I know 20 things is a bit much for the SEO rules.  Oh!  You don’t know what SEO is?  Search engine optimization.   Blogging experts suggest writing about 7 to 10 items.  Odd numbers are better.  Perhaps I will stop at 19?  Would that please the SEO gods?  Do I really need to please them?

My mat, water bottle and yoga bag (a Christmas gift from my son Peter’s thoughtful girlfriend, Breezy) create a poignant still life in the back of my Mini.  Add recycled bags for Trader Joe’s and life is good.

Yes.. life is good.  And yoga makes it that much better!

Here are some of the things that I have gleaned from my yoga practice:

• Showing up to class is half the battle
• Find a yoga studio that is on your way home from work.  If you miss class you will feel extremely guilty when you pass that exit!
• Yoga is an undulating spiritual practice that you can delve into and never know everything about.
• Yoga makes me happy.. very happy.
• People who love yoga are generally very wonderful people.
• Communities form around a yoga studio.
• It’s all about me in yoga!  My practice!  My progress!  My effort!
• I will never look like the person next to me in triangle pose.
• I may never be as flexible as the person next to me because I’m a one hip diva.  But I am flexible enough. It is MY practice after all.
• Happy yoga teachers make happy yoga students.
• When the instructor talks about letting go of stress in the pose I realize that I have historic stored stress.  Letting go takes a lot of effort and concentration.
• Yoga is not for wusses.  I dare ya.  Go do it.  There are days I’d rather have a root canal.
• Yoga develops discipline.  Discipline to show up, to participate, and to be humbled.
• Yoga is a moving prayer. The instructor often asks you to set your intention for the session.  I always pray for one of my sons.  Whomever needs it most.  I feel so close to them when I am doing yoga.
• It doesn’t matter how early I get to yoga class, there will always be someone in the way of my being able to see myself in the mirror.  Another humbling experience.
• If you hang in there for 90 minutes of class there is always a happy ending.  That is an awesome guarantee.
• It’s ok to smile while doing yoga
• In every yoga class I learn something new… feet here, arms there, push here, let go of that…
• The philosophical underpinnings of yoga are rich and the lessons endless.
• I am becoming passionate about yoga.  Being passionate about something in my life makes life worthwhile.  Amen.  Alleluia.
• I <3 yoga!

Do you do yoga?  I’d love to hear about your experience.

Namaste..

 

 

 

The rotting trellis groaning under the weight of the wisteria.  Bricks buckling and relinquishing control to healthy roots tapping deeply into dark recesses of nourishing loam.  Flowers willy nilly competing for sun, space and attention.  Prolific roses growing out of control, energy unharnessed.

My garden is a perfect reflection of the imperfect me.

I am the willy nilly flowers… not a good candidate for the five year plan.  Opportunities that arise out of nowhere allow me to move without restriction into another space with better light and nourishment.  Loosely planned pandemonium is more my style.

I am the boundless roses.  Not always perfectly groomed.  Still longing for straight hair and skinny legs but accepting myself for who I am at this point in my life.

I am the faithful trellis, succumbing to the weight of the thriving wisteria and the responsibilities of motherhood, friendship, citizenship and a significant relationship.  Continually holding up, supporting and affirming the just cause.

I am the winding, reaching, emancipated wisteria- roots extending downward into the rich soil, challenging the limiting parameters of the brick- displacing and rearranging them to accommodate new visions and fresh landscapes.

unruly

…guilty

attention seeking

…guilty

disobedient

…guilty

 

Outrageous

…guilty

 

 

Someday I will sell this big house with its’ labor intensive back yard and the new inhabitants will snap their fingers and raze the bedlam to make room for the more modern hard-scape, built in BBQ, Jacuzzi tub and water-saving antiseptic nirvana.

Until then, I will revel in the peace and validation of my imperfect garden
and find forgiveness.

 

There are actually two very important uses for a refrigerator.  One is to hold food within and keep it at a tidy temperature.  The other is to have a very “untidy” display without- scraps of paper bearing important correspondence, favorite pictures of the people we love, magnets from places we’ve been to and magnets that keep us apprised of our plumber, dentist and chiropractor’s current whereabouts as well as the recycling schedule for Whittier, California- three houses and two states ago.

Exhibit one…  a note from my mom in her perfect Palmer Method penmanship telling me that she is at the library and I am to eat the cottage cheese and fruit she left me for dinner.

Well, yum!

That must have been from our mother/daughter weight watchers days- my svelte southern belle mother trying her best to make a lady out of her chubby tomboy run-with- the-wolves daughter.    Check out the date on that note.  She was a passionate recycler WAY before it was groovy!  (no.. I wasn’t a teenager in 1958 but thanks for doing the quick calculation!)

 

 

Exhibit two.. it’s all about Peter.  From free wheelin’ a hot little yellow plastic car in Michigan Park without a care in the world to high school graduation from Bellarmine College Prep and a plethora of important life decisions to make.

Sandwiched between is personal correspondence between Patrick and myself- most likely found at the communal coffee pot location. A perfect architecturally correct heart as only Patrick can create.

Pizza anyone?  Papa Jones is just a phone call away.

 

 

 

 

Exhibit three.. my favorite picture.  Two little boys getting down and dirty in Sharon Ratto’s back yard.  Carefree days of childhood and motherhood.  Before waiting up nights for teenagers to come home and nagging worries about college acceptances and BIG money expenditures!

A little orange post-it from Robert- “Hey Mom. Stopped by after voting.  Bathroom break.  Off to work.  Love you, Rob.”  From a fun-loving muddy grade school boy emerges a responsible citizen.

 

 

Patrick moved to Colorado last August to attend graduate school and after a long solo road trip, upon arrival at his new flat, he emailed pictures.  The kitchen was replete with a lovely clean and stark white frig.  Certainly an empty canvas..  I went to my own frig and gathered some booty- magnets, pictures and notes that recorded years and houses and fast food places frequented- and sent them off to Denver.

A few days later the call came from Patrick.  In a cracking voice he squeaked out “you got me, Mom..”

Is it any coincidence that we put pictures and memorobilia on our refrigerator so that when we need a little nourishment we can revel in the love that we are reminded of as well as have a little snack?  The two go hand in hand.  And now you know why.

My thesis is complete.  All three chapters…

Food is Love.  Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The problem with blogging is not what to write but rather which thing to write about!  I was searching for a recipe last weekend and the result was this “still life”.  I said to myself.. now THAT would make a good blog post!  My intention was to write about the cookbooks but then I thought perhaps you’d like to hear about my refrigerator adventures or the decoupage of photos on the freezer door.  Oh the dilemmas of a blogger…

Thus.. the three chapter essay.

Let’s begin with the cookbooks, shall we?  Glancing over my collection I see the layers of my life as chief cook and bottle washer  displayed in 3D living color.  There’s Laurel’s Kitchen which heralded my natural food cooking era of motherhood and gave me the name “wheat woman”  among my fleet of babysitters.  Hidden from view is Diet for a Small Planet.. the book that heightened my awareness of  how much we feed our cows corn in order to be able to indulge in a juicy steak; corn that could potentially solve the problem of world hunger.  Beard on Pasta was my right hand man when creating my favorite pesto recipe from the plethora of basil that grew in our prolific vegetable garden on Tedemory Drive.

That little black book of Lebanese Cookery (under Beard and on top of Laurel’s Bread Book) was my mother’s.  Not that she EVER looked at a cookbook but I need to once in a while when I want to pick up the phone and call her for a Kibby consult- knowing that she’s unavailable and currently bossing somebody ELSE around in that great Williams-Sonoma kitchen in the sky.  (I can smell the onions for the meatless imjadara frying as we speak- do they have Lent in heaven?)

Horn of the Moon Cookbook, spooned (ah.. double entendre) lovingly with Laurel’s Kitchen and holding up the random food magazine pages ripped out in moments of food lust, was my friend Anita’s favorite cookbook.  We were young stay at home moms together and we loved to cook healthy foods for our families and shop at hippie places like Vitamin Village and Mrs. Gouch’s.  It’s not my favorite cookbook but I think of Anita when I glance through it and our lives in the trenches of raising children.  She relocated with her family to Portland Oregon and since then I purchased the Pacific Northwest Palate which I never use either…perhaps longing for the good old days of our friendship.

Vegetarian Planet leans comfortably against the Joy of Cooking (wedding shower gift.. got that other Joy book too!)  to the far right.  Patrick bought it for his brother, Peter, after Peter’s five month stint in India and conversion to a vegetarian lifestyle.  During the month that Peter stayed with me between life adventures we lifted some interesting dinners from its’ wealth of recipes.  He then moved to the City and Patrick moved to Colorado, leaving me with this souvenir of their manly cooking antics.

Food is love. indeed.  Amen.

Stay tuned for adventures in refrigerator shopping..