One Green Bee Designs

Hallelujahing and Hiding

It's all hallelujahs and hiding spinach around here. Almost 11 months ago, I found myself unable to get out of bed or pick up my baby or hold a cup of coffee. A pesky joint disease altered life for this family. Altered it a lot. It hit when I was finally gaining a little confidence after a bucketload of bewildering newness. We'd kept the baby alive for nearly a year and survived our first months on a new continent. I was back in shape and clocking happy kilometers on long runs, and our first winter in seven years--a long and gray one--was starting to lift. It was a cruel time to find myself abruptly bed-ridden, and I let that disease knock the hope right out of me.

But I've got good peeps and Grace and This Too Shall Pass. And it did. It's not the same body; there are joints that will never quit growling but I can move. Hallelujah, I can move! Today marked a milestone of moving---18 glorious kilometers through Praha with a dear friend. It was hard, but it was beautiful, and I never ever ever thought it possible. I am one grateful girl.

Tomorrow will be Advil and ice and spinach muffins. That's right. I'll take this poor transition from what really is an awfully Big Deal to explain that I obsess over iron intake, and so we've been eating Rebar's Broccoli Soup (take the time to make a pesto to swirl in, toss in some steamed florets and you will never ever ever make any other creamed brocolli soup--or possibly any other soup at all. You'll find the bare bones of it here.), which should really be called spinach soup, and finding other creative uses for the green stuff.

The boys have no idea there is wilted spinach in these delish carrot muffins. 

And tomorrow's fruit smoothies.

Bad photography aside, you have no idea how happy this all makes me. 

Happy Birthday P

Fifteen years ago, in the Schroeder farm kitchen, I met my beloved P. Someone asked me the other day if I liked him from the moment we met. I was in a hurry and regretted my quick response. If I'd taken advantage of a moment to sing out our song, I'd have explained that before that encounter at the Schroeder farm, yeah, I had seen P. He'd been in some of my classes at University. He was outspoken and confident and always seemed surrounded by a gaggle of good looking people. At that point in my life, I was unimpressed by anyone that seemed remotely competent and thus ignored him. But when a mutual friend (thanks, SV) had us both over to make a batch of her mother's homemade raspberry hooch, it was like at first sight.

It's only been a few times that I've had the experience where you meet someone and your friend-meter starts shaking. You just know that you're in the presence of Something Good. We squashed raspberries, sang rowdy songs at the top of our lungs, and saw each other almost every day after that. The Schroeder farm (and a nip of raspberry liqueur) has a way of bringing out the humor in folks. We decided we were the funniest people the other had ever met.

I didn't know what love was for nearly ten years (fully aware that everyone around us did). I just knew that P and I were soulmates. We made lists, we laughed, we learned things, we cooked, we crafted, we ran and kayaked and stirred up a lot of silly. P has a way of making the ordinary unbelievably entertaining.

I'm so happy that we both finally figured ourselves out and so grateful that I get to celebrate his 36th year with a gorgeous Gus and a hopeful heart.

Since Gus was born, we've both felt like we are in humilty boot-camp. So, to commemorate our year of new horizons with continued hopes of self-improvement, I painted and drew P one of our favorite (and timely) verses. It's become a bit of a manifesto:

P also got his favorite cake: carrot. Gus was happy (though you'd never know it from his somber face) to help:

And happy to eat:

Happy Birthday, dearest P. You're the best Something Good I've ever met. 

May Thought Salad

May.

(Third from the left--collage card made by Z. Fantastic.)

Epiphanies this new June week:

1. This move was good.

2. I am not living for naptime.

3. Health is on the horizon.

Things are looking up! We're steroid free this week, off to a weekend at a lake, and able to tell you what a penguin says ("waddle waddle waddle"). If I don't sound elated, it's just because I'm in a rush. 

I've even got time to think silly almost-epiphany art thoughts that I can't articulate well. It started when someone asked me why none of my art was on our walls, and I responded with a scrunched up face and some quiet babbling: "Oh, that stuff isn't art. I haven't done my art yet." The person--rightfully so--looked horrified. And I thought about how ironic that is, since this year was peppered with reading Donald Hall's Life Work and revisiting Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water and Parker Palmer's Let Your Life Speak. There are common threads in there. And I'm ignoring them. And so, I wonder about that.

I read a lot of art blogs, and recently an artist that I admire lamented her upcoming birthday. Her birthday that honors an age many years younger than mine and that she claims to be old. Her birthday celebrates a woman with a HIGHLY successful art career. I wondered about that.

I take frequent long walks with Neighbor B, the talented writer. And we wrestle over creating on our jaunts and talk about the darkness that comes from straying from what one feels called to create. Recently I made a new friend and marveled over her studio of paper mache and metal work torches and how she spends time at her craft--every day--for no gain whatsoever except for fulfilling her need to create. And I wondered about that.

A defeating submission to a publisher shamed me, as I doodled things of which I was embarrassed. And in their own way, they called me on it. They called it what it was, what I knew it to be before I emailed it, which was not authentic. And so, I've been wondering on that.

All these wonderings are good. They mean my brain is working again and there is space for newness where before there was stress. And best of all, my sense of humor is creeping back, and I'm able to make fun of my wonderings and tell myself to not take myself so seriously. After all, I'm a woman who found her toothbrush in the washing machine (better than the toilet, Gus) and does nothing to remove the playdough dried under her nails.There is great danger in taking oneself seriously (See Anne LaMott quote below). Because after all, Let's be real. I'm a middle class gal with the luxury to ponder and draw and read. I need to remind myself that there are real things in the world that demand my headspace.

(My former self would go on and on here about how can I possibly be so trite and pithy when there are refugee camps in the world and places without clean water. But if I bring up the refugee camps one more time, P might have an intervention.)

I've got no conclusion, but I do think I'll make a goal of making something for my walls. And I'm going to buy some wall paper paste. I can get really excited about the potential with paper mache.

Further ponderings. Quote salad:

Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

"You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children." 

"Basically there can be no categories such as 'religious' art and 'secular' art, because all true art is incarnational, and therefore 'religious." 

Anne LaMott, Bird by Bird

"I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each steppping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking will do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it."

Hear hear!

The Birthday Litany

It's a good day. I woke up to two handsome boys, breakfast in bed, a gift certificate to the local spa, and the best coupon ever. And then the lovely Odens emerged from the guest room, where I was blessed with Patrick Oden's new book among other wonderful gifts. After they tolerated a morning at the park with sand-eating Gus and too-many-theology-questions-asking-Me, we wished them well on their European travel adventures (sniff sniff) and spent the rest of the morning blowing out a trick candle with Neighbors M, H, and E.  So nice to share a special day with old and new friends. 

And despite Neighbor B's warnings of bad luck, I'm cooking my own cake and planning what to order from the neighborhood's new Indian restaurant.

While I pick out my paneer and tandoori chicken, perhaps you want to log in to Minted and vote? 

Sand-eating, hat-throwing, cookie-holding, new-shirt-wearing Gus.

Book-and-shirt-giving, question-answering, baby-tolerating (much missed) Odens.