Good Stuff

I want to tell you so many things. I want to tell you about feeling good. So good.


Because more than one person and place told me I was needed and valuable and would make their place better. Because we wandered through open places where homes sprout out of the earth, homes that I dreamt of but forgot of that dreaming until the doors opened wide. Because yesterday a wide open opportunity cracked light into a place that has laid quiet and dim for many years.

It has been five days of immense change, possibility, opening. It started with a long drive North with my partner, you know, that one who lays next to me in the dark hours and struggles to hold the daily grind of life at bay in the light hours. The one who I forget to cheriah at times when the grind of life grinds on me. It was a good drive, full of talk of dreaming and doing. And also some loud ranting on my part that is always received so gently and taken so readily.

And then Thursday morning I walked nervously into a setting where I was anticipating grilling, questioning, proving. But the space was not that, it was courting. The courting of Me, my skills and person. I was blushing by the end of the two hours there. And I was encouraged and totally sold. The rest of the day we spent on winding roads, framed by old old oaks, winding into a town that is my kind of town. Old and new, seamless. A library that has a whole floor for children, tucked down creaking stairs and opening to space that says 'We love and value small people who want to read and learn'. Tiny local stores full of handmade and whimsy.

A school on a hill that advocates learning outside of the classroom. Victorians and cottages that beg to be owned because they cost a fraction, a reasonable fraction.


And then Friday, another interview. Her first laughing line to me when I walked into her office? "Oops, guess I should have told you it is casual Friday," (giggle) as I stood in my 'dress up' clothes. The giggle put me at ease immediately and I liked this woman, one who could be my boss. I sat at a table with 6 people, my colleagues, told them about myself. And then got really pass-out nervous by the attention but they gracefully stepped in to give me a minute to recover. Then we just talked. About our work, what they want and what I want and the Universe said 'Bam!'. Because they need Me. Exactly what I am. They need someone who lives in that town that I was in yesterday, they need an experienced neuro specialist, they have plans, big plans. And they want me to be a part of it. I did not blush this time, I fiercely lobbied. Because I felt it, that click, that this was it, what I was wishing; for accomplished confident colleauges seeking growth and community and support. The only drawback is the position is not full time. So I have decided it is not a drawback only a sign for me to get in there and remind them why they need me there full time. I was offered both jobs which is so awesome, but Job #2 is it. I am hoping the Universe continues to speak to me, to help make it happen.

And then I met my baby niece, the newest person to join the expanding world of my blood. Giant eyes, lashed for days, animated beyond belief for her 4 weeks.

So wonderful, to hold her close and talk to her Mama and hug my brother, fiercely again, to see him move into this place in his life, to know we could be just down the way from them.

And then Tahoe, where I feel like my cup has run a little over. This weekend in Northstar there is a fundraising race and event. It is organized by Tara Llanes, a pro-mountain bike rider that was in a terrible crash that resulted in a spinal cord injury. She hosts the event every year and we have been there for three years in a row. Before I transitioned to home health, I was a neuro specialist, mainly stroke and brain injury, but I treated persons with SCI often. I make it a point to be there to contribute but I always wanted to do more than just show up.

This year a new company called CORE was part of the event. Click the link to know more but basically a young guy named Aaron Baker started the first fully adapted gym for people with functional limitations, things that might keep them out of a 'gym' setting. He opened in January, all equipment is designed for individuals that have need for special equipment and it costs 60 bucks a month to join. He wants to spread this love and by god, I am going to help him do it. My mind jumped immediately to opening one up here at the base of Tahoe, for those that have need for this 'niche' gym, as he called it.

I feel so passionate about this for many reasons. My greatest challenge when I worked in rehab was not the treatment, it was the discharge process. Telling a person "Your rehab is done, now go out and do your best in a world that does not accomodate many of your needs". I had a few resources to refer but they were all short term, anemic when you think of time in terms of years of recovery. No matter whether that person was 21 or 76, there is no place to tell them to go once their rehab dollars run out. But now there is, there is a vision that Aaron realized because he has a high complete cervical SCI and he never said to himself, "I can't".

The amazing thing? He walks, people. He is a high cervical complete SCI and he gets up out of his chair and walks. This is both miraculous and encouraging for anyone living with an injury. Actually, this is mindblowing. He says it is because he never stopped training his body to recover. I believe him.

So, wow. The Universe and its voice these past few days has floored me.

I am grateful and joyful and so very happy. And that is such a good thing.
That is what I wanted to tell you. And that I hope you are too, want to give some of it to you, my friends. It feels like so much right now, I have plenty to spare.

240 and Ticking

I started 365 on January 1st. I wanted a challenge, a recording. I wanted to pick up my camera daily and work it, work my eye and my equipment. I wanted the discipline. I am 240 days in with a few missed days here and there which is not too hard to shrug off.



I am finding that I may be getting more than I thought from this year of shooting. I may have recorded the last year we will live in this house, this space, these hills, this Home. Hard to believe so much (and yet so little) has happened in the span of 240 days.

In January Tim and I took a solo trip North. We needed kid-less time and we wanted to explore. We headed North into the land at the base of Lake Tahoe, rolling foothills not very different from our own but with so much more space and possibility and promise. The promise tasted sweet and unfamiliar, an adventurous taste reminding us of those days pre-family and pre-home ownership when we used to leave ... to Africa, to Ireland, To Oz. It was a heady thought, the leaving and relocating. We returned home, immersed back into the Home we have now, the work, the friends, the lives. But we could not let it go.

We talked about it. I Mondo Beyondo'd it in a very quiet internal way. We incessantly perused Zillow and Redfin and had discussions with my live in parents about logistics and possibilities and hope for a different place, a Future that was not so shaped by the Past.

And then we went, three weeks North with our boys, seeing family interspersed with more searching and finding, a deepening well of assurance that this was right. We left reluctantly, afraid to re-immerse and reconnect and maybe forget our resolve.

The day before we returned I screwed up the courage to look into one of the larger healthcare providers in the area. They had no less than 5 jobs open in my area of practice, 5 jobs in the area we want to call Home. But I stalled, hesitated to apply online, frozen in the headlights of such big change.

I spoke to my supervisor the first day back about my desire to move and the very real possibility of leaving my position. She was supportive and encouraging and even gave me ideas about what my salary should be up North. I still did not apply.

It has been a month since we returned. Last Monday I put in my application. I received a call back that evening. I talked with a recruiter Tuesday then had a phone interview Wednesday for a position, Friday for another. The medical system is stellar, the people I have spoken to make me smile, the jobs offer fully paid benefits for the whole family and a whole lot of other bells and whistles that had me jumping up and down in my chair. We are headed North again, Tim and I, two in-person interviews scheduled for later in September.

I am giddy, I am so damn nervous and I am marveling at all that can happen in 240 days. Some days have felt mundane and unoriginal, slogging through paperwork, later seeking a glimmer of light for that picture I 'have' to take.


But if this all happens in the way it may happen, I will forever be amazed and grateful for recording the Year Our Lives Changed A Lot.

Going to keep going to see what the next 125 days hold.

We interrupt this broadcast ...

Though I feel that I am infrequently here lately, I just wanted to direct you to my Mondo Beyondo site where I think I will be spending some quality time for a few weeks.









This second round is doing good things for me and giving me the Uumph! I needed to feel a little more connected. Feel free to read along as it goes.

[En]raptured

Yeah, yeah. Could not resist. It's just that I did wonder a little, you know?
But rather than go down the line of commenting on the latest failed prediction of the end of the world as we know it, I thought I would put up a few pictures that I have been, well, raptured by lately.

Flowers, what is it about the things that just make me feel 'beauty' as it should be? I love the full blown roses just as much the wild nasturium and the tiny blooms from an herb. They are just all good.




"Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

Mary Oliver




It is a good question even when not cast in the light of doomsday predictions. I think I mentioned I am taking Mondo Beyondo again. I need a catalyst, something to remind me that dreaming is okay, that asking the Universe to help us is okay.

I will be posting Mondo stuff over at my 'other' site, if only to be able to track this process a little easier. Feel free to drop in anytime and maybe join in if you feel like it is time to find out just what it is you dream about. If you click the link over on the sidebar it will take you to registration, week 0 just ended and week 1 begins Monday so there is time to hop in (I think :)

Homage to Vintage

Saturday I visited a Quilt Show at one of our local libraries. It was small and earnest and featured many vintage quilts that came from family of the quilting circle. Each had a little tag telling the story of the quilt if it was known. And each one drew me in, close, closer to study the lines of its life.

There is something so special, so spectacular to me in those long lines of stitches. Up close, closer, you can feel the work and the hands that did the work. It is hard to imagine the patience, the ability to see the completion of the project in the quilter. Some of the pieces were so intricate, some of the stories behind the quilts so lovely and meaningful.



There is something about handwork that draws me close, closer. I wish for that ability, that patience. The women and men who made these pieces likely had busy lives, full of the work of home and hearth and maybe more work outside of the home. But they still found that place, of creation and necessity and because of it, these beautiful peces of artwork embrace and warm people, passing down and down to be held and used and loved.


They hold such energy. They hold such life for me. That quiet walk through the tiny quilt show was the inspiration and reminder that I needed. That there is value in this handwork, there is life.


And so I thought I would share it with you to call you too to that which inspires you. Be it stitch and cloth or fiber and stick, eye and viewfinder or soil and sprout, today I celebrate knowing that making creates Life.


My favorite quilt was the Wedding Ring, in part because of the story told on its little descriptive card. Made by a husband and wife after their wedding, pieced and quilted in quiet on a farm in the cold of winter. It is like staring at a fairytale to me.


Incidentally, making a Wedding Ring quilt was on my Mondo Beyondo list. I think I may have found my muse.

Dreaming + Garden = Mondo

Five years ago Tim and I took a trip North. We were visiting family in the Pacific Northwest and tacked on a week to head to Canada. We spent some of our Canadian time on a little piece of land called Salt Springs Island. I actually posted about it here when this blog was first started.

That island changed me. Quite literally in many ways. I remember we carefully motored off the ferry onto small winding roads and I was struck by that feeling I once had as a little girl ... as if I had found a place of magic and fey folk. The island itself is close and intimate, peppered with small farms and sheep and artists. We had to hike to our campsite, right there on the water. I got pregnant with the boys on that island. I still get goosebumps when I recall the days there.

We found a winery; small, local, like everything there. It was a warm day and remember I was so silly, afraid to sip the wine tastings 'just in case'. I tried their white and bought a bottle and we watched our then puppy Mishka plunge into a small pond with the 'winery local' dogs, paddling around and splashing. I loved that day, that feeling.

The first thing that I noticed when we pulled up to the winery was the land. It rolled a bit up to the home, down to the tasting room. The owners were clever gardeners, terracing with raised beds, junk repurposed into garden art, flowers mixed with food. It was like a page out of Sunset magazine and we got to spend the day in it. There is nothing that gets closer to my heart than real life Sunset mag scenes.



I think that day enbedded itself into me, my psyche and dreams. It certainly embedded itself into my garden aesthetic. Since that day we have had twins, raised them, revisited another island, and finally finally realized some of the gardening dream that buried itself into my heart that day.





I will never be a farmer, far from a proficient gardener even now. But over the last 4 years I have learned so much about what I love. I was never really a 'growing' girl, impatient with what I thought the earth would just let go of freely. I have tempered that impatience now, learned to observe, learned to only plant what we like to eat, learned to play and plan all at the same time.



The backyard this year looks like that place, that sweet spot on the sweetest spot I have yet been in all my travels. It has the beds and the mixed purpose planting. It has flowers and fruit and food and us. A place for us to sit and talk or play or eat. It is far from done, I have come to realize no garden is ever really done, just fluxing in and out of states. But it is as close to the 'perfect' as I want it to be.



If we do leave here I will mourn just a bit. But also know that if that scene from 5 years ago ran so deep that we created here, well, then we can create it anywhere. And if we do go North, we will be that much closer to Salt Springs.

I realized this dream and wrote this post a few days back (before the blogger black out). I also came to the realization that sometimes dreams need a little refresher and signed up for a second round of Mondo Beyondo, this time with a few good friends that I cannot wait to work with as they do their first course. I am very excite about this.


And just as the garden space became something onto itself, I think it may be high time to seek out a new space on the internets and so I hope to move house this weekend to Squarespace where things just look a little prettier. I hope that you, my reading friends, do follow and I will make sure to update here if it does actually happen.

Here is to Dreaming in Action, right?

A Month of Me :: Five/Six

Something you hope to do in your life.

I want to do this LIST. Maybe not everything on it will happen, but I imagine that many many things can and will. It is not a life list, rather it was generated during an online course that I took last January called Mondo Beyondo. It is about dreaming wild and free and believing in the potential and possibility of this Life we Live.



I made bold the things that have happened in the months since that list hit paper. Not a bad start. Especially during a challenging year that tried to beat the dream right outta' me. One anecdote in relation ...

On that list it says "Go to Bhutan as a volunteer PT for three months. Take the family too." I first heard of Bhutan through Michael J Fox in a TV documentary during which he goes on a search for Happiness. During the program I had this odd vision of the boys running down one of the ancient streets in long clothes, smiling with a full radiance and hugging a little girl. The vision and idea of Bhutan fascinated me so I googled around to learn more. I found DWB and their yearly program that sends a volunteer PT to Bhutan and I called them. This was Spring 2008. I added my name to a list of PTs that had showed interest. And then life kept moving on and the idea faded a bit until I wrote in down last January.

Forward to April 2010 and I receive an email from the coordinator of the Bhutan program. We talk and she tells me I am first on the list and they had a cancellation and is there any way I can go in September? Like, this September. And it is not three months, but four. Oddly enough, a few days before this I was thinking about Bhutan and how our Canada trip will be a great initiation to the boys for living life away from home.

I had to decline; we were on our way North, we would need to rent the house out for four months, raise airfare money for four. It made my heart break a little but we had to say no. And the coordinator told me that it was okay because the person next in line was all ready to go and was eager to take the position. And the she offered me the position for 2012 which I promptly accepted.

It is just a list. Words strung together from thoughts and fancies and wishes and Dreams.



It is so much more than just a List. It is a Life.

Which brings me to Number 6 ...

Something you hope you never have to do.

I hope I never have to give up my belief in Dreaming this life into being.
I hope I never forget the Power that resides in Dreaming.
I hope I never abandon the way the simple act of Dreaming can make Life so much more lovely.


Photo by Tim

Brooklyn Love

It would be remiss of me not to speak of Brooklyn as a huge part of this trip. It is where I stayed for the week, where a lot of good things happened and where I found sanctuary when the wailing rush of Manhattan got to me.

The neighborhood where I stayed felt like an old song that I know how to sing.


Not yet gentrified with just a smattering of wine bars and whole food restaurants mixed in with the corner bakeries and bodegas. Still diverse and open to all with Peurto Ricans/Russians/blacks/whites/Hasidic jumbled up in the streets and homes. It has its own rhythm; where I was just a few stops up from Coney Island. And I loved it so. It is funny how you can slip back into a skin you thought you had forgotten how to wear. And it was a little disconcerting how comfortable I felt once I found my way about.

Brooklyn, she was the recipient of my Hope Notes mission. I first learned about Hope Notes in my Mondo Beyondo class. It is an exercise in signs, in letting the Universe speak a little through a Sharpie pen and a stack of Post-Its. Since then, and especially when I am feeling off my game, I try to have my supplies on hand to leave little notes behind to be found by someone who might need to hear them.

The first day I did it in Brooklyn I got caught. I felt clever slipping that little note onto the door of the elevator at my friend's building.

Then I, ah, forgot something upstairs on the 7th floor so I had to ride all the way back up. With this guy who got on at the 1st floor.

Who read the note from behind me and I think whispered, "What the hell". His face was too good not to photograph.

But the second go round felt much more successful. The day before I left I wandered off the F train through the streets looking for good opportunities. It sounds weird but they seem to present themselves.

The train stop at Ditmas... an old elevated platform with wood grain and shadows abounding...




An open door waiting for someone to come home...



A school bus waiting to pick up a load of lovely little people...



But then the Universe started throwing signs at me and it freaked me out a little bit. As I left the train station on this, the day before I was to leave New York, I glanced at the ground and found a sticker with my child's name on it...

Yep, that is his name. I laid down on the ground to take this picture, that is how much I wanted to see him.

Then as I walked down the street, approaching my destination (which happened to be an air-conditioned apartment which I was pretty desperate to reach by that time) I was cut off by an ambulette that stopped in my path to unload a passenger. Here is what cut me off...


So I took it as the Universe telling me I better get my ass home as there were some people who needed me more than Brooklyn needed hope notes. I heard you, O'Universe of wonderful signs.

(This kid was running fast down the street...he just looked so free and happy. Be-zeep.)

As a last note, I always feel weird when I do not have the twin thing happen with basically everything in life (when it comes to them) so I was antsy to find something to do with Owen. Later that night I sat on the fire escape looking out at the street below, the Brooklyn street so different than the City.


I always used to sit out on my fire escape because just a few hours inside make me feel a little breathless; even more so now 12 years later and 7 floors up. I looked up at the building across from me. And here is where I let you in on the crazy that is my brain...

I was looking at two windows with keystone accents. You know what a keystone is, right? The mark of a good mason. And centered right between the two keystones was a big white round O. The whole time my boys were with me, watching me from across the street.


Yes, it was good to find that part of Me that feels like she has not breathed for years and years. Yes, there were moments when I felt sweet relief to be sitting listening to loud music while scrolling through Twitter without any small persons demanding attention. Yes, I feel more whole than I have in a long time.

But, oh, how I felt dismembered at times during that week. And the Universe, well, she was just reminding me that I am not.

* and just to be totally clear, I scroll through Twitter and listen to loud music all the time at home it is just that the banshees like to interrupt that action. A lot.

Playtime :: Part One

There are so many things I want to write and say here, but I am finding that every spare moment is taken up in some way and all the impetus that used to be there for blogging is pulled into efforts else where. There has been a lot of work time and play time and garden time...and it is all on the iPhone in pictures here or on the SLR and not uploaded there...and you know me and my incessant posting with corroborating pictures.

But last week has held some lovely things. Early morning drop-in at Disney to avoid crowds, finding an easy walk on and off our favorite rides. Home by noon.


Welcoming wandering Canadians into our home with a nice dinner, moderate to firm bed to rest on and a hot shower. And discovering new friends that may live half a world away but are truly kindred folks.

A day with my best friend and a sewing machine, teaching her the first few steps into the world of making for oneself. And she even made a pillow.


Jam experiments with plums and jalapenos and discovering a great method for peeling stone fruit (Big pot of boiling water and another of ice water, drop them in, fish them out when they look all peely and slip off the skin).

Time in the park laying in the sun, doing nothing. Watching a softball league team with the boys and rooting them on even though we didn't know them.


And then the inaugural gathering of our new society of women. The name and illustration will give you just a little glimpse into just how twisted our little minds can be.

But it is all in great fun and with the express intent of gathering our real time group much more often to share and teach and laugh and joke and wear mustaches. (Oh my god, I look horrible in a stache. But Lesley doesn't)


I left today's 'trash to treasure' themed afternoon with a brand new summer wardrobe from the lovelies I call friends. And they relieved me of unopened wedding presents and we agreed the next meet up would be all about sewing stuff.

The best part of learning to play more is not feeling lonely. I love my family, my husband and my boys but I tend to stay close to home in more ways than one and stretching these muscles feels really good. It reminds me to stop and look for opportunities to live and play with others in the whole wide bustle of Living.

And that is nothing but Good.