A Weekend Away

We're back after a long weekend out at the cabin. Time was filled with exploring, cooking, family, friends, eating, exploring, a healthy interest in peeing in the potty, and more eating. The weather never seemed to want to stay sunny long enough to go swimming but we did make some new friends.


Alder's party was fun. The low effort recipe I decided on had me running off at 7 am on 4th of July to find panchetta over 30 miles away (hey I'm not one to skimp on a recipe), followed by covering the house with flour looking for places to dry noodles (did I mention how low effort this meal was?). But it all came together was people arrived. Alder even had a few friends to run up and down the hill and jump off of rocks.

But being back home I'm ready to start on the next project... oh wait I haven't mentioned that yet, I'll elaborate tomorrow.

love notes

Keep close to yourself.
In my other words, continue to honor that beautiful creature, you. Every thought, action and project that defines you is worth your time and undoubtedly is right. Again, not the right words but I'm trying to say that you are definitively distilling you. You are so dear. I love you.

Whose day could not cheer up after receiving that in an email from a dear friend across the country?

In the Mail

The other day, when I was feeling unsure about the world, what with another day of rainy sleet. My day was turned around when the mailman showed up with only two pieces of mail. Both we for me, hand addressed and both full of love.

A note of condolence to our family because of Bancha. There son, 5 years old said "All cats go to the cat kingdom...so there."


Amanda from The Rowdy Pea sent this great package of paper goods with a spring time theme.

After I opened the mail the day seemed so much better.

Evening Lights

It's 5:30 and it still is light out. I'm sitting alone in the shop finishing the weeks worth of redecorating and feeling really good about the direction things are going. Starting next week we are going to be open Wednesday nights 4 -9 for Open Craft Night. Even our house seems more hospitable lately.

I've been having lapses of newness lately. We've met a few people so far but really our social life revolves around the monthly long weekends when my family is at their cabins. I get shy around new people that I like, give me a stranger who I'm indifferent to or dislike I can talk their ear off. But if they are someone I think that I might like to know, really know, it takes a while to warm up to them.

Really since we've been here we've only met one couple who we spend a lot of time with, they are pretty different than us and I would have never thought we would have gotten on so well but we have fun with them and Alder is in love with their daughter. I was beginning to feel badly about how few people we can count as even casual friends, but then today Kevin invited another couple to dinner next week and then another couple came by the shop and invited us to Shabbat dinner tonight (they're both Rabbis) at their farm house. So the sun is returning and it is bringing new acquaintances with it.

So dear friends on that note I will wish you all good night so I can finish a little more cleaning before we head out for dinner.

quick post from New York to share love

I'll write about the trip when I get home but I had to share some love I just received. Trish over at C'est Bon has been busy and I feel really amazed that her attentions are going to our shop. Now if I just could get her and that man of hers to come out and visit. Trish we love you, and we have a guest room.

There are but a few of these in life...and they must not be missed

I spent this morning with a good friend of mine named Bliss (short for Elizabeth). Bliss is an amazing woman I met during my student teaching in Durango almost ten years ago. She was the librarian and media specialist at a wonderful school called COL (who was closed by the school district). Our friendship bloomed from their because of our interests in community, the way people think and the excitement of life. We also filled a space in each other's lives, her as a vaguely maternal figure, me as the daughter she had not had (she has two sons).

But my meeting of Bliss isn't as simple as running into a woman at the school I was working at. It all had to do with a series of choices that I had made. Choices that did not seem too big a deal when I made them but who ended up changing my life in drastic ways. They were the magic moments that were gifted to me by the spirits. The sort that no amount of guessing would have thought where they would have led. The first one was a little bigger than the rest.

1) Before the age of email I had just graduated college and was spending my summer at my parent's cabin in the Hill Towns of Massachusetts working as a house painter. Everyday at lunch I would walk to the post office and back to pick up the mail. I had four or five friends who I was writing with consistently, so there was always something for me to pick up. I had just written a letter to a close friend from my childhood how I did not have any real plans now that I was graduated, that I only knew what I did not want to do. A few days later I received a response suggesting that I first come visit her in northern Minnesota that summer and then move out west with her the coming fall. By the time I had walked the mile home I had already mentally packed my boxes for moving. Incidentally, this woman is Alder's god-mama.

2) A few years later I had gone back to school in Durango to get my teaching certification. We were all supposed to find our own placements in schools, which were limited by how isolated Durango is. I happened to be flipping in the phone book and came upon a listing for Community of Learners Charter School, I had done an internship at a charter school during college and decided to call this school. They were immediately open to me coming to work with them and it was there that I was introduced to some of my favorite writers and thinkers (John Holt, Edward O Wilson, David Orr, Janet Luhrs to name a few) as well as meeting many amazing people like my friend Bliss.

3) When on my first date with my husband, which was a blind date and I was somewhat doubtful of the whole thing, I decided to climb a tall tree that we were passing. The trees in the valley where we were hiking were tall strait ponderosa pines with lots of ladder like branches. I figured that if he follow up the tree he might be worth my effort, on the other hand if he had stayed on the ground I would have a clear idea that this was a one time thing. Well he followed me up that tree (you knew that was coming didn't you?)

4) Most recently we were looking through the phone book here in Vermont and found another acupuncturist in a town not too far away, their add said that the business was both an acupuncture office and tea house. We went up to meet the people, figuring that if they didn't seem like nice people we would have just pretended to have read the sign for tea. That's how we met our new "Tuesday Friends" a week later Kevin was visiting with them and discussing our new business and they suggested that he should open in a visible location in town and maybe have something in addition to the practice to get people to come in to the building.

That's were Seven Mountain came from, an idea that was formed fully in a matter of moments in my mind when I heard this idea. Now our life has this amazing momentum towards ... well actually we don't know towards what but we committed to this idea that really fits so well with everything in our lives and thoughts. Okay, there is part of this that isn't true, we are generally not shoppers but we figured that we would make a shop where everything in it we would be willing to have in our own home and that we would know, as much as possible, the person who made them.

Do you have any of these small/monumental moments in your life? I'd love to hear about them.

Phew, well now that you've struggled through all that writing I'll end by saying that we're off to spend time with family and friends for the next few days. Enjoy your weekend.

And now we have Tuesday friends

Ahh week day friend... in Denver we had our Thursday friends, who we still love dearly. Now it seems that we have made Tuesday friends. An even three and three, this time Alder gets to be the big kid, by four months. But they are weekly friends, which makes them special in my book. As a kid we had another family that we would have dinner with every Thursday. It would be the two families and who ever from the anthropologist seminars wanted to join in. They were late nights filled with voices that I would drift off to on a blanket in the corner of the dinning room of either home.

At the Gardens

It was a day of firsts and lasts. We went to the Botanic Gardens with our Thursday friends for the last time this morning. We found an out of the way garden with only one gate and let the kids run around while we sat and talked. We biked over from their house and didn't have strollers, Alder was happy to walk everywhere. This is one of those things that I have been dreaming of since he was born to walk with him holding hands rather than pushing him or carrying him.

20 Days What Weekends are Made For

This weekend was full of all the goodness summer weekends are supposed to be. It started with a wonderful heavy rainstorm that lasted all the way through dinner with friends on Friday night. Saturday morning was cool and smelled of rain. I caught and hour of time alone drinking coffee and reading on the deck of a cafe, a rare treat.







There's Kevin at the back of the boat looking at the shore

Later that morning the three of us headed down the hill to Sloan's Lake for the Dragon Boat Festival. Kevin was on his school's team "The Flying Tigers". As our neighbor who is a member of the local Toaist society 'he came in second twice'. But they did okay for a team of 18 who only practiced once. That evening we lazily watched 'Superstar' and laughed a lot.

Sunday Grandma and Aunt Karen took Alder to watch Kevin race again while I spent the day with Alder's godmama having a nice Sunday brunch and going to the Earth Works Expo. Well the expo was disappointing but getting to spend time together before the move was wonderful. We moved out here to Colorado together almost twelve years ago.

30 Days The memories packing brings

I spent the morning packing boxes and listing stuff on Craigslist. At one point I was going into the closet to pull my husbands sweaters and glanced at my side of the closet. And this is what I saw.
I love how it is full of flowery shirts. This has been a long process. I grew up in a house where clothing was usually navy blue and tan or gray and white. My mother's taste tended towards tweeds and denim while my father wore a business suite or Chinos with a navy blue tennis shirt everyday. My clothes were either hand me downs from older friends or bought along the lines of their tastes. As I grew older they felt like my own.

But I remember spending hours looking a catalogs with dresses and shirts with flowery patterns and light colors. I would wander through the neighborhood dress shops like some people do jewelry stores. But when it was time for a new dress they were usually very dignified or casual.

Slowly after I left home more feminine clothing entered my wardrobe but I still preferred blacks, blues and greens, and nothing to girly. It wasn't that I didn't like the colorful stuff it was just that I felt awkward wearing it.

After I meet my husband I was introduced to a new palette of colors for clothing. He wore oranges and browns and light blues. Since we were fairly close in size I found myself in his t-shirts and button downs often. It was a slow process but I eventually added more light colors to my closet. But the dresses and skirts and flowery prints still eluded. Then we moved to Denver where the summers are hot (I know I've mentioned this before) and so I started to wear skirts on hot days and well they've drifted into my life and I have begun to love them.
The flowers came along slowly first in blues then broadening. Until now the closet bursts with colors.

But I was trying to tell a story. Last Fall a childhood friend came for a week. We were getting ready to go out for a nice dinner and for fun I asked her to choose me clothing, like she used to years before. Before we got to my room she told me that I should wear something flowery, as a joke. She was surprised to see my closet and me causally saying 'but which one'.

My family is still surprised when they see me in anything other than jeans and t-shirts or some women's version of a male piece of clothes. The funny thing is if I map this change in wardrobe I see that it follows a more complex line of changes in me as a person. As I have become more confidant with who I am I have felt more at ease in my body and therefore more willing to wear different colors.

In a lot of ways I can thank Kevin for a lot of these changes. He has always been supportive of my choices and he never expects less of me since I am a woman. Yet he revels in my womanness. With this support I have been able to pursue the things that are important to me and not worry that he might be critical. Knowing that he is there loving me has allowed me to become more of who I am. From starting a non-profit to wearing dresses.

hmm... I think I'll go kiss him.

Hints of Summer

Drive Way Potlcuk 1
Originally uploaded by Ink Spots

Project Day

P1010004
Originally uploaded by Ink Spots

Looks of productivity going on today. In the morning I worked on another book cover embroidery, edited four articles, wrote one review and started one article.

In the afternoon Alder and I went over to Trish's house for Chinese food and working on another project (it is secret until it's done). I am not a sewer, yet, so working over at Trish's is better. She has a whole sewing room set up. I love the space with it's bright walls and natural light.

Alder was a really good side kick today. I try not to have too many days where he only tags along but I had been putting off a lot of this stuff and it needed to get done. By the end of the day he was weepy and tired.

Luckily papa was getting home at the same time as we were so we had a family cuddle until he drifted off to sleep. Right now he's asleep in the bed in is overalls. A worn out boy.

Inspiration

Amy and Trish 2005
Originally uploaded by Ink Spots.

I was sitting working on another sewn cover for a book thinking about how exciting and satisfying it is to work on projects like this and to finish them (not always my strong suit). But over the past few years I have been inspired by these two women to focus on my projects. It isn't anything they have said to me just the example that they have set for me. But they aren't just tireless artists they are amazing women who I love spending time with. They have become some of the people who I have connected closest with in Denver. I will miss them a lot when we go. But they are the sort of friends that don't disappear because of distance.

note: a year ago trish stopped smoking but the picture is one of my favorites so I had to use it.

Friendships

I spent the day with my friend Kate I have known since we were five. In fact we moved to Colorado together ten years ago and she is Alder's godmother. There is something about spending time with someone who has known you for so long that is so natural.

She lives up in the mountains so we don't get to see each other too often. Today she had to come to Denver for errands. The sort of errands that are better if someone tags along. So I offered to be that person.

We headed over to Bud's which is the local construction thrift store to find windows for a cold frame she's making for her garden. Bud's is one of those places you can get lost in for hours (which we did) and find all sorts of things you don't need (which we didn't).

After sifting through hundreds of newer double paned windows (no good because they filter UV) we found two old single paned window hiding in a dark corner (literally since they only light the center of the warehouse). This sort of excursion is a classic Kate and I thing to do.

We have been going on adventures together since we were allowed to go outside without an adult. We've climbed mountains together, been chased by crazy cows, found secret books store, and many other things. In the last few years our lives have been busy and our adventures are fewer.

Still it was great to have a few hours to spend with her (we also went for a walk along the river).

Lots of craft and a poem

Alder is nine months old today. In theory this should be the point when we could say "Oh look he's now been outside of me for as long as he was inside of me." But of course that is not true. This little boy of ours isn't one for rushing things. He likes holding on and being held. So much so that he hung out in my belly baking just a little longer. So while he is nine months old today we have another three weeks almost until his even.

So what did I do to celebrate? I took the day off!

Since Alder has been born I have not spent time alone with another adult. The days that I have had off I usually am writing or doing errands. But today I spent with my friends Trish. She is a sewer extraordinare and has been trying to teach me to sew for about a year.

Todays project was a dress. We spent half the time at the fabric stores and the other cutting and sewing. By five the dress wasn't done so I came home empty handed but we have another date to finish it on Wednesday.

Speaking of projects I seem to be in project mode. I'm finishing the felted bag for my MIL and Kevin's sweater. There is a sweater that I want to knit for myself (the first one I haven't given away), and I have a stack of old paperbacks to transform into wallets by next weekend.

It feels good to be making things!

And a poem for the day

the sky a silver
dissonance by the correct
fingers of April
resolved

into a
clutter of trite jewels


now like a moth with stumbling

wings flutterts and flops along the
grass collides with trees and
houses and finally,
butts into the river

E.E. Cummings

How I Do Mama 2

The story sort of starts with weddings, I am not sure if you did this but when Kevin and I first got engaged and chose a date I briefly got bitten by the wedding bug. I bought into all the stupid things that the magazines said and I wanted the frills and all. Luckily I quickly came back to my senses.

Having a kid is similar, first there is the wait between getting pregnant and having them. Second, there is all the consumer media about what you need to do/ buy for the baby. At first when I was pregnant I mainly thought about names, nothing concrete or committal. But after we moved to 34th Ave and I had to set up a "nursery" and get ready for the baby I started to let my mind drift mainstream. I chose colors and came up with room themes that I wanted (don't laugh) I even pondered a wishing well crib (2000 dollars). The romance of a nursery soon wore out when we decided to cosleep with Alder. After cosleeping and the choice to have a homebirth all the trappings of the soccer/SUV cult dissipated.

But the mainstream culture was soon replaced with the cult of natural parenting and attachment parenting. I envisioned myself spending my days wearing Alder in a sling and breastfeeding until he was four. The funny thing about the natural parenting resources out there they are also filled with consumerism. Sure you are not giving your money to Gerber or Pamper but you are still a market group being sold to. Still I agreed philosophically with the parenting ideas that were espoused (and still do). I wanted my baby (I won't say Alder yet because he was still just baby) to grow up happy independent and loving. But I also imagined him only playing with wooden or handmade toys. Any new parent can tell you that anything that you imagined parenting to be like is a fantasy.

Then came the day I was at the fabric store looking for fabric for the baby's sling. I was very pregnant and it was hot out. The air conditioning was wonderful and I was prolonging my stay in the store. It was then that I met the woman who invited me to join a mother's co-op. What a great idea I thought. So fitting with the ideals I had for my baby. I liked the image of spending hours in someones kitchen as the little ones played on the floor while we made homemade baby food and sipped herbal tea. I could see little Allia (what I called the baby to myself) running with a crew of slightly natty rose kids all in cotton clothes playing together like brothers and sisters.

I even started to go to their Monday playgroup/ discussions before the baby was born. It felt good to be around other mothers. Most of my friends don't have children. Sure I felt like the neighbor girl invited to the sleepover who was not really friends with anyone. But it was good for Adler (he was alive at this stage). I wanted to fit in, to be like. I started doing more with them and volunteering to organize things. As I did more I saw less and lass of my old friends.

Then came my offer to create a creative outlet for mothers. A blog where we could show our arts, writing, and crafts. My offer, that was only there because I wanted external motivation, was rebuked by the "leaders" as trying to steal their email list. That I was trying to duplicate their group, and somehow steal their idea. I even felt the need to diplomatically explain myself, making sure I dropped all sorts of platitudes towards the groups "leaders". Their reply was something about wanting to process this misunderstanding as a group.

Process, that word annoys me. It usually involves some amount of sharing secrets that have nothing to do with the issue at hand, a good deal of tears related to childhood wrongs, and still I would somehow end up apologizing. Perhaps that is bitter of me, but I have never been invited to process anything with out it really turning into a veiled excuse to dump on one person while others stroke their own egos (usually very fragile ones hiding in vocabulary). Process to me means that people want you to change and listen but they do not want to change or even hear what you are saying. Of course I am excluding all the wonderful versions of process; like the process of making a book or baking bread, I am talking only about the discussion sort of process.

Luckily for me just as the beginnings of the processing I was heading to New York. It is funny how being around people who have known you for a long time puts things into perspective. As I spent time with my family having fun and having interesting conversations an idea began to form in my head. I would never be friends with most of these women except that we happened to have children of approximately the same age. There was no herbal tea in kitchens.

Then, while I was still in New York, there was another spate of emails about misunderstanding. Again the same people were the ones offended. People that I liked left the group. Here I was with people who I love spending time with and what could I tell them about the people I had been hanging out with? Someone asked and then the words came to me. They seemed like lonely women who had always wanted to be popular and had now created their own forum where they were the popular ones. My move to volunteer is no different than the high school girl who helps with the prom to hangout with the popular girls (not that we even had a prom at Friends). When I said this out loud to my cousin I realized then that I needed to leave the group.

I do not really think badly of these women. They are filling a need by creating this co-op, but it doesn't fill any need for me. I know enough people with children for Alder to see other children once or twice a week. For me I need to be around friends who are interested in things that I am. I really do need to be around other artists or just other people who I like for themselves. So I left the group, and Alder and I have become busier since then, there are people to have coffee with, libraries to explore, walks to go on (alone and with friends). Also I am happier, I can focus on Alder more as well as me. I love my son and he has done much to enhance my life but he has not changed me to some other "mommy" creature. I am still the same Stacey, maybe a little calmer, but still me.

How I Do Mama

I've tried to write something for the last few days but I've been struggling. During the day I narrate these great piece to myself but when I sit down here I can't seem to phrase things the way they sounded earlier. Partially it's that my mind is cluttered. I've been thinking about the business and moving, but now I'm focusing on writing again in my mind. I also just decided to go to my 15th High school reunion.

I think it's the reunion that really has been playing the most havoc on my brain. I keep imagining conversations that might happen. My voice always seems defense about the life I have chosen or deliberately vague. For the most part these are people who I like and who I still think about sometimes. But most of them are still in New York doing the city thing with careers and social lives that include things like clubs where you can't where any shoes you want (Amanda quote).

I think of my life here and I see days of long city walks with Sam fading into dancing at the High Dive in definitely inappropriate clothes. These images turn to endless Sunday projects at Jenna's or potlucks at our old apartment. All of it is low key. Perhaps there might some dressing up to go to a First Friday or out to eat but mainly it's about friends.

That's sort of funny if you think about how scared of people I was when we moved here. I still remember being too afraid to go to Stitch and Bitch even though Zakk had invited me. That was the night I met Amy and Sam two of the people from Denver I am closest too. I still have the green cotton yarn tied to my button hole from the corny idea that one should remember that if things got too annoying in real life there was always Monday nights. That was when all of us had hell jobs.

I'm happy now being mama. I don't think I'm loosing myself in Alder like some of the mothers I've met are. Instead I feel that having him around is making me live up to the comments about myself I make. I can't just say I'm a writer if I'm not writing, nor can I talk about the importance of nature if I just spend my days inside. I think I 've started to do a better job of living up to these things that I want to instill in him.

I used to be afraid that I would be the parent who talked about all the things that she did in the 'old days' but had become a sedintary mainstream mom. I even tried on the dress briefly but it ddn't fit. Mother's groups are not for me. I'm just not a big group person. Besides few of the women in the group did I have anything in common with except that we all happened to have vhildren during the same year.

Instead I'm focusing on friendships I already have. Maybe it would be better for him to see more kids. He does get his weekly dose of Lucero and it seems at least once a week we end up hanging out with one other baby for a while. It's good, when he gets a little older and more mobile life will become more social. The snow might stop by then and we can do the playground thing. Right now were focusing on being us.

Most of my friends do not have children. One commented how most of her friends who did have kids moved to the suburbs and bought the SUV. She said it as a compliment. WHat I don't tell her is that having Alder means that I exactly can't do those things even more so than before. I wouldn't last a week in a cookie cutter crapshack in a neighborhood isolated from the world. My sanity comes from the long adventures Alder and I take on the bus and by foot, they come from taking him to concerts and festivals, galleries and libraries. If he is going to grow up curious and unafraid he has to be exposed to the world that we live in.

A few years ago I was at my mother-in-laws and she had a beautiful picture book on the table. It was the story of Ceasar Chavez's life. She saw it sitting there and explained to me that she had originally bought it for my niece (7) but decided not to give it to her because she thought the niece was too young to know that there were hardships like those which he fought against in the world. I held my tounge but it made me wonder what that meant for someone who becomse an adult with so many holes in their perception.

I understand wanting to keep children safe from scary and dangerous things but there is also value in showing them the world and helping them to digest what they are seeing. To let them form opinions and ask questions. When I do expose him to these things it isn't to scare him but to show him the whole of our world.

I don't want him to think that the Little Mermaid really ends happily ever after, it doesn't but Hansel and Gretel does. Life has goods and bads.

wow I think I'm done.

Out with the monkeys

Last week Annalouiza and I took went wandering with Lucero and Alder. They were both "monkeyed out" I got a few pictures for those of you who are picture hungry. Note: the first picture is not Alder it's Lucero his partner in crime, Annalouiza's daughter.

From Alder and Luc...

From Alder and Luc...

From Alder and Luc...

From Alder and Luc...