tenderness is mighty

When I was very young I became separated from my mom in a Home Depot type store. I remember the acute anxiety I felt the minute I discovered I was lost. This was not alleviated by the loud beeping noises of the indoor fork lifts, bright lights, and endless aisles of vacancy and lumber. Finally a kind person who saw me sniveling led me up to the front, an announcement was made over the loudspeaker, and I was happily returned to my mother. When she later inquired why I hadn't asked someone for help, I said it was because I knew it was a do-it-yourself store so I thought I had to figure it out on my own.

True to the adage, old habits die hard.

I perambulated through the teenage years and young adulthood struggling to find the answer to what I thought was the first big question of life, "What should I major in?" The answers to the inner struggles were even more elusive. After flailing around on my own I consulted a therapist who didn't have the answers, and then became a therapist who didn't have the answers. Now I think we are here to learn the answers for ourselves but not by ourselves. There is maybe nothing more comforting or helpful than when after recounting your story to a friend, you hear the reassuring response of, "Yes, I know. I have that stamp to Crazytown in my passport." Our stories are a way to find that uniquely common thread that links us to humanity. But that thread remains invisible if we hide in fear or shame and do not reach out to one another with our vulnerabilities. I saw it written somewhere that tenderness is mighty. I am choosing to believe it's true.

her

Yesterday I had the absolute pleasure of attending my friend Tracie Hanson's book launch party for the release of Her: These Stories Are True...Even If They Aren't. Isn't that a wonderful title? Her is a collection of inspiring short stories about fabulous women that Tracie and her mother, Caroline Bell, collaborated on. Tracie and Caroline are artists who share a studio and both exude the kind of warmth, humor, and charm that make you want to pull up a chair with a cup of tea and sit enraptured for the afternoon. Peering into Tracie's sketchbooks is one of my favorite things (her work adorns the cover) and the briefest encounter with her leaves me inspired.

the extraordinary comfort of an ordinary day

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure that you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you  depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. - Mary Jean Irion

* candle from Zena Moon and mala beads from Tiny Devotions

the desert and the ocean

Dad and his sister Ginny, Santa Monica, 1940ish

After visiting a week in Arizona with family and friends, we returned Sunday night to the wide welcoming ocean and the tiny house filled with books, music, and tea, that we call home. Yesterday was spent upacking, doing laundry, going for a much needed run in the sunny breeze and restocking the fridge with favorites from Trader Joe's. Somewhere along the way I opened Faulkner's, Light in August, and surrendered a couple of hours to it.

Our time in Arizona offered smeared pink lipstick sunsets, crowded conversations around my mother's dining room table, and slumber in the bedroom where the lavender floral wallpaper I chose at age nine still remembers me. Desert rains bestowed the purified scent of baptized greasewood and sage. My mom's daily crossword puzzle habitually kept on the kitchen table for all to contribute. A visit with siblings to my dad's grave where exclamatory palo verde trees were shouting yellow. Spiny crimson tipped ocotillos and hollow saguaros also filled in the desert landscape. We removed the faded artificial flowers someone with good intentions had left by the headstone as they seemed anathema to his deep appreciation of nature. Back at the house I studied those five giant pines swaying in the front that he planted from five gallon containers when I was a little girl roller skating in the carport. I remembered the echo of our silly knocks back and forth on the wall separating the bathrooms as we got ready to go somewhere.

This beachside neighborhood of ours was also my dad's home once. He grew up one street over in a house with his mother and sisters after he lost his own father. He and my aunt brought me here one time, almost twenty years ago. I couldn't believe they had lived so close to the ocean - a dream for a girl from the Arizona desert who fancied herself a mermaid. I like to think he'd be happy to know I'm here now. I like to think he may have had something to do with it.

notes for future camping trips

Don't even bother with gluten free marshmallows, bring brownies instead.

Flip flops in the shower are a must.

If your really looking to get away from it all, midweek camping rocks.

Squirrels will eat tulips. They don't care what you say.

Check out a library book about the constellations.

Pack lightly.

Reserve a campsite with good hammock trees.

Always bring scrabble.

Learn to use your DSLR already, so you don't miss those bluebird shots the next time.

Savor it all.