Green Girl

Today I am almost 4 weeks into 3 months off work.

While it has been filled and sometimes feeling a bit too busy with all the goodness and experience, I yet can feel myself slowing down.  My mantra for this time is to Move only When Ready: when the energy is right, when my heart tells me too, only then say yes, make a plan, do the  next thing. Meanwhile, nap when needed, read a lot, go easy on the chores, dunk naked into fresh water whenever possible.

So many sweet experiences so far:  Great eats and girl time in Sonoma County with Lise and Lesli; Kitchen talks and fun everyday time with three great boy-filled families - hikes, building things, spaceships and dinosaurs, rope swings, football practices and frostys (hugs to Parrotts, Lows, Liskes); A successful and exuberating five day solo trip into Caribou Lakes Basin in the Trinities;  A new affair with Kosk Creek and Big Bend Hot Springs (where my toes can be seen poking up in the photo, past which is our secluded creekside camp in the trees (big heart gratitude to Robby, Osita and Sneaky).

This weekend - Strawberry Fall Music Fest, never been - aiming for fun.  After that, more backcountry time I think - we’ll see where to move next when I get to next week.

More posts and photos from my recent adventures to come. For now - read this and eat well.

Vegetable Love
by Barbara Crooker

Feel a tomato, heft its weight in your palm,
think of buttocks, breasts, this plump pulp.
And carrots, mud clinging to the root,
gold mined from the earth’s tight purse.
And asparagus, that push their heads up,
rise to meet the returning sun,
and zucchini, green torpedoes
lurking in the Sargasso depths
of their raspy stalks and scratchy leaves.
And peppers, thick walls of cool jade, a green hush.
Secret caves. Sanctuary.
And beets, the dark blood of the earth.
And all the lettuces: bibb, flame, oak leaf, butter-
crunch, black-seeded Simpson, chicory, cos.
Elizabethan ruffs, crisp verbiage.
And spinach, the dark green
of northern forests, savoyed, ruffled,
hidden folds and clefts.
And basil, sweet basil, nuzzled
by fumbling bees drunk on the sun.
And cucumbers, crisp, cool white ice
in the heart of August, month of fire.
And peas in their delicate slippers,
little green boats, a string of beads,
repeating, repeating.
And sunflowers, nodding at night,
then rising to shout hallelujah! at noon.

All over the garden, the whisper of leaves
passing secrets and gossip, making assignations.
All of the vegetables bask in the sun,
languorous as lizards.
Quick, before the frost puts out
its green light, praise these vegetables,
earth’s voluptuaries,
praise what comes from the dirt.

knee deep in the Merced River

Yosemite Valley

summer arrived

This is not a self portrait but it could be.  So much summer loveliness and fun already this year!  Non-linear yin time floating in lakes and between conversation, stillness and music. Watching humpbacks breach, flipper wave and slap just off our anchorage in Pelican Bay on Santa Cruz Island for almost an hour, then hearing the birches chatter their happiness at the sun and blue sky days in the high Sierra. It truly was the best Strawberry Music Fest yet, I felt so free and comfortable in my own skin and truly part of a tribe of beautiful people. There was just enough cutting loose tequilla drinking and laughter, great jams and warm afternoon forest hammock time to create a perfect experience.  I enjoyed introducing Dona to the festival, sharing an adventure to Channel Islands before hand, and the road trip together between all the fun fueled by McConnells famous ice cream in Santa Barbara and the purple paint splashed sight of lupin in the meadows - snowy dogwood brightening the shadows under the pines.  All this, and only May - what a summer to come here in my 40th year!

What suprises me about trains is that you forget where you are going, the journey so catching you up in its thousands of stories. A twenty hour trip becomes timeless and therefore instantaneous as you move moment to moment meeting people of all walks over meals in the dining car, reading good literature and gazing out the windows in the observation car. And there you are with them, absorbed in the experience, settled into the quiet, when suddenly you remember where you are going - what awaits at the train station - and a fresh happiness warms through your chest. So quickly is the trip over in this way!

In a just eleven days I trained with Dona on the Coast Starlight to Portland (Natascha hooked us up with a train fun kit in the round bag in the photo) and met folks returning from Death Valley asking why we were vacationing in the Northwest this time of year and were seated at lunch with a mom and her cool 20 year old arty son named Jared who was a bit punky and friendly and won points for having ‘Water For Elephants’ in his bag.  We visited the Klien family, tried Stumptown cofee and smelled daphne for the first time.  I then trained to Seattle on the Cascades run and met an octogenarian traveling by herself visiting family and a woman crotcheting amazing lace on her grandmother’s needles while I journaled, sipped a nice bourbon and shared chocolate truffles. We visited Melissa and Lara and ate and laughed well.  After several hundred dollars spent at the art and yarn stores,  Dona and I drove to Port Townsend for Artfest and snow and then clear blue days in the middle of a ring of mountains. What a region is this Sound, surrounded as it is by the Olympics, Cascades, Ranier, water, islands, sky.  Flying home we went right over the Trinities and I saw the Caribou Lake basin where I went off trail last year, and the Wedding Cake deep in snow, where I hope to go next.  And this just the first of the wonderful adventures planned for my fortieth year.  Welcome spring!

The plum trees outside work are the first monniker of spring, but they always feel like winter as the petals slowly spin down light as air, the closest thing we have to snow.

Science is back. Hope is back.  Perhaps, even, America is back and we are here to move it forward.  Senator Elliston told us “there are no allies, cuz we are all IN this movement.” Van Jones told us to be brave and really make this live when we go back home. Akim Steiner told us” today there are more jobs in renewable energy than in the oil and gas industries.”  He also told us that in 20 to 30 years there will be no more viable commercial fisheries at the rate we are going.  Leo Gerard told us that 58% of the goods we buy from China today come from American companies that moved there in the last decade.  Here in D.C., just weeks after Barak’s inaguration, I rubbed shoulders with Jim Hoffa, with Phil Angeledes, with Jared Bernstein, with hip hoppers, Sierra Clubbers and steel workers all here to move America forward together.  Good Jobs can be Green Jobs.  Check it out at the Blue Green Alliance website. (Bout time I wrote something that connects with my site’s monikker, eh?)

Got the holiday decorations down before February.  We had left them up for cheer at our January Poetry Party. Poets got a little rowdy on our knock off of 515’s Bo Diddley, an old fashioned whiskey sour with egg white whipped up by Pam.  I am beginning to feel like a character on Cheers, or at least that I should take out some stock in 515.  We have spent a lot of time there lately, including one evening where we girls bogarted the Miles Davis room and wrote and shared our words about our word for the year.  (More on that later).  I am excited for 2009 - I turn 40, have many travel plans, feel so happily abundant in friends, am discovering a delicious growing softness within myself about myself, and am uncovering wellsprings of energy for work and creativity. Its been a sweet time where an easy happiness is just there, and most of the time too.  As I said to a friend this week  - “keep it coming!”

Inspired by Dona B I will be embarking on a year of self portraits. This is my first one I will post!

I am generally waiting on getting a digital SLR to make a daily portrait but until then may post a few from my iPhone if they come out at all well. They will live on my Flickr photostream. The project causes me some anxiety, so I know it pushes my boundaries in some ways and thus will be a worthwhile commitment.  Wish me true seeing and self appreciation!

One of the sweetest things of 2008. Roberta adopted us!