angelbirdflies

When I was a little girl, I was afraid of deep water.  This may be a fairly common fear, but my Dad was akin to the old man in the sea on a surf board.  I grew up on the waves.  I grew up in the ocean.  My brothers and my Dad would swim out past the kelp beds, eager and enthusiastic, then regal me with tales of open water. While I stayed in the tip-toe range, catching waves and body surfing to shore.  My fear of deep water only became more pronounced when I was given a snorkel and fins with the assurance, "These will make you swim even faster!".  I would quietly panic encumbered by these swimming accouterments, unable to find balance with the aided help. Generally speaking this sentiment usually resulted in my losing them as soon as possible. One beautiful, blue sky, summer day, I swam out past the kelp beds with my Dad.  Just the two of us.  This was a rarity in itself because I can probably count the moments of alone-time w...

May 12th and this?

I'm not ordinarily a huge Mother's Day promoter, choosing to see it as more Hallmark ready made than cherished tradition, but this year I seem to have a lot to say.  I received this from a friend and it resonated, at least in idyllic tones, with the quiet reverberations of my heart. So I will share it from the only platform I may get: Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870 by Julia Ward Howe Arise then...women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts! Whether your baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: "We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, For caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, Will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs." From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with Our own. It...

In honor of a ray of sunshine that came and left long before our arms were ready for release, his mama shared this poem by Hafiz and I offer it to you: Don’t surrender your loneliness so quickly let it cut more deep. Let it ferment and season you as few human or even divine ingredients can. Something missing in my heart tonight, has made my eyes so soft, my voice so tender, My need of God Absolutely Clear.

Happy Mother's Day to all you mama's out there... Here's how mine began, a dislocated shoulder and food poisoning.  The shoulder was the result of too much tree digging, pruning, weeding and stubborn "I can do it myself" working.  As for the food poison, in the middle of the night the whole family, minus Bodhi, awoke wretching and I spent the evening cleaning up after or personally participating in the debacle. Bodhi awoke at 6 AM feeling refreshed and in a hurry to deliver the special Mama's day card that he and Papa had made.  He read it to me, "Dear Mommy, I love you soooooo much.  I really love you.  I love you. Love Bodhi".  Of course, I cried- what cockles are immune to such adoration. I hope yours is off to a good start too! Here are a few mama pictures to share: My Grande Cia My mama Birth A reason to celebrate

What's for lunch?  Bodhi picked out this recipe from Spatulatta.com and we just had to make it for bro-bro, who was laying sick in bed.  (Trust me, it is not healthy but if my fellow vegetarians want to make it then I would suggest veggie not-dogs instead of the turkey dogs. Vegans, don't do it.)   After a jog to the grocery store and a return jog pushing Bodhi, a whole watermelon and two full bags of groceries, we made the recipe... actually I made it, while Bodhi jumped around yelling "I'm a chef" and Owen moaned in the background.  In the end neither boys liked the croissant roll surrounding the dogs but they gave it four stars for presentation.  I however, adored my lunch consisting of steamed greens, black beans, avocado, black olives and tomato salsa....mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Yes, I know it doesn't look like much.  It was only about 5 inches in diameter and 8 feet tall.  The root ball was no more than 3 feet deep.  But it was a sweet red-bud tree that we planted the year Bodhi was born, his placenta was buried in it's roots and like many of the trees in our neighborhood, it died (see this post to understand why) . I can't say that I mourned its death in a tangible way, rather it produced in me a sort of unnameable melancholy.  I am a woman who loves the spring.  I nearly live for it.  When the first signs of life emerge like a haze of hope, I drink in green with the passion of a desert crawling woman sipping at an oasis.  I gorge.  This year has been hard.  Our neighborhood isn't leafing out in native splendor, instead the tired trees seem to begrudge the effort, only offering a tender shoot or bud occasionally.  The north side of many trees appear to have given up all together, too tired after a long winter...

Someone has taken Zeus' mighty lightening bolt and anyone who has a mythology loving, Percy Jackson reading, ten-year-old worth his salt knows what that means!  Someone has to get it back! Step one: Make shields. Step 2 Read all your clues!   This was the fun part for mama.  I wrote several disasterously rhyming clues peppered with greek mythology and each requiring wit and teamwork to solve, then rolled them into scrolls and hid them strategically throughout the oddysey, with each clue leading to the next challenge. Including riddles to decipher, archery and scavenger hunts: In the end they discovered a cache of swords, Which was a good thing, because they had to defeat the terrifying cyclops at the creeks edge. Once that was complete and Zeus's thunderbold recovered... A friendly battle ensued, Followed by supper back at the camp. Overall, it was a wonderful birthday party and a happy tenth birthday! PS: Check out those cool T-shirts Shane made for the speci...