Year's End

Tomato Plants Raised: 5

Books Read: 14

Kayaking Treks: 3

States In Which I've Unpacked Luggage: 5

Professional Pedicures: 3 (an all-time annual high) 

Professional Piano Movers Hired: 1

Professional Piano Movers To Whom I've Successfully Offered The Assist: 1

Weekend Hikes: 19

Films With Subtitles I've Watched: 2

Clogged Drains I've Plunged Or Otherwise Fixed: 3

Individually Wrapped Gifts N Gave Me for Xmas: 19

Gifts I Might Rightfully Deserve if You Sum Up How Good I've Ever Been Ever: 12

Thanksgiving

And after the dishes were washed and put away, after the bowling land brigade   granted more love, more kindness than a person could rightfully have asked for.

Actual Sound

“Such silence has an actual sound, the sound of disappearance.” 
― Suzanne Finnamore

Gloriously Undefeated

Photo Credit micaelxavier fanpage

Long Moment

“You get towards the end of life - no, not life itself, but of something else: the end of any likelihood of change in that life. You are allowed a long moment of pause, time enough to ask the question: what else have I done wrong?” 
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

Lazy Winter Morning

I have this special love for sleeping in on winter mornings. The flannel sheets. The hot coffee. The dark sky. There is something soothing about the edges of every day. 

I laid in bed this morning and listened to music.

@ Blue River

From This Summer

Brave TedTalk

With The Band

The Ladies that Let Me Sing With Them

Stop by MoJava on November 29th @ 7pm for my latest musical adventure. It's bound to be an evening of good music. Come down anytime. I'll play early in the set.

News Brief

Reading: The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

Running News: I've committed to running the Colder Boulder this year. Laced up my shoes twice this week to get ready for it. Double knots, wool socks and everything.

Quote of My Day: "...I think for me, one of the definitive moments in my life was realizing that most of us are brave and afraid in the exact same moment all day long." - Brene Brown

Late Fall

“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”   -L.M. Montgomery

High Heels

I called my girlfriend last night as I was zipping up high boots. I told her whenever I wear high heels I think of the story she told me in college about her mom. A WWII war-bride from Japan. She married a tall soldier and, when he got stationed in the U.S., she followed after him by boat. 

They planned to meet on a California pier and start a new life together. She walked off the boat, teetering on high heels, in order to kiss him. But the arrangements weren't right. He wasn't there. Wrong day. Wrong boat. I'm not sure. But she walked the pier all day on wobbly, high heels. Looking out at the ocean that laid between her and the life or even the language she knew.

I told my college girlfriend I was wearing high heeled boots. That I was venturing out into the cold with a companion much taller than myself. 

Día de Muertos

Photo Credit: UNL Newsroom

My favorite of the late fall holidays has arrived. I hope you have the occasion to spend this Día de Muertos in reverence of those people, present and past, that love you.

Candy Making

I made a batch of homemade Halloween candies this evening with N. They were supposed to be spiders but the eight legs wouldn't fit properly. Six was the maximum number of legs that would fit. 

The entymological inaccuracy of calling these things 'spiders' when clearly, CLEARLY they couldn't possibly be spiders really bothered me. I lost track of how steadily I belabored the point until my daughter (with smudged chocolate cheeks) sighed, rolled her eyes and said "Mom, fine...OK, just fine. They're ants. Not spiders. ANTS. OK?" 

While it wasn't the height of polite preteen behavior her simple solution did, in fact, make me feel better.


Except that the ant bodies aren't segmented. I'm just sayin'.

I love this! -Rilke

From streetartnews

Pleasant Company

 

There's a certain type of friend that will accept an invitation to brunch on Sunday. She'll bring her girls, we'll brew a pot of hot coffee. And nobody seems offended in the least that I would remain in my flannel pajamas the whole time. 

Exceeding Expectations

This was the first year that I took up the vegetable side of the garden. I planted everyone's cast offs. My mom had one too many pepper plants, the neighbor had a butternut squash with nowhere to go...garlic, broccoli all acquired the same way and tomatoes. Oh, it was a crazy, good year for tomatoes. My backyard was hot, humid and tomato-lucious all summer long.

I had so many tomatoes I couldn't eat all of them. I tried to offload a batch to the delivery guy from my favorite Chinese restaurant. He was polite about it but had to say no. Against company policy. So I stuck the whole lot of them into my slow-cooker over a late summer weekend. Boiled them down with oregano and garlic in an attempt to make marinara sauce. Jarred up the sauce and froze it in the deep freeze until our house had a hankering for lasagna last night. 

We boiled up noodles, thawed out the marinara, grated some cheese, stuck everything into the oven and gave it a go. Cooking is like that for me. Slap a whole bunch of stuff together, set it in the oven, and spend about thirty minutes just living on hope. The hope this particular collection of ingredients will turn out OK.

This one? This lasagna? OK, wow. I'm a lasagna lover but the homemade sauce kicked it up a notch or two. Dinner exceeded expectations.    

Lived Between Us

I fell asleep remembering a time that I treated someone terribly. Just terribly. I was young. I'm sure I was hurt and thought my behavior was just a retaliation not an offensive act. And I remembered the hurt that lived between us for a long time. 

Last night I fell into a sad sort of sleeping. 

I woke up with a stomach ache wondering why it is that when we're vulnerable we're also the most likely to inflict pain? What is it about the height of emotions that inspires a person, inspired me, to inflict such cruelty? Why is it that mellowing out or growing into a more stable person also means I have fewer barbed edges? That once I'm less easily hurt, I'm also less likely to hurt someone else. I grow better buffered and I grow more careful with everyone else at the same time. 

I fell asleep last night thinking about the sharper edges I used to have. The scars that must have marked the places I had been. Sometimes I'll wake up and fling up an apology to the sky over some moment I wish I could have to do over again. Some moment I could have been kinder, some moment in which I might have been less hot tempered. And I'll just hope the words, or at least the sentiment, lands with the intended person. 

Morning Trail Run

Amherst, MA (3miles)

Peppered

I made use of the dry, warm weather today by planting thirty crocus bulbs. I looked then at the bare ground and tried to imagine it peppered in yellow and purple petals next spring.

Morning

We were up early this morning. N had some homework. I made some hot-apple-oatmeal for breakfast. 

We had a pleasant moment by the front door as she zipped up her backpack and we both said to have a good day. She bubbled outside, and sort of skipped, sort of ran, down the front steps. 

I can’t say why I stayed there, in my flannel pajamas, watching her through the glass pane of the closed door. But I did. She crossed the busy street. And then swept her arms in a series of wide arcs. She was blowing kisses into the morning air. 

Not because she saw me standing there but just because life was too sweet to do anything else. 

Juno

From NASA Photo Files

The Juno spacecraft was due to slingshot around the Earth today on its trip to Jupiter. Juno is, evidently, the first solar powered space probe.

Wanting to learn more, I went to the NASA mainpage for the mission. The Juno page fell victim to the current Federal Government shut down. 

My mouth commenced an involuntary diatribe of political exasperation. 

Springs Eternal

What I Brought To The Court Tonight

Blowing Around

Spent the day in pleasant company. The cold weather blowing around outside. The sort of day that makes for long, involved conversations. The sort of day where my voice, my brain feel a little exhausted by the end of it. I climb into bed wondering when we can get together again? Hoping the answer is 'soon'.

Weekend Report

Ribbon Cutting Ceremonies Attended: 1
Benefit Concerts I Wanted to, But Didn't Attend: 1 
Miles traveled by bike: 8
Miles traveled by foot: 8
Floors Scrubbed: 2
Chapters Read of This Book: 5
Soup Club Attendees: 3
Birthday Parties: 1 (shared between two people)
Used Book Scores: 1
Suggested travel itineraries that pinged in my inbox: 2 
Times I felt grateful for this moment in my life: 27+ 

Reel Power

The Real Deal

I have started using a new face cream. My face washed, my teeth brushed, I smooth on the moisturizer each night before crawling into bed. The cream is derived from coconut oil. Not the imitation smell of coconut, the real deal, the stuff that makes your pillow smell like some tropical destination both rich and far away. 

______________________
Recently Pleased to Find Out: Ikea plans to sell solar panels, and also there is water on Mars.
Personal Soundtrack: When You Get to Ashville by Steve Martin & Edie Brickell 
Reading with N: Searching for Wondla by Toni DiTerlizzi
Anxiously Awaiting: My Canoe Trip in Fontenelle Forest

My Sunday

Sometimes you just have to kick your other plans to the curb.

Pioneer Park Nature Center

Photo Credit: Mfinanga Photography

I spent a lovely evening at the Pioneer Park Nature Center tonight. Live music. Good food. A half moon hung low in the sky.

QOTD

Dear lady with fancy heels and bluetooth, 

Conducting loud phone sales calls is strictly a Starbucks activity, not appropriate at the neighborhood coffee spot. I cannot map the basal ganglia and its functions with all your racket. Throw a rock, pick a Starbucks, and take your macbook with you. 

Sincerely, 

The rest of us trying to study

Air Outside

The air outside had a cool, wet skin this morning. The stars thinning out, I felt closer to the light sky than usual.

Wild Card

T inspired me to step onto a tennis court for the first time in months. There's no delicate way to say this. I got creamed. By any measure, from every angle, I was out played.

But sometimes it's less about whether I'm a competitive player and more about feeling grateful to stay in the game as long as I can. 

It was a gorgeous evening and I gave it what I had. Stayed in the game for nearly forty-five minutes. 
 
I came home and took a pre-emptive ibuprofen because the next day, I knew, I was going to be sore. 

Rain Save

Four girls caught by a downpour on the walk home from Middle School. Nobody has an umbrella. N dials for a rescue as they took shelter under a tree. 

Ten minutes later the car doors clap closed. Every surface inside the car is instantly soaked. We're smooshed inside with kids and bikes and backpacks. 

The windows fogged up from all that giggling. 

It's nice to occasionally provide the rain save.

Indian Summer

Blue River Lodge (Sept, 2013)

I dangled my feet off the dock and into a mud bottomed lake this morning. It was murky lake water that it seems everything disappears into. Feet dangling, coffee in hand, I closed my eyes and listened to this place. 

There's a difference between listening for something as opposed to sitting still enough to listen to a place. It's in the brain filters. Listening for something selects one sound, it disregards other sounds as noise.

I spent this morning listening to whatever came. Birds or bugs, the sound of truck tires on the gravel road, the wind kicking up dry leaves that are yellowing soon. 

There was an expanse in me that the outside world opens. A welcome sensation that I live in a large, complicated, noisy world. One that drowns out the chatter inside my brain. I felt grateful for the very air around me.

Spoken Word Poetry of Sarah Kay

Greening Forward

N came with me last weekend to the TedxYouth conference in Lincoln. We sat audience to a young man from Atlanta named Hasib Muhammad who started  Greening Forward as a resource for young activists. 

He gave an amazing speech. I barely had the presence of mind to scribble down a couple of thoughts that fell from his microphone. At the end I looked down at a page that read "Harness hope: learn, fear, grow, fix."  

Heliophilia

Heliophilia - (n.) a desire to stay in the sun; love of sunlight. 

Take Your Time

Thanks, J.

Soak

I woke up to a slow, soaking rain this morning. Opened up all the windows to let the wet weather inside.

Summer Festival

Green Camera Action

Grab your camera and submit an entry into tve's 2013 biomovie competition.

Holland Center

I kept pleasant company with Steve Martin, Edie Brickell  & the Steep Canyon Rangers last night. The stage offered some breathtaking bluegrass on a hot summer night. Full moon outside. Sigh. It was lovely.

Lakeside

“Whoever you are: some evening take a step out of your house, which you know so well. Enormous space is near.”     - Rainer Maria Rilke

Mud Season

Photo Credit: Wendy Jane Bantam

I make a mud pit out of my back yard twice every day. I've reworked some of the grading recently. Planted some grass seed. I've been watering ever since.

I love it. I love the way the way the water rains down my hands. The washed skin that's slick to the dirt surface. The water lasts just an instant before soaking in. The rich, musty smell that rises up from a wet ground. The speckles of a mud sticking to my shins. The cold, strangely clean feel of mud. It's something I make twice every day.

A Drift

Happy Fourth

Thanks, T.

Ripening

 

 

This is the first year, ever, that I've taken up the backyard effort to grow vegetables. I'm a little nervous, so, wish me luck.

Transmitter

Last night I had the occasion to eavesdrop on my only child playing upstairs with walkie talkies. She was playing by herself. The noise of it was particularly hilarious.

International Mud Day

Morning Stand-Up

This summer I've shared the pleasant company of my daughter each morning at breakfast. We've fallen into the habit of standing in the kitchen, waiting for the toaster or the coffeepot, and telling jokes. 

This morning the post-joke banter went something like this...

N: So, mom, sounds like you know a ~lot~ of "a so-n-so walks into a bar..." jokes.
Me: Yeh. I hadn't thought about it, but, I guess I do.
N: Mmm-hmm. [pause, pause, pause] You know I can't tell those on the playground, right? I mean, I'm eleven and all. 
Me: You can change the setting of the joke, you know. The barroom isn't required for the punchline.
N: Oh, good. Because, if I told a lot of bar jokes...you know...people would wonder...not about me...more about you. 

Tree Effects

I've lived for a long time with the philosophy that there is no problem, no mental funk that a good hike can't cure. I practiced this philosophy for the better part of my college experience by studying trees. Refined the idea over a habit of weekends and holidays doing the same.

Japanese scientists have studied the biological effects what I'd guess intuitively from a walk in the woods. They found reduced stress levels in the body, decreased blood pressure, and a strengthened immune system better able to fight tumors and viruses.

Researchers at Columbia University correlated trees in urban neighborhoods to a lower incidence of asthma. Similar studies indicate that anxiety, depression and even crime are lower tree-lined environments.

I stand at one of those life moments where things shift quickly. Everything feels uncertain. As a result I've spent a great deal of time wearing hiking boots. Over the past year I have visited a stand of redwoods, hiked an eastern deciduous forest, picked apples from an orchard, run a swamp stomp, watched leaves bud and studied the fissures of tree-bark. I have caked my shoes in mud. I have giggled to throw the front door open extra wide just to bring in a little more fresh air. 

So I was pleased to hear Geoffery Donovan, a researcher with the U.S. Forest Service, recently suggest we consider that trees might not be just an essential part of the natural environment but equally essential to our well being. It was one of those moments when someone else, someone I've never met put words to an idea I had. Better than that Mr. Donovan puts statistics and findings behind what I could only guess. He goes on to say we could start thinking of trees as part of our public health infrastructure.  

There's an expansive way of thinking that happens when I go for a hike. A way that breathing becomes less constricted in a stand of trees.  A dimmed vision of my failings when immersed in something larger. Obviously, I like hiking. Regardless of my position on a map the effect of forests will always help me arrive at a better space in my head.  

Only Occasionally

There’s an age past which fevers and nightmares stopped bothering N so much. She stopped the default to cry out, or crawl into my bed.

A fierce thunderclap the other night, though, was the undoing of her sophistication. She flew into my bed in one whoosh, fluffed up the pillow, and slept the night through. In the morning I took a moment to admire this amazing young person that, only occasionally, still needs her mother.

Forwarding Address

Photo Credit: ERIN DUERR / Lincoln Journal Star

So, my favorite neighbor moved. Lincoln's Bike Kitchen set up shop down the block two years ago. The Kitchen offers tune-ups, parts, frames, and free bikes in exchange for volunteer hours. This past March the idea of The Bike Kitchen outgrew the confines of the two-bedroom house across the alley from me. 

Crowded conditions at the old place forced some bikes to be left outside -- come rain, sleet or snow. Being exposed to weather like that wears down the life of the ride. 

The new location is bigger. It lands The Bike Kitchen with 2,000ft2 worth of warehouse at 1635 South First St (former home of Gongs Unlimited). It sports wall hooks for bikes, wheels, frames, tools and allows several people to work in the space at once.

The Grand Reopening occurred this past weekend but The Bike Kitchen throws open its new doors every Sunday from noon to 4 pm. and Monday from 5 to 9 pm. As always The Kitchen is looking for volunteer mechanics, foreign language translators and anyone with help or bike donations to offer.

To help cover the costs of the new building, the Bike Kitchen will rent space to local artists and musicians. Local theater group, Wet Rats, will be the first to use the space, performing a play about Joan of Arc on Friday and Saturday nights in June.

Birthday à la Grandave

Thanks, Jen, for making this fabulous video!

The birthday-boy's quote of the night: "I'm officially eligible for the Senior's Discount at Village Inn!

 

 

Wet Weather

The air was wet, the sky all purpled up. I know what it looks like when rain is coming. I know dry and warm is inside. 

But I had that wondering. That sense that I'd miss something if I didn't wheel up. Mix in my irrational sense of optimism and I was a goner. I convinced myself the rain could, or would, hold off entirely. With one click of the chin clasp on my bike helmet I shrugged and thought, at most, maybe, maybe it would be just be a light sprinkle. 

I got soaked clean through. A cold rain that started off with fat plops before opening up a full downpour. The surprise wasn't the storm itself but the sweet, giggly feel of it. The way my toes flinched against my sandals. The swishing noise of my bike tires against the puddled up pavement. The spray that comes from wind shaking around a tree full of wet leaves.

I rolled up to my destination. Drip dried on the porch for a moment. Rubbed my cold cheeks that were stiff from smiling. I forget how much I can love wet weather. 

Hidden and Alone

Outside Denton, Nebraska

"The solitude of the prairie is like no other, the feeling of being hidden and alone in a grassland as open as the sea." 

-- Richard Manning (Grassland: The History, Biology, Politics and Promise of the American Prairie)

...all my sweaters are snagged

Portrait Series

N's Artwork, 2012

N's artwork display gets switched out on her birthday each year. There's a room off the kitchen she makes into a sort of a gallery space. It's easy enough to squirrel away the painted up pages arriving home in her school backpack. 

Birthday cake in the oven we take out all of her artwork I've saved over the previous year, resolve to display some and recycle the rest. 

She curates, I stand on a step stool with push pins. This is the latest series. I've enjoyed it very much.

Summer Start

The sun came out yesterday after weeks of rain. 

Swinging the garage door open after a long bike ride I felt thrilled and exhausted. 

After showering up I smiled to realize my time on two wheels brought me my first bug-bite and my first sunburn of the season. 

If You Haven't Read This Book - You Should

“I breathed the book before I saw it; tasted the book before I read it.” ― P. Harding, Tinkers

This Is Water

Prairie Wind Kite Flying Event

The wide-open expanse of Spring Creek Prairie makes for a perfect place to fly kites. Come on out this Sunday. Bring your own kite, make one on site, or purchase one from the event co-sponsor, The Brand.  

2-miles Outside

Urban Hike With N (Rock Island Trail)

The Young. The Wise. The Undiscovered.

Know any impressive young people? Ones with a particular talent? Then ask them to submit a brief message, or video, to TEDxYouth@Lincoln through May 1st. The organizing committee will have callbacks May 11th and make final decisions on the 31st.

Mark your calendars, because, these young people take will center stage in a TEDx presentation on August 17, 2013. 

OMA-IAH

Cab Ride (Houston, TX)

Business travel this week. Houston Texas. My return flight ticket sits atop an already assembled suitcase of pant suits and reports I still need to read. I came out of the shower, checked to make sure I packed everything I came with, and gazed at the sterile room. 

We leave no imprint here. The lipstick and nylon stockings that were spilled around are all packed up. The space stands ready for the next business traveler. Someone with pant suits who is similarly tethered back to their desk by email.

I kicked on the small coffeepot in the room and climbed back into bed to read the morning newspaper.  

So, this happened

                                             "...didn't understand me and I did not know why I didn't go..."

A Forest Year

Saying 'Yes"

I was watching this TedX talk by Mark Zmarzly about how our lives are propelled by a series of 'yes' statements. The choice, the decision to say 'yes' can lead to all sorts of places a person couldn't suspect. If our lives are stories then the plot is driven by moments where a person says 'yes' or 'no'. Zmarzly inspired me to be grateful for the times I've said 'yes' recently. 

This morning, for instance, when N asked me at the last minute to come to the Breakfast Cafe at her school. She wanted me to try the pumpkin coffee cake. 

Or curling up in a warm bed with a new book throughout this past snow storm. 

Would I like some whipped cream on my coffee drink?

Would I be available to tag along on a trip in March to Desert Hot Springs?

Saying 'yes' to my cousin's wife, a hairdresser, who offers to help me fix the mop of a bad haircut I've been sporting. 

At the moment any of us says 'yes' we don't, we can't, know where it will take us. It's the optimist in us, I suppose. Embracing the potential of a moment and agreeing to travel in that direction and find out where it leads. 

Pennsylvania Avenue

N's Letter

N joined me in a letter writing campaign against the Keystone XL Pipeline. We mailed off two letters to President Obama.

N received her response letter today. The return address was direct from the White House. She was elated. Bubbled with pride. Read the entire letter outloud three times.

Thank you, Mr. President. It was fun to watch the first firing of her civic mind.

Greening Up Outside

4 miles - Wilderness Park (Lincoln, NE)

Big Day

It's Extraterrestrial Culture Day in New Mexico. Today is also recognized as Fat Tuesday, Abe Lincoln's birthday, International Darwin Day, Pancake Day, and National Lost Penny Day. The President gives the State of the Union address tonight.

Sigh. 

So many reasons to wear my tin-foil hat.

Love On The Run

Photo Credit: The Leekers

This weekend lands the Love On The Run event at Lincoln’s Porridge Papers. The event inspires participants to express their appreciation for the Lincoln community by showing a little love. 

Stop by the store anytime through Sunday. You’ll compose an original love note on one of their antique typewriters. Leave your note with its delivery address at the desk and each one will be hand-delivered by a fleet of volunteers on Valentine’s Day. 

Love On The Run is a weekend long event. Tonight is a ladies only occasion at 6pm. The shop throws open its doors to anyone and everyone tomorrow morning.


Porridge Papers is a handmade paper mill and letterpress studio located at 1422 South St. in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Trickle Down Ecology

  "Trees, how many of 'em do we need to look at?” - President Ronald Reagan

At 220 MPH

California Rail Map/CC BY-SA 3.0

High-speed rail activist and mapmaker, Alfred Twu, envisions a system which connects both rural and urban areas across the country. Twu conceptualized the attached map showing what a cross-country high-speed rail network might look like in the United States. 

Check it out. I could practically see High Speed Rail from my house, here!

His concept stands in bold contrast to the rail network proposal from the Department of Transportation.

Tuesday

There is no good way to deliver bad news. 

I remember breaking up with somebody in high school. I agonized over how to go about it. Should I break up at the beginning of a date? Drive over to his house, have him stand on the front porch and break up with him there? Was a phone call the best way to go? Was there a lengthy note involved?  

The dilemma seems so terribly adolescent now it makes me giggle. In fairness, though, it was the first time I was tasked with delivering bad news. I got a stomach ache. I couldn’t sleep. Spent an hour or so rehearsing how to do it in front of the bathroom mirror. About a week later I stood in the same spot, laced my fingers into the coil of the phone cord, my eyes closed, my face scrunched up, I spoke the same words into the telephone receiver. 

At this point I'm a little more sophisticated in launching and landing bad news. You get better with the nuances over time. It's a pretty natural part of living this long. Still – there’s no good way to go about it. 

With mobile devices we get news of all varieties constantly. Job numbers and test results and pictures of babies being born are one swipe of a smart screen away. So it seems only logical that bad news comes along for the ride. 

I got some yesterday. Bad news. I was driving along with my phone at my ear and, well, there it was. 

I pulled into a vacant parking lot, shut off the car, and talked the news report through to its end. I must have sat there a while, buckled into the seat of my car, after we hung up the phone. I sort of shook around the haze in my brain before driving off and remember feeling glad to have been alone when the news came. There’s no two ways about it: bad news is bad. But when bad news lands when I’m surrounded by store clerks, or grocery store displays, or small kids squabbling in the backseat of the car ahead of me at the gas pump…I don’t know…it’s just too much. 

I got home and, in the quiet house, started dinner. And I was still glad I was alone with the news but had a pang wishing the phone were connected the wall in my kitchen. I wished that news like that would or could only be exchanged between two people connected, at the very least, by cords and wires. Something to lace around my fingers around. I thought it might help to feel like I'm holding on to something.

Love Short

Late January Fog

Three days of mist mixed with drizzle. The air stands still. It smells clean and cold. Objects materialize and disappear at close range. 

I blame the weather for my strange dreams at night. 










_____________________________________________________
Currently Reading: Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
Thoroughly Pleased By: ASAPScience channel on Youtube
Recent Habit: Playing gin rummy with my kid
Quote That Made My Day: 'Never fear, guacamole is here' (Thanks, D.)

Believe In Yourself

Weekend Morning Cocoa with N

2-Mile Challenge

The weather outside shapes my weekend. With the New Year I took up the 2-mile Challenge as my resolution. Evidently 40% of urban car trips are within two miles of a person's house. Ninety percent of those 2-miler trips are done by car. So the Challenge is to walk, bike, skateboard, mass-transit, or otherwise make your two-mile trek without your car keys. 

Most of the time I'm good to go. I'll lace up my shoes to walk to the grocery store, or the mail stop. The library is within two miles. N's school is, too. The entirety of down-town Lincoln. It's not the distance but the weather that makes things more difficult. Particularly this time of year.

For example I'll be standing at the stove and realize I don't have fresh rosemary for this soup, or something. So the first thought is, "dang...rosemary"  but before I venture off to the grocery store, I'll size things up. How cold is it outside? How badly do I need fresh rosemary?

I find this 2-mile challenge is less about scratching out driving, or rosemary for that matter. It's more about making room for other things. Taking the occasion to walk more often. Spending less time couped up inside. Bundling up in mittens or buckling up my rain boots and being part of the weather outside rather than shrinking from it.

Walking pushes past that first wince I'll feel at the weather. That first moment when I'll wince at the cold air. The way I'll clutch my coat closed in the rain or tuck my nose to my chest and shuffle in small, fast steps along the sidewalk.

Walking opens up that second hit of the weather outside. The one that comes on more gradually as I'll relax and my body warms up a little. The cold doesn't feel so cold. The rain doesn't feel so harsh. When was the last time you splashed around in puddles? Or noticed the way the snow bounces up from around your boots?

Green Sweet Spot

I'm hard pressed to think of a more pleasant surprise than finding something green sitting prettily on the cold, winter ground. Found this one on my morning lap around Wehrspann Lake.

Turkish Delight on A Moonlit Night

We were staring at a World Map. Talking about the geography of the Middle East. The role it played in world religions. N asks about Turkey.

Me: The largest city, Istanbul, used to be called something else. Istanbul was Constantinople.
             N: Why'd they change it?
Me: I can't say.

Les Misérables

Today was the culminating event of ten months of preparation. A matinee of the movie Les Misérables. N was fully primed and ready to be my date.

We had rented the soundtrack. We discussed the plot, the central dilemmas. The musical score introduced N to the idea that good music, like literature, works thematically.  We studied up (a little) on the struggle of poor people in 19th century in France. Saw a stage production. Caught a couple of sneak peeks of the movie via YouTube. We were ready.

Today we sat transfixed through the whole film. Left the movie theater in tears. Sang loudly all the way home.  

1.3.13

Thanks, D.

Our house assembled a lazy gathering of friends and family to celebrate the New Year. It was the sort of occasion where you cast the net especially wide with the invitations, set a table, brew some coffee and sit back to see what happens. 

At one point I counted six people sitting in the front room. If I were to combine the time I've shared with those people the number stood at about 96 years. 

Numbers like that, familiar faces like these, our kids clanging around upstairs together made me consider my good fortune. Happy New Year.