Crutches: a humbling experience

Last weekend while letting my dog out into the backyard, standing perpendicular on our steep back porch steps, I lost my footing and fell onto the deck. After hauling myself inside and realizing a trip to Emergency was in order, I received the verdict: sprained foot with a small bone chip. Crutches for at least a week with a follow-up in the Podiatry department.

This has definitely been a big learning experience. Here are some of the things that have come up for me:

Crutches are not fun. I always envied kids who had them. Not just for the attention, they also looked like a fun challenge. Now I know that crutches are only fun when you borrow your friend’s pair for five minutes. The toughest part is not being able to carry things. No, the toughest part is feeling like the rest of my body is broken after a day of trying to get around.

I have even more respect for people who are permanently disabled or chronically ill. After three days I started to feel depressed, against my typical nature. It’s frustrating not to be able to take care of the things I normally do and to feel hurt all day long. I have a greater insight into why people with serious conditions suffer emotionally as well as physically. And I’m only here for a brief moment in time. Beans.

After spending a week in Hawaii, I was looking for a way to become even more fit and toned but I'm not a huge fan of the gym. I like exercise that has a purpose, like running with the dog or dancing or gardening. Still one has to put in time to get a sleek, firm body like the gym rats. How about something like propelling yourself with just your arms all day long and standing on one leg for periods of time?

The wise words of my good friend continue to ring in my ear:

Be careful what you wish for. And BE SPECIFIC.

Yesterday, my sweet and I took a trip to Home Depot for supplies for my new garden bed (post forthcoming!) A woman in a soft cast encouraged me to remain in my cozy seat on the bags of soil amendment, noting that some people with flatbed carts had a tendency to ram into her without cause or care. Another woman in a wheelchair rolled by and smiled, making jokes about how my guy should be carrying me everywhere. Even though I noticed her making friends with everyone else in the garden department, I somehow felt seen and understood, as well as having the ability to see and understand. I was grateful for the care from these strangers as much as the love of my friends and family over the past week.

To quote The Phantom Tollbooth (our current classroom read aloud) “The way you see things depends a great deal on where you look at them from.” I suppose I no longer see the world from the same Point of View. And I am much the better for it.

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Easter Monday

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter yesterday! Sadly there was not much wi-fi in Maui (boo hoo), so these are a little late but still I couldn't resist. After a recent trip to Filoli Gardens in Woodside, we stopped in the gift shop and found these adorable creations!

{Robin Seeber for Bethany Lowe Designs}

{felted New Zealand wool}

{sweet bunny china!}

Garden Dreaming

Spring has arrived! As soon as the sun comes out and the earth begins to warm, I can't help but begin dreaming about gardens.

I've always loved gardening. I'm sure the influence of all my early caretakers, my grandma and my dad in particular, had a large part in this. I remember being 3 or 4, picking pears in grandma's backyard and popping the snapdragons in my own. And then there's the infamous carrot story...my dad offered to pay me a cent per baby carrot I scrubbed. Two buckets full later, this no longer seemed like a fun project and I never let him forget it.

Now that I live where the sun shines nearly every day, I can't stop dreaming about harvesting my own vegetables. I love our wide backyard lawn, though it leaves only the border around the edges available. This lonely, sunny plot has been begging for attention.


I once saw a pyramid type small-space garden in a parking lot at the co-op grocery in San Francisco. It's no longer there, but I'm hoping to replicate it from memory.


Something like this but much more natural looking. I think two or three tiers are plenty. I might use bricks if I can find some cheaply somewhere. Stones would be nice, too.











Kind of like this, but smaller stones and a larger space.



I think there might have been a bean teepee on top of it all, too. Which brings me to the difficult question. What to plant?

Herbs, carrots, zucchini...would the tomato plants do better to end up around the outside of the pyramid? Will I use containers to augment the crop load and design aesthetic?


And can I grow a row of sunflowers along this fence?

What would you do if this were your yard?

Pan is de Ting

[photo by Laurie Frankel]

I gigged with my steel drum band last night in honor of the release of their 5th CD called "Pan is de Ting" (meaning pan music is "the thing.") Steelpans are another name for the drums, made from oil barrels. Steelpan music originated in Trinidad and Tobago, and I find playing pan music to be intoxicating as well as challenging. Someday I'd love to go to Trinidad for Carnival and hear the 100-piece Panorama bands perform calypso and soca.

Our band, the Panhandlers Steel Drum Band is led by the talented and hilariously humble Jim Munzenrider. He runs several wildly popular afterschool bands for kids locally and is adored by every child he meets. Having been in the music scene for many years, he was able to bring in some incredible talent for our rag-tag band's performance. We were joined last night by Harry Best--an incredible pan composer from St. Lucia (he wrote Pan is de Ting), Michael Spiro--an internationally recognized percussionist, and Tony Lindsay--the lead singer for the band, Santana.

The highlight of the night for me was singing backup with Tony on three tunes. I've been a performer all my life but this was one of the most fun experiences I've had on stage. Coming with the confidence of five years of vocal training and a willingness to accept myself as a singer, I was able to truly ENJOY the moment.

Perfectionism leads straight into performance anxiety for me. It's been my biggest roadblock in performing. Recently while practicing my drum I realized that if I could focus only on what was in front of me, the notes in one measure which simply led to the next measure, I was infinitely more successful. I brought that mindset into my vocal lessons, following the words of my teacher, "Focus on the task in front of you!" I made leaps and bounds.

Last night I went to Twitter hoping for some pre-show inspiration and I found this quote:

"Why worry about what might or might not happen when the Heart is longing only to drink in the breath of this moment?"
~ Cathy Ginter via @Zen_Moments

All night I "drank in the breath of the moment" and it was glorious.

The Art of Mary Blair

Yesterday I joined the family on a trip to the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco's Presidio. I was hopeful that accompanying a band of full-fledged Disney afficianados would only increase the enjoyment factor, and I was pleasantly surprised. The museum offers fascinating information about the Disney family's history and lifestyle, alongside details of Walt's career and the technical aspects of animation and movie production. It is a delicious example of great storytelling.

view from the galleries

Each month the museum changes its special exhibits. This month focuses on the movie Mary Poppins. April will be Alice in Wonderland, including the work of illustrator, Mary Blair. Some of her pieces are included in the permanent collection, and the gift shop features her work, too.

Her work is familiar. She designed It's a Small World and contributed to Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Cinderella to name a few. She was also the first woman to be named a Disney Legend in 1991. Seeing these prints brought such feelings of nostalgia and...well..adoration. After doing some interweb research, I found out that many Mary Blair fans exist. And with good reason! Take a look below. It's hard not to feel a certain kind of 1970's happiness, I think.

I've collected a few more on my Pinterest board, too, if you're interested. I bought cards of the colorful city above, a sweet jungle carousel, and three Alice cards that must be her work, too, even though they only credit Disney. The first two come from "The Colors of Mary Blair" exhibit from the Museum of Contempary Art in Tokyo. I love the card size format. I always have grand visions of framing and hanging them somewhere (though it rarely actually happens--grand dreams! They will start on my Inspiration Board.)

I often find myself intoxicated by nature...

As a walked a solitary trail in Edgewood County Park a couple of weeks ago, I found myself reflecting on Howard Gardner’s addition of the Naturalist Intelligence to his theory of multiple intelligences. Just as some people are energetically fed by social interactions, it is clear to me that some of us in particular come alive in the presence of natural beauty.

Let me describe two instances for you.

Behind our cottage-like house we have a spacious backyard where two navel orange trees grow at the edge of a large picnic lawn. I gave myself an internet crash course on oranges when it appeared that our trees were overly abundant and ready to be harvested. A specific technique for determining ripeness was not readily available, but I appreciated the description of one small-scale farmer, “When the orange feels like a tennis ball—firm with a little give—then the orange is ready to be picked.” A big storm system was on the way, and I decided to harvest as many oranges as I could to share with our family and friends. Slowly at first, I tested each orange, looking for a slight squish with a heavy dense feel. I moved around the tree, discovering many more pockets of orange goodness. With each release of the stem I felt a glow from this gift of future nourishment inside its round package. After a good half hour of picking, I suddenly realized that I could sense which oranges were ripe even before I touched them. Where did this knowledge come from?

Similarly…back to my hike. I had yearned for years to find the trailhead for this path I saw winding across an open grassy hillside on my drive up the peninsula. The particular day was breezy and the trails were sparsely visited. Treasuring the time on my own, spotting deer from afar, and catching birds in the lens of my camera, I discovered that my sure-footedness returned about two-thirds of the way through my adventure. I felt my inner jackrabbit padding across the hillside, and I smiled as I easily leaped over muddy patches.

Reconnection. The smell of those oranges and the groundedness of my body along those trails brought the experience of mindful presence and peace to my otherwise busy life. Without any other stresses to occupy my mind, my breathing slowed and my face softened. What better gift to give ourselves than that?

My personal and professional work has recently led me to examine the research on the benefits of mindfulness practices more deeply, and their findings are irrefutable. One minute of breathing, a walk in the neighborhood or nearby park, a cup of tea…taking time to do one thing at a time goes miles for our health and well being. What small moment will you give yourself today?

Giraffes

Giraffes
I like them.
Ask me why.
Because they hold their heads up high.
Because their necks stretch to the sky.
Because they're quiet, calm, and shy.
Because they run so fast they fly.
Because their eyes are velvet brown.
Because their coats are spotted tan.
Because they eat the tops of trees.
Because their legs have knobby knees.
Because
Because
Because. That's why.
I like giraffes.

-Mary Ann Hoberman (from Eric Carle's, Animals Animals)

One of our daily classroom jobs is called the Poem Picker. This child picks a poem from one of our many poetry books to be read during our Closing Circle. Last week, one of the children chose this one, and I giggled to myself at the synchronicity. Giraffes and Eric Carle? The perfection was scrumptious.