hello!
it's my birthday!
if you're reading this it means i was successful in my very first scheduled blog post. it also means that i've found a way to master time travel as present me, writes to future you. greetings from the past! it's nice back here. there's a breeze and i have a whole week full of travel plans ahead.
maybe as you're reading you'll like to imagine where it is i am and what it is i'm doing. odds are i'm wearing my raincoat and walking around with my husband, breathing in the smell of someplace new. maybe you'll be reading while we're climbing that mountain. maybe i'll think of you at the top.
i am turning 32 years old and i actually didn't know that until my grandmother said so on her email. 32! that's neat. i remember a whole 5 years passing when i still thought i was 21. age IS arbitrary. i do know that i feel great. that i'm getting to know myself bit by bit. that i'm trying, really trying, to be a good human being. a citizen of the world. someone the universe would be proud it spawned.
it's important to honour the gift of being alive, don't you agree? it's so fleeting and tumultuous. yesterday i read in the encyclopedia of the human body that only about 1% of our experiences make it into our long term memories. is that why picture taking is so rampant? a longing to document the other 99%?
i think that statistic is wrong. maybe i don't remember all the moments of my 32 years but their summation lives within me and i gotta say, there's some good shit in there.
take care, won't you? be good while i'm gone? be loving and curious and kind to yourself. learn strange new facts and interpret them creatively. do your stretches every day, and pay special attention as the spring canopy turns from exuberant green, to her emerald summer shawl.
purple
jeremy likes to pick me flowers on the way home from work. this is delightful for myriad reasons but my two favourites are that i like to picture him picking them, and that i like to consult my wildflower guide to determine their variety.
bittersweet nightshade is a vine that grows quite rampant around these parts. it can be identified by its small green berries and yellow dangling bits in the centre of the flowers. also known as deadly nightshade, it was used in olden days to protect from witchcraft.
now, it protects the sunroom table from a wistfulness for the outdoors.
cosmo, jimmy & maude
i love that my craft is moving forward of its own volition. while i'm living my life/watching the clouds go by someone will find me and say, "i'd like you to make me a squirrel" or "i'd like two cats that are hugging".
to which my answer always is, "of course!". and i set to my good work with joy and jolly gumption.
tea time
i like to put sliced lemon into hot water. sometimes i add fresh herbs, like mint. sometimes i slice ginger.
always i sip slowly taking in not just the taste, but the smell and the sight and the way my hands warm and relax around the perfectly circular shape and weight of a mug.
lunch break
where did may go? somewhere on a warm breeze.
i saw two snapping turtles mating today which is a lot less romantic than it sounds. at first i thought they were fighting. then i thought they were hugging. then i was like OHHHHH. oh okay. i get it.
something's in the air i think. love and so much pollen.
i love animals
and not just furry ones either, i love ones with many legs and ones with no legs and ones with strange warty legs that ooze things into my hand while i'm holding them and thinking, nature man, woah.
my friend michelle has a reoccuring desire to lay down on animals which might seem a strange inclination unless you feel, as we do, that we aren't superior to other beings, but part of the same interconnected system. we're all brothers! sisters! fellow beings who need air and sun and food!
wanting to hug/pat/hold hands with animals is just a loving byproduct of that knowledge.
though they really should learn to hold still.
ode to the taco
there are very few things i love as much as i love tacos (whales, wolves, jeremy, the fencing scenes in princess bride). cutting out all meat minus poultry and the occasional poisson meant saying goodbye to ground beef in tacos, a difficult and emotionally fraught farewell. ground chicken isn't very satisfying and i don't like all the things i can't pronounce in soy-based, ground-beef-like vegetarian products so for a spell, we just went without. sad.
then came the wheatberry.
wheatberries are the entire kernel (less the hull) of the wheat plant. in france, people eat wheatberries as we would eat rice and in eastern europe it's used to make a christmas porridge. for our purpose and explorations we like how their texture is similar to ground beef - tender, granular, and just a wee bit chewy. we seasoned them with garlic, chili, cumin, oregano and a little curry powder and what do you know, a delicious and meat free answer to my taco addiction.
we also swapped out the sour cream for yogurt, the shredded iceburg lettuce for mixed greens and topped it off with guacamole to complete its healthy makeover without compromising any of the flavour or textures of the original taco i learned to love.
crunchy! fresh! flavourful! i can knock back 4 NO problem. 6 if no one is looking.
stop looking.
sun tea
misty morning
one morning, just the two of us got up early. we ate granola with yogurt from our camping mugs.
we made coffee. we made steam.
we climbed to the top of a granite rock and watched as the sun spread warmly, slowly, evenly.
we felt the rocks warm,
we felt the coffee warm,
we felt our toes warm where they touched in the middle. do you know my grandpa's ashes have been scattered here? that killarney is a special place to my family?
it only makes sense that we'd end up here together. with our matching hearts and hikers.
mountain climbers
one of the funnest activities we engaged in on our couples camping weekend (aside from couples napping and couples eating of delicious food) was the couples climb to the top of a mountain.
it's called 'the crack' which is a name that makes me uncomfortable because i am 12 and because there are no small number of hilarious opportunities to use its name for witty and embarrassing jokes. journey up the crack!
it's a 4 hour hike, almost half of which is some degree of upwards. during the final leg you climb/scamper/drag yourself up and over large, tumbled boulders to one of the most spectacular views i've seen in my lifetime.
we had snacks up there, consulted a map of the area, and hung around, feeling like the wilderness was limitless and we were at its summit.
it was good to go early as we hardly saw anyone save for another couple and a small adorable family (complete with dog and young child in backpack), but passed quite a few on the way back. we also saw black bears barreling through the woods beside us which felt exciting and rare.
sometimes i like to force myself to answer random either/or propositions. if i had to choose mountains or ocean, for instance, what would i choose. although i need to do more research this trek was one strong push in the direction of mountains. rocks formed billions of years ago, before plants or animals even existed, and here i am jumping about them with all my energy and might.
okay, great, yes please.
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