Down Time

I am in my post-Christmas peace time, doing nothing all day. We are visiting family who take such complete care of us, I don't have to do anything. It is like taking Christmas afternoon when everyone sits around reading new books or instructions for figuring out new toys, periodically picking at the ham in the kitchen or popping sugar cookies, and extending it out for days. That has been the picture. Doing nothing but zoning out, hanging out and spacing out. I knit a scarf for no one in particular and read a National Geographic cover to cover. Other than that, I have eaten and slept.

Today we drove out to Point Reyes and looked at the mighty Pacific. The sky was gray but the hills were florescent green all the way out. There were stands of Coastal Cypress trees all tall, dark and handsome, and lots and lots of the little coastal deer lazing around as if they've never had any reason to run. Big hawks were hanging out on phone lines, fence posts and tree branches, outnumbering the buzzards. We drove to the end and Grace and I got out of the car and climbed up the little road to the light house. From there you can look down on unadulterated coastline that stretches for miles. It is a gorgeous flat sandy beach with nothing on it, and cliffs along the edge with nothing but rolling green above. There was huge surf making long white lines of foam that floated back out to sea and broke up to look like pods of whales might be making them from below. We didn't see whales but they were out there.

I didn't bring my camera or a sketch pad or notebook. I just soaked it up. There was nothing to do. The endless view of gray on gray with the lighthouse's lonely fog horn and the crashing of waves on rocks far below was enough.

How to find Holiday Spirit

I heard people singing in the distance as I was checking my email tonight. After the kids are asleep it’s my time to catch up on everything and I was in my world of blogging and emailing as it slowly dawned on me that carolers were approaching. My first instinct was strange: I wanted to hide. Huh? When I opened the curtain I saw people in hats and sweaters holding candles in a loose grouping that was half standing, half wandering down the street, singing. I got up and got Dave and we stepped onto the front porch to watch as this large group of dark figures with candles asked if we had any requests. I couldn’t think of anything because anything was what I wanted to hear. I just wanted to hear them sing some more. It was such a gift and such a shift to be invited out of my head and into the night, the cool air, under the stars to stand among these strangers, my neighbors, and watch their slow meandering down the street as they spread wide swaths of musical cheer. What a difference to be out of my room where I sit on my computer supposedly communicating with the entire world by watching youtube videos of snowball fights in NY and reading blurbs of old acquaintances on facebook, and face to face with these beautiful people singing to us. I think the attention of all those voices, all those hearts on us and our house was what made my first impulse to run. I am not used to receiving that much sweet wholesome plain goodness from people. My people. Not old classmates in Connecticut, but my neighbors who hand my children candy on Halloween and sing to us tonight. The flesh and blood that sleeps and eats and breathes in the houses around my house. The people who surround me this day. This moment.

Here’s to my neighbors. Here’s to singing and the way it so easily opens my heart. Here’s to all that this season is meant to remind us about:
Love, peace, generosity, gratitude and joy.

water flow

The sound of water dripping off the trees and the smell of wet mud takes me far from this huge city where I live. It lands me in these other places. Ranches. Lake cabins. Tent camping. Small towns I know as well as my hands. Pictures I've lived a thousand times. The way the air feels on my skin is enough to make my suburban backyard remind me of a jungle I visited only once but which stayed lodged in my chest somewhere as vivid as the places I grew up in. Why is the rain so potent now?

For two days it has rained. The southern California ground is so dehydrated it barely understands how to absorb all the water. It rolls away, down cement waterways filled with trash and trees. I live in a strange place that I love dearly and that changes faster than any place I've ever known. It pushes me to move away and pulls me back to stay. It has little patience for my nostalgia, but romanticizes its own short history. It is a city of contrast and contradiction and when it rains it practically turns upside down. The sky is so blue I don't recognize it and for a minute I think I live somewhere wild and free.

rainbow

In her homework Grace writes:
Did you know rainbows are made of light and water? Did you know they only happen when it rains and the sun is shining? Well it's true!

It is raining now and it is dark.

And our roof is leaking.

And the dripping into bowls is fascinating to the cats.

Living here in So Cal rain becomes more like a rainbow. Rare and beautiful. We live without it mostly and some years we hardly get a drop. So when it comes and its more than a trickle or a light little mist, when it's real and heavy and fills up bowls on the floor and buckets outside, I say hallelujah.

I say thank you.

the m word

Some little birds have been bugging me lately that I have something to say about money. (Who me?) I have never been very good with it, in my opinion, but according to my sister I have always had a healthy attitude toward it. When we were kids and we started getting an allowance, she opened a savings account and started depositing weekly. I saved my 50 cents all week to buy something for a dollar the second week. That is about as good as I have ever been at saving.

But with that tendency to spend I also had a certain trust that there would always be more coming. I have never been a reckless shopper and I don't enjoy excess, but I have no qualms spending it in order to live the life I want. Of course nowadays money is a lot tighter so I am being forced to carefully consider every choice I make and really ask myself, is this important to my life or is this just something I've grown accustomed to having?

To me there is a kind of magic in money. When I lived on a tight budget in the past, money felt like something I had to fight for. I had to work a job that didn't pay enough and the money stream felt more like a trickle out of a rusty pipe. Years later as I expanded into a wife and mother and the financial organizer for the household, I started to see that money would show up when and where we needed it to. There was synchronicity in the way it would appear just at the right time and in the right amount for what we needed. Those were the days of the bubble and it seemed like so many things were growing value, especially real estate where people were making a killing flipping houses in no time. Money felt easy and I started to feel like we were joining the ranks of those who didn't have to worry about it anymore.

I still think that the way it flows or doesn't has everything to do with how I am feeling about it. But I have also learned that having more money does not free you from worrying about it. As the entire world has frozen up around spending and many are struggling to survive, I too have been feeling fearful and worried. And wouldn't you know, money has gotten quite scarce. People aren't buying the way they were and we are feeling it. But I know that it is all just the magic of money showing me how to live, yet again. Responsibly above all. But also with faith that I will always be supported just as I have always been. And even if major changes are in store for us, we will not change the way we live or stop doing what is important to us.

I had to call my sister today. I was telling her how I've been feeling a little nervous about money and debt and the future. She was very reassuring. She said, "Worrying is not the answer. Just stay on top of it, and you'll be fine. You always have been!"

Losing My Shit

Today I lost my cell phone. Actually I lost it two days ago but hadn't noticed because we were up north visiting family and they live in a beautiful spot and like most peaceful quiet places there is not even a glimmer of hope of service within several miles of their house. So I didn't notice that it was missing until we were driving home today and I traced my movements back to the last place I had used it and it was the bathroom of the Chevron we had visited the day before. I had called my sister to tell her we were running late for our rendez-vous because we had to stop for gas, and I have a vague memory of setting it down on a toilet paper holder so that I could wipe a juvenile bottom.

It's gone. Called the Chevron and they had not seen it so someone must have swiped it. It was a nice phone. Not something I really needed actually and I thought today about replacing it with just a simple cheap phone.

But it also got me thinking about all the losing of things I have been doing. Just a few months ago, again driving down from up north, I lost my wedding ring. And before that I lost my engagement ring, presumably when we were robbed and I lost my computer too. It is all very personal stuff. The computer and the cell phone holding all kinds of personal information (and images of my daughters) and the rings obviously holding a lot of personal symbolic meaning. All replaceable, but none easily or without a major investment of money and time.

I bought a new computer, a much nicer model than the predecessor, but the fingers seem not to need replacement rings. Not yet anyway. I love my husband and the wedding rings need to be rethought, perhaps updated to the more advanced married people we have become. I need a phone but not something fancy when all I use it for is calling and keeping appointments. Perhaps I should think of myself as a snake, shedding a crisp outer sheath that was cramping my style.

It's interesting. Now I have to tell everyone and ask them to email me their numbers since I never write down or memorize numbers anymore. We used to do that.

cruising

As we drove north on the I-5 the other day I was watching people zoom by in their cars. Sometimes they would almost be floating next to me, each in their own private universe, unaware of my gaze and of our parallel speeds and trajectories. I saw people everywhere, buzzing along in their little worlds when we are all actually going somewhere together. Our seemingly separate movements and choices constantly affecting everyone around us, sometimes only inches from colliding.

I had been giving myself a hard time for a number of days, and as I watched the woman in the black car floating along next to our silver one, something told me it was time to give myself a break. Time to get into the habit of giving myself (and therefore the people I love...okay, my husband) a break too. I criticized him a few times that day. Granted we were locked in a car together for eight hours with our kids, but still, as I listened to the way I was correcting him or judging his actions I saw that when I just pause for a moment to love myself, then I can just love him too. I can immediately release any need for him to be other than who he is.

I was starting to see something as we barreled up the 5, about my ideas around failure. And success. There was this gnawing feeling that had been following me around that I was on the wrong path, that I had made some mistakes and bad choices, and that I should be trying to do something smarter than what I am doing right now. That being a healer is a joke. That I will never make a living that way. Never be able to support myself creatively. These thoughts had been following me around for the past couple of weeks. Weeks in which I kept noticing or running into friends who I consider “successful” female artists and I kept seeing myself as some kind of failure. Or at least of limited potential. But as the woman in the next car floated by she gave me something rich. A sense of peace I had been missing and I asked myself: What is really standing between you and believing you are a “success”?

It's so simple. All anyone who has enjoyed success has ever had to begin with was a simple uncompromising belief in what they were doing. I might have thought for a while that I'd been up against a lot in terms of my demons, but I really have no excuse anymore. I see my gifts and what to do with them more clearly than I ever have. And to cultivate that belief into something unwavering and constant I have only to make a subtle shift in my habitual thinking. I need only to catch myself every damn time and shift lanes to that trajectory of confidence. The one that finds me every morning. The one that is flying 80 miles an hour through the blighted San Joaquin Valley singing Beetles songs. The one with five lists on each desk of projects I am working on. I don’t need to drive down that dead end that I know so well. And when I find myself there, it is not that hard to notice I have gone the wrong way and turn around. Get up that ramp to the freeway again.

Feeling Full

Today is turkey day and I am in a land of wild turkeys, spending a couple of days with my husband's family...well my family too! I love it up here. They live in a beautiful spot in a beautiful part of this beautiful state of California. My three year old and I took a walk this morning and I breathed in the moist air, so different from the air down where we live in Pasadena. Here it is moist and full of the smell of giant trees that surround the house. Very tall pines and lots of oaks and layers of fern beneath that and mosses of every color under that. We walked and stopped and looked under rocks and found grubs and other tiny creatures and then we walked some more and looked out over the grand vista from up on this beautiful hill and there we saw a hawk just landing on an electric pole and two deer standing along the side of the road eating grass. We had earlier communed with the bull that lives here and some lamas that also share the property so we had all these interactions with four legged creatures wild and domestic. To my daughter there is no difference. She is entrances by all life no matter the size of it. She was as happy feeding the bull as she was touching a slug. We didn't see turkeys today but they were on my mind because it is Thanksgiving and because I have seen them here many times before.

Turkeys represent gratitude and I was feeling very thankful as I carried her back to the house, even while my arms ached from her weight. She is too heavy for me to carry very long but she was tired and I was really enjoying it. I was thanking God for the moment and for being able to still carry her in my arms. It was just a beautiful day, the sun was warming my cheeks, her body was soft and wiggly, her face fully happy. We had seen so much on our little walk. We had dug under some velvety leaves to feel the moist earth and smell its rich fragrance. We had picked flowers. We had met a dog. And there we were again, stopping at the side to get some weeds for Ferdinand the bull and the way the tall grass was bending over the little stream and the emerald green moss was a perfect little art installation. This is one of my favorite places because it is so stunning and I am very grateful to be here this day. The greatest artist is making installations all around me and she is a lot of fun to watch.

Doctor's Visit

I never did meditate today but I had a moment of truth, actually two, worth noting.

The first was while I was in a doctor’s office with Grace, listening to an ENT (ear, nose and throat specialist) talk about her physicality. I was looking at Grace and a question I had written the night before, in connection with a project I am working on, popped into my head: Do you feel you are changing your lineage? Grace has inherited many physical traits from my side of the family and we were in that office to discuss her tonsils, which are, to borrow from the doctor’s polite phrasing, “quite generous.”

The reason we were seeing this ENT was because her dentist, her pediatrician and a speech therapist had all recommended we have her tonsils looked at. All were concerned because of their size and because last spring I told them all that she snored, slept with her mouth open, had circles under her eyes and seemed a little low on energy. She also had a tooth that wouldn’t let go, even though the adult replacement had already come in. It was sticking out like a shark’s tooth, at a 90 degree angle.

But over the summer that tooth fell out. It finally let go all on its own and all the other issues seemed to be resolving themselves one by one. The snoring stopped, she stopped breathing through her mouth, the circles had dissipated and her energy was good. As the doctor spoke, assessing Grace as the picture of health, I looked at her wondering if she was simply growing out of things, or if any of those shifts might have something to do with me, and all my changes.

The summer was the beginning of a period of deep healing for me, and ever since I have enjoyed excellent health and so has the entire family. (Okay, I was sick for a couple of days in early fall, but it was nothing more than a cold.) As I have become more and more disciplined with my spiritual practice I have never felt better physically. My kids seem healthier too and are getting along with each other better. In fact we are all getting along beautifully. We laugh a lot more than we used to. I was thinking about how my own personal healing was healing the whole family, particularly Grace, who is a lot like me. And as I looked at her sitting there, beautiful and radiant, I was looking beyond her, seeing my sister who had to have her tonsils removed at age twelve and was always suffering from colds and hay fever. I thought about my mother, my grandmother, aunts and cousins, all long gone but many of whom were creative women who put family first and never got around to really expressing themselves. Grace comes from a long line of women who were artists and teachers, full of life but not belief in themselves, and many of whom died fairly young.

On the way home we stopped for gas. As it was pumping and Grace was sitting inside the car I felt full of love. I was thinking about the lineage and the idea or the image of changing it. I let my heart open and started to look at everything around me with love. The other people filling their tanks, the oil stained cement, even the smell became beautiful. The scene at the gas station is normally a place that I don’t think of anything except getting through it. But as I stood there, fully in the moment, loving everything around me, a pigeon walked right in front of me. It was completely white. A beautiful white dove, just like the bird that flew back to Noah with a piece of green in its beak. A symbol of peace, and love.

My Desk

My desk my desk my desk

Oh how it plagues my mind

I wish it was a place to write, to think, to create but alas

It is piled high with bills, paid and unpaid and question-marked.

I take a ton of paper

Received daily in the mailbox

And knowing not how to wrangle it

Dispose of it there.

There there there on my desk

My poor creaky IKEA desk

How it sags in its imperfect joints under the weight

Of all that needs doing.

Does it scream and yell and beg for attention like those short people I live with?

No,

It sits quietly

Waiting for me to notice.

It watches how I do the dishes

Sweep sweep sweep the floors

Obsessively pulling shit from cat boxes

Yet ignore its dusty and disheveled surface.

It watches while I do most anything

writing, drawing, designing up a storm

Planning meals and cooking them into black clouds

Staring at anything but the to do lists, the filing and the God knows what is really in those high rising piles.

It marvels at all the ways I use up energy to swirl in a hurricane of activity

And waits…waits….waits...for me

To notice something is stuck

Nothing is actually moving.

That all that flurry of goings on

Is plugged up in the drain hole

Unable to flow out and down and through to where it needs to go

Because the bottom is clogged with the hairy mess on my desk.

Finally finally FINALLY it hits

That the desk can also be-- must be part of the creative tempest

Has to be loved into organized files and concrete action plans

In order for any rainbows to land.

making beds

I have been preparing two beds for planting this week. I made a small one for flowers that is right up against the wall of my studio. It is just a long narrow rectangle of dirt that had accumulated gardening tools and an old hose and a fish tank we didn't have any place for. I kept looking at the spot and thinking it would be nice to have flowers growing there. So yesterday I moved the junk, including some bricks that I had neatly laid last year and started digging. The dirt was dry as sand and uniform in texture and color. I dug down a ways and then started adding amendments. Some food, some worm casings and a whole lot of compost. Then I added water in a slow steady stream to make it hospitable for the seeds. I let it sit for a day and when I went back to it I was pleased to see how good it looked. The dirt was dark and moist and had a lot of varied texture to it. I felt it with my hands and dug in to test how far the moisture went down. I made holes with my fingers and dropped in the beautiful Calendula seeds I had. They have a curled crescent shape and a little stair step down the outside edge that reminds me of ferns and other things prehistoric. I placed a couple in each little hole and then covered them up, putting them to bed, tucking them in just as I would my own children. Then I opened a seed packet of Snapdragons and broadcast those along the back of the bed. I whispered sweetly to them all before spraying them with a fine mist.

Today I took the girls out to the garden to plant vegetables. We lifted the fabric cover off the other bed that I have been working on. The soil was gorgeous. This bed is a raised rectangle that has a lot of intention built into it already. It has been resting for many months after I turned a vigorous cover crop under to compost last spring. I had covered it with Avocado leaves as mulch, and just recently removed them. Underneath was moist fragrant dirt. I dug my hands in and felt satisfaction wriggle through every cell of my body. The scent of earth, rich and moist rose up my nose and said, I am ready! I evened out the slight hills that had formed from wind and small animals over time and I added a little more dirt and compost.

Before digging holes for the seeds, I had the girls sprinkle a little plant food over the surface. We mixed it in and then we used our six hands to smooth out the surface again. It smelled so good and felt so nice that we all fell into a trance and could have probably kept on smoothing all afternoon. Then we had fun poking holes and dropping the seeds in, marveling at their different shapes and the tiny patterns that some of larger ones had. Cilantro seeds, it turns out, look like little beach balls with stripes.

Preparing beds for planting is in some ways more satisfying than planting the seeds. The planning, the working of the soil, and finally smoothing it out is as fun to me as setting up a drawing or thinking about a story. It is setting a stage. And describing it this way makes me picture a body lying down. Mine perhaps. Then working on it. Setting it up for optimal growth and an abundant harvest.

more rats

This summer we had rats in our walls. They are gone but now we have them in the garden. And they've always been in the trees. Rat medicine. It must be good for me. Everything else is running so well. We are all well and happy. The house is full of life and activity. Work is great. The rats must be in line with all of that. Or maybe not. There is a nagging quality to this rat thing. Especially the close encounters. It's one thing to hear them scratching in the walls and quite another to have them jumping out of a bin a few inches from my face. I mean, really? Must I see them that close up to get the benefits of their medicine? It's a big pill to swallow, this rat pill. It's got me feeling as though I am missing something. Some detail is eluding me. Like that I am really bugged about something I am not admitting to. Denying some part that wants to be screamed about. But what? Rat medicine is definitely tricky. It's a dirty little secret hidden away. Maybe its the pile of bills on my desk, or the to do list that is getting a bit unmanageable or the long over due maintenance on the house. But I'm not sure. I think it might be something a bit deeper. A bit more entrenched. I am going to keep investigating this rat medicine stuff and see if I can't discover what it's all about.

Growing Dirt

I thought I could write about composting a few months ago when I started this blog. But then my compost pile got soggy and smelly and I realized I had no idea what the hell I was doing making dirt. I was making a stinking pile of rotten food that would probably kill any plant I put it on.

I started over and even though I was tempted to take a class on composting (go ahead gardeners, laugh), I never did. I figured it out, damn it, and I can now boast that I know how to grow dirt! And it's not that hard. The trick is to follow my intuition (which is getting sharper all the time) and work with good old trial and error. I now have two composting bins working full time that are moist, smell like rich earth and are warm to the touch. I also have piles of leaves and other garden waste that I am accumulating to help make more dirt.

No this is not a HOW TO because composting is sort of like learning to drive. I can't explain it in words. I'd have to show you. One thing I can say is that dirt is built from the top down. Its all about layering and getting the proportions right. And whatever goes on top will find its way down into the dirt. At the bottom, you get some mighty nice black stuff to put in your garden.

Yes I am writing this to toot my own horn because I am so proud of myself for figuring it out, but also to say it's pretty easy once you get the hang of it. You definitely have to trust yourself. I think that's the main ingredient after the kitchen scraps and the dry leaves. I also helps to have a lot of garden waste lying around that's already decomposing to throw in.

My compost piles are full of surprises. I love looking in and feeling the temp and the moisture and deciding what it needs. One day I decided the pile was dry and I started watering it. Next thing I knew a rat was flying up and out of the bin like an escapee making a break for it. Yes I was grossed out, but I just decided that bin would be for the rats to enjoy and left it at that. After all, they're just helping my compost along. But I don't think I will be putting the stuff from that bin on my vegetables...

Desert Morning

Roadrunner

Runs across my path

Long tail and legs

He is big

His call is funny sounding

And bubbles up a smile

Smile at the bird

Who tells me I am right

I am at the center

I have arrived

Guns me to run

To get it done

Up comes the wind

Circling my spot

And lifting my clothes

From dry skin

Opening the time

And bleeding love out

Desert sun

Releases a bluer sky

The mountains like paper cutouts

Crisp along the edge

At night the stars

Settle on their shoulders

This open space

That appears to have nothing

That only likes simple shapes

And plants with tiny leaves

Like a vacuum it sucks the words out

Spilling onto page after page

Like a bleached out can in the sand

With a lizard hiding inside

This land is full

of surprising stories

Of disintegration and running fast

Taking the heart up in a snap of heat

Potato Volcano

Last night for dinner I served mashed potatoes. I was in a hurry and didn't make a volcano out of Grace's pile of mash, like I usually do. Oh no, actually I did. I made a hurried version, taking about two seconds to shape it with my fingers and a fork as Dave was carrying it
to the table. But there was no melted butter lava.

She didn't complain but when she saw there were leftovers she asked if she could have a volcano in her lunch the next day. I looked at the potatoes and thought about how well the mash volcano would hold up through its journey to school in Grace's backpack and decided it would be better if I gave them to her in a plastic container and let her make the volcano herself. She was very excited about it and we came up with a solution for the lava: Thinned ketchup. "It will be perfect!" she screeched carrying her plate to the sink. But what to put the volcano on was still an issue to be solved. A plate would need to be washed after lunch and she didn't like that idea. I suggested a square of aluminum foil which she could just fold up and put back in her lunch
bag. She liked it.

So at dinner tonight, I asked her how it went with the volcano at lunch and a cloud passed over her face. "I couldn't do it" she said glumly, slowly reliving the full weight of her lunchtime disappointment. "I started to make it and the teacher came over and told me not to play with my food."

Ah manners. Too bad we don't teach her those at home.

Ruby Red Beauties

My tomatoes are the last man (men) standing in my garden now. They are (I swear) producing the most delicious cherry tomatoes I have ever eaten. There is some kind of magic between the love I give them as I water and pick them and tell them how gorgeous they are (because they are!), and the sweet taste they bestow on my tongue when I pop one in my mouth. What is better than that squirt of pure tomato juice fresh from the vine? I love the way the skin actually holds the faint scent of soil on it which finds its way up my nose as I pass one after the other into my waiting mouth. I just finished a whole bowl. These little ruby beauties have been deeply nourishing me for the last couple of weeks. I always make a meal out of them and say thank you. Sometimes I saute them in a pan with a little garlic and put them on toast. Other times its just slicing them and sprinkling them with olive oil, salt and lots of basil, the other plant that is flourishing still. But this time it was just a bowl of them, straight up, now empty, with only a pile of their curly green little jester hats left at the bottom.

Birthday

Leaning over the sink, I was crying and making food for a celebration of the birth of my youngest daughter Frances, who is three today. The tears were just flowing freely on the wave of emotion that was pressing up and out from my chest and throat, instigated by a favorite song, while I cut through plump strawberries and Dave busily cooked up a storm all around me. The girls were in the next room enjoying the treat of a weekend movie, and I was overcome with joy just thinking about her birth and what a gift she is. Three years old and she is the funniest person I know. The moment that was coming back to me as I sliced fruit for the party that would start very shortly was the moment when I first held her, immediately after she left my body and entered the world. "Remember how beautiful she was?" I asked Dave, my face wet and smiling. "Yup" he answered, throwing sliced scallion onto a pizza he was designing. I fell into the vivid memory of her beginning. She was stunning. She was so full of being herself. The most amazing thing about watching children grow into themselves is the fact that they are who they are from the moment they are born. Life is just a process of growing into who we really are. Who we have always been. That's it.

Back to the Garden

So I was driving along the freeway in Los Angeles where I live, and amidst all the concrete I was thinking about lack. The lack of green around me. Then I noticed all the trees along the sides of the road and some huge Eucalyptus that I have always loved, came into view. I was thinking about my garden and how excited I was to plant it and also afraid because I have always thought I lacked a "green thumb." But I took the plunge and planted a garden last spring and was thrilled to watch it grow and produce food. I planted it with a lot of intention of becoming an urban farmer who grows and trades produce with her neighbors. But instead I found myself looking at the many bean and squash plants that never really made it, like a failure. I wasn't looking at the corn that had grown or the tomatoes that were exploding around me, I was just looking at the things that were dying or dead. (My attraction to morbidity follows me everywhere.) I was worried that the corn wasn't getting enough sun because the plants weren't tall. I had aphids.

Finally it dawned on me that all was well in the garden. A friend had drummed it into my head that "your garden is a reflection of you," and I realized that if I was fine, so was my garden. The point is to be with it, wherever it is. To be with the ones that are dying and to recognize that as part of learning and part of life. The feeling of something lacking disappeared as I decided to be grateful for the plants that are flourishing. But most of all to see it for what it is, to appreciate what it has taught me and to make changes accordingly. Plant the corn on the other side next year, and give the pumpkins more room, for instance. But mostly just be with what is. As long as there is growth, nothing is lacking. This morning for breakfast I had a bowl of tomatoes with basil from the garden. MMmmmmm! Thank you garden!!

Spider rhyme

Now I have a pet spider

I guess she belongs to me

She was laying on cement

Under my favorite tree

At first I was afraid

And poked her with a stick

Then tried to pick her up

When her legs started to kick

I knew that she was gone

It must be a reflex

I took her in my studio

And laid her on my desk

I drew her with a pencil

Dark shadows made her fierce

Immortalized her body

On paper it was pierced

A week later when I touched her

Her legs moved again!

And again I reasoned reflexes

And put away my pen

But tonight I flipped her over

To draw her corpse once more

And this time it was clear

She had yet to cross death’s door

When right side up she is still

Appears to be dead as can be

But when she’s on her back

Her life is plain to see

Can a spider last this long?

Can she go for days and days

Without water to sustain her

Or flies caught in her maze?

Perhaps I’m a chosen witness

To her last days of life

As I have been to others

Into death I am midwife

She moves her legs in rhythm

In sleepy peaceful time

And I watch her in this place

And carry her with this rhyme

First Day

First day of school for me and both girls. Leaving Grace in her new classroom in a new school was harder than I anticipated. Even spending the morning with Frances at her first day of preschool was a little heart-wrenching. I kept thinking about the trajectory of her educational life, just beginning. Had to have a good cry in the middle somewhere, God only knows what for. Shall I continue to hold onto the fear and nervousness I felt on my first day of school now? For God’s sake, I had my last day of school over sixteen years ago! Although Grace was great and expressed her nervousness openly, I recognized the look of anguish on her face as she said goodbye. I immediately went to that place with her, felt the feeling of what it’s like to say good bye to Mom in a strange new environment. But does it do her any good for me to go there with her? Doesn't it serve both of us a little better when I can separate the two? Somehow acknowledge her feelings, knowing from experience what it's like, but leave out the piece where I actually feel her pain? Because in that moment I know I'm not really being her mother. I am being her. And she doesn’t need that. She needs me.

Fires

The wildfires that are burning in the San Gabriel Mountains just north of us, are the closest we've ever had. There is a level of uncertainty and heightened awareness among the residents here. There have not been any evacuations in Pasadena, but yesterday they were evacuating people in the city of La Canada, which is just west of us. When I got up, the smoke outside the house was visible. Usually, when there are big fires in LA somewhere, there is a reddish glow to the air, and sometimes you will see a thin layer of ash on your car. But this was as if someone was having a mammoth barbecue next door. Large flakes of ash were everywhere. When Dave and I left the house a little later, there were gigantic plumes of smoke rising up out of the mountains just a few miles away. It was dramatic, and beautiful and unsettling. The temp was over 100 and it was so dry, wet clothes were practically stiff by the time I got them on the line. Low winds made the fight a little easier I guess, but when we went to bed, the fires were only 5% contained.

Today when I got up, I breathed a sigh of relief because the air seemed much less smoky. I couldn’t smell it. But when I looked up the hill I realized the fires were even closer, having crawled east and over the ridge last night. I learned from friends in Altadena that evacuations were starting to happen just up the hill. We swam in a friend's pool this afternoon who lives up there, right next to where the wilderness starts. We watched in amazement as 707s flew close, dipped and dropped fire retardant over our heads. The mountains are so steep it is hard for them to do as much as they would like from the ground. Our friend and all her neighbors were in the process of packing belongings into their cars. It's close now, and when we got home, we could see the flames from our front yard. Even from afar, they are mesmerizing and we saw a lot of cars at the top of Lake Avenue with people who just wanted to see it. It is disconcerting, but we feel safe down here. We are at least two miles from the edge of civilization, so for us, even a voluntary evacuation order is highly unlikely. Lucky for us the wind was blowing the other way today, so we got the dramatic views without a lot of pollution.

It’s exciting to watch, but I'll be glad when it's over!

Eve

It is the night before we leave

On yet another journey

Our bags have yet to be packed

Or the trash emptied

Oh at least I paid the bills

Friends came over today

And munched through the time

Allotted for preparations

And so I sit here now

Amidst piles of to do and ta da

But what it all boils down to

Is not how organized I am, but rather

If I am truly prepared for

Internal transportation of four bodies

In the car together six hours

So can we be free in our movement

Even have fun all the way

Exceed all the details that

eventually demoralize the senseless

Exchange of wide open windows

We are such a family

Us are really a group

Up goes all he gummy stuff

Ulcers stuck up in our wheels release

Unadulterated laughter

bandits

I got home from Trader Joe's with the girls one day last week to find the house had been burgled. I was alone with them that day so I kept my cool. I explained to them both what had happened, told them everything was okay, and managed to squelch my emotions (rage and sadness) until later. We were't supposed to touch anything until the police got there so after a couple of hours of waiting around, our dear babysitter came in on her day off to take the girls swimming. After going through the whole upside down mess with the police officer and then the forensics specialist, I shut the door behind the very kind gentlemen and, with the girls still out, I ran to my healing space/studio for an emergency breathing and meditation session. Within a couple of minutes I was feeling all that suppressed emotion bubbling up fast. In no time I was screaming, crying and finally laughing. I had to admit that I have been a victim before. I have certainly played the part a few times. The innocent victim. And on some levels I was. On some levels it was a random act. But I believe strongly, now more than ever, that life gives you what you ask for and somehow I'd been asking for this. I realized how lucky I was. I immediately saw the incident as a lesson. I need to take more responsibility for my property, my life, my money, the list goes on... I felt overwhelmed with gratitude that I had my loved ones and everyone was safe. I felt the clarity of 'nothing else matters.' They could have taken everything and it would have been fine. Who needs all that crap? I was brought face to face with said crap later on as I put it all back. Almost everything had been dumped on the floor. And I still felt grateful. For the opportunity to go through it all. To see what we have: A lot of stuff we don't really need. But more than that we have each other and I cared little for the things I was putting back into place.

I went to bed that night feeling really proud. Proud to have turned a negative experience around almost immediately. Proud for not getting my children sucked into a drama they didn't need. Proud that I actually felt lucky on the same day that I was robbed. I didn't even feel robbed. I felt like they took something of little value (my computer) and gave me something invaluable. Faith.

The Garden

I came back from Vermont to find my garden tall and flourishing. I couldn't believe it. We just got back from seven weeks away and I had planted seeds and seedlings right before we left with the hope, but no conviction, that everything would survive in my absence. I know that gardens need a lot of love and attention to do well and there I was, a novice gardener leaving my babies for most of the summer. I put in an automatic drip watering system, knowing I would be a fool to rely on subleters or neighbors to keep up with the watering. But I was not expecting much more than survival. What I saw when I rounded the corner of my studio to the garden behind it astounded me. Beds thick with tall green plants! The corn I planted from kernels was three feet tall and the tomatoes I put in a week before leaving had outgrown their wire supports and were spread out all over everything. The pumpkin plants were crawling over and out of the beds and through the fence, and there were other squashes and beans growing in and around them. In biodynamic farming they talk about creating mini-ecosystems by planting different compatible plants close together. I felt as though I was staring at that theory. Everything was growing on top of everything else and it all looked very happy. I tasted a few purple string beans and was not disappointed. They had more flavor than any bean I've ever tasted. And the little tomatoes packed a sweet juicy punch. Mother nature delivered, and I am thrilled and grateful that my garden did well in my absence. It gives me tremendous confidence in myself as a student of the earth.

The In Breath

The in breath

And the out

Pulling in

And pushing away

Arriving

And leaving again

Getting here is running in to water

Cold shock of wet face hands and feet

Breath stuck up in the lungs

Then a releasing, the thrill of rejuvenation

and the peace of the open sky

Just floating

And then the slow swim back to shore

The family there on the dock, getting larger

Anticipating the onslaught of attention

Breaking through my watery skin

Arriving into this place we call Vermont

Is a long and slow process

Opening to its paces

Its people

And who we become here

In our bags we bring bathing suits

And boots with last years mud

We bring high expectations

And shift ourselves to the new patterns

The play of the weather

and the way the day unfolds around it

On and off go the rain jackets

Somewhere in the middle is a pause

The breath neither in nor out

It feels like we live here, have always and will always

Live in tune with the endless hymn

That the trees, the water and the wind sing together

The sky is full of rushing clouds

But we are standing still

On the empty road, the open field

The lake, still as glass

Leaving is just as gradual but plays more abrupt

We avoid the calendar and refuse counting days

Until they are so few that our blinders stop working

Just two full days left

And by then the sadness is undeniable

And parts of us are all ready gone

Already traveling across the wide country we call our own

Landing in the dry desert city

we call our home

But until then we savor every rain drop

Every whistling breeze

Wishing we could take one last walk

Through waist high grass

The dark pine forest inviting, dripping

And the last cries of the loon

The good bye that knows us

And misses us

Now I take all this home

Pack it carefully in my heart

To carry with me wherever I walk

And unpack neatly folded words

wild dream

This is in reference to the eczema on my hands that has plagued me for more than a year and a half. (see "Tree Bark Hands") The dream was long and drawn out and had something to do with being at the center that my teacher works out of. I wasn't really there to see him but was only dropping things off. Then scorpions started coming out of my hands. They were emerging through my skin as tiny larvae or worms poking through my skin but as they passed through they grew into full size scorpions. It was painful and disgusting. I was squeamish and trying to knock them into a sink as they came out. I was being successful at knocking them off but it took everything I had to keep up with them. There were so many and they kept coming. Just as I was thinking, will this ever stop? it did. As it was happening I had this sense of it being very important and significant. I kept thinking, Scorpions coming out of my hands, this must mean something! It was so intense and I was sure it was the end of something. It felt like a final exodus of some inner demons. They weren't interested in attacking me as they came out and I didn't get stung. They seemed only to want to escape.
My hands have been healed ever since.

rainbow

Vermont greeted us with a rainbow. Look look look! I squealed in the small field that sits behind the pizza place that is the only gathering spot in town besides the church. I was talking to Grace, a lover of rainbows who draws them constantly but has seen very few. In fact I have seen very few to match this one. It was complete and perfect. Stripes of every color, bigger than the tiny town, arching over it and the landscape that surrounds it, the landscape that is all trees and grass, the colorful arch says, I AM BEAUTY! In a big rumbling voice. We are all stares. The sun is out and there is misty rain too and clearly it is the perfect combination for the ultimate rainbow. I wonder what people thought before they knew what it was, said Dave. I know what it is, said I. It is GOD! So obviously and clearly that is GOD! It makes you stop and wonder at the beauty of a perfect combination of events which is in fact what this world and all the life on it is! It is like a visual diagram of the perfect meeting of elements and energies that make life! All life! Flowers do the same. Trees do the same. We can find beauty everywhere and in everything and perhaps a good definition of beauty is the perfect meeting of things that create a stunning form. I find it is the spider crawling up the window. In the raindrop on the glass. On the pansies with their rich deep colors and sumptuous shapes. But a rainbow, that perfect, arching over a gorgeous afternoon with the golden light of sun peeking over clouds that are blue with misty gray, THAT is a masterpiece. And though we can find beauty everywhere, we need the masterpieces to knock us off our feet and remind us, hey! You are lucky to be here in this precious moment.

Packing for Vermont

Packing for a long trip is always a challenge. I want to bring everything! But as I go through the piles of clothes for me and my two young daughters, I keep pulling things out and asking, Do I really need this? Does she really need that? Slowly, I am getting it down to the bare essentials. The truth is, we don't really need much. We can be in the same clothes all summer. It's fine to let ourselves get so sick of what we are wearing that we stop really choosing what to put on in the morning and just grab anything that seems fairly clean. And I will be fine with one pad and a few pens. One jacket. In the end it teaches me that I need very little in this life. And the girls pick that up too.

corn up!

My friend and teacher David Elliott gave me and thirty other people a handful of corn seeds that he cultivated on his land in New Mexico. He also gave each of us a dried leaf of tobacco that he had grown. It was an empowering gesture at the closing ceremony of a three day retreat he held over Memorial Day weekend at his place. At the time I felt excited about receiving this gift but also a little daunted by it. I am just learning to garden and wasn't sure I wanted to tackle corn. How would I use the tobacco? He assured us that this corn would grow easily just about anywhere. You can just hold the tobacco in your hand, he said.

He does everything with a lot of intention so we all knew that these kernels and leaves were holding plenty of love and promise. We talked about gardening a lot that weekend, and about seeds too. It is more than just a metaphor for life, it is life. Since I got back the garden has become a more meaningful place for me to spend my time and energy. I love being out there with my kids, watering, working my compost piles, carefully tending our babies and of course digging in the dirt. I see it as an extension of myself, just the way I see my art and my family as extensions of me. They are part of me, the fruit of my creativity and nurturing and attention but also apart from me with lives of their own. The more I can see it that way in my garden and in my studio and in my house, the more balanced I feel and everything flourishes. It is easy to fall into the traps of believing that my art or my writing is all my creation or that the kids have learned everything from us. But in the garden it is clear that the plants live independently of me. I am their keeper but not their creator. I put the seeds in the ground but the seeds came from somewhere else. And some will thrive and others will not. I have to keep moving them around, trying different things to see what works best under what circumstances. This is very similar to making art. I don't create ideas from scratch, they come from other ideas. And when I write the words (when I'm really cooking) just come through me. I am their keeper. Even the kids. I have to experiment to see what works with them too. I can't fool myself into thinking I am the one responsible for the tantrum or the smile. I am just a custodian of this beautiful soul that I have the awesome responsibility of raising.

I've been holding the tobacco in my hands and it is powerful. I can feel the force of this plant through my skin. I use it to set intentions or to center myself. And the corn is coming up now, beautifully. I planted 12 kernels and there are twelve strong little shoots poking up out of the dirt. I feel so lucky to have them in my garden.

triptych

A crazy thing happened today while I was meditating. I hope I can describe it in words. I was in a very deep state. So deep I was almost dreaming. I was seeing an image in my mind of a woman outside. She was standing with her arms on the back of a chair that was facing away from her. She began to lean on the chair and it tipped and she lost her balance, almost falling but catching herself. It was a split second of imbalance that coincided exactly with a loud rumbling of thunder and me startling out of my state. The incredible thing was the simultaneity. The woman in my mind lost her balance exactly when the thunder rumbled and I was startled. One thing did not cause another. All three things happened in the one instant, but each event existed in its own layer of reality. I saw all three stacked like a layer cake. What it did was bring to my attention the three layers of reality that exist at any given moment: The physical body, the mind, and all that is outside of the self. The simultaneous triptych event was like a new picture of reality for me. It was a wake up, telling me to pay attention to what is happening in those three realms at any given moment. Cool.

Expanding

I realize, right now, that I need to expand the way I think about this blog. For some reason, when I started it I felt it needed to be more thoughtful or well written than your average blog. I wanted it to be more than daily musings. But as I read more blogs I realize that is what a blog is and I like reading what other people are thinking about. It is mere musing and it can be amusing! So from now I give myself permission to write whatever comes to mind in this space and not to limit it to "tree related" because in truth, everything I do is related to everything I do. I still love the title "I am a tree" and I feel more and more that I am related to the trees. As my awareness of plants grows through my new found love of gardening, my relationship to all plants is blossoming. (Excuse the pun) When I walk my daughter to school in the morning, I can hear the flowering bushes at the entrance practically say good morning! And further up the path I pass under a magnificent Live Oak tree that would make a beautiful painting if I could find a canvas large enough. Every day it tells me the same thing as I walk under its enormous branches that tower at least twenty feet above me. I love you is what I say to the tree and it always answers me back.

My original intention with this blog was to post once a week. I wasn't keeping up with that because I was holding the bar too high for the writing. Now that I am letting myself off the hook, I hope to write every week at least!

Earth Air Fire Water

I am in New Mexico, on a retreat whose theme is "Thriving or surviving?" I am in a beautiful place, surrounded by mountains, evergreens and cactus, rocks and lots of birds. Ravens are raising their young in a nest outside the front door of this palace. I meant place but it is a palace. Perched high up with views that allow me to see the clouds coming up on us. It is a sanctuary, set up to honor and work in harmony with the elements. Precious rainwater is collected and stored in underground tanks. An extensive gray water system and an outhouse for guests conserve more water. The buildings are designed to make the most of the sun's heat and light and various small solar-powered outdoor lights waste no energy. The earth is cultivated with love and food is grown abundantly in a large outdoor garden, a green house and a modest orchard. The air is crisp and clean and the wind blows all the seeds and stuff around so more stuff can grow and baby birds can learn to fly! It is no accident that everything in this place is thriving. It is thoughtfully designed to make the most of the land and what it has to offer. The plants are cultivated with love by very experienced hands and the buildings are kept up with diligence. I am going home today and my heart is bursting with anticipation and the intention to take care of my own garden, and the property that I have the honor of living on. I must admit I have let the garden go a little over the last month or so and it is now in survival mode. The main lesson of the retreat that I took home was "Your garden is a reflection of you!" and it is so true. When the garden is just surviving, chances are that is my mode too. But when it's thriving, look out!

Butterfly Birds Nest

Mother Nature has been very generous with me this week. I don't know if she is egging me on to get back to my drawings instead of playing with words all day, but that is the feeling I get. As I was putting my kids to bed last night I reached up to draw the curtain closed and noticed a butterfly right up against the outside of the screen window. I realized it was dead, trapped in a spider's web. I ran outside to get it, afraid I might forget if I didn't do it right away. It is a pretty common butterfly called a Painted Lady that is mostly orange and brown and black. But the underside is incredible. It has a very loose pattern of regular teardrop shapes that are shiny silver surrounded by bright yellow and orange. The design is elegant and surprising. I never would have discovered the underside if not for the spiders web that was still clinging to the wings and made me inadvertently flip her over as I moved her inside. I am very excited to make a drawing of both sides of her wings.

Then yesterday as I was taking the girls home after some fun at a friend's pool, we were crossing over someone's front lawn on the way to the car and I almost tripped over a bird's nest. It was the first nest I've found, I think in my life. I have another nest that was found on a walk in the woods of Vermont with a friend, but my friend discovered it. This one seemed, like the butterfly, to have been placed in a way that I could not miss it or mistake it for anything other than a gift, meant especially for me. Thank you. Can't wait to start drawing.

Poem

The birds are busy
singing in the dark
their insistent calling
leafing over
the lulling strum
of the freeway

How is it
that they live in trees
sleep on twigs
survive on worms
and sing so pretty?

Hike

Went for a four hour hike with my friend Kimberly in Ojai. Never been to Ojai before. Nice little typical southern California town. We hiked up into a big canyon. It was green, you could say lush in its way. I was following my footsteps. Concentrating on balancing, breathing, moving with a steady rhythm. A tiny paper white Poppy with lavender edges and three faint blue dots in a triangle centered on each petal stood alone beside the well-worn path lined with Sage bushes and Manzanitas celebrating itself. Its delicate colors vibrated against the sandy ochre rocks beneath our trudging feet that were being ground into smaller and smaller pieces, pebbles and finally dust.

We stopped beside a small stream for a rest in the shade. I sat on the trunk of a tree that was growing almost horizontally before stretching straight up again, making a bench with a back rest that swayed a little with my weight. Sometimes nature is so accommodating. I noticed a spider above me that was very still. It was hanging in its web, dangling with the breeze. I looked closer to see that it was dead. I imagined a mother spider who had produced hundreds of babies before giving in to her dying.

On our way back down the mountain, the sun was stronger and beat us down our descent. Another dead bug. This time a large beetle with legs up in the air. What happened to him? Was he simply unable to right himself? Imagine being that close to accidental suicide all your life. It reminded me of a moment a couple of weeks earlier when I was sitting on the porch of my father’s house one evening, with my sister. We heard the loud buzzing of a beetle flying around, banging into the screens while we were talking. A pretty common occurrence there, we didn’t mention it or wonder what it was. Finally, as she was laying on the bench, deep into a story about her daughter, I watched the big black bug come flying toward the lamp standing just east of my sisters head. He made a big slow circle around the lamp and then crashed into the metal lampshade and fell to the ground. My sister wasn’t aware of the tragedy from her head. Before going to bed I checked on him, surprised he was still lying on the floor. He was dead. You keep finding dead bugs, said Kimberly, but I disagree. They keep finding me.

Spring Thing

Spring is amazing this year here in Pasadena. We have had three weeks of nonstop gorgeous weather. I always think of spring in LA as frustratingly short as the cool, more dramatic winter weather gives way to a few warm days and then suddenly the relentless endless hot arrives and I wonder where did spring go? Not this year. I don't know if it's lasting longer or I am just appreciating it more but we've had cool breezy days with sunshine that dare me to wear sandals and warm evenings that make me excited to leave the house. Now that it stays light later we've been eating dinner outside, and since we eat early we get to watch the garden buzzing as it shifts from the late afternoon bright heat to a calm cool dusk. We munch on salad from the garden and watch the butterflies. The avocado tree is exploding. It is covered in little white blossoms and there are hundreds, maybe thousands of bees in its branches. I can't get over how busy it is in my backyard this year. I don't know if it's just a spring thing to feel like everything is new but I really don't think I noticed all the hubbub before.

The Japanese Maple that was hidden behind a dying lemon tree until we took down the old guy now stands like a centerpiece with these incredible delicate pink flowers that are like little treasures in its leaves. And the newly planted citrus are laden with their more obvious and fragrant blossoms. My little apple tree, also newly planted and who I pray for since this is not really the climate for apples, is trying hard to push out some buds. The insects are working overtime too. We see baby lady bugs all over and the bees and the flies and the mosquito catchers and spiders and all the worms in the garden so many worms all toiling away at their jobs, whatever they are. I don't pretend to know what they're doing and when the kids ask we say things like, "Oh they're eating and moving stuff around, just like we do." I just can't believe how lucky I am to live here, to have a big backyard where I can watch this all happen, to have three piles of compost and to grow my own lettuce.

tree bark hands

I guess I am ready to tell the real story behind the title of this blog. I have eczema on my hands which makes them resemble scraggly branches. My skin literally looks more like bark than epidermis. It is rough and uneven with deep wrinkles, patchy areas of swelling and flaking with gashes sores and welts just to add to the rainbow. (The gashes are from the digging and scratching I do with my nails while I sleep because it feels like the itch is in my bones.) Another thing is that when I turn my hands over, the palms and the undersides of my fingers are smooth and clear and youthful as ever, which reminds me of the layer right under tree bark. That is where all the action is. Where the tree is actually growing and moving and doing all the good stuff it needs to reproduce, right there just under the dead outer layer.

I keep looking at my condition and observing what it is really doing to me. I notice that I can tolerate it most of the time which is pretty amazing considering how intense the itching, burning and stinging can be. When it gets too hard to bear I whip out my handy little tin of Shea butter that I carry in my pocket and slather some on. This provides a little temporary relief. I try to keep track of how many times a day I do that as a guage for how my skills at detachment are coming along. I am not sure that's the right word but managing pain is a skill I have always possessed not being a fan of pain killers or numbing of any kind. I have avoided pain medication in situations from dental work to back pain to childbirth. But it is one thing to deal with pain when you know it will be over in a matter of minutes or hours. And another when it is with you every second of every day and even worse at night. So this is teaching me to do more than just breath through it, it is forcing me to literally change my mind. For example, if I take inventory of what I am thinking about when the eczema screams for my attention, I always find some worry, these days mostly about money.

I am trying to heal the eczema myself not only by disciplining my mind, but also with the help of some amazing health practitioners that support self-healing. And even though my condition is as bad or worse than it was a year ago, I know I am making headway because I don't worry about it anymore, and that is a great achievement. It used to be a bigger stress on my life when I saw it as a problem I needed to solve as soon as possible. Now it is a stresser because it makes me work so damn hard! And after a year of this, I realize I cannot control it, it will be here kicking my ass for as long as I need my ass kicked, and it has taught me a lot already. The most important lesson is the constant daily reminder to Pay Attention to what my brain is doing. And second of all Patience, which is a great thing to have up your sleeve in any situation but especially with kids. Another is Faith. I trust that it will eventually go away. It may not disappear any time soon and I know it is not going away when I want it to (which was yesterday). But I am AS sure it will disappear as I am sure my toddler will learn to use the potty. It is inevitable. And I will be interested to see when it happens. Faith in myself is key and that is a great lesson.

Ladybugs

There are all kinds of ladybugs on the newly planted baby lemon tree outside my window. Every time I sit here to write I notice one or two twirling around on its budding little branches. Ladybugs never fail to lighten me with their improbably bright color and mod design. It is warm and spring is upon us. It comes early here in sunny southern California and gives way to the harsh heat of summer early too. So I am going to enjoy every moment of it, the cool mornings and breezy afternoons. I am going to work as hard as the bugs and the birds are working, to be creative and sexy in everything I do.