Everything real, with gratitude

Sophie's humming again. To distraction. This is good because it means that she's alert, not seizing, trying to figure things out, to communicate. Verbs like muscles. Verbs are muscles. You like me honest so I'll say that the humming can either be a hammer or a song. We're either our thoughts or we're not, and the living is in the vagary.

The Bird Photographer took that photo, and because it's not particularly sharp is why I love it and he probably doesn't. He brought me a bunch of roses this weekend that were honestly astounding.

Mondays and Mindfulness and Conflict

Happy Monday. I generally wake on Mondays glad. No Monday, Monday can't trust that day. This morning, Henry and I woke an hour later because school started an hour later. The sun came through the dining room windows and lit on my yellow coffee cup so beautifully that I had to take a picture, felt grateful -- not in the way that is all the rage, that we're supposed to be -- but simply. Thank you, I thought, for this yellow cup, for that sun, for this day.

This weekend I went to a lovely party for a dear friend's birthday. A group of women sat outside by her pool, drank wine and laughed and talked and ate delicious food. At one point in our dinner, a few of us got into what wasn't so much a fight but rather a conflict about what's happening in the world, specifically in the Middle East -- in Israel, in particular. Yikes, right? Who in their right mind gets involved in such conflicts over dinner? Good friends can -- and do -- but it's still difficult. Voices were raised. Emotions were high and visible. My heart beat fast, especially when I was told, You're wrong! I won't go into the particulars, because that isn't my point on this sunny yellow coffee cup radiant Monday morning. We all paddled around the pool, even after the dinner and the disagreements and the emotion. All is well.

This morning, though, I began to listen to this video linked by Tricycle Magazine and was so struck by it -- by the synchronicity of getting the link in my inbox so soon after the uncomfortable conflict:

A Zen Approach to Conflict

If you have twenty minutes and are interested, I encourage you to listen to the video. The teacher, Diane Musho Hamilton, describes "three typical responses to disagreement, which correspond with Buddhism's three poisons: greed, aversion, and delusion. By learning to identify our patterns of slinking away from or escalating disputes, we take the first step toward transforming tense relationships into vibrant connections." If you practice mindfulness, it will be especially illuminating. This first "lesson" outlined not only the different and general ways we deal with conflict but suggests we begin to be mindful of how we respond when conflict happens. It's the first of a series, and I think I'm going to benefit a lot from listening to all of them. I was thinking it could help me move forward with nearly everything that I engage in -- not just my relationships with friends and family, but what happens when I interact with the systems of care for Sophie, and the ongoing fears I have as I vaccinate my sons, which currently rank up there as the most closely aligned body/mind issues I have experienced. I'm interested to hear what ya'll think.

Divine Comedy

Dante in Doubt by Salvador Dali

illustration from Dante's Divine Comedy 

What else is there to do on a Monday morning but begin again? I sit on Sophie's bed and listen to her breathe. I hear the men working across the street, ripping down a house only to build it back up. Our new toilet is like a throne, higher than the one before. You're all shrinking, Henry commented to me and to my friend. Why are we so insistent on being tall? I hear a rustle in the palms in my backyard and watch two hummingbirds quarrel. I remember to breathe in to calm myself and to breathe out and smile. I doubt the existence of anything but that.

Monday Morning

Stay tuned.

There's that moment in the early fall when the morning light falls just so through the dining room windows, and this morning as I stood in the kitchen I remembered it from last year and the year before that. So, here we are.

Monday Proverb

Make not your sail too big for your ballast.

English Proverb

New Week, Old Profession

So, I went through my downloaded files on my computer last night and found the above photo, doctored by a dear friend and sent to me a while back. While I normally associate more with the nerdy Marcy and less the bitchy Lucy, her persona is going to work for me this week as I ratchet up the cake business again and look assertively for a job. I have an appointment to go to a pharmacy to procure some medical marijuana this week, too, so I'll be on the other side of the consult table as well. Things are slowing down here, in Los Angeles, and temperatures are heating up. We're in the last weeks before school is out for the summer, and nerves are frayed. Last night, I received one of those goofy angel/God chain emails and actually passed it along to ten of my friends. I'm waiting for the fifth friend to pass it back to me so that someone I love will quietly surprise me. Last night, God is going to fix two BIG things in your favor, so who knows what the day will bring?

Sunday, Sunday

should be sung as a dirge, I think. I hated Sundays as a kid, the blue of it, the going to church (boring), the driving around afterward (boring) in  the family station wagon, looking at houses, stopping to buy lumber at the hardware store, the whole day stretched out not a speck of joy. In fact, when I really think about it, the only time Sundays were bearable was when I had a job as a pastry chef and worked them, just another day. Even Henry, my most joyful of children hates Sunday. And Oliver has recently figured out that he hates them and wonders why they're so horrible. Why? he asked today, Why do they go on and on but then it's already over?

I bet you were wondering where my post was today. Here you have it -- a dirge of a post. But at least tomorrow's Monday.

Monday grumps

It's Monday, my favorite day of the week, usually, but perhaps the great moon event (that I missed) has subtly altered the tilt of the universe out of my favor and instead of standing in the tide with cool water lapping over my feet, I'm buried in the sand popping out tiny bubbles of breath. Snap, snap, this morning to each in turn and when I dropped Sophie off at school, I waited behind a car in the driveway as a boy literally dressed for school, pulling his jeans up and positioning them right under his ass, cinching his belt and ignoring my plea to please move and when I honked the horn, lightly, he sidled off and the driver, was it a friend, was it his mother -- purposely inched along and left me to fantasize about gunning the engine and then perhaps sailing up and over that piece of shit and into the sky, west.

When I googled image of old Italian peasant woman to express my mood, I got Sophia Loren which lends credence to that altered tilt in the universe.

Blueberries stain the floor on Mondays, but it's a new world

William Blake

So far, it's about 11:20 in the am and the refrigerator/freezer has already broken and been fixed by a very nice man; I've mopped the floor where the bag of blueberries fell out as I was emptying the freezer and stained it, two loads of laundry are in and out, Nina Simone is singing her song (thank you twisted knickers), and I've filled out some camp forms for Oliver. Summer is coming, I think, which is a good thing because I'm really tired of pumping these boys of mine up each morning to do their best. Nina Simone says it's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me, and I'm feeling good. I'm not sure I feel as good as Nina Simone because I need to do a whole lot of stuff, still, but dragonfly out in the sun you know what I know, but this old world is a new world --

Snow Day

Amden, Switzerland, 2007

I'm surprising the boys this morning and not waking them up for school. It's raining here in Los Angeles and since we never have snow days, I'm calling one. We need a mental health day -- I think chocolate chip cookie-making is in order, perhaps a viewing of True Grit, and pajamas all day.

And maybe we'll listen to this: