7 chicks

Our hen ended up having 7 chicks, including Lucky who survived thanks to Ed. She was sitting on 15 eggs, but 8 of them were not fertilized. Here are some pics of mama and the chicks. They are really cute, all fuzzy and stuff....

maybe this is Lucky? we're not sure...i hate to admit it, but they all kind of look the same....and none is particularly attached to ed...

peace

the hollow

one day last week we decided to go to mansfield hollow and spend some time by the lake. it was a gorgeous day, and i brought some snacks as well as a change of clothes. this was a good idea, since the kids got soaked, and then cold, so i was able to change them, and everyone was happy. we had our snacks and then sena and aiyana played in the sand on their own for a couple of hours. i did yoga and just sat nearby enjoying the beauty and solitude of the place. i could not believe how well things went and how much fun we had just doing nothing. i had no books, no games, nothing to entertain them with, and yet they entertained themselves playing with sand, water, rocks, grass, and other things they found laying around, for over 2 hours. i love being outside, and it's great that we live in a place whenre it's so easy to do stuff like this. here are some pics:

walking to the beach


a hug on the way


sena, making a nest in the sand, using dried grass


peace

Don Juan

how amazing is this fall! the trees are so beautiful right now, i can barely stand it. i don't even feel like taking pictures that's how beautiful they are... i just want to sit and look, just be here in this presence...

it's sunny, and the trees seem to be on fire. the birds are still chirping, and once in a while, geese fly overhead, honking. there's still plenty of fresh food in the garden; last night, we juiced some apples from our tree, and at the last minute, i threw a few parsley sprigs in. it was delicious. what a treat!

since we decided to go to Ixtlan, several people have mentioned a book by Carlos Castaneda, called "journey to ixtlan". i borrowed it from the library, and i'm about half-way through it already. i like it a lot, and want to share the following passage, which resonates:

"for you, the world is weird because if you're not bored with it you're at odds with it. for me the world is weird because it is stupendous, awsome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been to convince you that you must assume responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this marvelous desert, in this marvelous time. i wanted to convince you that you must learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it." (spoken by Don Juan, p107).

i'm drawn to this idea of taking responsibility for my life, and being aware of every act. Don Juan speaks of death as being our closest and wisest advisor, in the sense that if you keep death in focus, and if you live your life knowing that you're mortal, knowing that it may end at any moment, then your living and your being will take on a very different quality. i guess it comes down to not taking anything for granted, which of course, is very hard to do.

today though, with this gorgeous weather, i find it particularly easy to appreciate the beauty of life, and be grateful for it.

honey

ed, sena and aiyana did honey extraction yesterday. they got about 23lbs from our hive. enough to last us till springtime, i hope. thank you little bees!

chicks

our hen has been brooding for the past 3 weeks, and finally, yesterday, when i checked the coop in the morning, i saw that 3 out of her 15 eggs had already hatched. i went to the house for sena and aiyana, and together we watched two more chicks poke tiny beaks out of their eggs, trying to crack the shell and break out. by the end of the day, we had 5 chicks, but one wasn't doing so well, since he hadn't been able to break out of the shell completely, and he was stuck. also, the hen seemed to have abandoned him, so he was cold, and by the time ed brought him in the house, he seemed dead. but then ed revived him with some heat, and he started peeping. after a few hours of heat, ed put him back in with the hen, and he survived. we called him Lucky.

the kids and i really enjoyed watching the chicks hatch. i feel grateful that we can learn so much by seeing things like this in our back yard, instead of only through books.

here's Lucky warming up under ed's shirt, before going back to his mom in the coop:

birthday, etc

last week, we spent a beautiful morning at bakerwoods


on saturday, we celebrated aiyana's birthday with the family


sena was very helpful to aiyana in opening presents....


yesterday, aiyana went for a new look...


yesterday afternoon, we napped outside in the sun. what a treat!


peace

Happy Birthday Aiyana!

today is Aiyana's birthday.
it's very moving for me to think back to her birth, and all the changes that have taken place since then. it's been such an amazing journey, and i feel honored and overjoyed to have her and Sena in my life.

here are some pictures from her birth, October 5th 2005:

this is me, in labor under the apple tree, with my midwives by my side


and here is the first time sena met aiyana. it was about an hour after the birth, and sena was very excited; she loved aiyana's little toes...


aiyana was 1 day old here


and here she is now...


what a ride!

peace

the secret life...

i'm reading a book that's totally blowing me away: "the secret life of plants". i feel like it's clarifying so many things for me, making them come together simply and powerfuly. this book is about plants, animals, people, the soil, the universe and the intertwining ways in which we are all connected. it has added more to my understanding of God and Life than anything i've read in a long time. i strongly recommended it to anyone, because it's not just about plants, as the title might suggest, but about the soul of life.

this morning, laughing

aiyana was asking me about uncle Chris, if he'll be coming over this afternoon, and i said no, because he's working. then she thought a little and said "dada working, grampa working, uncle chris working...men are working". she continued "no women working".
i said "what do women do"? she said "stay home".
"what do they do at home?" i asked. she replied very sure of herself: "take naps and drive places".
that sums up, in her view, what i do. i kind of like it. i had to laugh.

a short while later, we were preparing to go out. it's a little chilly and windy today, cooler than it's been recently. sena was getting ready, and she asked me for a sweater. i gave her one, then she wanted another one, and a vest. when i acted surprised, she said "i have to be weather-tight". wheather-tight? where did she come up with that? i laughed so hard. i'm going to have to use it from now on. i love it. she said that she got it from one of her favorite books "children of the forest".

thanks to my girls for making me laugh so much today.

Mexico, here we come

bought plane tickets to Oaxaca, December 4th to January 20th. very exciting... now i'm just reading and doing research on stuff to do while we're there. the kids are excited too; we've been getting bilingual books out of the library (english-spanish) and we're all reading them, preping for the trip.

answers to my questions

just after i posted my last message, i headed to the library to pick up my kids (my sister had themfor the morning), and ran into a woman from Mexico.... i know her daughter from one of my friends who babysits her, and that's how we started talking.
this woman is here on a sabatical (she works with UConn), and i told her about wanting to go to Mexico. she said she has a friend from Oaxaca, and gave me his email. i wrote to him, and already got a reply, so i have two leads for places to check out: Ixtlan de Juarez, in the mountains, and Mazunte, by the beach. both sound amazing, so i'll do some more research to figure out which one to go to...
maybe we'll go to both?
i love how things work out sometimes....

oaxaca?

i've been spending time over the past few weeks planning a trip to mexico, and it's been pretty exciting. we want to go in december, and plan to spend about 6 weeks there. i've been doing research to find out what would be a good spot for us to go to, and so far, i've settled on the state of Oaxaca.

i still need to find out a lot of info, before we go...it's not at easy as before kids, when we'd just get on a plane and go, and figure out the rest once we got there. now, i feel like i should at least know some basic info as to how safe the place is, and how suitable for doing things with kids. also, ed wants to take language classes, either in some kind of school or with a private tutor, so i want to make sure that that is available wherever we end up going. Oaxaca sounds good, although Oaxaca city itself sounds too big for our interests. we'd prefer to find a smaller place, preferably not too touristy, where we can settle down and enjoy the local life for the short time we have there. we plan to do some side trips as well, and there seems to be no shortage of places to see in the region.

my challenge right now is trying to figure out where to go after we get to Oaxaca city. there are tons of small villages in the area, but i can't find any info as to language classes, accomodations, or what kind of stuff there is that i can do with the kids....

i'll keep looking, but if anyone reading this has any info, could you please let me know?

some things i'm happy about

we've just had the most gorgeous weather lately! i can't get enough! i want to be outside as much as possible, take it all in...
so i am really excited these days, and it's for several reasons other than the weather:

first, the kids and i have been having a great time just doing our daily stuff. sena and aiyana have been playing well together (lately their favorite game is one in which aiyana is either a horse or a dog - there's much argument before deciding which one - and sena is a farmer); when they're not playing we've been doing little projects together. yesterday, for example, sena wanted to write a book, and i helped her. aiyana joined in and made her own book. sena's book is 6 pages long. first, she illustrated each page, and then, with my help, wrote the text. i suggested that we do one or two sentences per page, but she had a lot to say, so it ended up being more like a paragraph for the first few pages. she told me what she wanted to write, and i helped her figure out how to spell it, by sounding out the words. it went really well at first, but after about half hour, we both got tired and started to get frustrated. my thing is that when we're doing something, if it's not fun, we should stop doing it, so i tried to suggest that we stop and continue the next day, but she was really into it.... so we finished the page she was working on, and continued the rest today. aiyana only illustrated her book; she wanted to write something too, but she can't write any words yet, so she only made an "A", and an "O". anyway, they were both really proud and excited with their books when they were done today, and i am really excited too. it was a lot of fun, and i learned something as well: to respect their short attention span, as well as my own feelings.

the other thing i'm very excited about is our garden. last tuesday was fall equinox, and it got me thinking about what we grew and how it turned out. it's been so great having a garden, and this year was more productive than last. we are still learning a lot, of course, and probably will be for a long time. eating food that we grew ourselves has been pretty amazing (i say we, but really ed did all of the farming work, and i did mostly picking and cooking)... i still can't get over the "miracle" of a perfect pepper, or a tomato, or whatever it is that grows, seemingly, out of the dirt. i find it really humbling to think about what it took to grow our food, the soil, the water, the sun, the seed, our work, and how all of that combined and intertwined to produce something that sustains us. when i cook food from our garden, i feel like it's an act of reverence, and i do so with much more awareness and respect than i used to in the past. you know that saying "you are what you eat", i never quite got it before, but now i do. when i eat kale, for example, i feel that all of the things that it took for the kale to grow and flourish are now becoming part of me, and so i feel not only nourished, but more connected to everything around me - the earth, the sun, the water...

i made a list of everything we planted this year, and commented about what, if anything, we'd like to do differently in the future. here's what it looks like:

kale: this has been an amazing crop, it sustained us since spring. it's still going strong now;
carrots: had a good crop, but need to plant more; we all love them - the kids, esp. eat them raw out of the ground;
beets: same as carrots; kids eat them like candy;
basil: great, but had too much of it; made pesto and used in cooking;
dill: love it. i cook it in many dishes; the smell of it always reminds me of mamaia's cooking.
parsley: great crop this year;
beans: sena, ed and i love them; plant more next year;
peas: kids love them; had a lot, but could increase next year;
arugula: planted too much this year;
peppers: great, but slugs damaged lots of them before they had a chance to turn red...
zucchini: we didn't plant any this year, but had a volunteer plant which produced quite a bit...plant more next year;
lettuces: great crop, plant a little less maybe next year;
spinach: had enough this year;
tomatoes: great crop this year; froze lots for the winter; plant a little more next year;
corn: definitely need to plant more next year; we only had a about 15 plants, but they did great, and the kids love them.

here's what i think would be nice to add in the future:
potatoes: staple at our house; definitely need some;
onions: this is also a staple; i use them in everything i cook;
garlic: same as onions;
butternut squash: this sustains us during the winter; planted some this year, but all died...
cucumbers: easy crop, but ours didn't come up this year; plant again in the future.

now when i look at this list, i'm amazed at how much we grew (not if i compare myself with most of my friends in CT, only if i consider my background).i'm also amazed that i care about this as much as i do, a "city slicker" like myself, as ed used to call me. but there's definitely something really cool about growing our own food. besides feeling more connected, as i said above, there's also a certain feeling of confidence in doing this. confidence in the sense that we can take care of ourselves, if need be, and don't have to be so dependent on supermarkets and that whole system of food production. having money and being able to buy things is great, but being able to produce our own food feels qualitatively different, somehow more fundamental.

next year i'd also like to get more into preserving food for the winter. this year, i froze tomatoes, which i will cook with, and ed made dried apple chips (which the kids love as a snack); we also dried some herbs, like basil, parsley and dill; but it would be fun to be able to preserve more, maybe do some canning. i haven't had the time to do this yet, but with the kids growing and becoming more independent, things may look different next year.... a root cellar would be great too, for preserving root vegetables like onions, carrots, potatoes, etc., but we'll need to buy a house first i guess.

this is probably way too much info for most people reading my blog. sorry, i got carried away....

Happy Anniversary Joyce and Barry!

it was ed's parents' 40th wedding anniversary this sunday, so we (ed, i, chris and justina) had a surprise party for them. it was fun, especially since they really were surprised and seemed to enjoy themselves seeing so many friends and family.

we took this picture with everyone who was there:

taste organic

every year, we go to a festival called Taste Organic Connecticut. it's all about small organic farmers, and it takes place on a beautiful farm, in Coventry. there is excellent food, great live music, and lots of hanging out with people we know. there are crafts for the kids, a great swing, and lots of space for running around and being silly. this year they even had a singer just for kids, 'Jason the Bumblebee'. my kids loved him, and now ayiana wants him to come to her birthday party (in costume, of course). it turns out that he's a friend of our friends, so maybe i'll be able to arrange it...

anyway, here our some pics from the day:

Sena and Aiyana eating fresh corn-on-the-cob


reuniting with their friend Zephyr


trying out the hoola hoop


and riding in the chariot our friend Johnny made especially for this occasion


and finally, holding Tanah, Zephyr's little sister, while listening to 'jason the Bumblebee'. Sena was really pround of herself for holding Tanah; she was very gentle with her, and told me that she's ready for another baby...


peace

the last time i saw mamaia

what a beautiful time a year! i love it. the sun is still strong during the day, the breeze is cool, the air is clear and comfortable, and the trees are turning their most beautiful colors just before they draw in for the winter. i always get a little melancholy at this time of year. i am flooded with good memories from the past. the cool mornings, the crisp air, the smell of burning leaves bring out scattered memories.

lately, it's been mostly memories of romania and of mamaia. last year at this time, we were in romania, and it was the last time i saw mamaia. i can hardly say that romania is my country any more, i don't even really know what that means. (what, or where, is my country?) but there's definitely something in me that still resonates when i'm in romania, even when i think about it. last year, for instance, i was a little apprehensive about going, especially with 2 small kids. the first night there was awful, and i felt totally out of place. but things got better really quickly, and i really enjoyed the rest of the trip. i felt that inner resonance with places and people, with the food, with different sights, sounds and smells. i felt it especially strong in the countryside, at moeciu, where we spent a few days; and by the end of our trip, i was surprised to find myself thinking that i'd even miss bucharest, with its crowds, traffic and dust.

i saw mamaia for the last time two days before we flew back to the US. we went ot visit some of our relatives together. they set a nice meal for us, and they treated us like honored guests. i think they were especially excited about having ed at their house, and being able to talk to him about different things. we spoke about romania, and about international politics. the conversation mostly took place between my cousin, ed and i. i remember mamaia sitting there with us, asking me to pass her the grapes every once in a while. she loved grapes and they were at their sweetest at that time. she seemed really content to be just sitting there and eating, surrounded by family, listening to a conversation that she could not understand. she was really proud of my cousin for speaking english fluently, for being able to carry out a lengthy conversation with ed. before we left my relatives' house, we took these pictures:



my aunt offered to drive us back home, and we accepted. she drove downtown first, to drop ed, the kids and i off, and then she was going to drive mamia to her house. mamaia, the kids and i were sqeezed in the back seat. we didn't speak much, but i think we all felt comfortable. just as we arrived downtown, we passed a couple of cars stopped on the side of the road, and a group of people standing around, looking. someone was lying on the road, and ed said he was dead. the accident must have just happened, there was barely any traffic... the whole thing disturbed me. i was still thinking about it when my aunt pulled over on the side of the street to let us out. it was a bad spot, kind of in the way of traffic, so i didn't want to keep her there very long. we got out of
the car quickly. i was worried about the kids walking into traffic, so i held on to them really tighlty while we said goodbye. mamaia didn't come out - we just said goodbye, and i closed her door. i don't remember if i gave her a kiss. ed told me that this could be the last time i see her, but i didn't feel like this was a good spot for a lengthy goodbye. my aunt pulled away, and i waved to mamaia. i remember her waving and smiling from the back seat.

the next day, we were supposed to go see my other grandmother, bunica, and them mamaia if we had time. we ended up having a lot of problems with money, so we made it to the nursing home bunica was at, but we never made it to mamaia's. after we got back to the US, i spoke to mamaia, and she said that she was sorry we didn't get to say goodbye properly. she didn't realize that she wouldn't see us again; she said she felt dumb for not coming out of the car to hug us. i told her that it was all good...

so now i'm thinking about all these things again... i'm so glad that we went to romania, and that i got to see mamaia before she died, that she was able to meet sena and aiyana. she seemed so content with life that last day we saw her. so i do feel like it's all good, but i'm still a little nostalgic.

i feel that i will definitely go back to romania someday, but if mamaia's not there, i'm afraid it will feel empty. bunica is still there, so i'd like to visit her again, but i know that seeing us doesn't mean nearly as much to her as it did to mamaia, so there's less pull for me to go. i also think it's going to be weird going to mamaia's apartment, and not having her there. i have so much attachment to her place... i was told that a neighbor still waters mamaia's plants, so they're still alive. i'd like to see them. i'd also like to bring back with me some of mamaia's things. although i don't know if they'd feel out of place at my house...

a little change

in view of respecting everyone's needs, i've been trying something different at night this week. i've been putting the kids to bed as usual (including our reading / story-telling/ song/ and talk-about-our-day routine), and then i've been getting up and hanging out with ed (when i didn't feel too tired). this seemed to be working well, except for the fact that aiyana usually came and joined us 5 minutes after i left the bedroom. this wasn't the original intention, but it actually turned out to be really nice, since aiyana has been very sweet and mellow, and a pleasure to be around at that time of night. she's mostly been doing her own thing after getting out of bed, so ed and i got a little time to talk anyway. i think she just really wants to be with us. another nice thing is that ed got to spend time with her as well, and he seems to really enjoy it.

i still feel like we need to find a way to spend more one-on-one time in our family. sena and i got a few moments alone last night, and it felt good to be together, focused on each other only. she told me that she really missed that...

highlights from this week

what a week! here are some highlights:

on wednesday, i took sena and aiyana to their first gymnastics class. it was so much fun, we all loved it. i really didn't know how it was going to go; aiyana said she didn't want to participate at first, but then, about 1 minute after the class began, she joined right in. the class is really small, 6 kids with 2 coaches. they do one hour of fun stuff, using their bodies and all kids of equipment. the best thing, to me, was having sena and aiyana in the same class. they were so cute together, especially when aiyana was confused about something and sena gently guided or reassured her. i think they both feel more comfortable for being together. i also really liked the coaches, they seemed genuine and caring.

yesterday i went to a full day seminar for MAC. the seminar was called Results Based Accountability (RBA), and it was amazing. it was put together by the people who are funding the community project i'm working on, and it was meant to give people who attended some useful tools to make changes happen in communities. it was really inspiring to be there; there were 30 of us, and people seemed very dedicated and passionate about their work. at one point, i realized that in my 10 years of work at pratt, i don't think i ever felt such a high level of energy and enthusiasm around me. and most of these people are not even being paid, or if they are it's small compared to what the people at pratt were being paid. i guess it's just the nature of the work, and the kind of people it attracts. since there's little or no pay in grass-roots community work, the only thing that will draw you in has to be passion, or genuine interest and concern.

since i've been working with MAC, i also realized how big the discrepancy in funding is between projects like theis one, which are really trying to make a difference in the lives of families and children, which to me is fundamental to the well being of a society, and military projects, for intance. MAC has $40000 to work with, and this is a really big deal; yet i remember that when i was working at pratt on military engines, $40000 was nothing. we rutinely blew more than that on an engine test that took half a day to complete, for example.

it really shows where our priorities lie as a society. or maybe its just shows that people don't know/care/understand? i don't know...

so the seminar was amazing, and i have 3 more coming up. but it was so intense that i was exhausted by the end...

this morning, ed and i had some bad energy between us. it left both of us drained. he feels like he and i don't have enough time together, and i want to honor his feeling, but i don't really know what to do. he thinks that i should be more firm with the kids and have them spend some time by themselves, but i have a hard time pushing them away. they do spend time by themselves, playing or doing art, quite often, but it's not predictable, it just happens when they feel like it. if we try to make them do their own thing when we want to, they usually resist and become even more clingy and it turns into a mess. i'm having a hard time balancing everyone's needs... some people think that i'm too attached to the kids and vice-versa, but i have to say that on this one, i trust my own instincts more than anyone or anything else...

hopefuly ed and i will find something that works. it's really hard for everyone when we have this bad vibe going between us.

peace

another weekend at the beach

we went to the beach on sunday; ed and i came back monday afternoon, and the kids stayed until today. sena and aiyana love being there; they do so many things, and grandma and grandpa give them undivided attention, so it's a lot of fun for them.

this weekend, they rode their bikes in front of grandma's house


went for a ride in the canoe with ed, and later with grandpa


checked out the birds landing in the water through the spotting scope


i had fun too, seeing the kids enjoy themselves so much, and also spending a few quiet moments on the beach at sunset on sunday


i was watching this guy fish; he didn't catch anything while we were there, but i hope he enjoyed the beautiful surroundings as much as i did...


other than that, i've been a little emotional, prone to crying for no apparent reason, i guess just easily touched by things. coming home from the beach last night felt really good; our place is so peaceful and the weather's been so nice; it felt good to be able to give myself permission to be who i am, cry if i want to, or just sit outside and enjoy the breeze, without anyone asking for my attention...
this morning, i woke up to a woodpecker pecking at the apple tree near my window. then i had coffee outside looking over the field. that was really nice.

doing it

i was talking to my friend jennifer on the phone this morning, telling her about how i feel so drawn to painting, yet i cannot do it. i would love to paint, and i feel a strong connection, and desire to do so, but at the same time, there's a huge block that comes up as soon as i even think of painting. partly, this block has to do with my schooling when i was very young. the only painting experience i have comes from elementary school, where we were mostly discouraged from pursuing anything that might qualify as our own style; out teacher expected us to paint what she showed us, or told us, and she expected it to look a certain way... anyway, that was a long tme ago, and it's pretty much my only experience with painting.
but i have a lot of dreams in which i paint, or see beautiful paintings that other people made. i marvel at them, and then when i wake up i realize that i made them, i created them; yet if i even think of actually trying it out in waking life, i shut down right away. i try too hard and i judge myself way too harshly, and everything ends up a disappointment, so every time i've tried to paint i've just give up. this makes me really sad, but my desire still persists.
so i was telling jennifer about this on the phone, and was almost crying about it. she is very creative and expressive, and very sensitive, and suggested that i need to get out of my head, and just paint my feelings, just as sena told me to do a couple of days ago. she suggested that i try meditating, or listening to music, or whatever may work to make me relax. i followed her advice. i put on peter gabriel's "secret world live", which i've been really connecting with lately. i lit some sage, and almost instantly, i felt myself lighten up, and started to move. i could feel the joy and excitement and i just let myself be. soon enough i pulled out the paints and knew what i wanted to paint right away: i wanted to paint mamaia's death (or life). i had been dancing and going with the music, and at one point i sat down and just started to do it. i was still being a little analytical, but it didn't get in my way too much. mostly things felt good. i painted a mutlicolor background, with lots of red and purple, and an orange/yellow river flowing through it accross the page. mamaia's life is that river. and the background is everything. i felt really good making this simple painting, even though my censor says it's no good. then i started to listen to Lhasa and painted some more.
this was a cool experiment. i'd like to do more. it's so hard to get over that threshold of judgement, fear, self-censorship, or whatever it is that stops me. it's hard to let go. but it's so fun to do it!

painting my feelings

this morning, i was really missing mamaia, and i told sena and aiyana about it. sena got quiet for a moment, and then she said to me: "do you want to paint how you feel about her? maybe that would make you feel better."
i thought that this was an amazing suggestion....

turtles

yesterday, we went to the library, and had a really special, unexpected experience. behind the library, we saw 19 little baby turtles coming out of a hole in the ground. baby snapping turtles, just hatched, and we stood there watching them in awe. i felt like it was such a privilege to witness this, and even the kids were moved by the experience, and were very quiet and respectful. the library maintenance man was there, and he told us that he saw the mother snapping turtle lay her eggs in that spot every year in february. he said that she's big, maybe 2ft in diameter, and when she comes, she digs a hole in the ground, deposits her eggs, and then goes back down to the water, where she came from. on her way to the pond (behind the library), she leaves a scent marking a trail for the babies to follow. i find it amazing that the mother makes the trip from the pond all the way to the library (she has to go through the woods and then across the parking lot), in the winter, then digs the frozen ground, and then leaves her babies there. i also find it quite moving that the babies are on their own from the begining, left to rely purely on their instinct on their treacherous trip back to the pond.

of course, the kids and i really want to read up on snapping turtles now, and make a mini-project out of it. it would be interesting to verify the info the maintenance man gave us, and find out more.

unfortunately, the babies coming out of the hole were going all over the parking lot, trying to follow their mother's trail. one of them got squished soon after he emerged, i don't know how, but probably someone stepped on it. they were so tiny, easy to miss unless you paid attention, and they were everywhere. so the few of us who were there (librarians, maintenance man, our friend dianne, and us),decided to bring them down to the pond and spare them the trip through the parking lot and the woods. i hope this didn't mess them up, we were hesitating quite a bit before deciding to interfere...but we could easily see lots of them getting killed before they had a chance to make it very far.
dianne, the kids and i took them to the pond. we put them down in the mud, on the shore, and it wasn't long before they found their way in the water, and disappeared.

when we got back to the library, there was another little turtle coming out of that same hole, and this time, i took it to the pond all by myself, while the kids and dianne went in the library. i'm glad that i went alone, because i had a really cool experience with this little friend. before i put him down in the water, i held him up in my hand and looked at him. he stretched his little neck and seemed to be looking back straight at me for a moment. even though he was so tiny, his eyes seemed wise and ancient. as we peered at each other, i felt something stir inside of me, and i almost started to cry. then he started to squirm and i took that as a signal that he wants to go. i put him down in the mud and off he went into the water.

i didn't understand my experience right away, but as i thought about it during the day, it kept making me feel weird as if i had been touched by something mysterious. i felt a bond with this little creature and his ancient eyes. when he looked at me, i felt like another soul was looking into me from beyond time.

this morning, the kids and i were looking up turtles in the encyclopedia, and it turns out that their lineage is the most ancient on the evolutionary scale, older than that of the dinosaurs. learning this moved me, and i felt that it confirmed what i saw in those tiny eyes.

unfortunately, i didn't have my camera with me, so i don't have any pictures to share....
but i'm left with this feeling, and that is enough.

little Buddha

my friend Marcia introduced us to this magical spot by the river last sunday.


even feisty Aiyana seemed to be in awe of the powerful presence of this place.

home-schooling

so i guess we made the decision not to send sena to Kindergarden this year (she could've gone this september). this seems to bother a lot of people, which we expected.
so we'll be home-schooling this year, and we all feel good with this decision (i mean the kids, ed and i). next year, we'll re-assess based on how everyone feels.

i'm reading a lot of stuff on education - public education, home education, everything accross the board. also, being involved with Mansfield Advocates for Children (MAC) gives me some important insights into the standards of education kids are expected to meet, at least as defined by the state of Connecticut. i like having this info and making my own decisions about what to adopt and what to modify relative to their guidelines.

i was very nervous about the homeschooling thing for a while. it's like homebirth, you get so much negative feedback, so much criticism, even (or maybe especially) from people who mean well. but, like with homebirth, the more i read, the more i become familiar with the territory, the more at ease i feel. especially with homeschooling, i like the idea of reassessing every year. seeing what works and what doesn't and modifying accordingly. that leaves everything open...

in any case, i feel lucky to have the opportunity to even make this decision; i also have a lot of support among friends who do or do not home-school themselves. i'm grateful for all the support, and also for everyone's concerns, whichever way they may be expressed.

peace

my friend's garden

one of my friends asked me to feed her cat while she's on vacation. so the girls and i went over to her house yesterday, and that actually turned out to be the highlight of our day.

my friend has a beautiful garden; i went over to look at her flowers and her vegetables, and at one point, i heard a faint humming. i realized it was a tiny humming bird, which was drawn to the garden as i was. i must've been really quiet, because the hummingbird didn't seem to mind me very much, and went about looking for nectar from flower to flower. i was able to watch it for quite a while, and i felt happy to do so.

in the meantime, the kids were very busy laughing and playing on my friend's swing, a small distance from the garden. this swing is amazing, and everyone agrees that it's the best. it's hung from a really high branch in a tree - it's probably hanging down 30 ft or so, and as a result it swings out really far and high, and it does so quite slowly. it's a little scary seeing the kids go up so high, but they love it, and they hold on tightly, and they say that they can see above the tree tops. they say it feels like flying.

here are some pictures from my friend's garden:








a couple of butterflies also came by when i was there...


and here is the famous swing:







this buddha was hidden among the pumpkin and lavender in the garden


peace

acomplishments

the topic at our women's circle last night was accomplishments. how do we define achievements or accomplishments for ourselves, and what some examples in our current lives?
it was an interesting discussion, and it made me think a lot. we all knew that one way of defining 'accomplishment' is, for instance, getting a diploma, being in a prestigious position, something involving some sort of external recognition; none of us felt really drawn to defining our accomplishments this way. instead, it turned out that we we felt good about in our lives were smaller things, of a mundane nature, less likely to jump out at anyone else. things that have most significance on a personal level, and don't lend themselves well to comparison and outside judgement.

unfortunately, the words 'achievement' and 'accomplishment' can have negative connotations, by being associated with bragging, or aggrandizing oneself. because of this, many of us were reluctant to recognize anything as such in our lives. but once we were able to get over the negative connotation, we just simply talked about achievemetns as things we felt good about in our lives, things we worked hard at and feel proud about in a quiet, internal kind of way.

here are some examples of what i consider achievements at this time in my life (these are also things i feel grateful for. ):
-my relationship with my children (not my children themselves, because i don't think of them in those terms, but the relationship we built so far)
-being present; so if i'm doing the laundry, for example, and i'm really there with it, as opposed to thinking about a million other things and having my mind wonder all over the place, i feel happy about that;
-being content most of the time, and being able to appreciate the beauty and abundance present in my life.

peace

what have we been up to?

ed and aiyana sharing a breakfast sandwich on the couch, on saturday morning...


sena and ed showing off some of their crop


the beach...
we went to rhode island to visit ed's parents on sunday. we spent most of the day at their house for a family gathering, and we only made it to the beach in the evening as the sun went down. it was lovely, everything looked soft in shades of pink and blue...


we slept there on sunday night, and on monday we went to the beach with ed's mom, and the kids. sena tried floating on a boogie board and only got knocked down once, and aiyana did some jumping in the waves with grandma holding on to her. it was pretty fun.


here's the four of us:


i'm looking forward to more time at the beach, especially in september when the crowds disappear and the weather is still beautiful. it's my favorite time to go...

cosmos collage

i put this together with a few pics i recently took around our house. sena and aiyana and i planted cosmos seeds in my garden this spring, and now the flowers are big and many and look beautiful...

how it is

things have been pretty over overwhelming since sunday. there's so much to do, all the time...
it feels like all i'm doing is cooking, laundry, cleaning, non-stop, and even so, my place looks like a disaster... i'll spend the whole afternoon cooking, for instance, and then it's gone so fast...but at least i have the satisfaction of knowing that we're eating well. still, at times, it gets overwhelming. laundry too, i just can't keep up with it. and as opposed to cooking, which i love, i'm not crazy about laundry. so i'm always trying to get rid of stuff, so that i don't end up with baskets of clean laundry piled around the house, waiting to be put away.

i wish i had more time to just be with the kids and do fun stuff together. sena's so into reading now, for instance, and she's catching on to it really quickly, but i don't feel like we're spending enough time on it, to really take advantage of her enthusiasm for learning at this point.

the girls and i did get some fun in this week though...
yesterday, we went blueberry picking, and we were the only ones there, and we picked about 5 lbs, which isn't much; but the best part was sitting on our blanket by the blurberry bushes, having a picnic, just the three of us. we watched a turkey vulture and then a hawk circle in the sky above us, and talked about little things, and the whole thing had a really sweet feeling to it.

today, sena had her first appointment at the dentist, and she was really good about it, she let them check her teeth, and she was really proud of herself. aiyana was also very patient waiting for sena to be done, and the whole thing went smoothly, and then they got prizes at the end. it flet like a nice experience that we shared together, esp. since sena was pretty nervous about it in the beginning; when we were done, we went out to lunch to celebrate. i'm realizing more and more these days just how much i enjoy my kids' company...

a couple of days ago, one of us broke a plate. later that night, when we were in bed, sena looked me in the eye, and said "mom, everything breaks in the end". she wasn't asking me, she was telling me, and all i could do is shake my head yes.

what a party!

oh my god, i had such a blast this weekend! we went to a party on saturday, and there was live drumming and dancing, and i got so into it, i even did a cartwheel at one point; the kids were dancing along too, and the drumming was crazy, and there was some amazing jamaican food cooked by my friend's boyfriend who's a chef, and is jamaican. there were tons of mosquitoes too, but they weren't biting when i was dancing. i loved it, i was so wired after the party, i couldn't sleep for half the night. i just love to dance...

the other side of innocence

some part of me aches with the knowledge of my children, all children, losing their innocence, purity, openness, their acceptance of themselves and others... it's part of living in the world.
i can already see it happening with some of sena's friends. slowly and imperceptibly at first, they start to talk and act in a certain way that they think is more grown-up like, and already they seem jaded and worn out. not that i believe in sheltering children. i celebrate the world and its grittiness; i enjoy throwing myself at it with open arms, but still, it's sad....

on the other hand, i think that if you want to know beauty in life, if you want to live and know it intimately, you can't shelter yourself from suffering. i don't think my children really understand beauty now, because for them, everything is beautiful. they have no reference point, no division. their hearts are so open, how could anthing be otherwise?
me, on the other hand, i've lied and been lied to, i've been deceitful and been deceived, i've hurt people and i've been hurt; and on the other side of these things, i found grace, and came to know about beauty. it's the separation from the bliss and certainly we are born with that causes us suffering, but that same separation, for me, is the only way to beauty.

yesterday, i was comforting a friend who's going through a hard time with her boyfriend. they've separated, and she doesn't know whether they'll be together again or not. she's so in love with him.... and she's heart-broken. some of our other friends think that she should stop thinking about him, and are mad at him for not treating her right (they broke up when she was sick with lyme disease). but i know that she can't stop thinking of him. i know how she feels, i've been there. there was nothing i could do for her, or anyone can do for her right now, except maybe listen and let her share what she needs to.

one thing i wanted to tell her was to treasure this time. even though it's hard to be with these feelings, even though she's crying and yearning for some resolution, this time is precious and beautiful; i told her that she'll be happy again, whether things turn out the way she wants them to or not; now the feelings are too intense, but some day she'll be able to look back on this and feel grateful for having experienced it. she'll love it because it's a precious part of her life, which brought her closer to truth. at least that's been my experience.

sunshine and rain

we had some nice storms lately. one day last week, it started raining really hard all of a sudden, but the sun was still out and it looked really pretty. i took this picture right outside our front door.



when the rain stopped, a beautiful rainbow appeared. we all ran out to look at it. those two people you see in the picture are our neighbors matt and shandra:


finally, this is one of my favorite pictures of aiyana, taken this week:

an accidental find

i accidentaly come accross a book called "the portable jack kerouac" on the 'for sale' shelf at the library. i was kind of yearning for a new book to read, and this came along, falling perfectly, it seems, in line with what i wanted. i haven't read any kerouac until now, but this book provides a nice compilation of his work. i opened it up and read it at random places, and so far i'm very much drawn to it.

i want to share this little haiku poem from it, which i love. it's so simple and pretty, and i find that it captures my view and experience of religion perfectly:

"The taste
of rain
- Why kneel?"

I also like kerouac's view of writing and literature, which he describes as follows:
"a tale told for companionship and to teach something religious, of religious reverence, about real life, in this real world which literature should... reflect".

hero post-script

just wanted to throw in another comment on the movie 'hero', which i recommended in an earlier posting. i said that the version to watch is the chinese one with english subtitles, as opposed to the american one. in the original chinese version, if you've seen the movie, the rebel 'broken sword' scribbles 3 words in the sand: "all under heaven". in the american version, these words are translated as "our land". maybe they were trying to arouse a patriotic sentiment with this translation, i don't know, but i think it is a world apart from the original meaning....

Singapore update

it seems like the singapore thing is dead. ed's boss wanted an absolute minumum of 2 years, and we didn't want to commit to that long. one year was our preference and 1.5 our max. so it's dead for now.
no bad feelings on either side, i think.

so much sweetness

sena's been coming up with some really nice imagery lately.
one night, we were talking, and she said to ed, aiyana and i: "i love you so much. my love feels like so many baloons coming out of my body, flying in all directions, up into the sky". she opened her arms wide in a circle around her, to show us what she meant.

i love this image she created. to me, love is just like that. many baloons flying up into the sky. when you love someone, you may or may not be together, your lives may move in different directions, but the love is there, floating around in the sky, with a life of its own.

another time, the four of us were getting ready for bed at night, when sena said: "i love you guys so much. i feel like the four of us are attached around our hearts with a rope, and even when we go away from each other, we are still close together."

finally, last week, she said to me: "mom, even though mamaia didn't speak my language (she only spoke romanian), i understood what she was saying." i asked her how she understood, and she said "my body just knew".

to me, these statemetns are so simple and profound. they reveal such openness and beauty, and i feel humbled by them. i feel blessed to be in the presence of such pure energy as children have.

aiayna's also been very affectionate. i sometimes complain about the inconveniences that arise from sleeping with my children, but i have to say that overall, the sweetness of it far outweighs any inconvenience. lately, aiyana's been waking up at different times during the night, just to put her little arms around my neck and pull herself up to me to give me a kiss. a kiss, and sometimes a little hug, and then she quietly slips back into sleep. i can't describe the feeling of her small arms around me, pulling me close... it's one of those those things i can never forget.