious fresh farm egg quiche thing with corn bread and more coffee. We sat around the big dining room table, the farmer family- two kids, three apprentices, an apprentice boyfriend in for the weekend and Rita and I--loving every minute of this quintessential farm life that we were getting a bitty taste of. And then it was back out for our long list of to-do's... (listed above). Brilliant though it was- and we were only a part of it all for a half days work... the life of farmers is intense- and not to be idealized or taken for granted... I have tremendous respect and appreciation (even more so now!) for these farmers and their families who live close to the land, loving it and coaxing from it wholesome goodness that feeds us.

Now- back to my revelation. Its AMAZING how much time there is in the day when you are up at the butt-crack-o-dawn... and how much can be accomplished! I am a morning person by nature, but fear I have become a bit lazy with my mornings, due largely to my cushy work schedule that starts at (oh, I shudder to admit publicly) 10:00am. Don't get me wrong, I have no interest whatsoever in starting my work day ANY earlier than I have to, but just think what could be accomplished in the hours between 6-10am! So I am inspired. Get my running in and over with bright and early... and the afternoon will be all mine! 

So a fabulous memorial day weekend of farming with Katie. Rita and I drove up Friday and back Monday. It was an immeasurably special time... roadtripping it up to western Mass with Rita, and farming with Katie while we were there. There may be a great many things in this life that leave me wanting... but not in the arena of friends. I have the dearest and deepest of friends, and for this I am so so grateful. 

We farmed... we hiked... we drove through some fun towns and the beautiful green mountains of Massachusetts... We talked, we had sunday breakfast over the campfire. We collected wild... shoot, can never remember the name... not scapes. Rita? Oh yes, RAMPS... onion things... which we then cooked up into delicious sour chickpeas... We had dinner at the People's Pint, bought fresh maple syrup along the side of the road...  Read short stories and poetry outloud, sang to josh ritter... ate homemade ice-cream like only they have in Massachusetts, and inspected the glacial potholes, among many, many things... Ah to be with good people. 

So some fun photos of the weekend... If you are interested in the full, unabridged 200+ photos, check out my album on line. But here are just some of the highlights:

And happy, HAPPY BIRTHDAY Katiedid!!! Much love...

The wisdom of the trees, part II

Oh, I have been absent a long while. Which is, I guess, partly due to the fact that a lot of big changes are brewing... And partly also, because life feels pretty much the same as always. But really, honestly, it is MOSTLY due to the fact that I have been escaping into the wizarding world of Harry Potter and have been more than happy to ignore all else for the duration. A month of magical adventures and adolescent angst as I read the whole series backtoback... hooowee-FUN STUFF! Sadly it came to an end last week- so while I'm in the thick of some serious withdrawl... I will try to get on the blogging bandwagon once again. Oh Harry Potter was good though. If you were like me and avoided reading them for whatever lame-o reason, get over it and go read them I say. SO good.

So... life... real life, where there is no apparating or invisibility cloaks or polyjuice potion, is hurtling towards me at a break-necking pace. I have pulled and yanked my second foot out of the good baltimore soil... I am leaving. My last day of work will be June 25th. And the beginnings of July will find me and Junebug heading west to Chicago... and from there, well, who knows. Many possibilities exist... Will I stay there for a while? Will I carry on a west-ward path to Montana for a few months? Will I head south to Florida? Or across the oceans altogether? And why you ask? Why right now, with a flailing economy, would I choose to give up a job (I love) and a steady income for the great unknown? Simply: it is time.

If you have followed this blog at all, you know how much I love this great city. Baltimore has grown me up I think- I have discovered what I love doing here, and have had the greatgood opportunity to learn it and do it. I have found many good people and beautiful places along the way. But, ultimately, it is not where I want to BE. And rather than simply stay here indefinitely just because, or wait for opportunities to magically appear in my lap (oh where ARE you dumbledore??), I'm going to go figure it out and make whatever happens next, happen.... write some proposals, look for opportunities back in Kenya or elsewhere, see what I can see. 

I am excited. I am ready for adventures and new (old?) ways of life. And I am ready to go find them and live life as fully as I can where ever it lands me. 

But also I'm ridiculously sad; the uprooting process is wretched. I have six more weeks to soak in all the goodness and quirkyness of this place and the people I have here: of the farmers market, of this house that is my home, of Clayworks, of being a short hour away from some of my dearest of friends... So the plan is to enjoy it, really enjoy it-- and live life as fully as I can right here, right now. 

Druid Hill Park and the fountain that sometimes goes.

Oh Montana...

... oh the beautiful big skies of montana! I flew out to spend a few days with my brother and sister; all of us in the thick of our own life transitions and unknowns. It can be wretchedly overwhelming and lonely, but it was nothing less than goodness to escape with them into the wilds of Montana and Idaho for a day and just BE. Together. 

There were many other good things during this five-day hiatus:

• Nathaniel's 27th birthday- pizza and chocolate cake!
  
• Kara's 31st/32nd birthday (which is it, must remember to ask Kim)- oatmeal breakfast with berries
• Tea/dinner at our cousins the Iudacellos and their sweetcrazy boys
• A night in the beautiful bitteroot mountains with Allison and Co.
• Goldbug hotsprings in Idaho... oooooohhhh.... 
• Walks through the hills of Missoula
• Meadowlarks...
• The Peas Farm
• Roxy the dying dog
• Harry Potter

And just a few of the better photos of this grand time:

Happy Birthday Kara and Than!

Thank you for such goodness, and beauty and for yourselves...

you are both brilliant, shining, solid pieces of my life 

and I am    so     glad. 

The week in photos...

This has been quite a week...
lots of intense weather and big colorful skies

A visit from my Egyptian host sister, Heidi and mother, Tant Miriam... we got some of the sights and sounds of Baltimore in... Fells Point, Ft. McHenry, Federal Hill, Okenshaw, Clayworks etc.
And got a taste of Egypt too- making and eating Macaroona b'shemelle (macaroni with a white sauce and meat), ruzz b'leben (Egyptian style Rice pudding), and drinking large quantities of shai (tea). 


What good fun. Now to rest up, pick up the pieces and get ready for a trip to Missoula on Thursday! WHOOT!! When it rains it pours. 

The good old fashioned way...

Oh for the luxury of modern technological advances in home care and cleanliness... what are those handy dandy little dust-bunny-sucking gizmos again...? Dustbusters? Ahhh... can you imagine the ease and speed of cleaning with such a thing?? 

But, sadly, without one of the glorious little machines, nothings left at the end of the day, but to haul the rugs out for a good beating! 

*part of ongoing communal blogging with friends. See previous posts.

If Today Be Sweet...

"Ah, fill the Cup:--what boots it to repeat

How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:

Unborn TOMORROW, and dead YESTERDAY,

Why fret about them if TODAY be sweet!"

-Omar Khayyam

from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

the wisdom of the trees

I went for a long walk today in the fresh spring air and warm in-and-out sunshine. I wish I felt as exuberant this spring as I feel I ought to feel... as I want to feel. Instead I feel unsettled and restless... I sat with an old ent for a while in the tulip garden, hoping to absorb some groundedness. I wondered just how old the dear fellow was. How many years had he been there- how many years of weathering and growth had carved such deep lines in his bark? I must have seemed like a pipsqueak to him. Well, its kind of nice to be thought of as a pipsqueak, because sometimes I feel I'm getting old and I fear life is passing me by. And I am afraid of my inaction. And also my action. And somewhere between inaction and action is paralysis. And stagnation. And I   do    not     want    that...   So.    I will  p u l l  one foot up out of the soil of Baltimore... shake it off, wiggle my toes around- feeling the air between them, and... step... gingerly... forward... 

Outside of the Box...

Ok, so I don't USUALLY find far sides all that funny... but... well... in my intermediate wheel class earlier tonight Jim (the instructor), was demonstrating wadding- which is basically creating temporary little feet for your pots that so that they won't stick the shelves when fired in the wood kiln. So he's standing at the glazing table in front of the class, rolling out a coil to wad his lidded jar with- and kind of like how musicians will talk in between songs during a show- was saying how rolling out coils always reminds him of this far side. Well... struck my funny bone like... well, something serious. Haven't belly laughed like THAT in a while... I came home and looked it up: I think it is so flipping funny...! It will probably keep me chuckling to myself for a good while. Anyone else in need of a good chuckle? And hip hip hooray- tomorrow is FRIDAY! And the first official day of spring! I think I just want to weep for the pure joy of it... WE MADE IT! 

(I'm supposed to be blogging on "Outside of the Box" but, well... maybe this will just have to do... Mr. Larson is a fairly outside-of-the-box-kind-of-guy, hey?)

Challenge

Life seems to be full of a great many challenges right now; everything from silly to looming. I think this is just a case of life really… but I do feel like there is a lot on people’s minds right now. I was reading an article in the latest issue of Orion magazine by Sandra Steingraber on finances, a thing I loathe, in hopes that I would glean some wisdom from it. The article wasn’t uninteresting. Wasn’t exactly the revolutionary brilliance I’d hoped for, but she had some thoughts. So: finances, challenges... one in the same for the purposes of this post I guess.

She states: “Our stories about money, when told without nostalgia or judgment, provide perspective…” To paraphrase my take on the article: we don’t often talk about things—like the state of our finances or other challenges— because they are somehow taboo, and when we don’t talk about them with the people in our spheres, it becomes hard for us to judge reality- because we lack the perspective of real people and their real life expieriences. We become susceptible to what we read or what we are told by the news, or whomever… we become fearful and isolated thinking that we are alone in our world of troubles, when in reality; we are all pretty much in the same boat. Or maybe we are on different boats, but we’re in the same ocean. Perspective is a good and healthy thing. Perspective that comes from sharing our lives and our realitites with each other… So, all that being said, I will, if you permit, share some of my daily challenges with you. Perhaps you can relate?

Silly challenges:

- Keeping the cat from walking across my keyboard (this computer has got to last!)
- Sorting out what is wrong- and more importantly how to fix it- with my one ailing African Violet
- Washing my face every night and flossing.
- Peeing in public… and by this I mean in public restrooms, not out in the open… especially quiet ones. Or ones with long lines.
- Finding a bucket the exact size I need for the ponytail palm…

Moderate challenges

- Getting back into running (jogging- whatever) after a long winters blobification
- My ever-aging car, which, by the way, I can get HISTORIC liscence plates for this year: Dalati is turning 20 and going strong (more ore less) at 176,000+ miles…! The mechanic man says with he thinks I can get to 300,000… now that is a challenge I’ll take on…
- A new housemate- and double whammy- a dude. And while he is a pleasant and neat (keeps the seat down- at the very least!) fellow, there is all the awkwardness and adjustment that comes with sharing your very personal living space with a whole other person you barely know. (I can’t decide, this one rocks back and forth between moderate and looming...)

Looming Challenges

- Yes, finances- and the awful reality that $$ is somehow necessary in this world to do a good many things. Maybe not everything… but certain things… certain things I’d sort of like to do. Or at least plan to do in the future.
- Ah yes, and the FUTURE… Sorting out the how, and when, and what and where to be doing ones life…
- Finding an interesting, single, male individual to travel through life with… in his 30’s (give or take) with some edge- a couple of tattoos- who is kind and considerate and wants to live life with abandon and see the world, and has facial hair… but not (too much) body hair… Seriously though, why is THIS one so hard? Is that REALLY such a tall order?? Well, apparently. And actually, I might be somewhat in the minority on this one, because it seems that the reason there ARE no single, interesting males out there is that they’ve all been snatched up! Ah, well, I guess. Lower my standards or shut up and sing. Next?
- Self acceptance
- Actually that about sums it up for now. All challenges can sort of be traced back here. Is that pathetic? No, right… that is the point of all of this….

Fun Challenges, because its not all gloom, right?

- Throwing…

- Becoming a rockstar! Well, practicing my guitar, so that one day I may become a rockstar!

(PS- sometimes I don't love the way this site works... so the formatting- which looks fine in the preview- won'twork for the actual post. So it looks a little goofy. SUPER ANNOYING!)

Moonbows

Ok, this is not the previously mentioned fun-game-post-that-is-to-come (that is for Thursday) however, since we're on the subject of moonbows... it just so happens that there is a moonbow out there right now, I thought to try and take a picture to post. Even harder than capturing moons with little plum point and shoot cameras, is capturing moons that have moonbows around them with little plum point and shoot cameras. So best out of twenty, this is what you get: some etherial, cosmic blob burning through the darkness. Perhaps this is what it looks like to die and "see the light"? Well, but anyhow, you can tell its not just a moon, right? Its not the biggest moonbow I've ever seen, but its there. (The biggest one I ever saw was in 9th grade- on a CFS trip to Nyeri in the central province of Kenya. That one was so amazing it is still firmly imprinted in my memory. Remember Kara? You saw it too, and you were way up in Northern Kenya that night...) 

Comming soon!

I’m terribly bored with my blog… and I’m realizing its because after several years of blogging, I’m starting to repeat the same themes- how much I hate winter... How much I love spring... Trips to Harpers Ferry.... Blah blah blah. And right now all my photos are winter photos- monochromatic and cold. And make me shudder. (AND make me worried that my LIFE must be uninteresting and monochromatic as well right now!) So a couple of friends, well, Katie, Jeanie and I decided to try to spice it up a little. Once a month, one of us will pick a title, for example “Rainbows, moonbows and snowbows,” then on a specific day we will all post on that theme… Fun, ay? (We’ll see… last time I tried to start a fun blogging game, no one played along… I’m not bitter. :) Katie and Jeanies blogs can be found in my links section, for those of you interested in this very fun thing. 

For now, I’ll just post a photo I took a couple of weeks ago- a magnificent moon rising. I tried for a good while to get a decent photo, but this was the best I managed. Its extremely hard taking photos of moons with little plum point and shoot cameras.
(If rainbows, moonbows and snowbows HAD made the first cut... well, who knows what could have been...)

Winters last hurrah...

Whoot! 

I never believe the predictions of snow here in Baltimore- more often than not you just end up massively disappointed. HOWEVER, once in while... they get it right. Today, they were right... we got a noreaster through here overnight (which for baltimore is only about 4 inches) but as previously established, it only takes about an inch to shut down the city. 

So- silly me- I drove my sorry self in to work... not knowing if it had been cancelled or not (we apparently don't have a good system for sharing this sort of information at my work place) only to find, that in fact no one was there, nor were they going to be. SO I made it in safely, and sure, could have gotten all sorts of work done in the quiet office- but no... I turned around and drove my sorry (but gleeful) self back home. Hows that for a work ethic for you?? :) (I do feel a little twinge of guilt...) Ah well. I think surprise snow days are a brilliant thing...(perhaps even moreso if you were to find out before you got up and drove in to work... but whatever...) everyone needs 'em once in a while. And hopefully this is one last hurrah before we are on to spring!! I have to tell you, I'd still take sunshine and green grass any day over snow.

Happy snow day to you!