Aspects

little bits and pieces of the past month

My life is so full with work, parenting, house-keeping and garden …it’s bursting at the seams. Hard to believe that once, long ago, I was confused and lost at where to go and what to do.

Each photo today shows a little snapshot of my current life.

Photo 1. Here I am balancing on a ball in a side plank. If you’ve ever checked out my Instagram, you know that I’m a sucker for arm balance. I often wonder how much longer I’ll be able to do these balancing antics. And then I remember, why not into my 90’s? Reminds me of a story my daughter told me yesterday about a woman who recently won an ultra marathon. Like 300 miles or something like that. As she was running she kept thinking to herself: Why not me?

Photo 2. And moving on to my backyard. Spring feels weird. Like everything came out too fast. This huge tree that shades our yard from across the fence never seemed to get “spring green” leaves-and already they seem to be turning a fall like color. I try not to think about it too much.

Photo 3. A bluejay and her mate always come to my studio door looking for peanut handouts. Sometimes they stand at the door like they are clients waiting to come in and workout. All my clients know the jay couple and that I’ll pause a session to throw a peanut. So what happened was, the couple had kids. Three of them in fact, in a brilliantly constructed nest in our lemon tree. I was instantly concerned about the baby Jays and kept our bedroom door open at night so we could hear any predators in the tree. I really worried about this and that - such as: was the mom feeding the babies enough and was there enough room in the nest for all three babies as they grew. Then the other day when I was in the garden, the mom came along and was kind of hopping around here and snapping up bugs and things. Soon enough, she jumped up on a chair nearby and I had this odd feeling that she was communicating with me - mind to mind. What she said to me was this: “Hey weirdo: stop worrying about the babies. Birds are descendants from dinosaurs - there’s good reason we’ve survived for 150 million years. I would say I kind of know what I’m doing, okay? I appreciate the peanuts and the assistance on the lookout for predators, but don’t worry so much.
Message received.

Photo 4. I love my garden and because I don’t have a drip system, it keeps me out there watering and checking in nearly every day. I am looking forward to (hopefully) seeing results in cucumbers, tomatoes, and maybe even melons. Lots of other stuff growing too- too much to list. The trick is, to keep critters from taking free handouts!.

Photo 5. Lastly… here’s something cool- after several long years away from my beautiful guitar and wondering if I would ever write again, I got on an unexpected writing spree about a month ago, several songs poured out and I started up the studio again last week. I always think I’ll never write again, and then I always do. I’m really excited about these songs because they came like a tidal wave- absorbing a lot of my experience of the last two years which have been, quite frankly, a little challenging.

With the birth of these new songs I could feel difficulty blooming into something useful. I was reminded of the power of art and its role as transmuter. These songs are already shifting energy in my life. I am very thankful and excited to, when the time comes, share these songs with you. If you happened to ask me what’s been up in my life the last years- I likely won’t share - as I’ve mentioned here several times, it’s not all my story to tell. However the songs will do a good job of sharing more. You’ll have to stay tuned.

In closing, I think about again how this Substack space - which was supposed to once be more instructional has instead become a place of refuge for me where I can share aspects of my journey. Thanks for being here. We’ll see what comes around the bend.

XO