The Oregon Coast...

Did I mention it was beautiful?

rainy... haily... cold... windy... but hauntingly, mournfully beautiful.

Adventuring...

These last months have been full up of time spent with good people in their beautiful spaces.

Through the early months of the year I was here at home with mom and dad and junebug, trying to gracefully weather winter... doing lots of experimental cooking, walking in the arboretum when temperatures allowed... bemoaning the days when they didn't... drinking tea, lots and lots of tea.

I took the train west to Macomb and had a fun weekend with Jesse, Olivia and Benjamin... though very uncharacteristically, I managed not to take me camera out the whole time... rats.

A symposium on campus mid-February brought many good people to us-- Uncle jonathan and aunt Eileen... more Barnetts than could be counted on ones hands... Samm, Mwenda and co... One evening we went down to the Rasdashan for the best Ethiopian in town. (Notice: the gleaming plate, which just minutes before was full of yummy Ethiopian deliciousness...)

Between here there and everywhere I spent a what felt like many hours in ORD, KCI, DEN, SEA, MSO, GEG (Name that airport...!) (One day I will make an extensive list of every airport ever flown through in my life time. That will be impressive.)
I spent a week in Kansas in early March for Zephyrs 1st birthday. It was a grand weekend with lots more good people... complete with cupcakes, dogs, MORE tea, dopple alts at the Freestate, and an out-of-the-blue snow storm that dropped 8 inches of snow in one day. The following day it was back up in the 60s and the snow all melted away. Pretty impressive.

Look at these darling Afghan ladies mapping out the fruit trees! Or wait, never mind, just some crazy Barnett sisters under cover...)
Mom, Martha, Eileen, Skyler and Annie looking on...
Zephyr- the birthday boy in his watotoes and Osh Kosh B'goshes! Yeah stylin' kiddo... and his wonderful mom and dad...
Oh yes, and a special day spent with Raha while Lucia made her way, fist-first into the world... You can do it la Luce! And RITA... :)
Annie and the Skyman...
Then it was on to Missoula for three weeks with Kara...
... and Allison (and more snow)
... and Britta and Beth
... and cousins Lindsay and Corin and Seth and Tim... again, how did I not get a photo?

One weekend Kara and I decided to make a rainy, haily pilgrimage to the Oregon coast. Ah its quite a tale where just about everything that could have gone wrong did... from rain and hail, to flat tires, to more hail on our heads while we fixed flat tires... to 'camping' that never was due to wind, rain and hail... to funky little hotel/motel deals and sketchy motel men... and long drives with no rest stops... ahhh... all in 24 hours... someday I'll regale you in full color... someday. But Oregon was stunningly beautiful, even in the rain. And hail. And Portland seems a city well worth further exploration, once I get some m'self some skinny jeans, black flats, funky glasses and super straight swooped-to-the-side hair do... (On the hip scale, I think Portland might be off the charts. Or it thinks itself off the charts at any rate.)

(Below we are huddled in the car- reading out loud to one another as we waited for the elements to back off long enough to set up camp. As previously noted, this never happened.)

A forest nymph in the misty Oregon mountains...

Now I am back in this warmer booming, blooming land of Illinois... tomorrow I/we head down to Indiana and then up to Wisconsin for a bit of a robinson-rendezvousing... And next week I head east and then south... for MORE galavanting with MORE good good people! YEEE-HAW!

These months- while topsy turvy in so many ways... have been full up with all these fantastic people and these breathtakingly beautiful places... and I just feel remarkably lucky right now.

Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the ploughshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring.

Henri Frederic Amiel

In 24 short hours....

Yesterday:

I was walking in the Rattlesnake with Allison, getting soggier and colder as it snowed and snowed and snowed. Gorgeous, yes, but SNOW... in APRIL...?? Ah Montana. (yes, it has been known to snow in there in June I'm told...)
Today:

I was greeted with warm, balmy breezes and sunshine in Illinois... here I am barefoot, barearmed, examining the state of the flowers with my grandma. And drinking tea on the porch swing with my parents. BASKING in sweet, glorious warmth...

Not sure I know how to mentally or physically cope with the two realities in such a short space of time... I may be a bit off kilter for the next week or so. So don't mind me.

when words don't cut it...

... there are hills, and there is sunlight, and there are magnificent volatile big skies...

Sproutlets...

...shining through!

When I Am Among the Trees

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness,

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, "Stay awhile."

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,

"and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine."

~ Mary Oliver ~

shades of white

These photos may look just as grey as yesterdays photos, but they feel a whole lot better. Its a whole new world out there. Not exactly the green sunny hot one I really want... but a new one nonetheless, covered in a thick layer of wet sticky snow, the dementor-like oppressiveness of yesterday has abated for the time being. I wouldn't call this a snowpocalypse or anything, just a little 4" snolypse. (Since we're in the business of coming up with new names for snowstorms these days.) I got up early and went on a beautiful walk out to the marshes. Fun.

graygreyandgreydays...

Looking up:

Looking down:

ready for spring...

Winter has just about done me in... it is limiting my growth and imagination and stalling my progression through life. Yes I am blaming this ALL on winter right now. I can't handle it any more. I hate winter. I hate hate hate winter. I hate being cold! I hate the gloom. The leafless trees. I'm generally a glass half full kind of person; I pretty much feel that there is good to be found in all things... But this... THIS...! WINTER!!!!! I am done... DONE. I hate the way it makes me feel. I am always cold. And the only way to get warm is to have ten different layers on, which makes me feel like a balloon. Restricted. Constricted. My skin feels dry. And has become a ghastly white. My hair is static-y. And flat. And fast loosing its sunshine. I feel squishy. And I am tired having to bundle up. Of wearing socks. Of not being able to just get up and GO somewhere without a ten minute-put-on-your-sweater-coat-long-underwear-socks-boots-gloves-hats and whatever else you might need to protect yourself from the elements. And it STILL hurts. (going for a walk that is, when the temperature is somewhere far below freezing...) And yes, I know, I KNOW... there are surely solutions to all these problems, things I could do... but DON'T say anything, because I don't want to hear it...! I know. I just want to be two today and stomp around and yell and be mad... BECAUSE I JUST WANT IT TO BE SPRING. I neeeeeeeeeeeeed it to be spring.

I want to throw open the windows and feel that thawing fresh breath of air... I want the ground to wake up and let out all its hibernating greenery. I want to run around barefoot and bare armed. And dig in the dirt. Dude, I'll even take the mosquitoes... I want to run. And sweat. And absorb all the warmth and heat the sun can produce. I want to feel ALIVE...

Ok, but so I'm TRYING. With arms crossed, a bit of a scowl and a deep sigh of resignation... here are a few photos of some things that make life a little more tolerable in the thick of this wretched neverending winterness...

freezing fog...?

So who knew, but apparently there is such a thing as 'freezing fog.' It was quite magical this morning, and altogether different than any other winter precipitation I've experienced thus far in life... Little itty bitty teeny tiny whitenesses covering branches and limbs, but not really like snow. Like frozen fog, I guess.

thats a wrap folks...

Thats right, 2010 is fresh out of the gate... time to wrap up my trip posting and get on with things.

* * *

I did not leave on our scheduled departure date with Kara... I extended my ticket for four weeks and the chance to see what might transpire from a little more time on the ground. It was good for me to just be after the go-go-going of our travels. Initially I had been totally overwhelmed by Nairobi, but after re-figuring out the matatus (the slightly maniacal minivans that speed through traffic sludge as though being chased by a pack of rabid hyenas, aka: public transportation) and settling into a somewhat routine, it was good. Really good. It felt normal- and to a degree, like home again. Than and I did fun things around the city, met up with friends and managed to get out of town for at least two of the weekends.

I spent two weeks working/volunteering/participating at Amani ya Juu- the same organization I had worked/volunteered at six years ago. It has more than doubled in size and capacity since my previous time there, and I was really interested to understand the nuts and bolts of such growth and the full spectrum of what they do. The director- and the women- graciously afforded me the opportunity to spend time with each department (production, distribution, warehouse, the shop, the cafe, clothing etc.), learning how it fits into the bigger picture and the general flow of activity. The mosaic-energy at Amani is beautiful; each woman doing her part to contribute to the whole, each piece beautiful in its own right-- but spectacular all together. It is a special community, to be sure. I so enjoyed reconnections and new connections and getting caught up in it all again, if only for a short time.

The 'Tye and Dye' area in the foreground, the production building in the background...

Lucy mixing the dyes.

Pettie and Nellie dipping the fabrics...

Pettie, me and Nellie all cleaned up after a day of dyeing ...
Josephine, from DRC, working in clothing...
Working with Doro in the Cafe... oh, such a fun day!

Visiting two of the women, Abigael and her kids and Zipporah at their homes one Saturday.

* * *

The weekend before I left Than and I took a trip to Lake Baringo, a place we often went growing up. Oh, what a weekend it was! How good to be there with my brother. How healing to be in that beautiful place, so rich with memories from childhood... Baringo assailed my sesenses as we descended the escarpment; the air... the hot baringo air, the bright smell of acacia seedpods on the edge of it... the birds- a conglomeration of chatter specific to baringo... The lake. The trees. The colors and shapes and juxtapositions of plant, earth, rock and water... It was that really delicious way of remembering-- not exactly having forgotten, but finding your whole self in it, after a long time away... to remember, to re-know, all senses buzzing, such a place.

The big old beautiful acacia groves near the Africa Exchange project:
One of the many luggas on the road to Baringo

Tea, digestive biscuits and birdwatching with Than
Swimming and ordering Baringo Specials, fruit-filled drinks made with sprite and grenadine.

The lake in the warm, settling afternoon sunlight

* * *

And before I left, I managed to finish up a mosaic project I'd been working on for Mel, a pot that sits in her garden with a birdbath on top.

* * *

Funny little story, my departure from Kenya and the full circle that it somehow brought to my trip. On the flight to Amsterdam, I sat next to two Rwandan sisters, Clementine and Isabelle, one just older than me the other just younger. They were returning to the US after traveling in Malawi for a couple of weeks together, flying Nairobi-Amsterdam to Chicago and onwards. Oh the places and people along the way, with whom we find a most pleasant and familiar connection... Our flight out of Nairobi had been significantly delayed, so we missed our connecting flight to Chicago, but KLM put us up in a fun hotel for the night, gave us food vouchers and fun little 'overnight kits.' There was nothing to do but to enjoy it. So we did... and how thankful I was for fun, kindred spirits to enjoy it with. Sisters. Traveling through life together.