nyc nov 2012

Casey and I came to New York City for a workshop. Here are some pictures of the city from my cell phone.

An early morning run to Central Park provided a unique find - ice-skating in the trees to Bach and Michael Buble.  

The Highline - old unused elevated train tracks converted into several blocks of garden walk-way.

This dog was licking this security-guard's face non-stop. Blurry pic - sorry. The dog just would not stop. I asked him if I could take a picture.  

As if on cue the dog posed... then resumed his affectionate displays. 

A view over the Hudson River - in the hazy distance is the statue of liberty.

trying on glasses in a souvenir store

on the subway 

a cool sculpture on the Highline

quiet spots even in the bustling city

fremont treasures

Our neighborhood has many little treasures. Here are a few, after the first one, that I photographed while out on a run.

We went to a halloween production of the musical Adams Family,
and the ladies behind us were dressed up for the night.  
Very funny show.

Here's a swing that has touched my heart, not far from where we live. It's a simple enough idea. A swing on a sidewalk. What gets me is this: the idea of giving a free gift to anyone that passes by. The idea of giving to the world. In simple ways. That speak volumes. You wouldn't believe the number of people that walk by, smile, and sit down and swing for a bit.

A neighborhood garden shop. I'd much rather put my dollars here, to the lady owners on the other side of the counter, than at Fred Meyer, or some other store where the money goes to make someone already uber rich far away even richer. It encourages local creativity. Plus I get great advise and neighborly service.

This has got to be one of my favorite places.
I took a beginning ukulele class here.

Love this place too. Some diverse classes.

picturesque canals and bridges by water-ways

The autumn leaves provide a colorful carpet on this trail.
The pink bike indicates funky mainstream attitudes.

House-boats. What a cool life.

 

same love

A pediatrician friend of ours has family that helped make this video about same sex love. I love the message.

Merricks visit

The Merricks came and visited us a few weekends ago. What an honor it was to have them in our home for a couple nights and go touristing around the city. I had a pink wig in the basement - which can you guess who fell in love with it and wore it that evening to the Space Needle outing?

gangnam style

Casey showed me this video. I have to share it. It has over 400 million views, and several copy-cat dancers including US navy guys, and many others around the world. It originates from South Korean rapper Psy. Fun.

weeping nurse

I walked into work and found two of my co-workers in tears in the breakroom. I'll call one of them: Sweet Gentle Smarty Who's Always Collected (rare qualities on a busy hospital floor). The other was sitting there crying in empathy, without words. Come to find out, she is preparing to marry, and her parents don't want anything to do with her fiancee. He's from another race.

Trying on her wedding dress, her mother is trying to talk her out of marriage, speaking ill of his genetic composition and culture. Her father has refused to meet the young man. She sat there quietly weeping - I'd never seen this vulnerability in her before - wishing that her parents would just get to know this man she loves, and love him too.

Her tears jarred something in me that have had me thinking about her the last couple days. Man I'm sad. I understand partly, personally. I've heard her story so many times in so many variations. And part of me is angry.

I don't know how to fix it. Other than love her. And build bridges with diverse people in my own life and circles. And encourage others to reach into their more loving self, and let go of their set expectations for someone else, and welcome change, and newness, and love.

august slc visit

This is my favorite picture in the set.
My beautiful sister's gaze, my dad in his white hat,
the bubbling contentedness of my toddler niece,
and sunset hitting the granite columns.

A photographer at an R.E.I. workshop said that
the #1 tip he could give in taking good pictures
is to: point at beautiful things and click lots.

Casey and Mom chatting on a walk under a dynamic sky. 

Around the capitol building after dinner.
Evelyn had gotten into the pool with her clothes,
and had to wear Casey's shirt to be dry for the outing.

The wind lifts her hair,
framing an active toddler who pauses,
knowing to look up and smile for the camera.

My adorable little sister
who amazes me,
when I behold her.
I'm struck how even given life's twists and turns,
and the shit us siblings sometimes trigger in eachother,
I'm washed over with pride,
and protectiveness,
and wonder,
and admiration.

With Casey's parents at the Pancake House.
Yes we indulged.

The signature baked apple pancake, wow!

dear hypothetically gay son - from parenting blog

Read a blog post that made me cry this morning here in a cafe in Chilliwack, outside Vancouver, B.C..

Ask Your Dad Blog | Parenting Blog: Dear Hypothetically Gay Son: I ran across this letter on Reddit this morning. It is from a father disowning his gay son. It broke my heart. It's not the first time that...

rock flower

Triangle Recreation Camp outside Seattle had some neat features last weekend. Here's a couple:

peeling Rosalbita

Today, in 2008, my maternal grandmother breathed her last breathe in Los Andes, Chile. Here's my most common connection to her: Every time I peel a mango, potato, or other round fruit or vegetable, I think of my grandmother Rosalba - Abuelita. Every time.

She used to stand over her pot peeling things with a knife, telling us stories, with a twinkle of mischief and delight. We were amazed at those hands. She didn't hardly look... so used to the task from the decades of preparing food. And she drew the knife toward her fingers!

Here she was breaking every rule our mother had taught us - to cut away from the fingers. I was amazed that she never cut herself. That she missed her adept fingers every time by millimeters. And that she dared break our mother's rule was astounding. Of course, she was her mother, so she trumped it. Little bits of naughtiness.

And then the coolest part: she'd cut the entire peeling in one long strand, all connected. Then hold it up triumphantly at the end, with a sparkle of pride, to her little audience.

So guess what I do, every time I prepare a similar food? Just like my Abuelita. And I feel a sense of satisfaction, mischief and connection. All this from peeling a mango. To a life that has touched mine forever... and from whose blood I am... Abuelita...

ecstatic dance

I walked down to a huge basement business space dimly lit by white christmas lights and expansive wall mirrors. The music tribal international. Mary greeted me at the table and gave me a few guidelines, like no talking on the dance floor, and feel free to pick up an instrument and sit down at the sacred altar space.

At first I felt weird. People danced in their own non-conventional ways. And I got nervous about being seen dancing freely. I stalled for a bit and observed the altar space, circled the floor barefoot, and played a percussion instrument. In a few minutes though I surrendered to the music rhythms - let go - and melted onto the dance floor. My mind raced and judged, plotted, planned. I breathed. And walked past my busy mind... and found myself dancing... judging less and enjoying more. Responding to the different beats, at times I was in spinning Arabia, or drumming Africa, or the festive Caribbean, or hippie funky America.

I found myself smiling more, and exchanged smiles with a few others. Soon I began to lose myself - and come home. Something ancient. Connected to my body. To the ancestors and human collective. Somewhere magical and free. Connected. Alive. Still. Wild.

We sat in a circle at the end, and shared with the opening, "today at dance...". I was amazed at the beauty of so many. Inside and out.

I'll be back. I've found home again. 

tai chi - conducting - and a bear

I often want to write here, and getting to it is my biggest hurdle. Sometimes I want to journal or elucidate - and find that I am censoring myself. (Both a plus and a minus.) Connecting as a blogger and friend is also an energy. Here's a blog entry of no earth-shattering import, but significant in little shifts.

tai chi

I found a Tai Chi class two blocks from my home that has really spoken to me. I've looked into other practices nearby such as Masa African Dance, Ukulele Class, Yoga, Bikram Hot Yoga, Naked Yoga. They speak to me in different ways, or somehow fit or don't fit. But this Tai Chi class really resonates with me. I found myself very moved emotionally a couple of times while in certain poses. I know this as one of my body's truth-responses. Something ancient and archetypal. Perhaps something streaming through me. The instructor calls it chi.

One of the poses is called standing meditation. Except that it more resembles a standing fetus. The knees slightly bent, the arms squared forward, the hands limp and vertical. Shoulders slightly caved. When I got it right, with my eyes closed, it seemed like I was transported - floating in a dark womb - connected somehow to ancient Chinese ancestors gazing and participating with me.

Then last night we moved through various graceful stances, moving energy through our bodies with arms and hands. The one that got me is palms to the forhead and face, moving back over the head. Images of patriarchs blessing their posterity, and self-blessing, overwhelmed me. I'm glad I found this treasured practice. The instructor is a warm American man who travels to China regularly, and has a combination of technical combat-arts masculinity with spiritual insight sensitivity. Yeng - yang.

conducting

Dream occurences can signal significant or subtle shifts in a life journey. A few nights ago I was conducting a high school choir, enjoying it, the movement and skill of my hands, and delighted (and surprised) as the choir responded to my every conducting gesture.

This represents, perhaps, a creative/disciplined part of me that is responding and cooperating. It is a new dream. For years in my dreams classroom scenarios have often been a recurring nightmare of combativeness. Through a dreams psychologist of Jungian school of thought, I learned that the two parties represented, perhaps, the war between my creative impulsive side (the students), and the disciplined driver (the teacher). I learned to honor both, and give both of the energy and time in my life. Since then that recurring dream has morphed into other dreamscapes, I am no longer stuck there. So a dream where both parts - the creative impulsive students and the disciplined structured teacher - are working together in harmony is a new and significant dream. I trust that it represents a new emerging dance in my waking-world reality too.

a bear

A good friend that also keeps a dreams-journal dreams often with animal characters. And dreams books and courses are replete with animal appearance. So it was with initial dismay that I reflected that my dreams were devoid of animals. Perhaps I am too removed from nature, or too much of a city-dweller, or so domesticated that the wildness does not visit me even while asleep, I mused. Others invited me to let go of these judgements, and simply reflect, and be open to animals - especially undomesticated animals - thinking of them, noticing them and their appearances, even in my city life. Animals like the raven and a mouse visited my dreams.

Then last night a black bear. I was with two women in an outdoor home / retreat, getting out of a vehicle with others, and I saw a bear in the forest, and knew that it would be coming again. It was large and often stood up on its hind legs, dangerous and beautiful. I consider its appearance significant movement. Undomesticated beast, friend. In the tradition of this psychologist, the black bear is not to be avoided or killed. Though feared, it is to be heard. Perhaps it represents a part of me, or more literally, an agent of the dream world desiring to impart a wisdom. I am open and listening. Though much still remains a mystery, as in life in general, its appearance is new and meaningful.

new york book of mormon musical

Several months ago we heard about the "Book of Mormon Musical" and reserved tickets to go.

Our friend Jason made us breakfast on his rooftop deck. 

Eric tries a new drink on Fire Island.

The trip was a whirlwind flurry, full of interesting sights and good friends. The Book of Mormon Musical was outrageous, funny, irreverent, and sometimes tender. What else would you expect from the creators of South Park? 

robots vs. souls

Many of us work within systems where we struggle to retain our individuality, or humanity. I work as a nurse currently, and often there is a push to work faster, do more, talk less, to literally time our human interactions down to the minute, to be efficient. But in the corporate push for profitability is often lost our humanity.

I observe that many of our brightest brains easily become robots to a system. They are highly-degree'd people who follow orders very well. But don't do much thinking creatively, or socially - at work at least, or bring spirituality to their presence at work. 

And I refuse to follow suit. I refuse to walk out on a patient who's crying from a recent cancer diagnosis. I refuse to eliminate my greetings, or stop listening, or talk the efficient technical lingo above the mainstream's head, or clock in and clock out like a robot. Okay, some things I have to do. But the institution won't stomp out the sparkle in my eye. It won't stomp out the divine connection between people. It won't stomp out relationships. I won't become what I am not. 

Mythologist Joseph Campbell referred briefly to the biblical story of Jonah and the whale as the symbolic story of man struggling over being swallowed up by the institution - the large uncaring entity which is concerned mostly with self-propagation. Or the story of Star Wars' Luke Skywalker in the ship's garbage compactor struggling to not be assimilated in the mechanical belly. 

In place of becoming a robot, I defend my existence as a soul. I am conscious of what I value. I am conscious of the non-mundane in every person. I am conscious that sometimes the right thing to do is slow down. And tell a joke. And listen. And be there.

I am not a robot. I am a soul. 

joy in life's offerings

Life's treasures are to be enjoyed. Here are a few things from the last few weeks that have brought us happiness.

I asked Casey to make us something really simple, and he made this marvelous spontaneous combo. Simple as in: no sauces, nothing processed, easy on the stomach. My tummy was feeling sensitive. The most original surprise was the beets and squid, which we just happened to have around, artistically presented. I also loved the brown rice and quinoa, and colored carrots and corn on the cob. Warm in the stomach. This tickled my fancy in so many ways. Random but delicious and colorful. And a testament to the chef.

Tod and Gary visited us and it was fun to take them to this troll under a bridge nearby. 

Street musicians at a local street fair. 

We celebrated our birthdays at this theater's dinner and show. 

I have to say I'm very fortunate to be at this Casey's side. He has my heart in so many ways.  


Life has many diverse pleasures: a plate of food, friends visiting, exploring a neighborhood, a street band, birthday dinners, and loving partner. 

july 4

I only took a few pictures of this event at our house. Guess where my mind was?

Kristen brought these amazing "slutty brownies."
bottom layer: chocolate chip dough
middle: oreo cookies
top layer: fudge brownie dough