Spring Rain

When I lived in Mexico, I made a small poster for my wall that read "Mexico is so loud" and listed the many daily cacophonies of that place. I love San Miguel, but damn.....loudness.

Lately, with the birth of Spring, South Philly also has become very noisy.....it is stoop sittin' weather, so everyone who stayed inside during our winter that wasn't is now outside. Outside in Philly sounds like: trucks and cars, police helicopters, people yelling at each other (in a seemingly amicable way), kids screeching on bikes and shooting each other with toy guns, horns blasting from Broad Street; in general, the city has woken up with the season.

The trees are blooming and so is the neighborhood. I live in the Newbold neighborhood of South Philly: very close to the stadiums and just off the busy-ness of Broad Street. Cars come peeling by at all hours, and everyone seems excited that the sun is back.

Today, though, it is raining and mostly quiet. I am reminded of Steve Nieve's album "Windows" from a few years ago....I wish I could post some tracks here but only have the album and there seem to be no videos!

Look On Down From the Bridge

Mazzy Star is my band for rainy days: always has been. I remember listening to them years ago, as a freshman in high school, on cool wintery days in Texas, and now on my stoop in Philadelphia.

I've Been Let Down

Be My Angel....my favorite

Springtime in Philthy....

in·dig·na·tion/ˌindigˈnāSHən/

 

 Pamir, Afghanistan --- 

I would like to be here, today, with some rose petal jam and bread and some good company....by the time I am old, I will have been everywhere I want to visit.

 

 Spring has sprung here in Philadelphia....the sun is shining, the light is strong and long, and thoughts of gardening are swimming through my mind. I am lucky and have a share in a community garden in my neighborhood, and am very excited that, finally,  I will be able to start planting! 

 

 My vegetable garden in Austin....I miss my old house...

 

I cannot tell you how my disconnection from gardening whilst living here has disrupted my mood and sense of self. 

 

 I am feeling very indignant due to some situations that are happening that I cannot mention here, in the public sphere that is blogging. I have chosen to channel that indignation and resentment into gardening and silver- and gold-smithing. I have some seeds, some soil, and a new commission!

 

 Me gusta mis jitomates!!!! 

 

 It feels, somehow, as if something has shifted here....either I have passed the point of no return, or it's as simple as the Sun has come back. I had no idea how I would be effected by Seasonal Affective Disorder, being that this is my first real experience of Northern winter...I am so used to sunshine all the time that I am not quite sure how to deal with it when it disappears. 

 

I think that Philly especially emphasizes the malaise of winter because everything here is hard: stone, brick, no sun, all shade and grit. I went to work in the dark, and I left work in the dark, and never go outside for anything.

 

 Last year, during lunch and during my prep period, I would work on native landscaping my school's grounds. I planted plants, sowed seeds, weeded, and pruned trees. Here in Philly, I constantly joke (with sadness in my heart) that there are no trees, no plants, not a lot of nature anywhere. 

 

 At the apex of Perpendicular Trail, Acadia National Park....

 

 It has been a transition, bien sur! A transition that has made me aware of those environmental aspects that I need in my life for my own personal happiness. 

 

 The same veggie garden at the Haney House, East Austin

 

 So.....Moore Street Community Garden

- lettuce

- arugula

- basil

- green beans

- peas

- kohlrabi

- tomatoes

- collard greens

- bok choy

- flowers!!!

And a new jewelry commission to make meat cleavers out of silver......

 

 

Hamilton Pond, off Route 3...Mount Desert Island 

 

 There is a tipping point in experience, when you realize you finally moved past this hurdle you couldn't even identify, it was so hidden in the murk of your thoughts. Once I crossed that hurdle, identified it, saw it, and was able to step back and take a breath and say, "there you are!", nothing much is bothering me right now. In the moment, yes, but if I write about it, go to the studio and heat up some silver with an oxy-acetylene torch, make something with my two hands, choose seeds and think about how they will grow and change, read a book....I realize that all of this is transitory...time passes by so fast! If you don't stop to take a look around once in a while, or you might miss it....

 

 Me, in England, with my Grandpa, at breakfast....almost 25 years ago...

 

I just started looking at the Tao Te Ching again, after many months of leaving it to gather dust on the shelf. I love this book, and especially my edition of it. I constantly read its passages and think about how they relate to my life. This one was the one that flipped open yesterday:

 

FORTY-EIGHT
In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.

Less and less is done
Until non-action is achieved.
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

The world is ruled by letting things take their course.
It cannot be ruled by interfering.

Putting Myself Fully Into It

"I realized I could make my life into anything I wanted, that I could 

choose my reality. That was when I put myself fully into this, that I 

decided to just go and see what happened, nothing else mattered."

- Mikael Kennedy

Yosemite HD from Project Yosemite on Vimeo.

This video is breathtaking. Many years ago now, at the humble age of nineteen, I went on a two-month-long road trip out west with my boyfriend at the time. We spent all summer camping and climbing around the western part of the United States. We stayed in almost every national park from New Mexico to Washington, and stayed more outside than inside the walls of cheap hotels. We stopped in Yosemite for a couple of days on our way to drive the PCH north to Oregon. I remember camping in a beautiful little campground with lots of families. The sky was such a bright, deep blue it hurt your eyes. There was wildly coloured, flourescent green moss that grew all over the trees.

I have had to admit, lately, that I am not a city person. Becoming comfortable with the fact that I am a privileged woman who has had amazing opportunities come her way, and has always lived in beautiful places, has taken some time. I thought that, at least, I would try out city living and probably really like it. But the truth is, I really, really don't. I think my choices have to be: suburbs, small town/city, or country. I really need the trees, the dirt, grass, flowers, birds, squirrels, and space.

Today I spent the day at my friend's mom's house in the suburbs, in a town called Radnor. (Interesting fact: Radnor High School is the high school that Grease is based on!) I am so lucky to have the wonderful friends here that I do: to be adopted by three such lovely people....I don't know what I would have done had I not become friends with them! I feel like they are my Philly family....Anyway: Radnor is soooo beautiful: one of those old, east-coast suburban towns where all the houses are different and the countryside is amazingly sculpted to look organic when you know that someone pored over city planning documents for years to just get it right. We spent all day lounging in the living room, lesson planning and watching hockey. It made me so happy to look out the window and see leaves on the ground and a grove of winter-y trees.

This is what makes me happy! Surroundings that are beautiful and tranquil.

On that same trip out west twelve years ago, my favorite spot of the whole trip was Olympic National Park. We camped and backpacked there. There were ancient forests and giant banana slugs. There were cairns all over the beaches, and we saw a sea lion just lounging on the beach! We made campfires in washed up, giant logs, and played with tiny, red-orange crabs. We peered at anemones, and stared up at craggy, damp trees. We stood on the edge of a rushing river: its water bright, pure grey with the dust of rocks broken by the glaciers settled in the mountains above. The gravel-y ground was dark black, volcanic stone. The day was so damp, in that cool rainforest, that, just above our heads floated small tufts of cloud. The scene was deep green with trees, black with sand, grey with water, white with clouds. It was, still, the most beautiful place I have ever been. I will never forget it.

Change is afoot.....I have about two weeks to make it happen.

I have decided to make this my motto for a time "Putting Myself Fully Into It"

Side note: last week sometime, one of my students said: "Miss? Do you know what we used to think about you?" I said, "No....what was it?"He said, "That you are a mermaid!". I said, "A mermaid? Why would you think that?". "Well," he said, "you know! You always talk about the ocean and stuff and you have all this weird stuff around, and so we just thought you were a mermaid. But now we know you are just a teacher!"

So part of Putting Myself Fully Into It is to remember that magic happens. Sometimes the path that is before you can change in the blink of an eye, if you have the sense of responsibility to do what needs to be done to make the path reach the end. If you have the sense of belief that good things DO happen, if you think that you deserve happiness and that all the other things will just fall into place.

Putting Myself Fully Into It is remembering that, to some people, the people that really matter, the people whose lives I am truly dedicated to, I am a mermaid. A magical lady who lives in the ocean, with beautiful songs to sing to many, many, different kinds of people.

And so....there you are.

This is important for me to remember......

This is my current theme song....a song to carry me through