Go Mama

Hello Out There!

2010-06-17T13:29:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't been active here in quite some time. In fact, its been many, many, perhaps too many, moons. Not knowing if I want to stay, go, turn left or right, I have been going through some sort of gestation period. What is yet to be hatched has not quite revealed itself to me, although I do feel as though I am getting closer to "it."

I do miss the routine expression onto the page, as well as my cyberfriends. Excuse me while I rediscover where I am, and where I want to head in this blogosphere....a food page, a personal venting space, what's cooking in my business, all or none of the above.

It's seems that GoMama is going... in a number of different directions at the moment.

For now I'll leave you with a hearty, "HELLOOOO!"

And thank you for your patience with me.

image credit

Portal of Choice

2010-03-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

This came in today from Gillian MacBeth-Louthan. I had to share it:

We are connected to everything in the Universe; everything flows through us and to us. Our energies, our thoughts, and our words flow through all of life, on Earth and elsewhere. There is not an end to us, or a beginning, but a continual flow of life, changing form over and over again. We are continually perfecting our form in each and every incarnation, whether that is as an element, plant animal, human, star, or galaxy. We deliberately challenge ourselves to become all we can become. There is no failure in this type of existence only evolution.

You are in a time of birthing yourself into higher light at a different octave of truth. As you sit in the womb of No-time, No-space, you try to stretch, but the walls of illusion, keep you confined in an invisible prison. You push and push but you are not able to stretch into the vastness you innately know yourself to be. When a child is in the mothers womb, the child’s spirit has the ability to reach out past the limitations of the physical womb, skirting about in the parent’s lives, reaching into the past, and future, overcoming space and time.

Your life is similar to that of the unborn child. You feel limitations, as if the very walls of your life grow steeper and steeper each time you try to scale them. You grunt, you groan, you complain as the limitations become more and more animated. You have the same innate abilities as the unborn child. You are living in this dimension of matter and yet you are also living in spirit, in the light on a multitude of levels. Your body seems limited and vulnerable, yet the spirit and light-force that inhabits that vehicle has magnificent and never-ending capabilities.

You enter a promised time where the limited perception of your humanness merges with the vast and all-knowing Spirit of Light. Coming together Merging and then EMERGING into something much more.

Right now you all feel like a caterpillar, in early cocoon stage. You know that you are destined to become more, YET EVERYTHING IN YOUR WORLD POINTS TO LESS THAN !! You feel deep within your being that if you tried, you could fly. Then you take another look at yourself and see only the reflection of density, and human limitation. Yet in your heart you know you can fly past all these earthly limitations.

The Chrysalis shifts and the Cocoon around you thickens and hardens like the crust of earth. There seems no way out! Keeping you confined in a prison of your own thinking. One day out of the blue a small light appears on the horizon coming from a minute hole within the cocoon. Your heart races with possibilities as the illusion of limitation begins to crumble right in front of your eyes.

You all are just now seeing that small point of light, Showing you the way out, the way up and the way home. The caterpillar looks at itself and says “how am I going to get through that small opening’? The caterpillar must walk into a time of surrendering! Surrendering his limitations to the divine spark within him. Surrendering is accepting in the divine process that knows your every whim and need before even you desire it. it is trusting! It is knowing what is truth, when everything else reflects illusion. The hole is small only in the mind of the caterpillar, not in the mind of God. In the mind of God it is large enough to accommodate all the future butterflies of earth.

It is a time of surrendering and trusting your process. The butterfly that you are inside this human caterpillar, is far greater than any illusion. Let go and know that the divine plan will work no matter what. The caterpillar is destined to become a butterfly it can be no other way!

The cocoon would never ever allow the caterpillar to be released, because that is what a cocoon does. it protects, it keeps bound. Earth keeps you as a cocoon until you are ready to set yourself free. The caterpillar knows that it must try, and try again, or it will die. That is the point of reference that each and everyone of you sit at. You feel you must try, or perish in the process.

Your Soul pushes you through that tiny hole into a Higher Light, just like the caterpillar is pushed by instinct. You push back, saying ‘ No, I can’t fit, No I can’t jump, No, I can’t fly, NO I CAN’T !’

Spirit says, “ You can, you must, or you will perish.”

Earth is at a portal of choice, there will be a decision made by the mass consciousness. All of God’s creations sit upon this fence of decision. All of life is “in decision”.

As we reach an apex in this level of evolution, we begin to realize just what the effects of our words; thoughts and fears have on this turning point of humanity. We speak haphazardly, we create on a whim, and we prophesize out of fear. We speak like our words don’t mean a darn thing. Seeing them just as words and not realizing that worlds were created by a word, a thought a decree. Seeing not the power we have available to us, to destroy everything or create a utopia, a paradise, a heaven on earth. Sabotaging our own lives, our finances, our health, our marriages, and our futures.

Every thought you have is alive. Every word you speak is birthed into existence. You free it from its internal domain. Just like letting a Genie out of a bottle, your words, your thoughts wait for your command to come into the world of matter and do what they do best, create! All creation is by you, for you, and through you!

The time between thought, and manifestation grows shorter and shorter, forcing everyone’s attention into the mirrored hallway of responsibility. It is there that the reflections shout, “look at what you have created, look at what you have birthed!” We give ourselves wondrous magical gifts every minute of every day just by the very words we speak. No one is out to get us nothing is out to destroy us, every situation is of our own making, a divine creation, a tool to escort us into a higher place of knowing.

We not only do this as individuals, but as countries, families, continents, and also as a world. So many opportunities to learn and evolve and love. It is as children playing with nuclear weapons, not knowing the power of the instrument at hand. We do our best to fulfill ancient and biblical prophecy. Believing on some level that those of the past knew more than we do. Giving our power and our world away to the dried bones of the past. If those same people prophesied today, we would laugh at them as eccentrics, or cult members. Not honoring there words, or there fears.

The external world but mirrors our internal thoughts and dialogue. Life is not something that happens to us it is something that we create, continuously. Knowing that we can and do collectively create everything and anything, lets get busy and create a world of love, of peace, of joy. Where every child goes to bed with a full tummy, and every homeless person cashes in their cardboard home, for a real home. Lets look at our world glass as always full instead of half-empty and halfhearted. All livingness responds to your thoughts and your desires, especially a casual thought, or decree.

Knowing how powerful ours words are 24 hours a day for all eternity, puts a bit of a damper on our joking around. What we may say even in play will ripple out through all space and time. What we decree for another we gift to our self. Our angers, our fears, our jealousies are becoming animated alive and kicking us back to get our attention.

As you love, you attract. You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you. You cannot escape the result of your thoughts; but you can endure and learn, accept and be glad.

You will realize the vision of your heart, not the idle wish. You will gravitate toward that which you secretly most love. In to your hands will be placed the exact result you earn no more, no less. Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain, or rise with your thoughts…your vision… your ideal.

http://spiritlibrary.com/gillian-macbeth-louthan/portal-of-choice-0

-Gillian MacBeth-Louthan - www.thequantumawakening.com

Self

2010-03-20T16:21:00.000-07:00

Gonna keep walking forward, no matter what the path brings.

Standing tall, even taller, shoulders back, heart open.

My self radiates outward; infinity.

I am more than I ever thought I would be.

Although uncertain, I am filled with certainty,

As if there is no other way, but forward, through, onward, go.

Where I used to cave, I now stand tall.

Where I used to mute, I now speak out.

Where I used to cower, and wait for another,

I now step forward, and act.

I will hide no more, forever.

I will wait no more, forever.

I will stand in my power, the full glory of my becoming

And be the one I am meant to be.

And so it is.

Unwritten

2010-03-11T10:09:00.000-08:00

I am unwritten
Can’t read my mind
I’m undefined
I’m just beginning
The pen’s in my hand
Ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else

can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten...

Listen.

Better Butter

2009-12-16T23:11:00.000-08:00

Never mind that I spent my post-Thanksgiving downtime catching up on a few accumulated Netflix, two of which just so happened to be about the business of food, Food Inc and King Corn, and nevermind that I am finding myself more and more tempted to get a backyard chicken coop for humanely-raised fresh eggs, especially after my sister sent me a link to this cute little number, the Eglu...

(Insert image of husband rolling eyes to the heavens. Chickens. In the backyard. Peckin' in the dirt with the cats. But hey, you really owe it to yourselves to try a non-commercially raised egg sometime in your life. There's just no comparison in yolk color, texture, and taste.)

...AND nevermind how shocking it was to find out about the way chickens, pork, beef and dairy cows are mass-raised, what they're fed and how they're treated, that I have the sudden urge to rethink some things around here. Not necessarily to go vegan, but at the very least to get more conscious about what we're buying, and eating.

It's no secret and I readily admit, I'm a sucker for good food, good cocktails. A good slather of butter on a thick slice of crusty paisano bread with coffee in the morning, (or with wine later in the day), is just about heaven to me. But after learning more about commercial dairy, I want to look for other options there too. It's not the fat that scares me. At this point it's the silent accumulation of hormones, antibiotics and pesticides that are fed to mass lots of cattle, and that somehow get more concentrated in high-fat products such as commercial butter, ice cream, half and half, cheese...

Hmmm...but what's a dairy-lover to do?

I've already been buying hormone-free milk products for a quite a while now. Rolling up my sleeves and bringing to life that inner "pioneer-homesteader woman" my husband labels me with so often, I get it in my brain that I'm going to try to make my own butter using a more sustainable cream. (Wow. Now that my book's done, I must have waaay too much time on my hands.)

And, what I found out is...

...it couldn't be easier...

...and most importantly, it is most, but most, delicious.

Way delicious.

So check this out:

I started with 2 pints of organic hormone, antibiotic, pesticide-free heavy whipping cream, $1.69 ea (Love Trader Joes! I buy all my hormone-free milk products there.)

Whip it in your stand mixer just like you would for whip cream. Plain. No additives.

Whip it a little further and it starts to thicken.

Whip it further still and you start to see a graininess.

Keep going. It's getting thicker.

Notice the color deepens and you almost start to see little "curds" now. (This is just a few minutes past whipped cream.)

Thicker. More curds.

Curds begin to solidify and they're definitely separating from the whey now.

We got butter, baby.

Strain the butter, save the whey (aka "buttermilk") which can be used for baking, pancakes, oatmeal, mashed potatoes, what-have-you.

Look at all that buttery goodness.

Press down solids to remove all the liquid.

Now we "wash the butter" by returning butter to the mixer, adding clean filtered water and letting it slosh around.

Drain, scrape down, and repeat for several "washings" until the water pours off clear.

Butter baby! Clean, unadulterated butter.

I turned some with a bit of moist and crunchy Celtic Sea Salt. OMG. Take that on a slice of good bread! You won't be sorry.

A near pound of fresh chemical-free sweet organic butter, wrapped up in wax paper, for a mere $3.38 and a few laps around a stand mixer. This should last me a month. Should.

So. Worth. It!

Oh but the time, you say, I just don't have the time.

The whole thing took maybe 20 minutes start to finish and that was with stopping every few minutes to turn off the beater, clean my hands, and snap pix. (Next time, it won't take nearly as long, maybe 10 minutes. And I plan to experiment with other local organic creams.)

Then you need one of these: a beurrier. The Butter Bell. To keep it soft and spreadable. Stays fresh without refrigeration.

Isn't it funny to go so far forward, only to come back to basics. Progress.

So good. A butter you can feel good about. Better Butter.

* * *

For more on the "business" of food:

Watch Food, Inc instantly here.

Watch King Corn instantly here.

Time Mag: Getting Real About the High Cost Of Cheap Food http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1917458,00.html

Sustainable Dairy

http://www.sustainabletable.org/features/articles/dairy/

Thanksgiving Feast - a photo essay

2009-11-29T14:12:00.000-08:00

For the 2nd Grade Feast last Weds...sliced up and devoured in the blink of an eye. Don't tell me a pack of hungry kids can't discern the hot-out-of-the-oven real thing from the store-bought re-heated over-processed kind or microwaved ham...this thing was gone in about 15 minutes.

The 18 1/2 lber Thanksgiving bird with sage leaves, garlic and butter tucked under the skin, and filled with wild rice apple stuffing

The "use what you have" fruit, nut, pine cone, rosemary clippings harvest centerpiece

Personalized place settings, each anchored with a wisteria leaf, are both simple and welcoming

Our bounteous spread...the brandied-sage-pan-dripping gravy is already in pitchers on the table

Pear Gingerbread and French Apple Tart with vanilla bean ice cream complete the feast

Not shown?

The half-dozen or more empty wine bottles that followed a couple of rounds of infusion cocktails.... and I'm not going to say how many adults we were....

:)

So much to be thankful for.

Good friends, good food, and good drink just being some of them...

!

Keep scrolling....today it's a 3-for-1 post....

Pear Infusion!

2009-11-29T11:20:00.000-08:00

The past month flew by in a blur. I am finally catching up, clearing the decks and, as it turns out, dumping my camera. Here are some goodies I had been harboring....the results of a countertop experiment.

Pear Infusion!

In jar #1 I used 3 Bosc pears, a bit of sugar to jump-start the infusion, and a bottle of Monopolowa Vodka.

In jar #2 I used 3 D'Anjou pears, a split and scraped Bourbon vanilla bean, a bit of sugar, and a bottle of Volganaya Vodka.

Prior to my experiment, I racked up icey shots of Monopolowa (Austria), Volganaya (Estonia), and Moskovskaya (Russia) vodka and did a vodka tasting. (Note: this is not your typical wine-tasting type sip and taste. I mean, vodka, solo, um, it's harsh!)

Hey! No raised eyebrows, 'kay? This was back before I got cranking on that Guidebook deadline...back when I was still in denial that I would have plenty of time to get it done...tick, tick...

The winner? If you're talking straight shots, for me it was hands-down the Moskovskaya, followed by the Volganaya in the smoothness category. The Monopolowa was down-right harsh. But I'm not a vodka-shooter type of girl, so making infusions with them seemed like the natural thing to do. And well, me being me, you just know I'm going to create a couple of cocktails with the final results...being the closet mixologist-er-spirit-enthusiast that I am.

Let the pictures attest that I began the infusion "experiment" on October 21st, left them abandoned under a dark towel on the counter, (alternately they could have been left in a dark cupboard under the sink), and I finally revisited them on Nov 14th.

(They might have been strained earlier if I was paying better attention, more, say, than the occasional sniff and swirl of the jar, but I had to clear out the clutter in preparation for that busstop family happy hour I was hosting, oh, you know, right in the final sprint of my writing blitz, as I was mere days to the delivery. OK, everybody needs a break now and then. It can't all be nose to the grindstone!)

At this time, 4 weeks later, I strained out and discarded the sliced fruit, then poured the liquid goodness through a strainer lined with a damp paper towel, then again through a coffee filter. Triple filtered to get out all the sediment! Then I funneled the results back into their original bottles, dating and labeling them.

Voila! My Pear Infusions worked.

I definitely think the Boscs produce a deeper pear flavor (and a darker color) and the D'Anjou is more subtle, although it does make a lovely combination with the vanilla bean. If I were to do this again, which I very well might, I will infuse the Volganaya with the Bosc, as the Monopolowa is just frankly a bit edgey, although less-so after the infusion.

For those keeping score, in fact, I did do another infusion post-deadline, but this time I infused the Volganaya with 3 or 4 sliced up Satsuma Mandarins from my full-to-bursting dwarf tree out back. For this creation I only needed to steep the fruit in the vodka for about a week...

...for it to transform itself into the most delicious amber-colored tangerine vodka I've ever tasted. OMG. That's a keeper! Right in time for Thanksgiving. And shaken with a splash of cranberry and a squeeze of lime, it's about the best Tango-Cosmo I've ever had! My fave new Tday cocktail.

But again, I digress. Pears. Vodka. Infusion. Alchemy. What to do with all that pear goodness...

Why, a Pear-Ginger.

1 part house-infused pear vodka
1 part gingerale
generous squeeze of lime

Shake, rattle and roll. Garnish with a long sliver of fresh pear.

oo. oo. and ooo! Pass the pears, please....

The Apple Jack

2009-11-29T11:01:00.000-08:00

Fall Harvest is here!

In honor of the new crop of Gravenstein apple juice at our local Trader Joes (TJs), I offer up my latest creation, this delightful autumn sipper!

The Apple Jack

In a cocktail shaker half-filled with ice, mix together:

2 oz Gravenstein apple juice (or fresh crop apple cider)
1 oz french brandy (I used TJs Pierre Duchene Napolean VSOP brandy)
1/2 oz Bacardi Spice rum
splash of triple sec
large squeeze of lemon juice
1 tsp raw cane sugar (optional)

Shake well and strain into glass.
Garnish with a thinly sliced round of Granny Smith Apple.

Not your average kiddie juice cup.

Cheers, y'all! To an abundant harvest for each of us...

2009-11-25T10:24:00.000-08:00

My Middle School Guidebook is finished, back from the printer, and the first 20 copies have already sold. You can find an excerpt here.

I led 10 seminars, a couple of house chats, and a private one-on-one in the past month while also staying up all hours cranking to complete my book by the deadline. I made it. As crazy as that timetable was, I guess a part of me knew I could do it. And I did.

After a few days off (to sleep in) and a weekend spent with my sister who flew in from out of town, I am feeling rested and caught up...except for the next wave of business upgrades I realize I now need. (Cover redesigns, web upgrades, better photos, and manifesting the next big idea of mine...)

In the meantime, I've got a turkey in the oven for today's 2nd grade school feast, and another one brining for tomorrow's friends & family Thanksgiving feast. Got a house full of wine, several house-made vodka infusions, and a fridge that went from bare to stuffed with good food.

Life is good.

Life is abundant.

There is plenty to be thankful for.

Wishing you all a-plenty too....she says as she raises her glass, nods, and kicks back a long, long draught...

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-16T05:13:00.000-08:00

Yee Haw! My Guidebook is written.

I stayed up all night post-seminar to complete the text. Now all I need is a cover design, the headers and footers, a quick final proof, and a run to the printers.

Not to mention a good night's sleep.

yawn.

2009-11-15T11:36:00.001-08:00

Nearing the home stretch, the end is, finally, in sight!

In the next 4 days I have 3 seminars, a private one-on-one, and just 2 days to get that final draft to the printer. Oh, and design a quick cover for it too....and finish those final 3 chapters...and do the layout, font sizes, spacing...and the TOC with its corresponding page numbers.

On Thursday, after I sleep indefinitely, I am heading to the spa where I will commence to steam, soak, bubble, slough, and shower away all evidence of the toll the previous efforts have taken on me. I'm bookin' that baby!

Then, I don't need to tell you, it will be "cocktail:30!" (clink.)

The only question I'll have to answer at that point is, what kind?

Hmmmm, such choices....such possibilities...

Good thing they don't do lotteries for your cocktail choices!

(Hey, now that I think about it, that is a genius marketing concept for one of my public school seminars.)

2009-11-10T09:32:00.000-08:00

Just grinding away on that deadline. This won't be a "cut and paste" of the last one either. I'm taking it further, as well I should. As well I expect of myself. In such limited time.

One more week to go....

Nose.

Grindstone.

I suppose if it weren't for a (self-imposed) deadline, nothing would ever get done!

Sending you all happy wishes....

Now, back to the salt mines....

Make It Work!

2009-11-03T10:57:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm still the middle of a deadline but no, for this 7-yr-old dynamo, Halloween can't wait. Nor can the school celebration, which came a day early this year.

Desiring to help bring to life a well-loved children's literary character, I searched high and low for either a grey or black pleated skirt, to no avail. The best I could come up with was navy blue. Her size. On sale. $7.99. I grabbed it.

But her robe is black and her sweater is charcoal grey. Navy just wont do.

We're at the corner drugstore the night before Friday's costume parade and I place a last minute call to my left-LA-for-Portland-so-she-could-raise-her-daughters-in-a-~~decent~~-different-town costume designer/stylist friend. My go-to resource for all things fashion.

"Hey, I'm staring at this bottle of black RIT dye and I'm wondering if there's any chance in hell it will work on a navy blue skirt that's 100% polyester. I know it says "not recommended for polyester," but I just need to get it to grey or charcoal. Black will work too. I just need to get the blue out. Will this work?"

"Polyester? Um, well, no. You can try it, but it won't take."

"Even if I use the whole bottle and boil it? What about using vinegar? Salt?"

"You can try it, but polyester has so many chemicals in it, it's a different thing altogether. It probably wont grab the dye."

"OK, but what would you do if you couldn't find the right color skirt for a shoot? I'm sure that's happened to you plenty of times before."

"We'd have to make one."

"Clearly that's not an option. I don't even have a sewing machine, or fabric, plus I still have to hem that darn robe."

"There's always fabric paint. And if you're really in a bind you can staple the hem. Just don't forget to use a black Sharpie to touch up the staples afterward."

How Project Runway of her. I never would have thought!

In the inimitable words of Tim Gunn, it's "make it work" time.

After braiding my daughter's hair in 6 tight rows and getting her off to bed, I simmer a soup pot of water, dump in the whole bottle of black dye plus a cup of salt, and stir the inky cocktail. Meanwhile I'm in the kitchen sink washing the stiff skirt with dish soap to try to break down the fibers a bit. At first, water doesn't even penetrate the fabric. It just beads off. Shit. This isn't going to work, is it. I add more soap, agitate it, and keep scrunching it and dunking it in warm water until it softens and eventually soaks through the fabric. I toss the sopping mess into the pot of dye.

Stirring, I turn the heat to low and watch as this navy blue skirt miraculously, all 100% polyester of it, turns to black in about 18 minutes.

Yes! It worked!

Now, about that hem.

The hell with a stapler. Thank God for Stitch Witchery and an iron. But for some reason, after repeated ironings, it didn't take, so here I am hemming the entire circumference of her robe. By hand.

Then I make book titles on the secret compartment faux book "boxes" she'll collect her candy in, a fantastic discovery I found at the local discount store. With some fancy lettering in glittery gold and black permanent marker, the often-referenced volumes, Hogwarts: A History and A History Of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot, come to life on the covers and spines.

Next day, arriving at her school just before the parade, I help her into her outfit and remove the braids. A little back-teasing and hairspray and brown eye pencil create the infamous "bushy" hair and thick eyebrows.

Grey knee socks and a red striped tie complete her English schoolgirl look. I fasten her robes with the fancy clasp. She grabs her books.

It's more than a costume. It's an authentic character transformation...

Straight from the pages of the Harry Potter septogy (that's trilogy times seven), Miss Hermione Granger Lives!

Happy girl.

Tired Mommy.

Busy, Busy

2009-10-29T16:20:00.000-07:00

Been in a bit of a blur these days. Been building over here. Not much time for posting.

Been working on the website(s)

Been designing my business cards

Received them from the printer today. (They turned out better than expected. Yay!)

Been booking additional seminars.

Been leading the already booked seminars.

Been advancing the upcoming seminars.

Been building on the building I've already done.

One sure way to get me to write that next guidebook is to announce it's release date and book a seminar around it.

After months of procrastination, I have about 2 1/2 weeks to write, edit, proof, and receive back from the printer my next product. Jeez I love a challenge! But if you knew that my first guidebook was raced to the finish line in order to have copies raffled off during a local Mom's Night Out, you'd know this is how I roll. Deadline=Delivery.

Now that I know my way around a Pages layout, you can bet I'll be designing those glossy postcards for it too. (Sharpdots, my new best friend for affordable, delicious promotional materials...biz cards, bookmarks, postcards by the thousands.)

And I just found out I can have a mobile credit card app on my new iphone. Who says I can't become a mobile merchant and an independent bookseller too?

Did I mention that I have to dye and hem a Halloween costume by tomorrow afternoon's costume parade? Without a sewing machine?

Love to my peeps out there. Have a rockin' Halloween!

Message In The Aftermath

2009-10-17T17:07:00.000-07:00

Photo: Winding Path

A little over a month into the new school year, I find myself standing back and perusing the vista. I've trekked a good long way, but only in looking backward do I find clarity in the path revealed.

A couple of comments my new virtual friend Deb posted recently have been knocking around my brain, reverberating. Regarding A Few Small Repairs and things in my life breaking down in clusters:

"There's always a message somewhere..." and "What will you do when you run out of things to fix?"

...hahaha. Indeed.

You see, in the midst of the hailstorm, head down, body tucked for warmth and protection against the onslaught of elements, one is merely managing to get from point A to point B. Forget C, D and E or the long-held vision of WXYZ. No. A...A.5...A.75 and eeking out a B will suffice. If you get to B you've done a good thing. Kick the ball, get 10 more balls, begin again!

Let me try to explain.

I spent the better part of the last 2-3 years giving out... to the little school, to the surrounding community, the blustery district political policy machine, while many stressed-out parents, school issues, and larger district-wide problems felt like a million little hands of need...need, constant need...pulling at me for attention.

I am, by nature, a giving person.

I am, by nature, a capable problem-solver.

I am, by nature, one who doesn't sit idly by. I have to try. Something.

But I am now, at this moment, removed from being entrenched in many of the immediate issues. I am no longer there.

I am, at this moment, for the first time in many moons, turning the focus back inward. Not out there to the wider community, but back here. To my self. My work. My family. My environment. Our homestead.

It feels good.

It feels much-needed and necessary. As if all things, eventually, return home. OM.

I reflect back to this former post, Cleaning House, and sense the mounting disarray and neglect around our home even then. Years worth of repairs and maintenance got displaced during the onslaught. Freed from the many burdens, I am just now getting caught up around here.

We are no longer in a fixer-upper school. Although admirable, although deeply committed to the cause, although I adore the community of like-minded in-the-trench-warriors, I am absolutely and completely relieved, RELIEVED, to be free from the constancy of effort needed at that little place.

I still have great love and respect for the community and the work being done there. I still lend a helping hand and offer support when I can. I still bump into staff and friends there. We're still there every day at the bus stop. I recently helped lead a grassroots letter-writing campaign that actually saved a no-seniority teacher from being fired last month due to increased class size ratios. (Through the grace of God, the powers that be, and the cumulative power of mobilized, outspoken parents, we were able to get her a waiver.) And even though we're not there anymore, I still do CARE.

But I don't have to feel like I'm holding up the walls anymore.

I can LET GO.

I can revert the focus back here. Back to center. Back to me, my daughter, us.

I've been volunteering in her new classroom every other week or so. This is a luxury she sadly had to sacrifice in the past. At the other school I was too busy with the big picture issues like school-wide infrastructure, policy, communications, professional development, community outreach, tours. I didn't have time to work in just one classroom; I worked on behalf of the whole school. At her new school, I work in her classroom, for her teacher, with her group of kids. I can be present in her experience, once a week or every other week, and it's very rewarding for us both. And the class will survive without me if I don't make it in. There's already a TA in every class. What I bring is bonus support.

At the new school, they assign a value system for everything you donate, a point per half hour of volunteer time, a point per every $5 spent on either a fundraiser or supplies, tabulated monthly. There are built-in incentives like class parties for the class/grade with the most points accumulated.

I can't even begin to describe what assigning a value unit to donated time and services has done for me in terms of re-thinking the value of my efforts, and how much I have accumulated over a period of time. It makes me conscious of what I choose to give and how much, because now I am logging it in. I can't even fathom how many points our family would have collected over the past years with everything we used to do for that other school, me with my full-time load, my husband as booster club president.

So as the focus shifts back homeward, trusting that this new school has its systems not just under control but organized and thriving, I am beginning to relax. Catch up. Repair and replace my own fix-it list. Update. And also, gestate new ideas.

We found ourselves sitting around the living room at 9:30 the other night not with a stack of school-related issues to delve into or a 2-3 hour debate about it, but instead deciding which movie to watch. (We ended up playing games on our iphones. Dreaded Word Warp! Seriously, if you love playing with words, stay away!) I actually hosted a dinner party for friends last week and instead of a burden, it felt lovely, fantastic. It reminded me that even though I used to love to host gatherings, I had no capacity to host much of anything over the past few years, so I just didn't. But now I am craving a more relaxed, social, you-know, joy-filled life.

I find myself making homemade pasta, fresh rolled empanadas, and developing new seasonal cocktails. I feel an abundance all around. I am taking time to breathe in the sun streaking through the glass, casting its brilliant particles of vibrancy and possibility all through and around me. At night the moon cuts through the sky in a swath of brilliance, lifting my heart, beckoning me to wake up, embrace the purity of its loving illumination. Lit from within, I become that same beacon of light radiating outward in my life.

I am happy. Possibilities abound.

I spoke to a group of parents at a preschool the other night and walked away on such a high. I get to share my wisdom, my passion with others, and the exchange is palpable. I love what I do. It is meaningful work. I feel I am making an impact. I could go on and on.

I suddenly feel that as I clear through the backlog and get current around here, the path that I had been on becomes even more clear. The work I am doing, and the book I want to write about it all seems just that much more tangible and within reach. I couldn't write it while my head was so deep in the trenches. I had no perspective there. I was just getting by, surviving moment to moment between rounds of mortar.

It is only now that I am removed from it all that I can see the vista, that I can even begin to write about what just took place and my path through it. And there is a lot to tell.

The message is: it takes a lot of courage to chuck out all that work and start somewhere fresh. Sometimes that is the best thing one can do.

In honor of another friend, Ms Link, and her courage to start over as well, may we be filled with the wonder of what is unfolding in this NOW moment... as we gain perspective on where we've just bushwhacked through.

Many thanks...

Photo: Stone Steps

The Growth Of An Idea

2009-10-06T12:47:00.001-07:00

It started innocently enough. Back in April '07 I was about to get mentioned in the LAT (LA Times) for my little Westside Guidebook (thanks to Sandra Tsing Loh), and thought hey, what a wasted opportunity it would be if the fine folks of Los Angeles couldn't point and click their way to a site, any site, to find me. Quick! Get me a url.

A You Are What?

Being the nascent blogger that I was at the time, (not even a year into it), I knew nothing about websites. But I knew how to blog, I knew how to post.

So I quick grabbed a Blogger address (I was already GoMama; ok then, GoMamaGuide) used the book title as the blatant title all across the header, uploaded an introductory post announcing the Guidebook, a coupla images, a table of contents, and a quick text link to Paypal in one day. (I'd figure out that "Buy Now button" code later. That was advanced stuff for me.)

Whew. A site. Made it to deadline.

A few months earlier, my Guidebook had been "released" (and by that I mean I was printing it out of my computer at home, burning through ink and staying up nights strip binding batches of them.) It was being hawked locally through email, through word of mouth, through posting on the online moms groups, on yahoo parent groups, other social networking groups, spreading virally, with copies being raffled off at local moms-night-outs or preschool auctions, and of course I was selling them in person at my occasional speaking events. Just doing my part to shed light and help my fellow stressed-out moms on this crazy public school choice thing...

LA. Public Schools. What a mess. Here, I can help...

But over time, my little help-out-a-fellow-mom-with-her-public-school-choices, has led to save-the-little-neighborhood-school-that-could, to use-your-voice-for-change, and then get-involved-in-the-public-school-reform-political-drama... this has BECOME my life. This is my work. This is what I DO. My Guidebooks are just one tiny part of it. I have grown. GoMama has grown. And the GoMamaGuide has become a brand. An identity. An umbrella or lighthouse of many possible opportunities and outcomes.

Meanwhile, this little url was bursting at the seams with added content. It needed to grow too.

One thing that I am very proud of is that every part of this "business" has grown organically, intuitively, from a sudden inspiration to execution, from word of mouth to shared ideas and connections, from solving a problem to growing a new platform, and I am both humbled and amazed by that growth. It's not like I ever sat down and devised a business plan for this thing...it kind of grew me.

But as I/we grew, I began to cram so much stuff into the limited confines of the Blogger template that the site was getting unwieldy and hard to navigate with its endless scrolling content. (And here I was, the mama offering navigational services.) It deserved better.

Time for a url upgrade.

But being the ~~cheap~~, I should say, non-profit mom that I am, I just don't have the budget to hire fancy graphic designers, or web designers, or find web hosts and the like, and even if I did, I'm fairly certain I would still be leaning over their shoulders, controlling every little detail myself. That's just how I am.

"Minutia," my husband calls it, exasperated at me.

"Detailed-orientated and cost-effective," I counter. A do-it-yourselfer through and through.

So somewhere back a few weekends ago, perhaps feeling a bit over-confident after having played around with adding some widgets and a new custom background to this site, (love my new look here, btw), I decided to give my ole GMG url a makeover too, thinking it couldn't possibly take more than an afternoon or two, right?

Right?

Suddenly that list of a few small repairs mushrooms into a dandelion patch in a windstorm...

I'm not going to go into the whole process here because I've forgotten more than I remember, plus I got a lot of online help, but here's a brief outline of my Project GMG upgrade:

Inspired by the many free background wrapper sites for bloggers, (such as TheCutestBlogOnTheBlock and HotBliggityBlog) I spent hours trolling the web for ideas and how-to's, collecting screenshots of inspiration as I explored the possibilities of change. Many a night I was up 'til dawn. My MacBook desktop looked like someone threw up squares of colored confetti during this phase of Operation Search.

The next part was a big one. Actually making the commitment to dive in. To indeed commit to change.

Change isn't easy. Change takes time. Change requires patience... for the inevitable screw ups and longer-than-expected unexpected learning curves. Change changes the things around it, the things that touch it. Change is contagious. In the middle of it all, change is a mess. You might regret ever stepping into change. I know that feeling well. But then you push through, guided by a vision, some unknown nudging, and the transformation is your reward. That and the power you gain from going through the transition...to transformation.

Change is empowering. Change is GOOD! Change is part of LIFE!

* * *

Steps of Transformation:

Go into Layout. Take everything away. Fade to white. Everything white. It's a virtual white out.

Insert sound of clinking, clanging, banging, frustration, and rapid heartbeat...problems, delays, learning curves, work-arounds....then putting things back, adding content, fixing layouts, streamlining pages and adding links....and eventually, out comes...

Ta Da!

Ladies and gentleman, without further ado I give you:

GoMamaGuide.com

A new url.

GoMama Go!!

Finally, there's rest for the weary!

Except that business cards need to follow....but hey, I can navigate a layout in Pages now, so....

...and btw, did you see that line-up of speaking engagements!

Nope. There's more.

2009-10-05T00:31:00.001-07:00

Somehow the date just crept up on us, as if pretending it wasn't there would make it go away....like that river in Egypt....

Add prepare 2008 receipts for our tax appointment tomorrow to my list. The list that just keeps giving.

I know, I know, it's way late already, but last year was such a blur we gave ourselves the gift of an extension.

I guess we've extended long enough, so here we sit amidst manilla file folders and piles of last year's loose receipts, crunching the we're-freelance-take-everything-you-possibly-can-for-a-business-expense numbers that bare their past in front of us.

On the plus side, it's pretty cool to see the bump in my guidebook sales and the continued expansion in speaking events from 2007 when this whole thing started for me. And 2009 is already poised to be more, more, more. Who knew that there was going to be a whole business emerging from this swamp? And who knew it would continue to grow?

On the other plus side, this number-catcher thing will all be delivered and out the door by tomorrow. happy times.

Then I can get to telling you about cracking the code...

Ahhhh...

2009-09-30T16:09:00.000-07:00

...she said, as she checks off another round of fixes:

Replace cracked water glass inserts in kitchen cabs?

check.

Replace pond pump?

check.

Get water bell to work correctly?

check.

Install Never MT endless soap into kitchen soap dispenser, prime for 4 hours, sucking, cleaning, pumping, determined to get it to work, only to realize it's not the new Never MT gizmo, it's the old gizmo, up under the top of the dispenser that isn't working. (This is after getting the soap up over 3 feet of tubing, but still 2" away from the top!)

check.

Replace soap dispenser? (aha!)

check.

Figure out if I can use the guts of the new dispenser in the old one 'cuz I like the curves of the old one better.

not yet, but I'm working on it.

Replace toaster oven.

check.

Replace hinge on dishwasher door that just snapped to the floor one fine evening recently

hmmmm....might have to pull out some floor tiles to get to that.

Scrub kitchen floor tiles with bleach solution--first time in months!

check.

Remove and wash slipcovers.

check.

Drop wedding rings at the jeweler.

check.

Make decision on whether to replace, reshank, or redesign rings due to their worn state. (Hence the repeated ring rash.)

need husband to co-partner in this delicate decision.

that would require a trip into WHollywood with him alongside me.

Have naked fingers while wedding rings sit at the shop for almost 3 weeks.

check. (irony still noted.)

Oh, and tomorrow I'll post pictures and tell you about my latest repair and the joys of learning code....

check.

triple check.

Excuse me while I go and have a (celebratory) cocktail!

I believe I earned it.

A Few Small Repairs...

2009-09-22T13:36:00.000-07:00

Been trying to repair, replace, fix, update things around here.*

Everything is taking longer than expected.

I need to let go of my expectations and need for instant fixes.

sigh.

Placing hand on heart, tucking in to the center, I inhale a deep swell of air, ribs expanding, then after a pause at the top, blow it all out and open my eyes. Looking around I am instantly transported to a lighter altitude, one of possibility. It's bright up here. Ideas come lightning fast.

How quickly I fall into fixing, of working out the details of physical manifestation. I am reminded of the frustrations (and slowness) of working in density. It rarely comes quickly. Or easily.

* Why is it things always fall apart in clusters? I went through this last year. Must be going through another upgrade...

Fig Explosion!

2009-09-17T23:11:00.000-07:00

For the last month or so, figs have been literally falling from the sky. A veritable bounty of Black Mission figs so fresh to bursting, mere steps from my back door, have been calling out to me, beckoning, offering her lusty wares while her heady scent perfumed the air. Remarkable for a tree that nearly snapped a year back.

But a girl can only drink so many Figgytinis while nibbling on figs with crumbled gorgonzola, or even figs straight up while the rest of the family turns in indifference.

Meanwhile, if I didn't get to them, the birds and bees and squirrels and raccoons and the ground would. We were already attracting every winged creature in the 'hood while mounds of rotting flesh sat at the trunk's base decomposing.

What to do with all. that. fruit?

A moment of inspiration came when my sweet friend Clemence of Gourmandise Desserts (check out her sugary site!) suggested making jam.

Jam.

I'd leave you the recipe, but alas, it was one of those in-the-moment, impromptu improvisations. A just-do-it and don't-think-about it creations.

Introducing, the Black Mission-Meyer Lemon Fig Jam....a recipe in pictures.

Gather figs ripe to bursting.

My precious little sweethearts.

Rinse and cut into quarters.

Add thinly sliced Meyer lemons and a ton of sugar. (My bad, I didn't weigh it, just did it by sight.) Let it sit and macerate for at least a half an hour so the juices release and marinate together.

Into the stockpot under medium-high heat.

Boil it down....And boil it some more...until it thickens and globs on the back of a wooden spoon.

Boil the jars and lids separately. Remove with tongs and fill with hot jam. Carefully wipe rims and replace lids, then return to a water bath, boiling the filled jars for another 15-20 minutes. Remove and listen for the little "pop" that announces that the lids have all sealed.

Ah, my precious little jewels.

(And another big tupperware filled in the fridge.)

Just needs some nifty labels and a raffia ribbon around the top.

I tried slathering some of the jam over a pork tenderloin and roasting it in a hot oven, making a quick pan sauce out of the drippings with zinfandel and butter.

It's all blurry with goodness.

The ubiquitous fresh fig salad over just picked-from-the-garden arugula, crumbled gorgonzola, and drizzled with olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar.

And in another moment of inspiration,

I created this Fig and Rhubarb Vanilla Bean Galette.

OMG.

OMHOG was that good. Pinch me good.

Makes that whole strawberry-rhubarb combo taste like Marie Callender's. (I'm just sayin')

Have a Figtabulous day!!

Feeling Into It

2009-09-15T12:44:00.000-07:00

*Photo: www.tedua.deviantart.com

Eyes closed, heart open, hands extended outward, reaching, feeling into it, into the void, the cusp of possibility, edges blurry, momentary glimpses, rising then dissolving back into the mist, as I feel my way forward.

Nothing is certain yet something is certainly imminent, as certain as that jackhammer next door rattles and stops, rattles and stops.

Renovation's begun.

What's next is yet to come, but I am feeling an abundance of potential...

...as it draws near.

Moving On...

2009-09-10T12:42:00.000-07:00

We survived the 09.09.09.

No big dramas or melt-downs.

In fact, it was rather pleasant. Shall we say, buoyant?

Miss S started her first day at her new school yesterday. She not only survived, she liked it.

She also liked riding the bus, something we weren't so sure about. (She gets to ride a school bus to school now. In some weird twist of fate, her bus stop is smack dab in front of her old school.)

When I arrived to pick her up in the afternoon, she was swingin' and happy with her mates (she rides with 3 other friends from her former school.) Love it!

In a fortuitous moment of happy happiness, seconds after her bus pulled up, another school bus pulled up right behind hers, and 3 more former classmates stepped off the bus from their first day at their new school. Defectors unite!

The sight of half a dozen happy 2nd graders (and a 4th grader) hugging, smiling, and prancing around the front grounds together in some giant reunion of sorts, was a sight to behold.

Happy, happy!

Btw, 10 is her favorite number. Guess what room she got?

More happy, happy!

Today, I'm off to repair my wedding rings that are bent out of shape and giving me such ring rash I can't wear them. (Irony noted.)

Next up, replacing the cracked glass in our cabinet doors, and the broken pond pump.

I feel a clean sweep coming...

Catching Up to Now

2009-09-04T17:55:00.000-07:00

Wow. It's 9.4.9. Counting down to 9.9.09.

I guess the best place to start is where we are: eeking out the last vestiges of summer before we start a new chapter, a new school year, and for us, a new school.

For someone like me, that last little phrase does not get written lightly. There are all kinds of weight and connotation and massive amounts of emotion and transition stirred into that little phrase, but change we are.

We are leaving "the little school that could" - the one I hoped it would anyway - the one I had invested almost 4 years of my life to, sacrificed significant hours and income to, leveraged political ties and social relationships, my capacity to mother and at times even my marriage to. We are leaving behind the little experiment.

There. I said it.

It's a relief, really. As if a giant weight-of-the-world has been lifted and I am suddenly unpinned, weightless. Free of the responsibility of the ensuing issues and dramas and politics and constant challenges at that little school.

On Tuesday, we will be starting orientation at a new school. We were given a rare opportunity, and after an agonizing week of deliberation, we decided to take it.

In a crazy stroke of backwards luck due to budgets cuts and thus increased class sizes all over LA, Miss S won a coveted lottery spot for 2nd grade at a fantastic school – one she never would have gotten into unless someone had either moved away or, I hate to say it, died. It’s a magnet, a charter, a Nat’l Blue Ribbon school, a CA Distinguished school, and an International Baccalaureate program that weaves a focus on Humanities and Global-Perspectives into the overall curriculum, and it’s public so it's tuition-free. It's a great school. It will be a big change for all of us.

Mostly we are counting down to NEW.

Mostly I am rethinking what to do with all this freed-up time.

Mostly I have been relearning how to float.

I have become quite buoyant this summer.

* * *

To back up a bit, the last time I posted back in April my life was churning ahead full-speed. I did a series of radio shows taking on the CA State Superintendent, then the President of the UTLA teachers' union, then the Superintendent of the LA school district offering my in-the-trenches perspective on our dysfunctional public school system. I was asked to speak on Brooklyn's Public Think Tank Radio. Recent press had my Guidebooks flying out the door and me booked solid with speaking events, especially a new model I devised called The House Chat, taking my public school demystification sessions into the living rooms of groups of "strollermoms" and "preKindermoms" all over this fine city, teaching them the ins and outs of our school lottery systems and urging them to get active and involved early on, stoking the grassroots passion and activism I love to inspire. I also began offering individual one-on-one sessions in addition to my usual round of "Choosing A Kindergarten" Nights at many local preschools.

I was awed when my chats inspired a group of strollermoms to launch a fundraising booster club years ahead of the completion of their new school, and another group asked me to come back and teach them how to transform their lackluster neighborhood fixer-upper school. I had goose-bump moments speaking to a class of Early Childhood Education teachers about why, really, we teach, and questioning what, in the end, are we really trying to teach our children, our next generation of citizens, and how together, with collaboration and parent participation, we have this amazing opportunity to not only connect with, but inspire our children, our communities, and shape our future.

On top of this I was waging letter-writing campaigns to our local school board members fighting the good fight against budget cuts, teacher pink slips, losing our Ast Principals (we lost some of them in the end but not without a fight), speaking out in local town halls and local e-blasts, while at the same time helping to establish our school's new by-laws and next year's operating budget, as well as creating our monthly school newsletter, and performing all the myriad tasks I do for our little school.

By the time early June rolled around, I was exhausted.

I put down my sword. I relinquished my 2 -year stint as creator/editor of the school newsletter. I let go of the grant I was overseeing when I realized we couldn't complete the project within the grant's deadline due to yet another ridiculous roadblock with District Facilities flagged by our by-the-book new principal. I stopped trying to wedge in our Professional Development sessions, budgeted for by parents and pre-approved by the former principal, when repeatedly faced with an unyielding S~~cheduler~~, um, calendar. I was simply unwilling to become not just next year's Room Parent, but a "Grade-wide Parent" (here we go holding up the school again) to compensate for the lack of volunteers on the other side of the social-economic divide, meanwhile facing either a teacher we all wanted fired or another one who hadn't taught 2nd grade in almost 5 years and having no say in the matter.

Optimistic, yet exhausted, I Just...

Stopped.

Fighting.

Even still, with all this investment of time and effort and resources, it's hard to just walk away.

My heart, my passion…my very blood is coursing through that school. I have been part of the collective vision and outreach of that little school since my daughter was in preschool, circa 2006!

But when the call came that last week in June dangling this amazing opportunity for Miss S, that's what we did. We made the choice to walk away.

To try something new.

I can't imagine what I'm going to be doing with all this free time….

I just keep reminding myself, all is unfolding in divine perfection.

This moment is fine.

Don’t need to see the whole map....

Got 4 more days to float....

Mama Got A Facelift!

2009-09-03T17:12:00.000-07:00

So.....

Don't you think it's been long enough since I posted?

I do.

So in light of my homecoming, not to mention the start of a new school year, I decided to give myself a whole new look. Courtesy of The Cutest Blog On The Block.

Hmmmm.... Where does one begin after such a long hiatus?

Why, with a cocktail, of course.

You may remember a story posted some time back about my Mission Fig Tree. No? Well, by all means, check it out here.

In the meantime, I am celebrating her abundant harvest with the following delightful summer sipper...

The Figgytini

2009-09-03T17:11:00.000-07:00

The Figgytini

In a cocktail shaker, muddle together the following:

1 overripe fresh Black Mission Fig, cut in half, scoop inner flesh with a teaspoon (discard skin)

juice of 1/2 a Meyer lemon (lime will also work)

1/2 tsp of raw cane sugar (adjust depending on ripeness)

Half-fill shaker with ice. Add:

1 1/2 oz Makers Mark bourbon* (I find this compliments the figs tremendously more than vodka does)

Shake, shake some more, strain, and serve in a chilled martini glass. (You really need to break down the ice to make this one work.) Garnish with a wedge of fresh fig and a lemon twist, or a sprig of mint.

Cheers!

That's it for now, but I'll be back tomorrow with more to share....

Which Way LA?

2009-04-06T15:23:00.000-07:00

So Thursday, thanks to a friendly referral, I get a call from a radio producer looking for someone to be the parent perspective in this ongoing drama playing out in our LA public schools, framed by our $8B state- and $719M local budget crisis, and in light of the huge federal stimulus package making its way down to us by way of Sacramento. Would I be willing to chime in…ah, today, like in the next hour or so on the subject?

Me have an opinion? On the up-to-the-minute public school situation?

You betcha!

Here's me with KCRW's Which Way LA host, Warren Olney, and the CA State Superintendent, Jack O'Connell.

Click to listen. (3rd segment)

Little Explosions

2009-03-29T13:22:00.000-07:00

Amidst the devastating budget crisis facing LAUSD and the state of California, despite the decimating budget proposal before the school board this Tuesday....

in my own little backyard
things are teeming with life.
(Sweet Orange Blossoms)

Bursting with abundance.
(Sun-kissed Bearss Limes)

Exploding with color and fragrance
(out of it's climate comfort zone, White Lilacs)

and God-given bounty,
(a plethora of Early Girl Peaches)

proving that even in the most challenging of times, we are always provided for

and surrounded by the possibility of creation...
(Caribbean Lily, Scilla Peruviana)

which creates despite its sometimes harsh and prickly environment.

Or, perhaps because of it.

When Life Gives You Lemons…

2009-03-21T23:27:00.000-07:00

There are two things you can do:

1. Fall down into a hole of despair, or
2. Make lemonade

Folks, it’s been a bumpy ride around here. The ups and downs have been extreme. From the highs of riding the momentum of some good press, being inspired to expand my work in multiple ways, listening to Obama in town rallying for the people, combined with the sweet victory of our collective voices delaying the firing of all elementary school Assistant Principals across LA, we were feeling empowered. I was riding the wave of possibility, of transformation, of inspiration, of conceiving the formation of a collective ‘alliance’ of like-minded folks across boundary lines and neighborhood council districts, the feeling we will overcome, be invincible, create our new reality, more autonomy...we can DO this whole use your voice for change thing...We the People...rah, rah!

And then the reality hits, startlingly, like a punch in the face. Thousands of our fresh new teachers face potential pink slips. The AP job, while not eliminated completely, is still on the line. The downtown admins will always have seniority. The Fed Stim money is being held up at the state. (And when you consider how long our legislators hijacked our state budget, we have reason to worry!) We may never see that Stim money that's supposed to save teacher's jobs and support our schools. The special interests are already up there scrapping over it. And ludicrously we can't hold our school fundraiser until we pay district fees. Fees to the district to use our own school site for a fundraiser in order to raise money to pay for the things the district doesn't fund anymore. Hello!

I am also in a mother-daughter, my needs-her needs, guilt-ridden conflict. In my heart I know she's not getting what she needs, from me, from the school...and I never seem to have enough time.

What am I doing?
How can I sustain this?
How do we pay our bills?
My daughter’s not happy
I’m overworked and exhausted
It is never-ending, this uphill climb
I need supports, fresh supplies, a life!

At the core it is ugly. It seems they will always prevail. They always have more power, more money, more control. We are ants scurrying around under their footsteps as they wipe away the crumbs. Yet we keep building. Castles in the sand.

What we do for love. For our kids.

We have been bleeding over here, holding up the barracks.
Doing, in spite of.
Creating, without knowing how or if it will work.
Holding out hope.
Rallying for our position.

Yet I know it is just the beginning of a maelstrom. I have been in the boardroom, seen the inner-memos. I get the conflict of interests. The power of the unions. The gaping financial shortfall. The problems with the existing laws. The haves and the have-nots, the social services aspects, the immigration aspects, the middle class aspects, the big business consultants and lobbyists and the overwhelming bureaucracy of it all, each desperately trying to save its own livelihood.

We need the sword of Gryffindor. Excalibur. Cut the multi-headed dragon free. The beast intent on destroying itself and anyone in its path. But the children, our children, are in the belly of the beast!

Today, reaching my breaking point, the wind sucked out of my sails and figuratively down in the dumps, I’m not making my usual lemonade. Nor my adult version here. No, today I'm in need of something stronger. Something soothing yet packs a punch. Today I’m bringing out the big guns.

I'm muddling the Cuke.

Excuse me while I drink myself through this pickle I'm in!

The Cucumbertini

2009-03-21T23:26:00.000-07:00

The Cucumbertini:

Muddle together the following ingredients at the bottom of a cocktail shaker until sloppy mush:

4-5 slices of English hothouse cucumber
The juice of half a big fat lime
1/2 teaspoon of sugar
2 fresh mint leaves, torn up

Then add:
Ice to fill half the shaker
1 1/2 oz vodka of choice

Shake the hell out of it until most of the ice is broken down and you can barely pry your fingers off the cold metal. Strain into a martini glass and garnish with an additional slice of cucumber. Ahhhh.

Wow. I’m already:
1. Feeling better
2. Thinking up the next concoction....hmmmm.

I'm gathering ideas for a new cocktail, The Pink Slip. (Not an official firing, just the preliminary notification as per the collective bargaining agreement that one might be fired, so all those thousands of teachers, my daughter’s included, can spend the next several months teaching in a climate of fear, worry, job insecurity, and anger. You know, the best possible environment for kids.)

Send me your suggestions now. You know, deceptively optimistic, but packs a deadly blow.

I always say, there’s something about public schools and cocktails that just seems to go hand-in-hand!

Cheers!

A Song of Hope: "Falling Slowly"

2009-03-10T12:34:00.000-07:00

This song never fails to get me. From the movie Once. Listen:

And then, do you remember this moment when they won their Oscar for Best Song, got rudely cut off by the MD (Music Director) in the orchestra pit, and then in a rare moment of Oscar history Jon Stewart brought her back onstage after the commercial break to let her finish:

Watch this acceptance speech!

Make ART, y'all.

Make LOVE.

Dare to DREAM.

No Accidents

2009-03-05T13:08:00.001-08:00

Ever.

Even when it looks like an accident, a mistake, a lost opportunity, a broken dream.

So, she asks the universe...what next?

Where do we go from here?

Wah

2009-03-04T14:38:00.000-08:00

My Guy didn't win. So disappointing. Even worse was the super low turnout at the polls.

If parents would only realize that at 2 parents per child, and anywhere from 20-35 students per teacher, not to mention contractor, sub-contractor, soil tester, facilities manager, or architect to drill a screw into the wall, etc, we FAR out-number that union vote by a landslide.

Parents need to WAKE UP to the sheer power of our numbers and stop being so f'ing apathetic and MUTE!!

(There. I have sufficiently de-irked for the moment.)

Now, about that blood orange martini...

fresh blood...

excuse me while I go bleed for a bit...

Blood Orange Martini, For Real

2009-03-04T14:37:00.000-08:00

Here's the real deal:

The Blood Orange Martini

- juice one fresh blood orange

- generous dose of vodka of choice

- optional shake of Peychaud's bitters

shake, strain, serve, repeat!

Pretty Sweet!

2009-02-23T23:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning, thanks to DailyCandy Kids, I opened my inbox to a little good press and within a few hours my guidebook sales were flying into the double digits. Amazing...the power of the word. Mom to mom. Inbox to inbox. Most grateful over here.

Cleaning House

2009-02-18T17:34:00.000-08:00

Today I spent a good part of the day cleaning my house. I mean the kind of pull apart the furniture, get up on a stool, roll out and hose down the potted trees kind of cleaning. Shaking out and refitting the slipcovers, de-cobwebing the ceiling with an upside-down broom, pulling off and bleaching the musty grey-once-were-white sheers, and Windexing both sides of every louvered windowpane, all 70 of 'em, that kind of cleaning.

It's amazing how much dirt accumulates when you ignore it and let it fester.

I've been so busy cleaning up the community--and the little school that could in particular--I've neglected my own house.

Listening to a couple of long-bookmarked / podcasts on our current economic "situation," a couple of things occurred to me while I worked.

We always have exactly what we need. Even when we can't see it. It's always there.

Funny to hear that bauble of wisdom when from all outer appearances, it appears that we're losing everything, that it's all falling apart at the seams, economically-speaking.

For months I've been hearing the phrase, use what you have. From gathering disparate pantry items for a quick dinner to swapping out babysitting with a neighbor to coming up with a solution for the school, there are resources right in front of us if we only open to them. As if in our disconnect, we somehow forgot we came from perfect abundance and we're always provided for, we always have exactly what we need. In perfect time. Even when we can't see it. Even when we think we want something else. Even when it's cracking at the seams.

This house has become a shell - a place to come in, drop a pile of papers, campaign madly, go to meetings, express frustrations, hear more frustrations, dump more madness, hear more anger, more tenseness, more anxiety, feed everybody, get them cleaned and to bed, and up again and dressed, and exit according to the day's unrelenting schedule….each day folding into the next, rarely a breather.

Years pass in this virtual motion. Pull in to the micro-focus and surf the wave of minute-by-minute emotions, passions, exchanges and issues…then pull waaaay back and the whole thing looks like a guitar string after it is plucked and vibrating…a blurry bzzzzzzz….. a single suspended note, insignificant amidst the cacophany.

Today, I am taking back my house. I am recreating home. I am ending the siege I've been on (strong word, I know), to make up for where others don't see fit to contribute. I'm stepping aside for a moment, gathering my collective thoughts.

You know that theory that 20% of the people do 80% of the work? In our school it's more like 10% of the people, always the same 10% doing 90% of the work, and then they bash us for "elitism" or "cronyism"...or worse...as if we prefer doing it all by ourselves, as if we couldn't use any help. Are they really too weak or indifferent to pitch in? In a community system, this ratio just doesn't work. It's unsustainable.

There's got to be a difference between giving someone a hand, and giving someone a hand-out.

If we're going to build a system where the community all benefits, particularly benefits from the hard-fought labors of a very small group of savvy, entrepreneurial doers, then everybody has got to come together and do their part--no matter what their contribution is. Making taquitos, running the copier, reading in the classroom, weeding the gardens, or direct cash donation. It's foolish to think we are building community when only a fraction of the whole is doing all the work for everyone else's benefit. That's not community. That's a welfare state. That's taking advantage. That's being a sucker…either sucking the strength out of the whole or being sucker enough to give it all away in the first place.

So? At home I move my furniture back and hang up the newly white curtains. A soft breeze blows fresh air through the windows while sunlight dapples the honeyed floorboards. It feels good to create this beauty and revitalization in my own house. My home. Our home. For the three of us. Effort for our direct benefit. I know I should be productive in other areas, but this effort is making me feel buoyant today.

Next I'm out in the yard pulling a few stray vines. Again I am reminded at how much neglect there has been to our home and property. We need a roof. We need some serious yard cleanup. My hair, my body, even my toenails, all need a serious overhaul. Neglect. Everywhere neglect…all our energies have been going out of here devoted to the whole, at the expense of the one.

I begin scooping copious amounts of algae-ridden waterweed growing rampant at the bottom of the pond threatening to take over the lilies and decorative potted bog plants. The whole system is overgrown, decaying, and in need of an overhaul. With each scoopful, a thick black sludge of compacted fish debris once settled around the roots comes rising up, spreading ink clouds towards the surface of the water, impeding any clear perspective. Shit.

It has to get dirty before it can be cleaned out, otherwise you wouldn't even notice the difference or bother to do anything about it. And/or, things start to look worse before they get better.

Perhaps the whole thing has to fall, fall apart, before any true progress can be made. I'm thinking about the whole school district, second largest in the country. Break it up! Let it fall. Maybe it should go bankrupt. Like everything else. Then we can truly transform.

I check my email. The Courage Campaign announces that the state of California is $41 BILLION DOLLARS in debt. We are on the brink of bankruptcy. Tens of thousands of public workers are being laid off today and more tomorrow. Our state legislators have been in a budget gridlock for months now, perhaps almost a year. It was last April when I was up in Sacramento campaigning on behalf of our children and their schools…. We are one vote away from the 2/3 majority we need to pass a budget. Seriously. They say it's down to one Republican. So close, and yet so far away. Still. While so many lives hang in the balance...these legislators don't seem to notice.

I have been ambivalent about next steps. Although clear, I cant quite seem to muster the stamina or wherewithall. I can't crusade forever. You fix one thing and then there's another…and another…ad infinitum. Ad nauseum. My daughter's in first grade and I've already begun campaigning to clean up our middle schools. What am I thinking? How can I sustain this? Where does this drive come from? I can't hold the bridge up for everybody!

After years of putting out for the greater good, today I'm holding out for myself. After years of calling "all for one and one for all" while only a very few of us were in there trying to make things better, today I'm decidedly being self-focused. I'm cleaning MY house. I'm cleaning out my OWN pond scum. I'm searching for my own clarity and solutions, as surely they are there. All that we need is always right there, I know it. Perhaps I just can't see it. Perhaps it is just hidden under the surface of cumulative dirt and debris.

Tonight as sure as I'm writing this I'm making a freshly squeezed cocktail in a crystal clear glass, in my sparkling clean house, while reveling in the surrounding beauty my attention has created.

I deserve this. I earned this abundance, even if it was here all along.

* * *

The Ruby Red

2009-02-18T17:33:00.000-08:00

Post Script: Tonight I created this beauty:

The Ruby Red

2 parts freshly squeezed ruby red grapefruit juice
1 part premium vodka
3 sloppy shakes of Peychaud's bitters
splash of cranberry juice
plenty of ice

Shake, strain and serve!
(note: a squeeze of lime would have been nice, but I didn't think of it until afterwards.)

Cheers!

PPS. A California State Budget was passed early this morning. (Thurs, Feb 19) Phew.

On this Day, Not Just Hope...

2009-01-20T13:02:00.000-08:00

..but the seeds of transformation are taking root as we turn a page in history and stare down a fresh, blank piece of paper.

We all know the creative process: the hesitancy, the expectancy, the vastness of possibility, the listening inside for directive, the waiting for inspiration...

...and then, surely, it comes, and we begin to fill the page with our intent-filled actions.

Yet to transform our people, our nation, our collective future....such a big need and an even bigger possibility awaits us.

What an amazing day. What an amazing blank page to be staring at collectively.

Blessings to us all as we grow and transform together.

May we create great things.

Onward and upward!

Rewire or Haywire?

2009-01-13T15:50:00.000-08:00

Now that I've had some down time, and that 3 week family lockdown-no-camp-no getaway thing is over, it's time to dump out some of this backlog and fill you in on what's been going on in the GoMama swirl. First, I just have to get this off my chest. There's been some strange patterns I've been noticing.

Within the last 6 months, surrounding the time my back went out…

My computer, my lifeblood, the motherboard (or motherload) - blown. Dead.

My cell phone - intermittently cuts out and goes blank, then is fine again.

2 different watches- both relatively new- have erratic armsweeps, erratic time-telling, or are just plain not moving (makes a nice arm decoration.) Batteries were checked and fine, btw.

Digital camera - powers up then just shuts down, even when the batteries have been charged overnight. Other times, it works just fine.

Smoke alarm (installed closest to my side of the bed) intermittently goes off in ear-shattering decibels for no apparent reason.

My keyless car fob suddenly, and inexplicably, dies. Oh, it's not the battery they tell me, $75 worth of electronic reboots later.

My home phone - the one on my desk, the hand extension can't hold a charge longer than about 15 mins, then beeps a few times, then dies.

Toaster oven - my old reliable for morning toast and school lunches, perfect for quickly heating mini tacos, chicken nuggets, or taquitos...Dead.

My car stereo - the power amp cracks, pops, then ultimately blows.

The DirecTV DVR box - for months I hear this inexplicable wheezing sound, like breathing, is there a trapped animal under our house? Then finally, we trace it back to the DVR box which then suddenly goes to nothing but blue screen. Dead. All those months of shows queued up for that long winter break? Gone.

I wish I was making this up.

I'm not.

Coincidence?

Been a weird time. A time of weird re-wire. A time of contemplation. Time of action. Time of invisibility. Time of non-time.

I've been doing and not doing. Pulling it together, making it happen, yet coming undone.

Over the last few months, every electronic gadget or device I own or frequent or merely even orbit, has been fritzing, as if the vibrations are just incompatible. Or obsolete. Or somehow repulsively degenerative, in need of an upgrade.

It gets to a point where I start to think I am nuts. I am haywire, my system is incompatible, not normal, awol.

Hard not to take this personally, but it's as if all the electronics surrounding my perimeter agreed to all collectively extinguish their lifespan within the same 6 month period. Period.

I've been tracing and studying ascension symptoms assuring myself this is my re-boot, an upgrade, a holy new beginning, only to find myself plunging headfirst into an invisible yet cloying fog so subtle, so unclear, so indifferent that I actually thought I was rising…

…until I found myself sinking into a pudding so thick it was more like being trapped in a jello-like suspension of stagnation and old tapes, "I'm not good enough," "I'm not providing enough," "I'm not fast enough, not hip enough, too invisible, not important? Who needs this? Why am I doing all this? What's the point?"

Fast-forwarding through the What am I doing? Where is my potency? Why don't people see me? Does any of this matter? Am I barking up the wrong tree? Which, then, is my tree? spin I am in I ask, is this a crisis of conscience? Dark night of the soul? But I feel perfectly well and present. Perfectly functioning and competent. Yet everything feels vaguely disconnected and, not right.

Why am I here? Was I put here in the wrong time and place?

I scan my life and my history. My blood relatives behind me, scattered and distant, no connection there. I question why I came here, in that circle, with what intention. A black sheep, a cog in the wheel, unfitted, different, and finally released. Free.

I read about those who came to transmute the darkness into light. Took it on willingly for their families. The transformers, they call them...

I remove myself from the feelings, the pain, so old, so distant, so irrelevant, and over-processed, I just want to move forward, not backward. Am I blind here?

My husband steps over my work and announces after a year of threats that he will be not only be playing in my sandbox but taking over as captain. Is this his way of getting back at me? Of trying to get closer? Of finally hearing my rallying cry and joining the movement, or is he merely trying to prove his power over me?

I just want to run to another place and create a whole new box, fresh, untouched, untrampled by crude, arrogant, always right dominance. Creative energy is infinite. I can create again, I tell myself. I always do. I always will. I am already scanning new vistas, ways to reinvent myself….as if who I am is infinite and need never arrive, never receive fruits of efforts, no harvest, no basket, no rewards. A butterfly scanning for nectar then moving on.

I know this whole process is to show me a new way. It's a push to get me to a new rung or a new height, but I just can't see it. Don't know where to go yet. Can't remember when I've been so passionate or living in my potency for stretches of time where someone didn’t come along and trounce me from it. Can't seem to hold my space, unless it is all meaningless anyway in which case, this creation that creation, never to hold onto one…to set them free and let them resonate where they will…maybe that is the lesson, the chance to be unattached, free. Snowflakes. Each one unique.

Free-falling.

Did I tell you that he is now the booster club president of the school? The one I've been working on for years now. The one he threatened divorce if so much as one more hour went out the front door of this house towards that little school. I should be relieved, right, that he finally came to join the cause? Thrilled, right? He heard the rallying cry and came to my defense, right? Joined my cause, our collective cause, right? Right?

Have I inspired him, or threatened him? Or is it merely coincidence? Or is he trying to get close to me and this is the only way he sees how?

Or is it, like so many electronics around me, time to move on. To upgrade. To be replaced? For something newer and better I hope. Something really great.

I need a new operating platform and some new applications, like, stat.

Coincidence?

Snow and Fog

2008-12-31T00:57:00.000-08:00

"Merlin's Beard! It's been a long time!"

As I trudge through mental snowdrifts, the beginning of a white out, images emerge as the flurries begin to settle and subside.

It's only weather.

It's only ever weather.

But there's no temperature in here. It's all in here.

Trudging through the swirling white, seemingly in no direction, it's only in looking back that I can see any small measure of the path behind me.

Thoughts waft through one ear and dissipate out the other. A fleeting reminder to …get the milk, really must respond to, cat medicine time… I feel my body pulling me through a tube…dimensionless…hovering…watching…waiting. It can wait. I let go. It's gone.

Sailing through this time period, neither asleep nor fully awake, I am equal parts in motion, in contemplation, in creation, in the doing, or in the resting from it. There is no perspective here. It's neither good nor bad. Just. Moving. Along.

Thick blankets of fog have enveloped me for months now as I sometimes poke out in anger, in regret, in sadness, in frustration. But it's not all bad; I also rise up in laughter, in compassion, in caring, and in joy. All is quiet now on the western front. Quiet and serene.

I keep waiting for the thing to bubble up, so obvious, like, look mommy, Pinot has a boo-boo on his eye, he needs to go to the doctor.

I need to know who I am, what I am supposed to be doing.
I need to know what I'm passionate about. Where's my passion already?
I need to know how the hell I will know, when, hey, shouldn't I already know?
I need to know what I am feeling. Is this working? Are we working?
I need to know what the hell is wrong with me. Nothing's feeling right. Right?

I realize there are a lot of things that are loose right now. And more than Miss S's latest tooth.

If I just bide my time, it will all be revealed. All in right time, I tell myself. Right?

Am I making mountains out of molehills, or molehills out of gaping mountains so vast that I cannot see them?

Am I about to fall into a bottomless chasm, or free-falling, ascend instead into the sky?

Either outcome would be preferable to this limbo-like fog.

I bake cookies, almond croissants. I make a standing rib roast, Yorkshire pudding, and the unctuous horsey sauce as if by Braille. I invent delicious cocktails and fry off some latkes just to prove I still can. And the roasted pears in tempranillo sauce….with the delicate smattering of shaved cheeses…it's all lovely. Lovely. Who can be angry after a meal like this? Fear doesn't stand a chance near that thick gooey caramel of a burgundy reduction...if I can just bottle it...

Skip the end-of-year top ten book list.* I'll take the top ten meals. Or better yet, I'll settle for 10 moments of clarity.

*Thanks Carrie.

...and for a musical interlude, check out the next post...

Holiday Cheer

2008-12-28T02:15:00.000-08:00

Here's a bit of holiday cheer going out to all my faithful readers...some frosty cuts for the frosty air. Hope your down time is filled with peace, and well, more peace. May the New Year bring you all good things!

Enjoy!

(After years of ambiguity, in a burst of self-confidence--or is it self-importance?--and in the interest of giving credit where credit is due, the following songs were written, performed, produced, cover art directed, not to mention uploaded at ungodly hours of the morning for your listening pleasure... )

Holiday Cheer

Creation

2008-12-04T11:56:00.000-08:00

Sir Walter Raleigh, the Adventurer:
"Can you imagine what it is to cross an ocean?

For weeks, you see nothing but the horizon, perfect and empty.

You live in the grip of fear. Fear of storms. Fear of sickness on board. Fear of the immensity.

So you must drive that fear down deep into your belly, study your charts, pray for a fair wind, and hope. Pure, naked, fragile...hope."

Queen Elizabeth:
"Go on, Mr. Raleigh. You were… hoping."

Raleigh:
"At first it's no more than a haze on the horizon. So you watch. You watch. And there's a smudge. A shadow on the far water.

For a day.

For another day.

The stain slowly spreads along the horizon taking form until on the third day, you let yourself believe.

You dare to whisper the word

…land.

Land.

Life.

Resurrection.

A true adventure coming out of the vast unknown, out of the immensity, into new life.

That, Your Majesty, is the New World."

--From Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Woman • Warrior • Queen
www.elizabeththegoldenage.net

Hiatus

2008-11-23T10:53:00.000-08:00

Been kinda absent
as far as Bloggerville goes,
but I feel my time away
is coming to a close.

Stay tuned for recaps and updates...

love and miss everybody.

GoMama

Results are in…

2008-09-23T22:39:00.001-07:00

Update: The above recent expression of Miss S's seems to tie in with the following topic. She also wondered out loud what her job used to be. You know, last time around.

So many of you have asked. And waited patiently. And now, without further ado...

Miss S's Questions (and Answers) To God:

Who was the 1st one alive?
Boy that's really hard. Fairies. Because fairies are magic. They can come whenever they want. And they can leave whenever they want. They can die and then come back the next day, as the same person with the same job, or a different job.

Was the first person living a boy or a girl?
Half boy and half girl. A little bit of both.

How were their bodies then? Were they different?
It was the same.

How did the world come about?
I'm watching a mini-clip in my head. When I'm done I'll tell you. I know. I think I know…. Um, well, there was a space fairy and there had been no planets in the space. So the space fairy decided to make earth. And she had a special wand and with her special wand she said, "draw the earth and make it come true." So with her wand she drew the picture of the earth and then she filled some people in, and she filled the water in and planted trees, grass and plants. She thought that everyone could be friends.

How did she know what things looked like?
Well, she had it in her imagination. And then, she met the Building Fairy. She was the one who built everything in the whole entire world. She went from planet to planet building things after the Space Fairy made other planets. The Builder Fairy started to build houses for everyone and places to go. And then the people started to have babies and the babies grew up very fast. And everyone loved it on the planet, so did the fairies.

What did the 1st house look like?
It was very pretty. It had a garden out back and there were two trees in the front yard and in between the trees they made a hammock, and there was a little light hanging over because they had built a top for it so you wouldn't get wet in it, in the hammock. They made a very pretty bouquet of red roses tied very tightly to the door. It was a white house made out of wood, and the top/roof was made out of brick. Inside there was an upstairs and a downstairs. Over the dinner table was a white chandelier with fake red berries wrapped around it.

Who came up with languages?
A boy and a girl. The boy said, I think we should come up with a language. A lot of different ones too. The girl added, that's what I was thinking. They had been talking in sign language.

How many other planets and earths are there?
Quite a lot.

How did the 1st person get here?
Gravity has to be everywhere so nothing falls.
That's a really hard question.
What I think that God I think. What I think I think that God I think. (laughing.)
By magic. The first person got here by magic.

How many people will ever live in the world, from beginning to end? (God will know when it stops)
(We skipped this one. Too hard.)

How long will people stay alive?
A very long time, I mean not a very long time, quite a long time.

Who lives the longest?
Santa. He never dies.

How did God make people's bodies?
It was magic.

PS. Don't be sure to not think about it.

---
I particularly like the last PS she insisted on tacking on.
That, and also the "what I think that God I think" thing she was sort of chanting.

Mind you, she's 6.

Cheers!

The Trail...

2008-09-18T12:47:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Jerri, today I discovered Kelly Rae. In addition to her amazing work, what struck me when going deeper into her story was the literal trail of steps she put forth in her life, chronicled right there on the page. If you look at her news page, you can see that over the course of the last 2 years she literally shifted her life from dissatisfied social worker to creative (and successful) artist whose work inspires many, by a continual opening to and focusing on her inner stirrings, her soul purpose. The map is right there.

As we put our focus on those things which move us, inspire us, light us up with a rush of passion, if we highlight those, put the magic juju on expanding those things in our lives, we can actively move towards calling forth an authentic life expression.

Going back and putting the steps up in bullet points, month by month, one can see a virtual trail of commitment to the work, universal support, doors opening, and opportunities rushing in to support her. It's right there.

I am inspired to go back and look at the trail of nuggets in my own life and put them up in a sequence for my own reflection. Those moments of open doors, opportunities, connections, shared inspiration. What I think I will find is that although at times I fight it or am fearful or overwhelmed, truly a path has been unfolding for me this entire way.

I'm pretty sure the writing piece, ignited by a certain memoirist, meeting all of you in the virtual circle, feeling the support and encouragement of women at my back, getting on the "wrong" committee, agreeing to write up the notes, the Guidebook that wouldn't go away, the school thing, the speaking, the social activism piece, is all significant and has led me here.

The part where it doesn't stop with what I am doing but includes passing the spark to inspire others to light up their own lives and communities is the empowered part of this. It's bigger than me. It's universal current. Rapidly contagious. Light upon light. Quantum shifting.

I also love that she calls herself a possibilitarian. Brilliant. Rather than challenges, choose to focus on possibilities. As if life is just one giant exploration. No right. No wrong. Just is. Can always create something else. No limits.

Abundance abounds.

Onward and upward!

Light Travels

2008-09-06T23:00:00.000-07:00

Been far away yet hovering close by. Been unplugged yet still plugged in. Been on forced vacation yet rarely left my home.

Been traveling in light years, inner dimensions, tracking waves and subtleties of light. Surrounded by ruby-red crystals I anchored down to the earth and met with divine intervention.

Due to my back situation, a herniated disk, I was forced to stop, do nothing, unplug. Due to another health situation, I was forced to stop, heal and rebuild. The message was clear: no carrying the family load, no summer writing project, limited computer time, no toxic input, no stressful save the schools, no taking on big government or its dysfunctional governmental systems. I was mandated to let go, release what wasn't working, surround myself with support, and rebuild my system.

I get it. Stop. Do not pass go. Do not even think about "doing." It's about un-doing. Not doing. Just. Being.

Hhhhhhhhhhhh.

How many years I've been go-go-going, burning the candle at both ends, burning the midnight oil, burning through my reserves, bottoming out yet still somehow going…for the sake of something, for the sake of my family, for the sake of the school, for the sake of the community, for the sake of the bigger picture.

Not now.

The results came back from my adrenal-stress index and I was off the grid. Literally. Off the grid. The doc showed me the lovely curve of where one ideally would be. Another lower curve of what was "acceptable," and then my pathetic markings well below that and plummeting off the chart. I wasn't even on the chart. I was at Zero. Nothing. No production. Failure. I was in adrenal shutdown.

Hellooooo.

So you see, aside from all my symptoms, there I saw it, crystallized on the page and in no uncertain terms, MY LIFE HAD TO CHANGE.

The day before my mysterious back "injury" although I recall no sudden movement or injurious undertaking that might have produced a herniated disk, I remember feeling maxed out, stressed, pulled, resentful, screaming at my husband, "things have GOT to change. I can't go on like this!!!"

Bless the universe. It really does listen. Even when it seems no one else does. I guess it really, really likes me. :)

I spent the last two months at casa de mia on retreat, on a cleanse, with daily juicing, vitamin reinforcements, bio-identical hormones, adrenal support, frequenting the local farmers markets, eating fresh young coconuts, homemade almond milk and a dairy /gluten /sugar /caffeine /alcohol-free diet. I spent time with my family, without my family, with my healers, with my kitties, surrounded by love, immersed in light, in the depth of surrender, in deeper gratitude. What one might have considered a set-back, I considered a gift. A bigger offering: Non-doership. Healing. Going deep with it. Going home.

I turned off, plugged in, expanded my inner-vista. I put a moratorium on school business and self-imposed deadlines, and imposed severely selective internet time. If it wasn't raising my vibration, I was shutting it off.

What a feeling to just stop, nurture myself, return to the one. Surrounded by light, living in light, merging in light, I am a clear and direct channel. I see light everywhere, even in darkness, in bright little twinkles or diagonal slashes or ripples of reality. Is it just me or are colors unrealistically vivid, fluid and pulsating, jumping off the palette, a lifeforce of their own. It comes to me the enormity of it, what I'm being shown, and I can't help but follow. Expanding the vista, I live from the center, radiating outward and inward, the source of all there is.

Amazing what a difference a lifetime makes.

Or even two months.

As I float myself back, raised and buoyant, I am poised to have a stellar year. How can it be otherwise. It's all up from here.

Origins

2008-08-15T11:23:00.000-07:00

Lately The Divine Miss S has been contemplating some pretty open-ended questions. Perhaps it is because her little girlfriend down the street is attending Bible camp and some dialogue has naturally spilled over. Perhaps she is looking for her own sense of this world. In any case, without us ever really having the "G" discussion, here's what recently spilled out of her mouth. Transcribed word for word.

Miss S's Questions To God:

Who was the 1st one alive?

How did the world come about?

What did the 1st house look like?

Who came up with languages?

How many other planets and earths are there?

How did the 1st person get here?

How many people will ever live in the world, from beginning to end? (God will know when it stops)

How long will people stay alive?

Who lives the longest?

How did God make people's bodies?

Next week, we'll sit down and transcribe her answers. From God.

Stay tuned.

"Uncle!"

2008-08-06T01:40:00.000-07:00

I bumped into a friend at the farmer's market the other day, another uber-mom former booster club president-community doer-creator-mother of 3-fabulous woman who also happens to design gorgeous jewelry which was displayed all over her booth, and she asks me, "So T, what are you working on this year?," well-aware of the goings on at our little school.

I startled to rattle off only my top priorities. "Oh, you know, coordinate the professional development sessions and teacher mentoring, write the monthly newsletter, project manage the Studio Program's garden art installation...you know we won that grant I wrote for it, prospective parent tours...."

I stopped for a moment and said, "This year I'm working on Boundaries."

Two More Reasons To Stay Home...

2008-08-06T01:01:00.001-07:00

These little guys, rescued brothers, balls of joy and playfulness, unexpectedly found their way home with me a few weeks ago and have been faithfully doing their job of adding levity to all of us ever since.

Next time around, I'm coming back as a cat. Eat. Sleep. Drink. Play.

And Purrrr.

Pure joy.

Now that's a job!

Flat On My Back

2008-07-24T11:33:00.000-07:00

Three days after my "Surrender" post, feeling extremely taxed yet pressured to accomplish some writing goals during my daughter's limited camp coverage hours, with the hubs working away "in the box" every waking moment on an ongoing deadline that left him feeling angry, pissy and undervalued, (feelings I echoed in my own "work" minus the paycheck), I reached my breaking point.

This isn't working, I insisted, meaning the whole lot of it.

Things have got to change.

I can't go on like this!

Later that afternoon, as I reached for some hair accessories to go with Miss S's costume for her camp play, I felt my back seize up.

Wow, am I sore, I thought as I did some gentle stretches, which effectively did nothing to unwind the tightening knot in my lower back.

Cut to the middle of the night where I wake in agony, screaming, unable to move or find any acceptable position that doesn't cause me searing pain. Three Advil's later, leaning on my husband like an invalid, I make it off the bed and to the hallway floor--the closest firmest place I can think of-- where I endure the rest of the night on an ice pack, exhausted, with a leg propped up on either wall. Seems it's the only position that will give some relief to my lower back.

I suppose if I had a kinky sense of humor, with legs propped up and my T-shirt spilling down around my waist, one could view this as some "money shot" angle, but I assure you, this was no laughing matter.

Turns out, I had a herniated disk.

I spent a good part of the next 8-10 days camped out on the living room floor flat on my back attached to revolving ice packs. I couldn't drive, I couldn't sit at the computer, I couldn't water the seedlings in the garden, I couldn't go grocery shopping, or make dinner for that matter, I couldn't do drop offs and pick-ups or baths or tuck my daughter into bed or most of the things I do around here. I couldn't write. I couldn't even drink cocktails, which I was told would aggravate the already inflamed inflammation. I could barely sit long enough to answer a few emails.

That writing project that's already a month late?

Not gonna happen.

All I could do was rest and repair. And get driven in to see the blessed Dr. A, every 2-3 days for adjustments.

I get it, a moratorium.

Mandatory vacation.

Do Nothing. Go Nowhere.

Stop.

Do not even think about passing Go.

So when the doc confirmed that I wasn't going to be able to go up to that long weekend lake vacation with the rest of the band families, that the drive alone would be brutal, inwardly I smiled a deep smile of relief. I would get to stay home. Home. The whole house. Alone. Do you know how rare that is? To be swaddled in peace and quiet and stillness…that's just about the most blessedly perfect vacation I could ask for. Everything I need at my fingertips, all the space, yet without the constant noise and distraction or relentless schedule.

Thank you, I thought. This is perfect. My own personal retreat, right here in the sanctity of my own beautiful, (and recently cleaned) home.

It occurred to me to use this time. Go deep with it.

Intuitively, I began a cleanse. An elimination diet. I juiced. I meditated. I rebalanced my chakras. I cleaned my aura. I worked with energy in and around me. I grounded myself to the core of the Earth herself. I listened to inspirational messages aligning me to my highest Self, calling for my destiny to unfold, to create on purpose, in passion, while the rest fell away. Things like this, and this, and this inspired me.

Immobilized, I read words that resonated about the journey while my own journey unfolded before me.

My house has never felt so high. This space was flooded with silence and palpable light.

In some ways, though injured, I haven't felt this good in, well, ages.

Within a week my disc was already astoundingly better.

As I continue to follow this cleanse, my body is lightening up.

I am in such a state of surrender. This back "injury" has turned out to be the greatest gift. I truly and honestly feel blessed for the experience, and for the time to heal.

Along with the immediate care of Dr. A, I have been working with a team of docs here, (I swear it's the actual inspiration for the Grey's Anatomy spin-off, Private Practice.) Hopefully, we're about to get to the bottom of the laundry list of bodily symptoms I'd been experiencing. Tomorrow we'll see the results of all my recent blood, (6 vials!), thyroid, adrenal, and hormone testing I've done, and come up with a plan.

I trust that wherever this leads, I will be right where I need to be. And the work that flows out of me, whenever it shall come, will be right in time and exactly what it needs to be.

Surrender!

2008-07-06T14:07:00.000-07:00

I know, I've been awfully quiet lately. Online, that is.

It’s summer break for chrissakes. I want my summer break!

It's two weeks into summer break and we are just now, within the last few days, actually getting to the break part. Drawing the line.

While others may be floating in a pool somewhere, drink in hand, delighting in a colorful scenic vista with friends and family near to them... we’re up debating and strategizing, holding emergency meetings, writing letters to district superiors, orchestrating a mass-signature gathering campaign, going to mandatory mind-numbing neighborhood council board meetings, all on behalf of the little school...while others, perhaps even some of you are off floating, drinking, relaxing, bbqing, you know, enjoying your summer break!

When did it all get so all-encompassing?

I used to quip "sleep's for pussies!" or "I'll sleep when I'm dead!"

But lately and not so cavalierly, after years of chronic sleep deprivation combined with an over-arching take-care-of-everything attitude, I realize sleep's for me! I need to sleep or I'll BE dead!

I went to the doctor recently with a full menu of bodily concerns: recurring nosebleeds, debilitating physical exhaustion--not just the I'm so tired sensation, but the I-will-fall-to-the-floor-right-now-if-I-don't-lie-down kind of in my bones exhaustion-- migraines, and more recently, heart palpitations, never mind the annoyances of low-to-no sex drive and intermittent nausea.

OK. I get it. I'll go float in a pool somewhere.

But then someone else is going to have to take care of all this, she said, waving her hand in the general direction of the mountain of life surrounding her…the bills, the deadlines, the expectations, the issues, the repairs, the mess, the muck, the myriad of mire….

Responsibilities like so many strips of paper swirl through the air and free-fall to the ground.

Surrendered and airborne, she realizes she has absolutely no idea what she's supposed to be doing right now. Or how to do it.

Mainly, things have got to change.

Mainly, I'm taking a break.

Too much going out. Nothing coming in.

Been that way for far too long.

I surrender!

Disarming the ARM Conference: Rocking The Public Schools

2008-06-03T15:05:00.000-07:00

After taking some time to re-group, I would love to share a brief recap of my recent trip to NYC where I was selected to speak on a panel on Motherhood and Social Activism for the ARM Conference on Feminist Motherhood, held during the Mamapalooza Festival.

Flattered to be included in such wonderful company, my panelists included:
-Shari MacDonald Strong, Sr. Editor of Literary Mama and Editor of the upcoming anthology The Maternal Is Political featuring essays from Nancy Pelosi, Anne Lamott, Susie Bright, Anna Quindlen, and of course, the brilliant Shari MacD.
-Helaine Olen, co-author of Office Mate, freelance writer for LAT, NYT, WSJ, Salon and the Washington Post and contributor to The Maternal Is Political
-Alana Ruben Free, Editor of Mamapalooza’s literary publication The Mom Egg, and creator of her one-woman show, “Beginner At Life”

-Our panel was chaired by Harvard Lecturer and Psychologist Paula J. Caplan, PhD, author of Don’t Blame Mother.

My piece, "Rocking The Public Schools," began by sharing the state of public education in California, what it was like to be a mom up at the State Capitol lobbying against the pending budget cuts, then shared the story of our little neighborhood school’s community-building and revitalization efforts, viewed as a snapshot of a much larger underground revolution of parent and community activism that can be seen bubbling up at public schools all across the Westside of Los Angeles, and perhaps around the country. I closed with a call to action, hopefully inspiring others to use their collective voices to be part of the change they want to see in their own communities.

It was a thrill to be a part of such an incredible collection thinkers and writers, and it had also been nearly a decade since I had been back to NYC, a town I used to call home for almost 10 years.

Good I went first, first thing in the morning so I wouldn't have time to think (or over-think) what I was about to be doing. Seeing as I had pretty much written the entire thing (7 or 8 pages) over a 32-hour period before nearly missing my flight east, there was no time to think. Just to do it and go for it. So that's what I did. My presentation sparked a fantastic dialogue and people approached me afterward from all over the country wanting to hear more about our story. Public school revitalization seems to be a very timely topic these days...in NYC as well as LA, Ohio, Wisconsin, Maine and elsewhere.

Other inspiring panelists I had the good fortune to meet during the conference were:
Amy Richards
Lisa Chiu
Joanne Minaker, PhD
Raye Tibbetts
and of course, the Grande Dame and mastermind behind the entire ARM soiree, Ms. Andrea O'Reilly.

I am sure this is just the beginning of more to come, but for now here's an excerpt:

Rocking the Public Schools:
How a Community of Mothers Take Back Their Neighborhood Schools
By Tanya Anton

(Excerpt)

Education isn't a sexy topic. It isn't as devastating as war, or as immediate as an economic recession or as hotly contested as the presidential candidates.

But it does affect the future of our children.

In Los Angeles, one of the wealthiest states in the nation if not the world, our public schools are ranked near the bottom of the country. We're 46th in terms of per pupil spending. As mothers, we will not tolerate it nor will we stand idly by and do nothing, waiting for some shift in district power, or a handful of Republicans to make up the 2/3 majority vote in order to restore our school budgets or fix our broken system.

It's 4am pitch dark outside as slip into my black power suit and heels, doing my best not to wake my sleeping husband and child down the hall. In lieu of sleep, I've been cramming key players and issues, committee members and faces for the last 48 hours in preparation for something I've never done before. Lobby the state capitol.

Heading south towards the airport, streets are eerily void of traffic as I meet up with my team of local parent leaders to fly up to Sacramento with the UTLA, the LA teacher's union. There's only one goal: to fight for our public schools.

This is taking parent participation to a whole new level!

Let me be clear. I'm a mom not a politician. My daughter's barely through Kindergarten at a local public elementary school and I'm mad as hell.

I, along with many others, have worked tirelessly for the past several years, speaking to hundreds of stressed-out parents, trying to raise the profile of our neighborhood public schools. To explain their public school options. To get the public back into the public schools again. To reinvest in them and revitalize them instead of flee them. To share ideas and resources, and steer others into the fold.

We have made much progress in our little Westside communities. Some of our schools are downright thriving with the influx of new energy and new ideas. Parents are throwing their hearts into organizing community drives, fundraisers, work days, book fairs, volunteering in the classroom, writing grants, writing to their district leaders, painting murals, planting trees, whatever they can do to make their schools a better place for their children.

You can feel schools popping all over neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

The Mother Shift

It wasn't until I became a mother that I began to think in terms of "we" instead of "me." I began to think in circles, rather than dots. I began to connect with other families virtually and in my community, to build a network of support since we had no extended family close by to rely on.

This sense of community we forged, through our babies, borne in the trenches of the messy life-altering transformation that is Motherhood, became the vital thread of inter-connectedness that had been missing in my life. Surrounded by the support and nurturing of other mothers allowed us to not only survive, but thrive, individually as well as collectively. And it wasn't until I began looking at the world through my child's eyes, and through the wider lens of the community of children around me that my sense of civic responsibility and longer-range vision developed. This wasn’t about me. This was way bigger than me. This was about our children, and they deserved better.

Perhaps it's because I'm older now. Perhaps as a mother I feel a need and a responsibility to contribute to the community, to improve our society, to be involved and hopefully make a difference. Or perhaps I've been through so much now, that I just don't care what other people think. If I see a way, I'm going to go for it.

The Call to Activism - What Happens When You Are Called?
(excerpt)

When I first got involved at Walgrove, it seemed daunting. I was in way over my head. Everywhere I looked, we needed something. We needed leadership. We needed funding. We needed inspiration. We needed tangible examples to draw from. We needed help. We needed a spirit of unification, of inclusion not of separatism. Not us vs. them, but us and us.

Part of me resentful, tired, I ask myself, who am I to solve this? Who am I to carry this? Who am I? Why me??? This little school has been sinking for years, why did I think I could help save it?

And yet…and yet…

…you seem to be called forth, puny little you. You, with no qualifications or obvious background. You, called out of the fog, the veritable haze of denial and inefficiency around you. Because you can SEE it.

Little you (or is it the bigger you?) sees a way…a path...the thing you must do…the right thing to do. And you aren't afraid to just go in and make it happen, because, after all, you are a doer, a make-something-from-nothing kind of person, a person who doesn't fear the blank page but instead knows that through a combination of inspiration and perspiration, anything can be achieved because as a creator, you've already been witness to that process hundreds and hundreds of times, and as a mother, you know the process of creation, so you know it IS possible. Anything is possible. And, it is necessary.

And you also, instinctively know, that if enough people believe, and you rally them to join you, mountains can be moved, perceptions can be shifted, transformations can occur so incredible that even the thousands of district employees and hundreds of previous families and tens of teachers and all the drive-by lookie-loos, combined with those who ran screaming any which way they could, the same ones who couldn't see fit to make things happen, the ones who couldn't solve their own problems, who didn't know how or didn't care enough to try, all fall by the wayside, and now YOU are a part of the change.

YOU are making change happen. You are bringing it in. You are facilitating it, orchestrating it, nudging it along, gathering strength, collecting the team, drawing them in, reinforcing their abilities, they reinforcing yours, rocking the old systems, forcing improvements, even though you haven't been paid a dime, and frankly, you may have actually paid for it dearly with your marriage, your finances, your well-being, your sleep, your ability to be frivolous and social and devil-may-care, or self-obsessed on career advances and bringing in income and finding paths to affluence so we too can run screaming to the better district up the hill…the one where the streets are lined with gold and the academics, the programs, and enrichments are so glittery and shiny that it's painful.

It starts with getting angry. All change has to. You can't fix anything if you are smiling and nodding and saying things are fine, good enough, no worse than anywhere else. That's just taking it. That's just being afraid. Afraid to change. Afraid to grow. Afraid to take risks! Being fearful and small.

No! Small-mindedness is not growth. It's denial.

As we begin to see ourselves, as we transform our selves, our families, and the way we parent, so too will our schools, and our communities transform by the very bodies and energy and spirit of those who inhabit them.

But still, what can I do, you ask?

Something shifts when we realize that each one of us has power. As an individual, as a neighbor, as a resident, as a constituent, as a parent, one who has influence in the home, locally and collectively, guiding our children, our classmates, our community, the future of the country. We can no longer look at ourselves as isolated, alone, unimportant. We have a voice, and together, it is all-powerful. We can no longer stay silent. We ARE no longer silent. We ARE the change. We ARE the future.

© 2008 Tanya Anton

Time Being

2008-05-23T14:31:00.000-07:00

As I wrote before, it feels like I stepped on an escalator a few weeks back and the pace kicked into high gear. Perhaps more like an elevator, as I blasted through a glass ceiling and found myself in a whole new arena with a different air and altitude to adjust to. I am thrilled. I am humbled. I am inspired. I am empowered.

I am also exhausted.

Can't quite seem to keep time.

Adjusting to a whole new operating system, installing the drivers, new applications, re-formatting, re-selecting preferences, this is the post part where, staring at a blank doc in the wake of a meteor, I can't quite seem to be able to extract the words, let alone detailed nuances, to describe what I've just come through.

Mainly, I just want to linger over the pot of chicken soup, stirring, stirring, as warm steam wafts up into my weary bones, the smell of love and nurturing and all its heartiness extracted from left-over frozen carcasses and bones and lowly root vegetables immersed in a rolling bath of herbaceous water, transforming into a kind of magical goodness while pervading my entire wrung out self.

I know people are waiting to read reports. There are those who are still waiting for follow-ups on my experience lobbying up at the State Capitol, let alone the recent Motherhood and Social Activism panel I presented on in NYC or Wednesday's District Budget Town Hall meeting. There are action plans, and business strategies, updates and school activities that for the time being anyway, I'm afraid will have to wait. For the time being.

Right now it's about nurturing through the adjustment. Sweats, a glass of wine, and a big pot of chicken soup. Some crusty, rustic style Pain Rustique slathered with butter and sprinkled with Celtic sea salt. Curled up on the couch with a good book. I've got a good one I'm into now, drawing me into its quarters. Such a luxury to take in, not put out.

Then it will come.

After I spend some time being.

I Heart The Big Apple!

2008-05-21T17:03:00.000-07:00

Haven't had time to write about my trip. Yet. Been navigating a dead computer, installing a new computer, problems with the new computer, trouble-shooting and finally, a new new computer.

God I love the Big Apple.

Turns out I love Apple as well.

In the meantime, these pix will have to suffice...the city that never sleeps....the mom who never sleeps. Big Apple...Apple....Moms Who Rock...Rockin' Their World. I'm starting to see patterns everywhere.

Be the change and the change is reflected right back at you.

There's so much to catch up on...

NY, NY

2008-05-15T07:53:00.000-07:00

Need I say more!

It's been nearly a decade since I've been back and two since I left here. What a freakin' treat to walk by my old buildings and see in some cases nothing has changed, and yet everything has.

Speech tomorrow. Will post more later.

Cheers all, she says lifting a giant cocktail and taking a sip on life...

Smell The Roses

2008-05-08T20:39:00.000-07:00

Our yard is exploding with fragrant color right now. Roses, varying degrees of red-pink-crimson, who've been here longer than I. Perhaps decades.

The pace these days is so accelerated I can barely remember to eat, let alone sleep or wax nostalgic over the deliciousness hanging in the air. Maybe these photos, silent visual beacons, will help me remember to slow down--if not stop, and smell the roses. Transport me from flurry into transcendent beauty.

Do we remember delight? Deliciousness? Frivolity and just because it pleases?

I stepped on an escalator recently and haven't stopped. Capitol, senators, assemblypeople, rallies, plane trips, talks, speeches, lunches, picnics, meetings, doctor appts, teeth wigglings, school functions, a speech to write, accommodations to procure, birthday parties to plan, Playbills and laminates to create, talking points, spreading info, a dead computer, Genius Bar, Dead Motherboard, the dreaded dead computer replacement purchase, extracting data, losing data, recovering some data, new operating platform, new systems, new installations, new touch, adjustments to make, transitions, lost time, lost sleep, flying by the seat of my pants, elevated platform, elevated expectations, elevated worries, no time to worry, just enough time to do, dead debit card, loss of access, to money, to internet, to files, to info, dead food in the fridge, rebooting, re-authorizing, reconfiguring, taking out the trash, cupcakes to bake, speeches to write, revisions to write, new frontiers to venture forth in....

Tonight I cleaned up the counters and cooked real food. A meal. A solid meal. More than a meal. (More about that another time. If I find the time.) I've always said food is more than food, more than taste. Good food heals. The food itself is almost irrelevant. It's what is done to it, and then transformed, what it does to us. That's its magic. Aroma, color, texture, taste. Love. Ahhh. Exhale. Enjoy. While I can.

Did I mention that my daughter counts her years on both hands now? Six. Half a dozen. More than half a decade.

Mom to me is now like a pair of broken-in jeans. She's in there like cupcakes between the tarragon chicken and Lacrima Christi Bianchi and high heels and power suits and lip gloss. As she grows, so do I. In ways unexpected.

The Mom Clogs have been hurting my feet lately. Plus they just look so dowdy. Time for a new pair of shoes. Not sure what suits me these days, or even where to go to find it, but I've been looking. Something between being comfortable and being a presence. Might need to look in not the usual places. Might need to venture farther...

Damn those are beautiful roses! Been blooming every year for decades. Long before I got here. Long after I leave. Remember to notice. Put a few in a vase so I can see them and take in their powerful magic, their wisdom, their fragrance, citrusy and voluptuous, abundant and abundantly clear. It gives me pause.

Smell.

Not like I've had much time to do just that, just thought it'd be a good reminder.

Spiritual Approach To Lobbying

2008-05-02T14:06:00.000-07:00

Or more appropriately,

Novice Approach To Lobbying
As Parent Activists Join the UTLA To Lobby the State Capitol Against Pending Budget Cuts

What did it feel like to be a Mom on The Hill?

I could talk about getting up at the crack of dawn, (actually pre-crack because at 4 in the morning it's still pitch black outside), and what it feels like to drive through LA without seeing any cars on the road. Kinda freakish actually.

I could talk about what it felt like to absorb as many names and faces and their respective committees into my brain as I tried to cram highlights of key players from a whole new universe into about 48 hours pre-flight. Brain freeze.

I could talk about what it felt like to don an expensive black suit and heels instead of my usual faded ill-fitting jeans and soccer mom clogs, the smooth black leather bag on my shoulder stuffed with a portfolio of notes and strategies, targeted State Senators and Assemblymen, and how it made me feel elevated, more grown up, and somehow more officially capable, even though I am quite the imposter in both scenarios.

I could talk about the feeling I got when I realized I had already pegged the "dog and pony show" we walked into two days before we even got there, (this being my first capitol hill experience), and the sense of victory I had when the research I stayed up collecting paid off for us since we ended up ditching the union's intended schedule and instead bushwhacked our way through the halls, knocking on doors, seizing any face time we could grab with the other side, exiting with the brilliant "leave-behind" flier my colleague created of the four of us highlighting our Herculean in-the-public-school-trenches grassroots-building efforts, our websites, our contact info, our mission, and most importantly pictures of us with our kids, because as parents-- not professional lobbyists or union agenda drivers--we were there fighting for the hundreds of thousands of kids and families we represent.

I could talk about what a relief it felt to have all my expenses paid for, for a change…airfare, shuttles, meals, everything…knowing that we would just show up and everything would be provided for us, (thank you UTLA), and that the good work we were doing, for once at least, wasn't costing us money.

And I could talk about the way I felt when surrounded with equally passionate, articulate, thoughtful peers, brilliant leaders whose work makes mine pale in comparison, where the inspired conversation flowed easily and effortlessly and I felt refreshingly smart and insightful, on par and in my element, not further along nor struggling to keep up. Where one person's insight spurred another's and on and on…like firecrackers, popcorn, little jewels exploding with light.

Lobbying up in Sacramento against pending budget cuts? Who would have ever thought I'd be here. A mom on a mission. Surrounded by equally passionate visionaries.

To say the least, it was a heady, heady experience. Quite out of body, yet we were fully in our element….making something happen where we had never gone before. Going for it assuredly, fearlessly, intelligently. And as a team. That is a high I want to stay in.

Here's the deal. The state's run out of money. We're in a budget crisis. It was put plainly to us that there will be no quick fixes this time.

As of August 1 there's no more state cash. The latest figure straight from the halls of Sacramento is that California is $20 BILLION DOLLARS IN DEBT! And the incoming tax revenues will be lower than expected. California. The 6th wealthiest economy in the world can't get its economic shit together. You know, incoming, outgoing, staying within budget, long-term planning, Economics 101.

All this to say that we've gotten ourselves between a rock and a hard place financially speaking.

California, 6th wealthiest economy in the world. California. $20 Billion dollars in debt. Governor. Calling for The Year of Education. Governor. Ready to slash $5 Billion dollars in public education funds. $500 million dollars in our district alone.

The Dems want to find income streams (progressive tax reform, fees, raise taxes, create new taxes, close tax loopholes) so they can keep funding public services, and the Reps want to be fiscally responsible, won't budge on new revenue streams, and want to slash 10% of all state-funded services across the board, (lateral cuts as opposed to prioritized cuts), of which education is a biggie.

Then there's Prop 13, about to "celebrate" its 30th anniversary, which severely limits the amount of home assessment/tax valuation which configures property taxes, therefore greatly reducing income for the state. So a million dollar home bought 10 years ago for 275K is still only taxed at 275K, thus allowing the long-term homeowner, particularly the elderly, a way to afford to stay in their homes. (Under this Prop, property values never assess at market level until time of sale or a major remodel, and this tax assessment is inheritable.) With our housing market tripling in the last decade, this is surely an important issue for state income.

Back to the Budget Cuts. Dems have a pact to not cut education. Reps have a pact to cut spending ie. public services including education, and to not raise taxes. Neither is budging from their party solidarity. We need a 2/3 majority vote.

We started our first scheduled meeting with Democratic Assemblyman Mike Feuer. Schools are his priority. His kids went to Castle Heights Elementary. He doesn't want to make cuts, but we're in a tough position, he said. It was preaching to the choir, as was to be expected. No point lobbying to the converted. So then we got out our list and kamikazed a few meetings with Reps. Gotta say, they had a point about not wanting to keep funding a broken system. I wouldn't buy a cheap product over and over if it kept failing me either, especially if I was going broke doing it. They politely listened to us. We listened to them. We saw the complexity. We at least were received. We made our points.

Back to rock and a hard place.

This is where we changed tactics. Since we were non-professionals, yet were the conduit if you will to thousands and thousands of families (never underestimate the power of being a layperson with a brain), we turned things around.

How can we help you? We can reach the people. We are part of a groundswell of grassroots activism with our own issues with the district, even with the teachers union, but nonetheless working hard to make things better in the public system. How can we work on this together? This will be where we might make some headway.

Pulling back the focus, I see the conflict: I've got something you want but am not going to give it. You want what I have but you can't get it. You want to raise taxes. I want to cut spending. You want to pay for everybody including those who can't help themselves. I want to reward those who worked hard and made their pile already, those who don't need my help not those who suck me dry.

Elevating higher, beyond the play yard politics reminiscent of a preschool toyfight, I see the game. The roles. We all have our piece. We all play our part. It gets dramatic. Billions of dollars and livelihoods and lives are at stake here. Human lives. Neighborhoods. Cities. The future of our country, our children, our teenagers, our future workforce, our future tax burden, our future economic fallout. Cycles.

And yet, it too is illusion. We are all part of the One. All creating this drama for some higher intent. If you look in a non-detached kind of way, its all ants scurrying around a picnic table fighting over crumbs. Not enough to go around. Hear me, what about me, what about this, did you think about that, don't cut that, cut this, not me, them, how can I convince you otherwise, what do you need, what have you got, what can we trade, buzz, buzz, buzz, scurry, scurry, scurry….

Old systems falling apart. Old archaic systems long outdated. And somewhere in all this, this too shall rise. This too shall elevate.

And so my take away is this. There was a special opening for the four of us to be there, myself included. We represent local change, big picture ideas, light, healing, building bridges. There's a lot to digest. It was thrilling. It was eventful. Surely this is the beginning of more to come. But I am full. I shall rest now until next steps present themselves. This is the only way I know to walk onward since I've bushwhacked far into the woods. But there's a reason I've made it this far. And I'm not alone.

Oh, and there is still a speech to write for my upcoming NYC trip. Motherhood and Social Activism: "Rocking The Public Schools."

What a blessed, incredible opportunity.

I am grateful to feel so full.

The LD 3 Parent Team:

Kelly Kane, President WPEF

Bill Ring, Dir TransParent and all-around activist

John Ayers, Uber-FOB Dad

me, founder GoMamaGuide.com

Off to Sacramento

2008-04-28T14:22:00.000-07:00

I will be getting up at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning to fly to Sacramento with 3 other amazing parent leaders from my local district and a select group from the UTLA (teachers union) to lobby the State Senate and Assembly against pending budget cuts in education. This is a whole new terrain for me, but clearly exciting and much-needed work that needs to get done.

Say a prayer for the political novice....

Moms Everywhere READ THIS!

2008-04-22T10:26:00.000-07:00

I had the great pleasure to meet Martha Beck at a Woman and Words conference a few years ago where she was signing copies of her memoir Expecting Adam, her transformational self-help guide Finding Your Own North Star, and breezily chatting about her life, her books, and the crooked path that led to where she is now. I found her to be funny, refreshingly candid, and gave-me-goosebumps inspiring. A perfect combination.

When this piece of hers hit the CNN homepage the other day, I knew I had to share it. Again. I say again because it already "aired" in O Magazine years ago. Moms, we need to hear this. Until we KNOW it and no longer feel bad about ourselves and our lives, this concept should be shared again and again.

With many of us experiencing serious burnout not to mention deep feelings of inadequacy from the constant demands of juggling Motherhood AND our unmet career, personal, marital, and community goals and expectations, combined with SERIOUS SLEEP DEPRIVATION, the following is a point I want to scream from the rafters! But Martha does it so much better.

Go Here.

But I understand. You're too overtaxed to click through...so I've made it easy for you. Read this:

In Defense Of An Unbalanced Life
By Martha Beck

It's five o'clock in the morning. I've been awake for about 23 hours, having struggled vainly to fit in writing between yesterday's tasks: getting the car fixed, taking the dog to the vet, answering e-mail, going grocery shopping, driving my kids to music lessons, seeing clients, picking up deli sandwiches for dinner and cuddling a 12-year-old through some of the horrors of puberty.

I finally sat down at my computer around midnight -- and looked up just now to see the sun rising.

Understand three things: 1) I don't have a job. I freelance, which means I procrastinate and get away with it; 2) my children are not young --they walk, talk, bathe, diagnose their own viruses; and 3) I'm kind of supposed to be an expert at combining career and family.

I conducted years of sociological research on the topic, wrote a big fat book about it. Plus, I'm a life coach. You'd think I could live a balanced life as a 21st-century American woman.

Ha. In fact, having done all that research, I can tell you with absolute assurance that it is impossible for women to achieve the kind of balance recommended by many well-meaning self-help counselors. I didn't say such balance is difficult to attain. I didn't say it's rare. I said it's "impossible."

Our culture's definition of what women should be is fundamentally, irreconcilably unbalanced. That's the bad news. The good news is that the very imbalance of our culture is forcing women to find equilibrium in an entirely new way.

The Joy of Being Unbalanced

If someone condemned you because, say, you failed to prevent Hurricane Katrina, you wouldn't dissolve in shame or work to overcome your inadequacy. You'd probably conclude that your critic was nuts, then simply dismiss the whole issue.

That's the wonderful thing about seeing that our society makes impossible demands on all women. You free yourself to ignore social pressures and begin creating a life that comes from your own deepest desires, hopes and dreams. You'll stop living life from the outside in and begin living it from the inside out.

Women describe the moments when they really "got" that the expectations they'd been trying to fulfill were unfulfillable. They say this epiphany was terrible because it meant relinquishing the goal of total social acceptance. But it was also the beginning of freedom, of learning to seek guidance by turning inward to the heart, rather than outward to social prescriptions.

If you feel trapped by contradictory demands, you may want to join this gentle rebellion. You can help create a new cultural paradigm, one that replaces conformity with honesty, convention with creativity, and judgment with kindness. That, in the end, is the gift of the disequilibrium that society has bequeathed to all of us.

Being forced to seek balance within ourselves, we can make our unsteady, stumbling days feel less and less like disaster and more and more like a joyful dance -- the dance of a wildly, wonderfully, perfectly unbalanced life.

By Martha Beck from "O, The Oprah Magazine," April 2003
reprinted at CNN.com 9:13 a.m. EDT, Tue April 15, 2008

Here's to the dance, ladies! Dance out loud!

15 Ways to Lose A Tooth

2008-04-15T19:26:00.000-07:00

By Miss S & GoMama

(in no particular order)

Pull it really hard with your fingers
Push it from behind with your tongue
Wrap it in dental floss and pull
Wrap it up with string, then tie it to the doorknob, then slam the door as hard as you can
Bite into cold, hard apples
Yank on it
Yank on it with pliers
Get punched in the mouth/tooth
Tie a string from the tooth to Daddy's skateboard and tell Daddy to ride away!
Chew on a bone, a steak, or a stick
Wiggle it to death!
Stick your foot in your mouth (after a bath) and kick your tooth
Chew on really hard carrots
Chew on a pencil
Bang it with a hammer

Dang, it takes so long to lose a tooth!!!!!

Ok. What are your favorite tricks?

Moms Who Rock Will Rock NYC!

2008-04-09T15:20:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to let the fine folks out there in cyberland know that I have been invited to speak in NYC at the ARM Conference on Performing Feminist Motherhood during the Mamapalooza Festival on May 16th. For the complete ARM Conference schedule, go here.

Specifically, I will be part of a panel on Motherhood and Social-Cultural Activism, which will include presentations from the editor of Literary Mama, the editor of Mamapalooza's The Mom Egg, and a scholar from Toronto's York University. It's an estrofest of mamativity!

Here's a taste of what I'll be presenting:

Rocking the Public Schools:
How a Community of Mothers Take Back Their Neighborhood School

Education isn't a sexy topic. It isn't as devastating as war, or as immediate as an economic recession or as hotly contested as the presidential candidates.

But it does affect the future of our children.

In Los Angeles, one of the wealthiest states in the nation if not the world, our public schools are ranked near the bottom of the country. As mothers, we will not tolerate it nor will we stand idly by and do nothing, waiting for some shift in district power to fix our broken system.

My essay will tell how motherhood birthed not only our children, but the growth of a renewed sense of community awareness and civic responsibility, and a vision to collectively invest in and revitalize our failing public schools.

In particular, I will show how one team of mothers gathered together with the school's principal to work to bring the neighborhood back to the "low-performing" neighborhood school. This is the story of a growing team of mothers swarming the wound, nurturing and repairing it, demanding and initiating change through extensive outreach, shared ideas, endless fundraising, campus beautification, community building, perception shifting, and by funding an innovative educational approach supported by professional mentoring.

Some view this wave of parent activism as an underground revolution that can be seen bubbling up in schools all across Los Angeles, and perhaps around the country.

As we transform our selves, our families, and the way we parent, so too will our schools transform by the very bodies and energy and spirit of those who inhabit them.

***

I hope those of you who can, will join me! For those who can't, I will raise a toast (oh yes, you can bet cocktails will be involved!) to Moms Who Rock day in and day out everywhere!

The Mission Fig

2008-03-31T12:57:00.000-07:00

Although our kitchen has been updated to an open, inviting space, for some reason I still like to sip my morning coffee out on the stoop. A little low-rent perhaps, or maybe just a die-hard habit from leaner times, it's my way to take in the morning. Butt on the top step, my feet on the next, the "stoop" is now a small deck built out of sustainable Trexx during the recent renovation with a view that surveys our bountiful backyard, a veritable kaleidoscope of greens and blues and yellows, underscored by the sounds of insects buzzing and water trickling off slabs of flagstone as it cascades into the lily pond.

Hard to believe this back yard was once a slab of cement.

Hard to believe that last year the fig tree, now bursting with buds, actually fell over. To the ground. Was it going to make it or not?

Heavy with fruit, perhaps over-burdened and under-attended, it seemed to be leaning a little bit more to the left last fall. Were we just imagining it? Could this mature tree, planted almost a decade ago, actually be… moving? Couldn't be.

But next day it seemed to be leaning a little bit farther over, then later, almost precariously to the left. By sundown she actually gave way, falling all the way to the ground. A 9-yr mature fig tree with arms spanning 10-12 feet wide lay there, prostrate on the ground.

The tree had been a baby, a mere 4-foot stick when I'd found her and planted her in the first year we bought the house. In fact, amid months of flying construction debris, a veritable war zone of rubble and changing landscapes, that little Mission held her own, determinedly took root, and soared.

Something about the California sun, the desert and her timeless offering of peace, she spoke to me as an iconic symbol of maternal wealth and abundance. I knew she belonged here with us. I planted her among the rubble, a silent reminder amidst continual change.

Through the years, she grew to provide a delightful canopy of shade, offering a welcome spot for mama and baby to rest under her sweet-scented lacey green cover. It was the place to hold court with a blanket and a picnic, a stack of toddler books and a few games, or a blow-up pool and some beach towels, providing a much-needed respite from the monotony of the same 4 walls of caregiving and the glaring California sun.

Her voluptuous and magnificent bounty provided us with fig jam, fig-marsala ice cream, figs over arugula with balsamic glaze and crumbled stilton, pork chops with fig shiraz sauce, fish fillets steamed in fig leaves…unending possibilities, culinarily speaking.

Perhaps my deepest joy was watching my toddler grow to be able to reach up and pluck out her own fleshy treats, independent of mama, crushing them sweetly against her pink lips, giggling at her ability to procure her own delightful nourishment.

But as the years passed, due to overwrought schedules and unforeseen stresses leading to un-harvested fruit and an un-maintained yard, she became neglected. Without meaning to, her generous bounty became more of a burden than a benefit.

Weighted and embarrassed by such a gross display of unused riches, her fruits dropping and rotting on the ground, exhausted from holding herself up so long unattended and unadmired, she finally bowed over, weeping in surrender.

It's a feeling I might know something about.

My husband was sure the root ball had been severed and it was just a matter or time before it died. He was more than happy to get rid of it, chop it out, since the decomposing fruit droppings and ever-widening branches had for some time now been challenging his ability to mow even straight rows in the lawn underneath.

But do we discard her in search of a perfectly manicured lawn without branches or rotting fruit to contend with? Unable to keep up with her offerings, do we then ignore her? Abandon her? Or do we instead shower her with gratitude and thanks for providing us with her company, her shade canopy, her gorgeous abundance of ripe fruit, her not one-but-two harvests per year bounty, all the family memories shared, her incredible tenacity and resilience to continue to survive and grow after hardship…the shear grace of her presence? Doesn't that count for something? How do we value that, quantify it? By chopping it down?!

I said let's wait and see how she does, willing to let go of her if that was what was meant to happen, but silently rooting for some sort of comeback.

The tree had offered us so much over the years, I couldn't face hacking her down, erasing her memories for some perfunctory carpet of grass. What is it with men and their vision of perfect green lawns anyway? It's not like they ever bend over to pull out a weed mind you! They just mow right over them, propagating them further, determined to own a perfectly manicured green.

With ropes and our neighbor, the three of us managed to pry the thing back up, wedging 2x4s under her vulnerable side to keep her propped up. I plucked off as much fruit as I could find, offering her treasures to neighbors and friends before pruning her back severely to lighten her load. Come November, she dropped all her leaves and went under for long, long sleep.

Still dormant, during the holidays we decorated her bare branches as we always had done with crystalline snowflakes and glittery icicles, watching them twist and sparkle in the wintery sun.

It could have gone either way.

So imagine my surprise when out on the stoop sipping my morning cup of joe, I notice the reemergence of life unprovoked. Despite hardship, despite apathy, despite abandonment, there she grows, fingers reaching upward, refusing to be deterred, refusing to be defeated!

Teeming with buds, damn if she isn't a fine display of tenacity and resilience. A symbol of resurrection. Proof of life itself.

I raise my cup and my heart to her today… inspired by the ultimate surrender followed by a burst of brilliance.

Mission accomplished.

* * *

The Mission Fig: a photo essay

Baby Pictures...

...amidst the rubble:

* * *

Ten years later...
Signs of life after near death experience:

Two more weeks of growth:

Resurrection:

Traveling...

2008-03-26T22:44:00.000-07:00

...will return soon...

Cloud Jumper

2008-03-16T00:12:00.000-07:00

I assure you I don't deliberately sit around noting clouds. In fact, my eyes are usually so far in front of me onto the next task, I rarely look up to differentiate them. But today, as Miss S and I walked out the front door on our way to the library, we both couldn't help but notice.

These clouds were so vivid and so immediate, they seemed to be jumping out of the sky towards us, invading our reality. So intensely surreal, they were almost too real. So close you could get up and jump on them. Gloriously springy gobs of puff so 3D, they were 4D! Not way up in the sky but right there, over the rooftops, an arms length away.

"Wow. Look at the clouds Mom," she said reading my mind.

"I know!" I said running back in to get my camera....

Boing! Boing! Boing!

And all blue above that.

Fun!

Haze

2008-03-11T12:29:00.000-07:00

Next week I predict gale force winds….

No truer words were spoken. But I won't bore you with the particulars, the checklist of tasks undertaken and delivered within mind-squeezing deadlines. No, that would just sound like I'm arrogant and self-important, overly ambitious, and foolishly over-extended I might add. Don't wish to embarrass myself that way. Suffice it to say I have been cranking out and delivering for the little school, for the wider community, while I try to understand where all this is heading for me personally.

Meanwhile, I can take away great satisfaction in jobs I've executed on time and to my high standard. But after so much output, I feel like a sponge that has been wrung out. I'm in some sort of post car crash haze.

WTF? Where am I?

The lyrics of a Chris Whitley song drift into my consciousness and describe my mood perfectly…

"…out on the edge of some canyon
where I just forget and you can't recall
no you can't recall…"

Grey matter. Fog cover.

Haze.

Clouds streak the cobalt sky in tractor-wide trails of cottony fluff. Billowy streaks, deliberate channels then bleed into smoky dissipated edges like some runny watercolor. Partially defined. Partially blurry. Blue. White. Blending. Lightening the blue. Illuminating the white. A bit of both.

I sit, focusing on my perch.

Focus eludes me.

Am I centered, or moving? Active or silent?

I wait for a sign. The steady movement of the stair-climber acts as a distraction.

I have been that one, racing up the stairs, heart pounding, pushing as fast as I can, determined to challenge my body, my time, my productivity. I've used the stairs to burn fat, to harden thighs, to breathe deeply, sweat, center. It feels good. It brings clarity. Momentum. Purpose even. And now, I sit watching him. Observing that method calmly, resolutely, immobile. It is one way. It is one practice.

Yet somehow the stillness, now possible by his exit, also feels good. Another kind of practice.

So much can be lost in the movement. So too, much can be lost in only stillness. There it is. Two truths. Lying side-by-side.

I usually know what I want and go after it. I am fairly clear on my opinions about things. Not lately. Mostly I feel a bit numb, dazed, no compass needle pointing the way.

I won't move until I know where I'm going. Without clarity, I'm not moving. So, race your races, good you know where you're going.

Me? I'll just be sitting here, taking in the view for a while, recharging after navigating a political and territorial pissing ground, grateful for a respite. Waiting for next steps, which haven't presented themselves yet.

In the meantime my dance card, as they say, is fully punched.

Cupcakes, Cupcakes

2008-03-02T11:54:00.001-08:00

What's the big deal about cupcakes?

With the rising popularity of designer cupcake shops in LA like Sprinkles, Toast, Crumbs, Vanilla Bake Shop, not to mention the Magnolia Bakery in NYC, it seems that there's a high-end cupcake shop opening up in every neighborhood these days, along with some sort of hypnotic I-will-wait-in-line-for-over-30-minutes just to buy a waaay over-priced round of sugary fluff. It's mass-hysteria in my opinion, another craze following the same trajectory that Pinkberry did for frozen yogurt, or Krispy Kreme did for hot sugary glazed donuts.

What's the deal? I mean, they're cupcakes, folks. Cupcakes. Buy a $2 box of cake mix and bake 'em off in muffin tins, or bake your own recipe, but c'mon. Cupcakes. Not. Rocket. Science.

I have no big pull towards them personally. I mean, I think they're ok, if not just a big mouthful of overly-sickly sweetness, but my daughter loves them. Reveres them. So, being the devoted mother and wonder baker that I sometimes am, occasionally I indulge that desire for her. Like yesterday…

What to do on a dreary, gray Saturday? House-bound and bored...

I know.

Bake.

Cupcakes.

With an assorted rainbow of sprinkles. (Decorating's her thing.)

Donning aprons with hair tied up in ponies, we got to mixing and baking, licking and scraping, and soon we had ourselves a batch of fresh vanilla cupcakes with buttery vanilla frosting. (I tried selling other flavors, such as chocolate, black and white, orange blossom, or rose water decorated with candied rose petals, even adding some freshly grated Meyer lemon peel to the frosting, but to no avail. Miss S loves the classic: vanilla, vanilla.)

Vanilla it was.

I laid out all the decorative sugars, sprinkles, and candied rose petals for her to decorate her little heart out, somewhat uninspired and disappointed we weren't creating a more magical "fairy blossom" flavored frosting at the very least. (She's waaaay into fairies these days. She's even writing and illustrating her very own "Fairy Book.")

Then, inspiration hit me. She could sprinkle away, but I was going to try something different.

I had a box of Dots and some leftover Tootsie rolls, (dare I say that they might have been from Halloween?) I took my extra sharp Shun Santoku knife, rubbed a little oil along the blade to prevent it from sticking, and sliced each Dot into 5 or 6 thin nearly transparent wheels of stained-glass candy color. Perfect little petals. Then I sliced and rolled "stems" out of the Tootsie rolls, and discovered that pistachios would form perfectly green-tinged "leaves."

Magic fairy flower cupcakes. As pretty to look at as they are to eat.

And here are the Divine Miss S's creations:
(Even she got into the flower power eventually.)

Bad Hair Day

2008-02-26T09:25:00.000-08:00

This morning, my morning to sleep in and I wake to the sounds of tantrum.

Nothing like burning the midnight oil only to be rudely awakened to noxious screaming and carrying on, met by expletives and threats, and stomps down the hall, doors slamming.

Our house became a virtual padded cell of 3-way negotiations, parent-on-child-on-parent-on-parent, with sleep being held hostage.

Then scissors.

Then shoes.

When did 5 1/2-yr-olds have such strong opinions about hair? To the point of wanting to cut it off if it didn't hang right! (I remember this in high school, but c'mon, Kindergarten??!!)

And God help the world if this one becomes a lawyer. Can she articulate her position! Good to know she knows what she wants and can express herself.

Now, go express yourself somewhere quietly!! And get your butt to school!

The Little Darling.

Oh, remember the days when HAIR was the biggest thing you had to worry about? she said longingly.

Windless

2008-02-24T12:48:00.000-08:00

For now I'm like a sailboat, sails lifted, out on the sea with full intention, but the winds have settled, no force, no direction. Chipped and scratched from being battered against the rocks, I am drifting, emotionless. Tired. Not quite empty but far from full. No wind. No waves. Just floating, drifting. A respite, a lull in the forward motion. Just waiting to pick up a current or tap a fresh breeze to a new destination. Any destination.

I'll take the drift.

After the battles I've been through, drift feels just fine. For now. Feels like I'm ready to settle in for a good long nap. But to anyone who truly knows me you will already know, who am I kidding?

I'll take the rest while I can.

Next week I predict gale force winds….

Maps are fun!

2008-02-21T14:26:00.000-08:00

Back from my sick bed, today I spent the better part of the day creating an interactive map (click and slide) that contains the complete listing of Westside public elementary schools. This list includes neighborhood schools in the LA Unified District, along with Magnets, Charters, Santa Monica and Culver City Unified elementary schools.

Each school has it's own marker bubble which when clicked on contains updated address, phone and website info (hand entered by me), and sometimes a photo already on file with Google. With almost 60 elementary schools and 3 overlapping school districts within about a 10 mile radius, no wonder parents are confused! These are only the elementary schools, folks!

Today I have done my civic duty for all current and future Westside families about to enter the school system. I have created our very own Westside School Finder. (Lord knows the district doesn't do anything like this for us.) It's even Google-able.

Check it out!
http://gomamaguide.com/
Scroll down the right side bar below speaking events and click to enlarge and play!

Or you could go here.
(Give it a minute to l0ad.)

Aren't maps fun!

Same Spot, New Thought

2008-02-06T21:39:00.000-08:00

Instead of plugging the meter with "OMG, there's so much to do, how will I get it all done?" it's now, "how can assist you? Where can we interface my skills with your needs to create a mutually beneficial situation?"

As I surround myself with warmth and protection, a blanket of love spreads outward -- both honoring myself and allowing others to be where they are…

Let the light radiate and elevate…
Spin out counter-clockwise any confusion and darkness
And as it lifts, may we all receive insight and clarity
An opening and inspiration
And a call to action.

Time speeds up, but today it slows down--
Pulling, stretching like taffy
as I soak up the sun's soul-warming nutrients.

All things are possible.
All things in place.
We are percolating little bubbles of fabulousness.

Homecoming

2008-02-04T15:29:00.000-08:00

As we welcome Prema home, I am reminded of the feeling of soaring into the heights and depths and fullness of Self, an achingly beautiful "homecoming" in itself of oneness-no separation... only to return out of the Samadhi embrace to the discombobulated scurrying tempo of our lives. Lives with children. Lives with spouses. Lives with jobs and obligations. Schedules. Responsibilities.

The scurrying…the clatter…the disarray that surrounds us. This is not us; we are just visiting.

But as we sink back into our bodies, our lives, trying desperately to hold on to the remnants of our true Technicolor experience, we also feel the pull of gravity into the present.

It's no wonder she sits, no words flowing yet. Words are a different state. Let her sit as long as she will, basking in her fullness. May she remember the glory of who she is and let that infuse her and those around her with that knowing.

May we all remember and not forget. And may we carry it forward into the dance that spins right along around us.

Sometimes words aren't enough, don't do justice to the experience, so we find another way to express it.

Today I picked up a can of simple white cannelloni beans. They'd been sitting in the cupboard for weeks, silently, waiting in the dark for inspiration. None had come. But today seemed like the day as I opened them up, draining out their syrupy juices and rinsed away cloudiness with pure filtered water.

White beans. Plain. Simple. Rather boring. Live in a can. They love them in Tuscany, I ventured. Beans get a bad wrap here.

In my attempt to elevate them I think first, a beautiful bowl. Not white. I choose a vibrant cobalt blue, heavy with patterned relief along the outside, dramatic enough to show off the inherent beauty of the creamy blushed beans.

Next, some minced onion and half a red sun-kissed jalapeno that stayed too long on the vine. As I flow effortlessly from the fridge to the board to the bowl, a dish comes to life. Diced sweet red pepper, minced garlic, a good scatter of celtic sea salt, a few cracks of black pepper, a hearty drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and the juice of half a lemon with a few dashes of red wine vinegar just because. I love how the tart complements the creaminess with the hint of heat and bit of crunch.

Tossing the beans gently so as not to bruise them, it's still not there. Something is missing, something fresh.

I step out the backdoor where sunlight floods me with kindness to the herb garden that encircles our home. Choosing a small bouquet of flat Italian parsley and a few plump sage leaves, I decide rosemary would be equally welcome. Next time.

Mincing and tossing I have it now. A beautiful, tasty offering that transcends its own nature.

Or, was its nature there all along, hidden?

Served on a few scattered leaves of romaine hearts with a chunk of crusty bread, I am fed.

But it's more.

It's good. It's real, and it nourishes me far beyond the can and the plate.

It brings me home.

Thinking of Prema. Blessings all.

Low Hanging Fruit

2008-02-03T17:51:00.000-08:00

Wind ripping. Changing patterns. First a tickle then a slam! Storms of emotion, undecided, circuitous, dance through the air with feverish abandon. I breathe in the chill air, alternately cool then tempered by warm sunlight softly caressing my cheek. Drizzling, then sunny. It's warm, it's cold, both, as I pull my hoodie tighter around me. Winds that were whipping abate like an exhaled breath. For the moment anyway, it settles. Then changes again. Constant change. The warmth. The chill. The drizzle. I feel it all. I work through the dampness 'til my body doesn't feel it anymore. It doesn't matter.

Weather. It's just weather. Weather and a commitment to the practice.

I pull out my Dixie cup to catch the thoughts that traverse my weathered mind…

I think of myself like the weather--ever changing, mutable, unformed, taking form then leaving it. Turning off the mind I lead with the heart. Breathing into the fullness of spirit, ripe, glowing, uncontainable, this is me, this is who I am.

As I focus on the school, I think of the phrase I just read on responsibility. First, she said, things have to get bad. Then there's a summoning. A calling forth of souls. One does not do it all--that would be interfering with Divine Plan.

Right.

So, surrendering, exhaling it out, the stress is leaving my body more and more each day as I call forth my highest destiny and wait for the summoning. My shoulder, once capped with pain and immobility, has not been bothering me for a few weeks now. The area I spent hundreds on for months, where it felt like nothing was working? Now I suddenly realize, it is done. Released. Sent packing. Its exit almost imperceptible.

I see the simplicity of it all up here. How everything falls into place. Still, it's hard to fathom how it works down there, how I can surrender and trust. Trust that this is right, that we will be provided for, that this IS my work, that I am right where I need to be.

I have been contemplating the comments you've left regarding choosing my direction, ones so well-known and loved. Ones even I would think to offer another when trying to make a choice. You know, does it bring you joy? Does it bring you peace? Are you filling up or depleting yourself?

For days now, perhaps a lifetime, I have been contemplating these very questions.

I was raised to do what you love. Anything is possible. Limits exist only in your mind. Follow your dreams. Reach for the stars. That kind of thing.

I set out in search of those dreams with my passion, my desire, my commitment and unnerving ambition to express myself and be seen. To share my gifts.

It never occurred to me to have a back-up plan. I was going for it. I was going to be large. Brilliant. Successful. Artistic. Beautiful. A ball of creative fire that blazed a trail of light so bright, I touched millions…

I followed that dream hither and thither for years.

But let's take it back even further. What is education?

It's a deep question. A question that started percolating for me as a mother, and now I ponder it endlessly in my current "work"--and I call it that lightly as I've yet to be paid for any of it.

How do we raise our children? And then, how do we give them over to the typical institutions of learning? What constitutes a quality education? And if we've become more conscious in the way we parent our children, how can we in good conscience hand our children over to an old, failing system? It indeed causes conflict.

What are we trying to teach our children…the carriers of our future, the next generation? That they may then go forth and create the life of their dreams?

And furthermore, how do we translate that into the existing educational systems?

I look at my own upbringing and hear the repeated demands of my mother insisting on a "liberal arts" education. Carlton and Yale-educated and a professional classical musician, she was so adamant about that. And yet once hired, she never had to go off looking for another job for the rest of her career.

Ok. So what of liberal arts? I studied philosophy. Religion. French. Literature. History. Theatre. Dance. Music. Art. So what?

Wouldn't a business degree or a technical trade have served me better? Wouldn't some financial planning and lessons in strategic ladder-climbing have been more effective? Liberal what? Where does that fit in today's economic reality? Does my well-rounded liberal arts background pay the mortgage?

And the reaching for a dream, reach for the stars motto?

Perhaps as a friend suggested recently, I ought to instead reach for "low hanging fruit."

It's a concept I never thought of. I was always striving for that hard to reach, impossible spot in the constellation, the one way way up on the top branch that took a lifetime of trying only to possibly never get there… God I love a challenge!

Low hanging fruit?

Isn't that so…obvious? Common? Pedestrian? Like, anybody can reach for that? What's so special about that? Isn't it about to drop on the ground already?

Truthfully, it's not a concept I had ever heard before, but the minute my friend said it, I knew exactly what she meant.

No, I never took my low hanging fruit seriously…for the very reason that it was just so…um, right there. The only time I took my low-hanging fruit (LHF) seriously was when the bills came staring me down. That's the fruit that fed me. Food. Feeding others. It literally fed me. But was it my passion? My raison d'etre*? (*Fr: "reason for being.")

Does one, when faced with an intersection, make a future of the LHF just because it's there? Because it's easy?

Does one "fall in love" with the guy that's kinda OK but he's available and in your face--as opposed to the really cute guy over there, the one your heart beats faster for, but who doesn't know you exist? Will he ever?

And what about using the guideposts of Love and Joy and Peace that so many of us suggest as a way to navigate our choices, like some hot or cold divining rod?

Can you honestly, I mean truly honestly say that you feel these things for instance, in your…marriage? Someone please raise their hand and tell me their marriage is peaceful, always brings them joy, not conflicting emotions or (serious) differences in opinion.

What about your children? Do they bring you Peace? I don't know about you but my child brings me a lot of things. Peace isn't one of them. Love? yes. Peace? no. Joy? not always.

Do the jobs in your life really fill you with Joy? All the time? Really? No conflicts? No challenges? No opposition? No indecision? No growing pains? And it pays you well? Hmmmm. Tell me what you do for a living!

And then say, for arguments sake, that you do feel the thing in contradiction to love, and joy and peace…you know, exhaustion, frustration, dare I say anger at times. Well, what then? Do you drop it, (the job, the kid, the husband, the direction) because it isn't bringing you peace? Even if it is important? Because you might want something different, better, smoother, quieter? Do you just abandon it for higher, I mean, lower ground?

Forgive my rambling. I seem to have gotten way off track here.

Anyway, I shall go step by step, seeing what unfolds. Trusting that my unique skills and abilities and conflicts and emotions are dancing out quite a dance. A perfect dance. A dance that belongs somewhere. Somewhere I just can't quite see yet.

Probably looking up too high.

In any case, may it all be purposeful.

Actual View

2008-01-28T12:04:00.000-08:00

Sometimes words are good to make your point, to question, to provoke deeper reflection, to examine a metaphor, but sometimes, the picture tells the tale.

I had my camera with me today and couldn't resist taking a few shots. So with that in mind, here is the actual view of the house from the previous post.

See the wall?

Totally blocks the flow of energy at the entrance.

All that beauty to a dead end.

Aaaargghhhhh

2008-01-24T12:03:00.000-08:00

"Up here, everything's fine.

It's down there that's tricky."

* * *

Been doing my best to stay calm, stay centered, to breathe my awareness into as much of my life as I can.

I don't always succeed.

I am learning to be patient, to be tolerant and loving.

Sometimes I just lose it, I can't do it.

My feelings about the school, its (and more specifically our) future in it, my life, my future, my daughter's well-being, my marriage, our choices...all of it...the whole of it...revolving, spinning, changing, in day-glo opposites. At once optimistic, then fatally, outrageously pessimistic, the emotional storms twist like torrential thunderstorms, then dissipate.

And still I try to sit, to get clear, to call upon my highest purpose, to align with my highest destiny, asking to make it shown, obviously so, so this unclear vortex of capabilities and passions can find its rightful outlet....

...and what I get is clear as mud, or more specifically, spin-art. Anything. Nothing. Whatever you want. So many colors, so little time. Anything you want to be....

I don't know!!

And the next steps that present themselves are more work and quicker turn-around time on projects for the school.

That I can do.

And so I do.

I keep questioning, is this my work? Why? Because they NEED it? Because I can SEE it? Because I know how to DO it?? What about do I want to do it? Or is it just that it needs to get done and I'm a good get-it-done kind of girl? Is this gonna be my calling? Helping parents navigate the dicey lottery of choices available to them, and then once in, detailing all the ways they're supposed to repair and improve what was discarded and broken?

Do I feel abandoned? Don't I deserve a richer life? A system that actually works? When was education my calling? Or is it just what's in front of me? Or am I just resisting again?

I had lunch with a friend I knew back in our spectacular preschool. I asked her, "Please, tell me what it's like to be able to drop your kid at school and feel utterly at peace with your decision, confident in your choice, able to move through your day completely focused on your own work?!!"

Because I really need to feel that peace.

I'm still not feeling it.

(Of course she got that choice after her second year of trying, and the 40 minute 4x per day commute is so taxing she hired a driver 3x/wk to do it for her and they will be relocating closer in the next year if they can afford it! But she is happy. Extremely happy with her decision.)

And now, as we work to sell the Kool-Aid to the next round of much-needed prospective parents down here, I am wondering if I am contributing to the giant Bill of Goods, or are we actually doing anything good? Is it working? It's such a fine line. I just can't see it. We probably won't see it for years.

I know I have higher expectations than many. That might be a problem and a curse.

In too deep.

Taking my hooks out, backing up a few steps, I'm off on my morning run. For me.

Passing a newly upgraded home, I slow down to view the work, the choices. Hmm. They took a standard dime-a-dozen ranch house and added some decorative siding, a fresh coat of paint, and a second-story addition off the back half. Just the height of it alone transforms the predictable base. The arched front door is decorated in a lacy wrought iron front gate. Stunning choice. Really stunning entrance. It immediately pulls you in.

I stop and stare. There are workers working coming and going with the front door open so I peer in to see...

...a wall.

Huh?

Yes, a wall.

A parallel wall just 3 or 4 feet from the open front door, completely closing off any view inside.

Now who would put these gorgeous, beckoning doors on the front, only to open up to a wall??

I started to think this was a metaphor.

How many of us, when opening, opening and expanding to our true greatness, find ourselves opening up to a wall? Immediately limiting ourselves, as if shielding ourselves from the stunning new view?

Or is it, when faced with unlimited possibilities, the potential of a brand new layout and floor plan, we just build what we know?

Top Of The Hill

2008-01-16T11:24:00.000-08:00

There's this spot on the top of the hill I like to go, where the whole world seems spread out before me. Not really. Just feels that way. The discerning eye only sees treetops and telephone poles, slivers of rooftops, and the poke of palms dotting the horizon where the pull of the ocean follows just beyond that.

You might drive past and see nothing. Hundreds of cars do daily…yet somehow, my heart leads me here and I know better than to resist.

I follow the steps that come intuitively. No book led me here except the longing in my own heart and the collective wisdom of ages upon ages of I don't know what. I dare not qualify or quantify it for fear of diluting its potency. Doesn't matter. I'm drawn here. So I am here.

I've used these steps for a workout more than I can count, yet lately, I sense they are for a greater work. Since last time, I have already seen the changes…motion…connection…the truth of the living, breathing, inter-weaving of hearts and desire. Fabulousness. We are creating fabulousness, yes. So who am I to not answer the call? If my part is up here--visioning, holding, embracing the acreage from way above the treetops, who am I to argue? I can already see the benefit. The progress. The joining of hearts. And a bit of a shift.

So, today I am back. Opening to whatever will unfold.

Pen ready, journal in my lap, feet anchored on the concrete step below me, sun radiating warmth and glory all around me, my heart, secure in this place, alive with knowing, begins to swell and open and come out of hiding.

As I breathe in slowly, my heart expands, pushing my ribcage, larger, larger… and on the exhale, freeing my energy past the constraints of the body's limitations of form. I am not the body, I just live here. And to expand feels like returning home. A place where it's safe to be large. Safe to be free. Safe to be undefined. Embraced. Where all there is, is Love. I am that. We all are.

I spread my love out amongst the treetops, encircling the little school with the big heart, with the big yard, 10 acres of possibility, unlimited potential, surround it in Love. And wait for what comes next.

This is all I know to do today. Open, extend, encircle, embrace, radiate, and wait for the next thing.

I shake the rug of reality and watch the ripples. Crumbs fly off leaving a clearer, clean view. We are reset.

Pen poised, I wait for instructions. Then I will walk on campus shortly to see what happens next.

May these words be helpful to others. Do not fear them. This is the Truth.

I must go now. I open my eyes and see a woman dressed in a blue jogging suit standing at the bottom of the stairs, arms outstretched as if receiving a blessing. I smile. Nod.

And now it's time to go.