I have the house to myself this weekend, for the first time in months.
And though I love the company of my husband, there is something luxurious about waking up, making tea and eggs, firing up the heat and opening up the blinds, in complete silence. I will read on the couch in the slant of sunlight. I might brave the local pool for an hour of laps. Or bike to the park with a journal and an apple in my backpack.
On this lovely Saturday, hours spreading their wings before me, I have no real plans other than to seek stillness in my solitude.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Up Here
Blog-neglecting busy lately, but in the best possible way!
For the first time ever, I feel like a real writer, and though I know that blogging and journaling and poetry are all valid forms of writing, there is nothing like seeing my name in print. Fingertips smudging the words I labored over at my kitchen table for days. Even more thrilling: getting to conduct interviews, chase down stories, sort the truths from the half-truths in the deep well of Internet research.
On Tuesday afternoon (thanks to a glorious day off of school) I got to interview Pulitzer Prize-winning nationally-recognized animated cartoonist Mark Fiore, at his studio in an undisclosed location in San Francisco. I thought I might melt with anxiety and anticipation. We talked for an hour, my papers sprouting notes like weeds, and when it was over, I drove straight to a cozy cafe and pounded out my story. Now it just needs some serious tinkering, which my obsessive mind sometimes takes a wee too seriously. I know I'm being overly dramatic here, but I don't want to wind up like poor Joan Rivers, driven to do nothing but work for some idealized perfection, too consumed to enjoy the fresh air and birdies.
Luckily, my other life as a teacher keeps me grounded and humble. On Monday we took a field trip to San Francisco and had a grand time cruising the botanical gardens in Golden Gate Park before heading to the marina beach and the hyped-up House of Air, a giant warehouse filled with interconnecting trampolines. We jumped until we were sweaty, played trampoline dodge-ball, then jumped some more. By the end of our hour-long session, I'd learned how to literally jump off the walls. Afterward, on the way back home, In and Out Burger never tasted so good.
The pinnacle of relaxation happened a couple of weeks ago, when M and I went to Osmosis spa for enzyme baths (the perfect wedding gift). We drank tea in a private meditation room overlooking a Japanese garden with a waterfall. Then we sank into a hot bath full of pencil-shavings (not really, but that's what it looks like) heated to 130 degrees by the natural fermentation of enzymes eating away at the sawdust. Like fancy, detoxifying, skin-enriching compost. An attendant came by with cool cloths for our faces and sips of water. Afterward I felt light, smooth, and ravenously hungry.
We ate a four course Italian meal at Negri's restaurant in the perfect 19th century village of Occidental. I sipped grenadine and munched on salami and pickled cauliflower and felt like I was on vacation. We climbed the hill above the white church, breathing hard in the cool evening fog, a huge lit-up peace sign reigning over everything. No success in the world like feeling peaceful and content in your own body, your own life.
For the first time ever, I feel like a real writer, and though I know that blogging and journaling and poetry are all valid forms of writing, there is nothing like seeing my name in print. Fingertips smudging the words I labored over at my kitchen table for days. Even more thrilling: getting to conduct interviews, chase down stories, sort the truths from the half-truths in the deep well of Internet research.
On Tuesday afternoon (thanks to a glorious day off of school) I got to interview Pulitzer Prize-winning nationally-recognized animated cartoonist Mark Fiore, at his studio in an undisclosed location in San Francisco. I thought I might melt with anxiety and anticipation. We talked for an hour, my papers sprouting notes like weeds, and when it was over, I drove straight to a cozy cafe and pounded out my story. Now it just needs some serious tinkering, which my obsessive mind sometimes takes a wee too seriously. I know I'm being overly dramatic here, but I don't want to wind up like poor Joan Rivers, driven to do nothing but work for some idealized perfection, too consumed to enjoy the fresh air and birdies.
Luckily, my other life as a teacher keeps me grounded and humble. On Monday we took a field trip to San Francisco and had a grand time cruising the botanical gardens in Golden Gate Park before heading to the marina beach and the hyped-up House of Air, a giant warehouse filled with interconnecting trampolines. We jumped until we were sweaty, played trampoline dodge-ball, then jumped some more. By the end of our hour-long session, I'd learned how to literally jump off the walls. Afterward, on the way back home, In and Out Burger never tasted so good.
The pinnacle of relaxation happened a couple of weeks ago, when M and I went to Osmosis spa for enzyme baths (the perfect wedding gift). We drank tea in a private meditation room overlooking a Japanese garden with a waterfall. Then we sank into a hot bath full of pencil-shavings (not really, but that's what it looks like) heated to 130 degrees by the natural fermentation of enzymes eating away at the sawdust. Like fancy, detoxifying, skin-enriching compost. An attendant came by with cool cloths for our faces and sips of water. Afterward I felt light, smooth, and ravenously hungry.
We ate a four course Italian meal at Negri's restaurant in the perfect 19th century village of Occidental. I sipped grenadine and munched on salami and pickled cauliflower and felt like I was on vacation. We climbed the hill above the white church, breathing hard in the cool evening fog, a huge lit-up peace sign reigning over everything. No success in the world like feeling peaceful and content in your own body, your own life.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Exploding Myths
In 2011, let's hear it for myth-busting. Yep. I'd like to challenge my dearly-held beliefs about myself and my life to a round in the ring.
“I don't like the cold.” It's true that I am a summer creature at heart, but this should not mean that each winter Saturday that dawns gloomy must besmirch my mood. No more letting myself succumb to interior rainy weather just because the sun refuses to shine. Yesterday I took an epic muddy bike ride all around Spring Lake, came home with icy hands and ears, but felt amazing.
“I have no time to write.” Just a week into the new year and already this one's been knocked about. If I have deadlines, I have (I make!) the time to write, and somehow I always end up finishing something I'm at the least not embarrassed of, but often that I really like. Now, I know those literary magazines out there are not waiting around for my essays, so I've got to figure out a way to impose deadlines on myself, to actually finish tinkering, and release my words by submitting them.
“At 32, life is ripening too rapidly, I'm getting too old to...” This is just poppycock lunacy that I succumb to in my worst moments, like when I feel wiped out after a late night in San Francisco. I refuse to go gray-hair searching in the mirror just to make myself feel bad anymore! And: if I can learn Auld Lang Syne on the piano by reading the notes, I can still learn all kinds of songs.
“There is nothing to do in Sonoma County.” After nearly eight years in this county, sometimes it feels like I've explored every last forest meadow and beach cove, have seen the same bands too many times, have strolled the same neighborhood streets in the same little towns over and over again. And yet. I know there are still plenty of rocks to overturn. Just this past Friday, in fact, I took some students hiking at Shiloh Regional Park, a wholly new slice of green foggy goodness, and M and I discovered the Schulz museum's movie night: Alfred Hitchcock and candy bars for only three bucks each.
“I lack discipline for rituals.” Maybe it's my Catholic upbringing, but I absolutely love ritualistic living, prayers before meals and reading before bed-time. I want to take my spiritual exploration to new heights in order to better ground myself and enhance my marriage. Focusing on intentions and releasing worries are things that are easy to talk about, harder to actually do. Last Sunday, finally home after our harrowing travel experience, M and I took all of our travel-related documents and set them aflame atop our altar in the garden. Then we took turns throwing poppers on the pavement and shouting our good-byes to the junk of last year.
“I don't like the cold.” It's true that I am a summer creature at heart, but this should not mean that each winter Saturday that dawns gloomy must besmirch my mood. No more letting myself succumb to interior rainy weather just because the sun refuses to shine. Yesterday I took an epic muddy bike ride all around Spring Lake, came home with icy hands and ears, but felt amazing.
“I have no time to write.” Just a week into the new year and already this one's been knocked about. If I have deadlines, I have (I make!) the time to write, and somehow I always end up finishing something I'm at the least not embarrassed of, but often that I really like. Now, I know those literary magazines out there are not waiting around for my essays, so I've got to figure out a way to impose deadlines on myself, to actually finish tinkering, and release my words by submitting them.
“At 32, life is ripening too rapidly, I'm getting too old to...” This is just poppycock lunacy that I succumb to in my worst moments, like when I feel wiped out after a late night in San Francisco. I refuse to go gray-hair searching in the mirror just to make myself feel bad anymore! And: if I can learn Auld Lang Syne on the piano by reading the notes, I can still learn all kinds of songs.
“There is nothing to do in Sonoma County.” After nearly eight years in this county, sometimes it feels like I've explored every last forest meadow and beach cove, have seen the same bands too many times, have strolled the same neighborhood streets in the same little towns over and over again. And yet. I know there are still plenty of rocks to overturn. Just this past Friday, in fact, I took some students hiking at Shiloh Regional Park, a wholly new slice of green foggy goodness, and M and I discovered the Schulz museum's movie night: Alfred Hitchcock and candy bars for only three bucks each.
“I lack discipline for rituals.” Maybe it's my Catholic upbringing, but I absolutely love ritualistic living, prayers before meals and reading before bed-time. I want to take my spiritual exploration to new heights in order to better ground myself and enhance my marriage. Focusing on intentions and releasing worries are things that are easy to talk about, harder to actually do. Last Sunday, finally home after our harrowing travel experience, M and I took all of our travel-related documents and set them aflame atop our altar in the garden. Then we took turns throwing poppers on the pavement and shouting our good-byes to the junk of last year.
Friday, December 31, 2010
You Would Cry Too
Okay, so I'm lucky to be alive, to be in good health, relatively good spirits, with my very loving and gentle husband to slide through this day with me. And that's where my appreciation ends and my pity party begins.
Because I was supposed to wake up in the glow of my Santa Rosa home this morning, bake a strawberry tart with fresh whipped cream, go hiking somewhere verdant and lush, field phone calls from my front porch with a cup of steamy tea, concoct some exciting evening plan that involves champagne, a new skirt, and spinning around a dance floor (or at least my living room) before the inevitable shrieks and countdown to a new, brilliant year.
Yeah, that's what I was supposed to be looking forward to, on this, my birthday, my 32nd birthday. Sigh. Instead I'm stranded in the bleak sprawl of Dallas, where they packed up the free continental breakfast a few minutes early.
To back pedal: yesterday our flight to San Francisco was canceled, due to mechanical errors, and round after round of sparring with airline reps yielded the news that all flights to ANYWHERE in California are booked solid until Saturday. We were numbers 20 and 21 on the stand-by list, which bore no fruit. We were comped a hotel room and a Denny's supper, and managed to get on a flight to Fresno leaving Dallas at 8pm tonight. Which means, if we're lucky enough to find a rental agency open when we land (so far the ones we've called will be closing early), we might be able to ring in the new year from a car driving up the 101. If luck is not on our side (and luck, folks, seems to have flown far away from this holiday travel hell), then we'll spend the night in a hotel in the central valley. Three days just to get home.
I know, I know, it could be worse, but how? Did I mention that my bag DID make it to San Francisco, with all of my clothing, toiletries, and phone charger?
Here's the grand irony: I wrote this little piece for the Bohemian (copy and paste the link below) about how air travel continues to get worse and worse, never imagining that I would be struck down by the unfriendly skies on my own New Year's Eve birthday.
http://www.bohemian.com/bohemian/12.29.10/feature-1052.html
I will, of course, try my best to glimpse some joy in this day, for who knows where it might be lurking? Perhaps we'll make it to the fateful grassy knoll in downtown Dallas, and my own birthday ruination will be thrown into sharp perspective as M and I discuss the tragedy of JFK's assassination. Or maybe I'll look out of some shuttle or airplane window and see a bright world spinning, and realize that it's enough just to be a part of it.
Then again, it is my party, and I'll surely cry if I want to.
Because I was supposed to wake up in the glow of my Santa Rosa home this morning, bake a strawberry tart with fresh whipped cream, go hiking somewhere verdant and lush, field phone calls from my front porch with a cup of steamy tea, concoct some exciting evening plan that involves champagne, a new skirt, and spinning around a dance floor (or at least my living room) before the inevitable shrieks and countdown to a new, brilliant year.
Yeah, that's what I was supposed to be looking forward to, on this, my birthday, my 32nd birthday. Sigh. Instead I'm stranded in the bleak sprawl of Dallas, where they packed up the free continental breakfast a few minutes early.
To back pedal: yesterday our flight to San Francisco was canceled, due to mechanical errors, and round after round of sparring with airline reps yielded the news that all flights to ANYWHERE in California are booked solid until Saturday. We were numbers 20 and 21 on the stand-by list, which bore no fruit. We were comped a hotel room and a Denny's supper, and managed to get on a flight to Fresno leaving Dallas at 8pm tonight. Which means, if we're lucky enough to find a rental agency open when we land (so far the ones we've called will be closing early), we might be able to ring in the new year from a car driving up the 101. If luck is not on our side (and luck, folks, seems to have flown far away from this holiday travel hell), then we'll spend the night in a hotel in the central valley. Three days just to get home.
I know, I know, it could be worse, but how? Did I mention that my bag DID make it to San Francisco, with all of my clothing, toiletries, and phone charger?
Here's the grand irony: I wrote this little piece for the Bohemian (copy and paste the link below) about how air travel continues to get worse and worse, never imagining that I would be struck down by the unfriendly skies on my own New Year's Eve birthday.
http://www.bohemian.com/bohemian/12.29.10/feature-1052.html
I will, of course, try my best to glimpse some joy in this day, for who knows where it might be lurking? Perhaps we'll make it to the fateful grassy knoll in downtown Dallas, and my own birthday ruination will be thrown into sharp perspective as M and I discuss the tragedy of JFK's assassination. Or maybe I'll look out of some shuttle or airplane window and see a bright world spinning, and realize that it's enough just to be a part of it.
Then again, it is my party, and I'll surely cry if I want to.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Merry
Cold, rainy Christmas day here in Lafayette, Louisiana.
M marvels at our family: the same thing every year, traditions etched deep as smile lines, recipes by heart.
Year after year, so many things don't change-- Christmas Eve honey ham, a table filled with pralines and sand tarts, the coziness of ankle-deep wrapping paper, the thrill of the still-wrapped gift, hugs good night until the next day, when we all come together again, this time for the formality of Christmas dinner, all the once-a-year treats (cornbread dressing, pecan-encrusted yams) eaten off of the finest china, silver goblets and towering candles, coaxing stories from the aunts about their teenage escapades, two-timing dates and ratting each other out. So much continuity that I register even the slightest of changes: whiskey balls this year, instead of cherry pie.
M is here for the second year, first time in official family capacity, as my husband (and today, our three month anniversary). A new groove in the holiday pavement. I look across the living room and he's teaching Darth Vader's Imperial March to my younger cousin on piano, delighting my grandmother with his old 1930s standards. His effortless ivory becomes the backdrop to our familiar noise and flutter. Not a seismic shift, but the pattern is altered, the tradition is enriched.
M marvels at our family: the same thing every year, traditions etched deep as smile lines, recipes by heart.
Year after year, so many things don't change-- Christmas Eve honey ham, a table filled with pralines and sand tarts, the coziness of ankle-deep wrapping paper, the thrill of the still-wrapped gift, hugs good night until the next day, when we all come together again, this time for the formality of Christmas dinner, all the once-a-year treats (cornbread dressing, pecan-encrusted yams) eaten off of the finest china, silver goblets and towering candles, coaxing stories from the aunts about their teenage escapades, two-timing dates and ratting each other out. So much continuity that I register even the slightest of changes: whiskey balls this year, instead of cherry pie.
M is here for the second year, first time in official family capacity, as my husband (and today, our three month anniversary). A new groove in the holiday pavement. I look across the living room and he's teaching Darth Vader's Imperial March to my younger cousin on piano, delighting my grandmother with his old 1930s standards. His effortless ivory becomes the backdrop to our familiar noise and flutter. Not a seismic shift, but the pattern is altered, the tradition is enriched.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
The Office
Sitting in my office at SSU, for the last time this year, feeling a bit blue.
One student e-mailed already to say she was sad to leave the classroom this morning, she really enjoyed the class.
Another lingered after class to chit chat about her future plans.
Another student just blew into the office with sleep creases on her cheeks to hand in her final essay.
This leaves only one no-show student for the final day of class, but I'm worried. She's the one who sits front and center with a huge smile on her face, who comes to my office hours after every single class, who always needs to work on her thesis statement, who tells me things like "you feel like my big sister." Last week she bemoaned the end of the semester because we wouldn't be hanging out anymore. She has a tendency to oversleep.
Sigh. My hungry minds chews on worry:
How much longer can I wait for her to show?
How will she pass the class if she doesn't hand in her final essay?
I could have left this office half an hour ago. I've got keys and a copy card to hand in. I've got my class evaluations sitting in the English department, can't wait to go and read them. I've got three other English classes to teach today. I've got a dining table full of crafting materials and a coffee belly begging for carbohydrates.
If she isn't here in seven minutes, I'm going to turn off the light, lock the door, and head out into the gray mist. It won't be easy, but neither is being a teacher, neither is saying good-bye.
One student e-mailed already to say she was sad to leave the classroom this morning, she really enjoyed the class.
Another lingered after class to chit chat about her future plans.
Another student just blew into the office with sleep creases on her cheeks to hand in her final essay.
This leaves only one no-show student for the final day of class, but I'm worried. She's the one who sits front and center with a huge smile on her face, who comes to my office hours after every single class, who always needs to work on her thesis statement, who tells me things like "you feel like my big sister." Last week she bemoaned the end of the semester because we wouldn't be hanging out anymore. She has a tendency to oversleep.
Sigh. My hungry minds chews on worry:
How much longer can I wait for her to show?
How will she pass the class if she doesn't hand in her final essay?
I could have left this office half an hour ago. I've got keys and a copy card to hand in. I've got my class evaluations sitting in the English department, can't wait to go and read them. I've got three other English classes to teach today. I've got a dining table full of crafting materials and a coffee belly begging for carbohydrates.
If she isn't here in seven minutes, I'm going to turn off the light, lock the door, and head out into the gray mist. It won't be easy, but neither is being a teacher, neither is saying good-bye.
Friday, December 10, 2010
10 Things to Love about December
An evening jog through streets warm with light and fireplace smoke.
Holiday parties. The bites are buttery, the wine is free, and the conversation is like tinsel, shiny and fun.
Coming home from school on a rainy afternoon and baking butterscotch oatmeal cookies to enjoy with vanilla tea and Barbara Streisand's dewy sadness in “Funny Girl.”
Anticipation.
The inspiration of craft fairs, where I realize that most of the impossibly hip yet woefully overpriced feather-and-collage-laden treasures can be made by yours truly. I've got the glue gun, the materials, and the motivation; now I just gotta do it.
Wrapping presents.
Riding my bike through warm blankets of cloud and fog.
The promise of the luxurious, indulgent, seemingly endless Christmas break, closer each and every day.
I love the coziness of a lit-up tree peeking out of a living room window, even though on the car-ride home it looks more like a carcass.
That feeling of being nestled in at the bottom of the year, the darkest time, where fall goes sliding into winter and Capricorn comes to rest, at last.
Holiday parties. The bites are buttery, the wine is free, and the conversation is like tinsel, shiny and fun.
Coming home from school on a rainy afternoon and baking butterscotch oatmeal cookies to enjoy with vanilla tea and Barbara Streisand's dewy sadness in “Funny Girl.”
Anticipation.
The inspiration of craft fairs, where I realize that most of the impossibly hip yet woefully overpriced feather-and-collage-laden treasures can be made by yours truly. I've got the glue gun, the materials, and the motivation; now I just gotta do it.
Wrapping presents.
Riding my bike through warm blankets of cloud and fog.
The promise of the luxurious, indulgent, seemingly endless Christmas break, closer each and every day.
I love the coziness of a lit-up tree peeking out of a living room window, even though on the car-ride home it looks more like a carcass.
That feeling of being nestled in at the bottom of the year, the darkest time, where fall goes sliding into winter and Capricorn comes to rest, at last.
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