Feathered Friends

Today my neighbor gave me a bird feeder as a house-warming gift, even though we have lived next to her for almost six years. She saw it and thought of me because it is arty and, because we have had conversations about all of the birds that populate her feeders on her back porch. Moving to the basement has allowed us to utilize the wonderful south-facing patio and it looks directly at their porch, and therefore, all of the birds that come to enjoy her feeders. Very thoughtful of Julie. Already the birds have found the new feeder and there are Juncos, a White-Capped Sparrow and Purple Finches in my yard. It is somewhat addicting to stand and watch them battle over the bird seed, the peaceful Juncos scavenging on the ground for the remnants dropped. Birds are such amazing little creatures.

The rain continues here. Olive and I hiked in mostly sunshine today, a small squall of hail hitting us for about five minutes. I also got to dig in my soon-to-be garden, getting it ready for the soil that is to come later this week. Little pockets of time to be outside, watching the rolling grey clouds cover the sun and knowing it is time to escape to the inside.

Summer will come one day.

Breathing

My breathe felt like silk by the end of yoga tonight. Like richness, like the softness of confectionary sugar. Bringing attention continually back to the breathe, to the in and out of the ocean inside, to the one companion that is always with me on my journey. My Monday night yoga ritual has really become a love, an event that starts my week off right and something I look forward to. I have noticed, ever since starting, that I am allowing myself to move a little slower in my day to day life, to take little more time with the seemingly mundane. To be more respectful of who I am and what makes me tick.

It is really hard to have new people start working at Dancers' Workshop. There is great comfort in being the old-timer, the one who knows the ins and outs, but there is also staleness and it takes more effort to get fired up over the tasks that seem second nature. I left work on Friday trying to see my job with fresh, innovative eyes, with imagination and curiosity and perseverance. And new employees can inspire that in you, as well as leave you feeling a little boring in your routines. A little repetitive in your actions.

It will be so good to get away, to stretch beyond the buttes of this little valley. To see new people. And hear different languages. And to have no familiar routines but rather the spontaneity of travel. I have a feeling that it is going to do me so much good, in my head and my heart and my soul.

Details

It was damp and cold and grey and felt like Maine last night. And it was a welcome relief to go to yoga and relax into the warmth of the cozy room, to be able to shed both socks and shirts, as well as the tenseness that had resided in my body for most of the day. Yoga with Neesha is delicious, because she is wise and funny and really knows her Anusara yoga. We talked about self-love, about heart openers, about valuing the body we are given because it is such a gift to have life and be human. I thought about, and then let those thoughts go, how I often look at my body and wish I could change certain things. Or push it to perform on the ski slope, or the rock face, or the dirt trail. Instead, it is such a shrine to be honored for its uniqueness to me, for its ability to get me up in the morning, for me to see, hear, smell and touch, for it to allow me to think and feel and digest my food.

Olive and I often walk on the same trail everyday. My favorite time to be out is the morning because everything seems more still and magical. We had the trail all to ourselves this morning, as the wind was howling and wet spring snowflakes were flying. Spring brings a myriad of smells out of the ground that really mesmerize Olive, lead her to create roundabout trails as her nose directs her here and there and back again. I have become quite the seeker of wildlife, eager to spot the deer, the moose, the fox before my four-legged companion does. The herder in her sometimes overcomes the good dog in her, and it pains me to see her chase other animals. But with that seeking has come a deeper appreciation for the diversity of the trees, and the way a deer, when still, can blend perfectly into the forest. I notice little things, little changes that occur to branches and bushes, the sawdust from a woodpecker hole fresh on the new snow.

Drooling over the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts listings. One day I will get back to that magical place and make art again. Such a huge gift in high school. The workshop I would take would be with Joan Livingstone. I am loving her work. See it here www.joanlivingstone.com

There is just something about fiber....

Realness

Dancers' Workshop is on spring break and it has only been myself and my new co-worker Kim in the office. Everyone will slowly start to trickle in this week, including our new development director (who has replaced Robin), and the office will be abuzz again. The quiet is both welcome and also amazingly boring. I go through periods with this job when, in dramatic style, I feel like I am going to pass away from boredom. And then I get upset that I am spending my days, my time, feeling that way...I feel like the computer is sucking away my soul.

I have taken to reading to Olive in the morning. Along with singing my usual songs to her. I discovered Mark Nepo's book The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have. Oprah helped direct me to Nepo's book, one that gives a reading for each day of the year. I am finding the daily reads very inspirational and provoking, and I think that Olive is too.

From March 30, The Energy of Being Real

....He [Carl Jung] suggests that being who we are always releases an extraordinary power that, without intent or design, affects the people who come into contact with such realness. The beautiful and simple truth of this can be seen in looking at the sun. The sun, without intent or will or plan or sense of principle, just shines, thoroughly and constantly. By being itself, the sun warms with its light, never withholding or warming only certain things of the Earth. Rather, the sun emanates in all directions all of the time, and things grow. In the same way, when we are authentic, expressing our warmth and light in all directions we cause things around us to grow. When our souls like little suns express the light of who we are, we emanate what Jesus called love and what Buddha called compassion, and the roots of community lengthen....

Nepo is a poet as well as a writer, and has suffered two bouts with cancer, so he speaks from a well of deep feeling with poeticism.

It has been a weekend of being home with Jamie. The skiing is at its worse. We ventured up Snow King with our skis and skins, but watching others come down the icy, screeching slope only inspired us to climb half way. I picked my way down, Olive and Jamie racing ahead.

We are working on the upstairs of the house, and today, besides cleaning, has been my first real day up there lending a hand. Which makes me feel a little sheepish, but se la vie. Imagining what it is going to look like when it is done is exciting, and peeling back the layers of walls and floors bring small discoveries of the people who lived there in the past. Brown shag carpet, an old hair pin, ugly grey linoleum under the kitchen wood floor. I have been picking old carpet staples out of the floor, which sounds extremely exciting, but it has made me think about how no one will ever have to do this again in this house because there will be no more carpeting! My mind races ahead easily to the decorating part of the project, imagining colors and fixtures and rugs....

Time to return to the staples, although sitting here in front of our downstairs wood stove writing is really more delightful.

I Meant to Post Here on Monday...

...We keep eating dinner late (I blame it on the time change) and then everything in my life gets pushed back, overlapping with my-getting-ready-for-bed time (which makes me sound about four). And then blogging gets put aside for tomorrow, because I am too tired.

I am tired now, but also upset that writing is getting neglected. So here I am.

We booked our tickets for our honeymoon and last night settled on a place to stay in Paris. Five nights at a mid-range hotel that is within walking distance of the many, many sites and things to do. It is hard to be here now, in this moment, and not be floating in Paris land, with a croissant and a cafe in my hand. We will get our city fix and then fly to the lazy island life of Kalymnos, Greece (right above Rhodes Bryna), where we will get our climbing on stalactites on and our tans. It hasn't quite hit me that I get to leave this country soon. But it has hit me repeatedly that I haven't escaped to another culture since beloved NZ. That trend has to end, because I never pictured myself being someone that didn't travel, that didn't experience the newness and freshness of being away from America.

Meanwhile, the snow continues to fly. And unlike most, I am not, surprisingly, minding the white stuff. The skiing is still amazing, and I feel like I get better each time I click into my skis. Olive loves it, and whatever gives her joy seems to give me joy double fold. When I am in my day to day life, brushing off the car & dodging the slush puddle, it is not as fun for sure. But it is what it is.

Jamie, Olive and I walked this evening to the border of the elk refuge, by Putt Putt trail. Olive, walkless until then, was running circles around us, her energy pouring out of her. The Tetons were pink, all the new snow blanketing the peaks. At the fence border we saw a coyote, who watched us for a while and then slowly made his way into the woods, pausing to look at us occasionally, especially Olive. Olive was transfixed for a while, as if she knew it was some long lost relative, and not her normally spastic, barky self when it comes to spotting wildlife.

The last few pages of my book beckons, Great House by Nicole Krauss, the author who wrote The History of Love. A beautiful writer who takes words and weaves them into phrases that should be cliches, but just are not. I love her writing.

Peace and much love.

Daydreams of Warmth

What I am daydreaming about today....About a summer filled with climbing trips to places with red rocks, flowing streams, and open space for my dog to run. About working outside, doing a job that allows me to be in the sunshine and works my body. About being an artist and working in this space of mine daily, about seeing what happens when I commit to that. About traveling to Maine and seeing my family and the ocean, about having an art show with my parents. About finding a way to make my mark in my community in terms of advocating for artists of all ages and all abilities. About finishing my house with my husband and moving upstairs so that we can see the Grand and open the windows and feel the warm breeze of summer on our faces.

It is a grey day today. A cold, damp day. Spring is perhaps the hardest month here because everything is brown, the mud is everywhere, the skiing starts to be bad, and the trails are too slick to run on. I know that we will have more winter, but the days are starting to feel different, as if everything is awakening and stretching.

I am in my studio space. Working on a piece for the Art Assc. show that is due on Friday. Loving my pod shapes. Making them is so soothing to me, the same shape forming in my hands, but each one different in terms of how the needle catches the delicate cheesecloth.

Feeling so tired. The time change is really making it hard to get up in the morning and I almost feel like resorting to coffee again. Going to the climbing gym right now, climbing with good ladies. That will energize me for a while. And then I will crash tonight. Hopefully Jamie makes dinner :)

My Weekend

This weekend was so much better than the last one....Started with an early sneak-out-of-the-office on Friday afternoon into the sunshine. Jamie and I walked to the newly reopened Trio (it almost burned down last December when their pizza oven caught on fire) and had delicious blood orange margaritas and pizza. Slightly tipsy we made our way over to our friends house to play an impromptu game of Settlers of Catan, one of the best board games around at the moment. Quite fun, and Olive only attacked (ran at really) their cat once.

Saturday. Waking up alone and rousing myself to make it to a 9am workout at Augies. It was hard to get there, but as I saw the remnants of the previous nights drinks drip down my face as sweat, I felt glad and proud of myself for rallying. Came home and cleaned my house and then made my way down to the studio to work. Which felt good. It is starting to feel more cozy, thanks to things on the wall and a piece of carpet, that we tore up from our upstairs, on the floor. It is great to just go down there and have nothing to do by make art, to force myself to create, even if it is just doodling. I have been thinking a lot this weekend about why it is such a force to make art, that maybe I am making myself do something I really don't want to do. And that when I get excited about seeing artwork, maybe those feelings are telling me something different than, "make art, make art, make art"....maybe I am just supposed to be around art, around artists, around creativity. I don't think that this is necessarily true for me, but it does amaze me how much of a struggle it can be. Went out for a late dinner with my friend Jen (another dinner out!) and we had good laughs and words shared.

This morning I ventured in the misty mountains with Julia. We had an ambitious route chosen, and upon climbing a couple of thousand feet, decided that the fog was too thick to keep going up. So we took off our skins and skied down the crusty snow, grateful that it was firm enough to stay on top and not posthole. We saw no one all day, and the sun was out full force in the valley. We decided to go shopping. Now, I lie contentedly in bed after a team made dinner. And sleep is heavily on the mind.