except to say this

because it is the best treatise on compassion that i know:

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

time out

so. the part where i had a big ambitious plan about being creative? and i set out a timeline and parameters and told the world?

um, yeah. not so much.

so i have not followed through with my plan. oh well. i would so love to be able to report that i've been crafting away and making crotcheted potholders and other such whatnot. there are oh so many blogs out there with lovely pictures of lovely projects that lovely people have made while homeschooling their children and having an etsy shop and making stew and baking pie. from scratch. and roller skating.

this is not one of those blogs. the jig is up.

and that's mostly fine with me. it is interesting to me how i feel pulled in the direction of making a big fancy plan and then executing it perfectly and publicly, even though life rarely seems to work that way. but maybe there is value in self-discovery too, even if it is messy and imperfect. or something.

also, i think i am going to take a little break from blogging, while i deal with some other mundane life things that are too big/small to blog about. in the meantime, i will be playing with pink yarn, drinking tea from the yellow teapot, watching west wing, maybe knitting a hat with earflaps, and trying to stay warm and dry. and hunting for magnolia trees in bloom.

project

the new blue pants, j.crew

the project: ten days of creativity

the plan: 10 days, 10 projects. a bit of craftiness tucked into each day.

the rationale: i spend a lot of time thinking about project ideas, things i want to make, materials to collect, knitting ideas, sewing ideas, poem ideas, bookmaking ideas, but the actual creating is not really happening so much. also, i spend a lot of time watching tv, and maybe there are some other activities that would be fun/replenishing. since i like structure, and i also like gimmicky blog ideas, i thought i would give this a try.

the rules: i will do some sort of creative project/activity every day, and then share the results with you here. i will try to suspend judgement about how good said projects are. i will start on saturday, in order to give myself time to do some preliminary planning/gathering (buy knitting needles, fix camera, etc.). i will ride my bike and think up ideas. i will see how it goes.

projects to include (maybe): knitting a scarf, sewing more coasters, buying ribbon, painting, signing up for a bookmaking class, making stickers. making paper, making a photo flipbook, playing the guitar. standing on my head.

care to join me?

quiet reading

went to la for the weekend to visit the in-laws. back home safe and sound, two plane rides later. damn, i hate planes.

to celebrate the fact that i made it home alive, i went shopping in internetland. and i didn't have to spend any money! here is what i just bought with my collection of amazon gift cards gifted to me by students:

• apples for jam, tessa kiros (colorful cooking)
• life artist, ali edwards (inspired scrapbooking)
• in defense of food, michael pollan (berkeley's hero)
• the creative family, amanda blake soule (more on this later)
• lotta prints, lotta jansdotter (go sweden!)
• the pregnancy book, martha and william sears (for theoretical purposes)

i love books. especially free ones. no novels, alas. but when jesse's novel gets published i will read that immediately.

stay tuned for an announcement about my latest project idea tomorrow...

overheard in first grade

peaceful owl by elum letterpress.

the backstory: i have girls in my class with the same name. (i have two boys in my class with the same name, but this story isn't about them.). we deal with this in the classroom by using the first initial of their last names, like petunia a. and petunia b. (not their real names).

the story: this morning petunia and petunia informed me they were changing their names. many options were bandied about during, including my favorite, pony and squirrel, but they ultimately settled on cat and mouse. they made official nametags and everything.

then: another student came running up to me, very concerned. she said, "but they can't change their names! you can't change your name until you're 18 and they're only 6!"

very distressing.

get crafty

images from the purl soho website. what a yummy website!

do these images not make you want to get crafty? i love the knitting needles especially. here are some crafty projects i'm inclined to do soon:

• knit mark a scarf (need new smaller needles (9s?). must go to article pract.)
• sew more coasters (must lug sewing machine out of closet)
• think about sewing a skirt (find a pattern?)
• print and frame a series of wedding pictures for an empty wall in our house
• make the computer a more hospitable place for photos (figure out how to load pictures on computer, install new cd/dvd burner)
• make a book on shutterfly for mark's nieces (our flower girls)
• paint my toenails pink (very crafty)
• take pictures around town of the magnolia and quince and cherry trees that are beginning to bud; make little book

the fact remains, i'd rather take a nap than get crafty. but perhaps it is time to try anyway.

bicyclette

i got a bike!
it is blue!
it goes fast!
i love it!

also, we got a bird feeder. hello, chickadees!

sunday night is the worst thing ever invented, but the above news items cheer me greatly.

overheard in first grade

teacher: so, what fruits grow in israel?

student #1: apples?

teacher: yes, what else?

student #2: falafel?

only at a jewish day school.

speaking of israel, we welcome sarah back to the bay area today. hooray!

things that sound nice

baking bread

painting on a big canvas

knitting a poncho

making an apple pie

cello music

sloooow yoga (or maybe a nap)

jasmine biscotti

sitting on a mountaintop silently

cherry blossoms

magnolia trees

pink toenail polish
hot baths
green tea
new shoes
fires in the fireplace

i am having a hard time right now. it is sometimes hard to find and hold onto the idea of nice things, when things are feeling less than nice. so i'm trying remember the good stuff.

le cinema

dude. have you seen juno?

dude. you have got to go see juno.

ahoy

ranunculus greenhouse in israel

i am a bad blogger. i think i have run out of things to say. so, for the moment, i send you on an internet treasure hunt. enjoy!

read: http://www.forward.com/authors/marjorie-ingall/
play: http://www.encyclopediaofanordinarylife.com/
eat: http://eatgrub.org/
smell: http://www.pacificacandles.com/mexican-cocoa.asp
taste: http://sfzc.org/ggf/display.asp?catid=3,79,93&pageid=273
create: http://www.papress.com/

not sure what else today.

new year

i do not like new year's eve, or any part of the american new year's celebration. as a family we have carved out a few new year's traditions that are pretty great (lobster!) but other than that, new year's eve has always seemed to serve as a reminder that time is running out. maybe it's the countdown right before midnight. it never seemed to me that this celebration is about ushering in a new year, just more about watching the old one slip away. i like beginnings. i do not like endings.

(note to abc execs who plan dick clark's new year's rockin' eve: some of us do not want to see previews for lost right before the ball comes down. especially previews that involve scenes of airplanes exploding in mid-air. nothing like ushering in the new year with a panic attack...)

one of the best things for me about tuning in to the jewish calendar has been that i've been able to completely let go of the secular new year and all of the attendant grumpiness. my new year was in september, so there. i don't have to use this moment in time to make any resolutions. ha. i do like the idea about having some pleasant intention for the year, or for whenever. i also like the idea of delightfully small and lovely resolutions like, "i plan to sample many varieties of cheese this year," or, "i will bake many pies." the thing about me is, i'm revising and refining and generating lists like that in my head all the time, so this morning i think i resolve to eat some oatmeal for breakfast and not tax myself too much with all this thinking.

as for the time running out part, i keep remembering something that sadie the fabulous yoga teacher says sometimes. she usually says it after we've held some impossible pose for an impossible length of time, and have all flopped down on our mats, huffing and puffing and not believing that that huge expanse of time and wobbly arms was only a minute, surely she has tricked us.

"see?" she says. "life is long."