our life lately.

big sur :: warm november days

cold nights :: central heat

sleep sharing :: and getting sleep

baby sign language :: not touching banana slugs

wine with friends :: movies with my husband

big leaf maple leaves underfoot :: monarch butterflies aflutter

it's a good life

how about you?

so much love.

This morning I start working around 5 a.m. By 9 a.m., I cry tiny tear rivers after reading Mona Simpson's eulogy for Steve Jobs. His final words and realization: Oh wow oh wow oh wow. What did he see?

At noon, my aunt comes over with her grandchildren. We stroll to the beach, picnic, the girls make sandcastles in the sand in weather so much sunnier than summer. When we walk by the hospital where my uncle died, my aunt mentions not liking that hospital. It's Halloween. The eldest grandchild asks in a spooky voice if it's a scary hospital. "Oh, well, it is to me," my aunt replies. To me all hospitals are scary, I think.

Early evening rolls around and S and I are deciding on the overly cozy pea-in-the-pod costume or the thinner Dracula costume. It's hot outside (and Rowan's a little milk vampire), so we go with the latter. We meet up with friends and walk around downtown where one of my best friends is accused of wearing a pregnant lady costume. Of course, it's a real belly with a real baby inside, who will soon join this world; 7 billion something in the big scheme of the world population.

{dracula by elena grover}

And what a complicated 7 billion we are, with as many legacies. Imagine if we could all hire eloquent biographers to distill our lives into hardcover books. Someone so interested in our lives that they interview our friends and family to get to know us on multiple levels. This is what I wanted to do for my mom when I was much younger. Of course it wasn't for her, it was for me. I knew that then as I know it now. Still, nothing has ever come of that desire because of bashfulness, laziness, fear. 

Once our overly tired vampire is sleeping, S and I eat dinner. I tear up again, describing Mona's eulogy and Steve's' last words. I recall the last words of my mom as heard by my aunt: I see nana and Sharon (her sister who died only months before she did), and so much love.

It's Halloween. The day the invisible wall between our world and the spirit world thins. Today I feel like I'm peeking through to the other side. I see light. I see a mirror reflecting this life--in its various stages--back at me.

What do you see?

thank you.

We've been a little busy around here, so my posts have been intermittent. In honor of (American) Thanksgiving (and love), I thought I'd move my usual spot of Friday gratitude to today. And put it in a simple short list of thankfuls...

{sol : colonia, uruguay : by me}

family and friends and reconnections

the ability to travel and to return (erm, married + with child)

birdsong

the art of letting go--perhaps impossible to master, but I've grown heaps in this area of letting go of non-material things

sweet mail with tiny lettering

the cheesecake baked and the apple crisp still but a glimmer in my imagination

a gringo thanksgiving at the end of the world

that candle wax accidents can be removed (note to teenage me: do not cut the carpet fringe)

internet (because, really, how was 14-year old me supposed to know how to get the wax out?)

frutillas regionales

to explore "home" for a lifetime, to discover it's everywhere S + I are together

to adapt together

waking up refreshed

the first hug of the morning

baby hiccups, elbows and knees that pop and somersault around my womb

light

What thanks are you giving today?

could it be spring?

Most of y'all are heading into fall, so I've been reading much ado about fall. So much so, that I've been a little confused about what month or what season it is. (I hail from the northern hem, so living in opposite seasons takes some getting used to.)

i like this kind of autumn

Winters here are icy, cold, dark and dry enough to prohibit easy breathing. Snow doesn't seem to stick for too long these days (global warming?). So it snows and immediately turns into a huge + dangerous mess of ice. There's really nothing pretty about it after the initial quiet fall. Winters are also mostly windless, which is a welcome reprieve for Patagonia. I can't imagine if the wind blew all that cold around like it does in the summer. 

{photo by eros turannos}

Our welcome home weather was that of a typical Patagonian summer: ceaseless wind from all directions, rain, sunshine, snow, sun, downpour, snow, sun. Then the sunshine graced us with its presence for a whole decently windless (for here) day. And we rode bikes. 

{photo by flabnbone}

We're diving into spring; our current truth is more light! Instead of dusk falling at 4, its curtain swishes in around 6.30 p.m. By Christmas, the sun will shine until 11 or so. I'll dearly miss the 18+ hours of daylight when we head back to the States. But, because most of our summer days still require a puffy jacket, or at least a scarf and reasonably heavy jacket, I do look forward to the spring and summer days of yore. Sundresses, shorts, skin, skin not entirely transparent, wearing flowers in my hair windlessly, reading outside--in a flowered field.

{photo by ashley the dinosaur}

But for now I'm loving more light; tiny pops of green, of life; new penpals and letter writing projects; the return of friends who wintered (well, summered) elsewhere; me not freezing; lambs; tangelos; finally having lettuce to make the most delicious salad we've eaten in months.

{unattributed photos : unknown : please let me know if they're yours}

friday present: from sneezing to reciprocity.

I'd like to propose a late morning coffee toast to Saturday: the new Friday. Thank you all so much for your kind, supportive notes. I've managed to weather the hiccups of the week, showing few bruises. And I sure could use a little gratitude trip. 

Right now I'm thankful for these little things...

A good sneeze.

{lavender}

You know sometimes there's that sneeze that sneaks up on you half way (ah-ah-ah) several times, before you're able to let 'er choooo. I've had one of those for a couple days now, and it's such a relief to finally sneeze the ah-ah-ah out out out! 

Plus it's nice to be blessed afterward. Most of our sneeze blessings have to do with health. In Spanish we say: Salud! meaning health. In Turkish it's çok yaşa! Which essentially wishes the sneezer a long life. The sneezer replies sen de gör. Roughly meaning: may you see (a long life) too.

Last night's massage that finally loosened that knot from my shoulder.

{breathe}

Trapped sneezes, persistent kinks... what gives? My body seems to be clenching in on itself. Time to breathe and release.

Do overs. 

{yarn by abby powell}

The good thing is, we can just drop it. Let go of what needs to be released and stop resisting what *is* (aka whatever it is we're fighting against). It just takes some practice, because clenching is one of our closet human habits. 

I started crocheting my first blanket. And, if changing yarn color every row wasn't already complicated enough. The pattern I chose required counting. Suddenly the half moons, never meant to overlap, started snaking up on each other like two kittens curling up into each other for warmer sleep. I pulled out the five rows and am looking into something more my style: yarn minus the math.

Bloglines. 

Oh, beauties, it's OK to break out the bubbly and toast to yourself! This week I finally received lovely Carrie's snail mail post: The adventures of Cuppie continue, stay tuned! Getting mail down here takes a while. I always get it, (except for that one time a long time ago...) And as it turns out, the knock at the door sounds just as I am starting to feel a little anxious. 

I won my first giveaway, from the beautiful sisters Catherin and Mary Chris of Pretty Pleased! A perfectly versatile and cute and "not too useless" tank from Mink Pink. Can't wait to find this pretty number in my mail box, hopefully in time for our little beach-cation. More on that soon. 

And thanks to Melissa at the super cute blog Oh, My Darling, I have three new pen pals. I like how these virtual connections start to lead to more physical glue, glitter and pretty penned connections. If you're interested in scribbling sweet nothings to strangers, visit Dear Darlings and sign up.

The reciprocal act of giving and thanking.  

 {sunflower by dijea}

Each gratitude journey quiets my thoughts some, creates space in the clutter of mindmuck. Readier to face the clean day with clarity. On the slate for today: teach an English class, make some headway with translation and swim in correspondences. If we're lucky, it'll end with a cheesecake baked in time for a long Sunday brunch. 

What's on your happy list for today? 

{unattributed photos: unknown : please let me know if they're yours!}

surrender. yes, ok.

{photo found here} 

For the past few days, I seem to be running into people who are feeling blue or nostalgic in some way or another--all across the world. And who doesn't feel a little dumpy every once in a while? Myself included. What has helped me in various phases of my life and what reared its pretty head in my reading last night was this: Surrender. 

{The Wishing by Andrew Pearce}

 

I wasn't reading Eckhart Tolle last night, but here's an apropos quote from him about surrendering. 

"Always say 'yes' to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? What could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say 'yes' to life..."

Who knows why acceptance ever becomes difficult for us humans to muster. Or why sometimes mustering is more difficult than other times. But simply accepting that something feels more difficult presently steps us toward surrender, and surrendering to what is reminds us to breathe.

{photo: unknown: please let me know if you know it, so I can attribute it.} 

Now. to remember to put it into practice. love & light. xo