like a bowling ball

 

December 24 • 2023 🎄

We had homemade cookies for breakfast + might have more delicious carrot cake for dinner since today is Michael's birthday, our Christmas Eve baby. On top of carrots, the cake has raisins and nuts and all kinds of nutritious things. 🙃 Claire has been baking all weekend and there's more to come tomorrow. Sticky buns w/ mimosas? I will officially be a weeble by the end of the holiday season, rolling around like a bowling ball, or something like that. 

•.  •.  •.  •.  •.  •.  •.  •   •.  •.  •.  •   •.  •   •   •   •.  •

⛄️ 🎄 ♥️

XO b

may we be ~

 

December 23 • 2023

I'm happy + tired + out of words for today. But this came to me as I sat staring at my screen. It's what I say at the end of all my writing/yoga workshops/ retreats. Whenever I say it, either quietly to myself, or out loud, my shoulders drop and face softens on the exhale. 

May we be happy.

May we be healthy.

May we be peaceful.

May we live with ease.

Peace and blessings to you and your families

+ this sweet beautiful old earth.

Namaste.

xo b

first of the season

 

December 22 • 2023

What a happy surprise to see this first bloom on our camellia bush when I stepped outside this morning. Camellias are called the Queens of the winter flowers + we are lucky to have a bush next to our front steps. I didn't know much about them until moving to California and our first winter here. I learned more about camellias and other native plants from a beautiful place called Descanso Gardens. Descanso Gardens has an abundant Camellia Collection and is one of the loveliest places to walk through in January/February when the camellias are in bloom. 

If you ever find yourself out this way, no matter the time of year, I invite you to visit this sanctuary. After meandering through the gardens and forests, I always leave feeling washed clean of my worries and other nonsense. 

Thank you, Mother Nature. 🌞

Until you come west, you can check it out here:

https://www.descansogardens.org/gardens-and-collections/explore-the-gardens/camellia-collection/

 XO b

sign me up

December 21 • 2023

It's officially winter and here in Los Angeles, a dark, rainy day. After some grading for my winter course, a trip to the library and Trader Joe's, I am a cozy mouse, curled up under a blanket on my bed. A pile of books on Michael's side. Daisy the dog sleeping by the bedroom door.  Michael made a big pot of chicken soup last night for dinner. Happy knowing we'll be having a second helping tonight. 

Nothing to do, nowhere to go. Watching the rain. Quiet. 

Much is written about winter being a time to rest and reflect, go within. 

Slow down. 🐌 

Sign me up.

xo b

what shall we plant?

 

December 20 • 2023

I'm thinking about the hundreds of bulbs I planted in our yard back in Pennsylvania. Every year I'd be a bit behind, but always managed to find a few days in December when the ground was wet and soft enough to get them in the ground. 

Always daffodils and tulips, + some prayers for the new year.

What shall we plant this year? 

The world needs so much light. 

So much peace and love. 

•   •   •.  •   •.  •   •.  •.  •   •   •

XO B

in memory

December 19 • 2023

This tiny band of angels go back to childhood winters in Delaware. My brothers and I sledding down South Road on our flexible flyers, hooting all the way to the bottom. Everything else still and quiet, muffled in pillows of white snow. 

Snowsuits, wet mittens, snow angels.

I don't know the origin of the angels except they were my mother's and now they live with me. I can hold the lot of them in one hand: the one with the cymbals, a coronet player, the flutist with one broken wing, the drummer. Claire lined them up on the mantel, front and center, watching over us this December. 

On this Winter Solstice, I remember my beloved mother, my angel. 

xo b

 

           

                  

             Dorothy Southam Jackson

          July 7, 1926 - December 19, 2001

like a lemon tree

 

December 18 • 2023

I never thought much about lemons before moving to California. Sometimes we'd cook with them, but it wasn't an overwhelming lemony life back in Pennsylvania. 

I always liked lemons. 

They smell good.

They're pretty and feel good in your hand. 

These days I have a very lemony life. There are two lemon trees in our backyard that keep on giving, season after season. And because of all the good rain last winter, the trees are bearing big fat lemons, holiday lemons. 🎄🍋 If I bring my hands to my nose, they smell like lemons because I've been slicing + juicing a counter full as evening falls. Instead of using the handle thing that presses down on the lemon, I used my hands. This reminded me of working with clay on a potter's wheel, the spinning and pressing down. And just like when I took ceramic classes, today's juicing the lemons fest filled me with the same meditative quality as wet clay under my hands. That quiet pressure in the palm of my hands.

...Michael said, You smell like a lemon tree.

love,

XO b

I bought her a lobster

 

 

December 17 • 2023

I need to find Daisy's squirrel was one of my morning thoughts. This was way better than opening my eyes and thinking we're all f*cked which is occasionally the case. I'll take fretting over a toy squirrel any day. The squirrel is, well squirrel-ish, orangey-brown [not like the squirrels that live in my yard] and has a squeaky thing in its belly. You need to be at least one hundred eighty pounds soaking wet and stand on the thing to get a squeak out of it. Fortunately, I'm not there. Maybe it got raked up in a pile of leaves. I don't know.

The squirrel is missing. So, I bought her a lobster. 

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Side note: When I was a kid, our dog never had toys, or a bed, and definitely did not wear sweaters. They ran around with sticks, slept on the rug, and had dog fur. It was enough. But there was a time when Chewy had two beds + now I'm paying good money for a lobster that squeaks. A toddler could make it happen. A girl can change her tune. 

xo b 🐝

i really don't know

 

December 16 • 2023

I'm here late in the day. Night has fallen early, like it does this time of year. Michael has gone out to play with a band. Daisy has been walked and is sleeping on the rug. Bed and a book are calling me...and it's not even six o'clock. I don't know what to write about. 

I could write about the book I never returned to the library before moving to California. The handsome man I chatted with on the plane when I flew east in November. How, many years ago, a friend told me, you can always change your mind. Or the dream I had last night where my father showed up in the kitchen of his old house, but then said he had to go because the group of people in the joy van were waiting for him. How I want to get my seedlings in the ground before the rain next week. Blessed rain.

If you were to write about something, what would it be? 

Make a list. See what/who shows up. I'm open to ideas.

XO B

let this be our mantra

 

December 15 • 2023

Let this be our mantra:

peace and love

peace and love

peace and love

peace and love

peace and love

peace and love

peace and love

peace and love

peace and love

peace and love

peace and love

peace and love

peace and love

peace and love

• • • • • • • • • • • • •

xo b

what dan said ~

 

December 14 • 2023

What I mean by "abundance" is there is an abundance of good everywhere. There are people who hold the door and give up their public transportation seats. There are surprise parties and memorial tatoos and birthday gifts. There are doctors and nurses and therapists and firefighters and custodians and all sorts of people who make helping others into a career. People will learn first aid with no obligation other than "just in case." People will donate old clothes and toys in hopes of passing on joy to a stranger. I do not think that people are inherently bad and this is a position I refuse to change my mind on.

- Daniel O'Brien 

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 

Note: At the end of this semester @ Northampton Community College, I asked my students to pick a word card and write about it. What I love more than anything about Dan's stance is his refusal to change his mind about the abundance of good everywhere. Me too.

Thank you, Dan, for letting me share your beautiful, uplifting words. 

I am filled with gratitude.

XO b

what's right here

 

December 13 • 2023

I kid you not when I say words are guides, I need them daily.

Between the rise of crazy in this country, Trump, Mike Johnson and House Republicans who are squeezing the life out of the constitution and our democracy, Gaza, Ukraine, book bans, voting rights being stripped to the bone, women with life-threatening pregnancies unable to get safe and legal abortions because politicians, mostly men, believe it's their call to decide a woman's right to choose and care for her own health. Crowds fawning over Trump everywhere. Such a deeply dangerous man who has done more damage to our country than we even know. All you have to do is watch clips of the brilliant Jordan Klepper (The Daily Show) at a Trump rally to know we are in deep. The conversations he has with MAGA people are wild and might be funny if the people weren't so utterly detached from reality. Nuts. 

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 

There are so many troubles in the world. So much suffering. 

Everything is not okay. 

We probably can't/shouldn't relax.

And yet, in this moment, I feel okay. It's been a calm, productive day. I took care of school biz for my classes. Vacuumed the dog hair. Walked the dog + myself three times (so far). Did some writing. Got the fixings for butternut squash soup.

I remind myself daily ~ Wherever my attention is, that is where I am. 

I am not hiding. I see the troubles. I help where I can. 

And I look to what's right here:

sun + sky

sleeping dog

the sound of the dryer

making soup

lemons + a persimmon in a brown bowl.

namaste.

XO b

all of five minutes

 

December 12 • 2023

Before leaving my therapist's office I used the restroom and ended up chatting with a woman wearing a beautifully crocheted sweater with pockets. It was sky blue and each pocket had a white daisy and all I could think of was our new dog, Daisy. I told the woman about Daisy and how our other beautiful boy, Chewy, died last winter. 

             Chewy

She said something like, Do you believe in reincarnation? and I think I said yes, it was all so sudden while washing my hands. She told me about her dog, a pug, who died last December and how she spoke to a psychic and connected with her dog. And gave me the name of someone on Instagram who does that sort of work. I cannot remember the name now. I'm thinking, how interesting the work people do in the world, which was part of the conversation in my therapy session because of all the weird jobs and work I've tried to stuff myself into in order to feel like I'm on the right track and how I've often made myself miserable with the stuffing biz. 

Anyway, one thing leads to another, so I told the woman with the daisies on her sweater about my new dog, Daisy. Actually I kind of wanted to ask the woman if I could have her sweater, we were about the same size. She said she was a crazy crochet person and was thinking about selling her stuff. This was all of five minutes in the rest room (why is it called a rest room?). 

All this makes me think about women and how we can know so much about each other in a very short time compared to when I ask my husband about some guy he met somewhere and the things they talked about, well, the details are slim at best. I didn't ask, he says. 

I have so much on my mind, in a good way, not a nutty way: from a class I took this morning (more on that), then therapy (more on that too) and then the woman in the restroom. 

Then I came home to Daisy, my cup full.

Every life is an interesting life. Ask.

XO b

all of us together

 

December 11 • 2023 

I was looking through a folder of writing on my laptop this morning. So many pieces of writing that have never seen the light of day. They're like cars in a pile-up on a foggy highway, looking for home. This short paragraph is from a larger piece called, A Flying Hug. It made me feel a certain way after reading it. Like yes, this is exactly what I want right now. And I want to add my parents, gone from the earth, and my brothers, grown men with families of their own. My mother would plunk me and my brothers in the bathtub along with matchbox cars and plastic army men that could fit in the palm of your hand. All of us together in the soapy warm water. 

love + flying hugs to you,

XO b ♥️

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

from A Flying Hug...

timing is another thing

 

• 
  

December 10 • 2023

Daisy is sleeping in the sun. I am sleepy too and will let myself rest. 

But what about my checklist? To-do's?

I want to blog • clean up table • organize Christmas stuff • make garlands • have more speaking engagements • take a nap and read Edith Wharton's biography (such a thick book) She is in France during WWI • plant seeds, dig up succulents • clear leaves out of the garden.

The house is quiet. The silence, delicious.

Why does it soothe me so wonderfully? 

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Note: Curious how the desire mind works, slipping onto the list have more speaking engagements, next to take a nap. Confused motivation, but that's okay. Both can be on the list. 

Timing is another thing. 

XO 

b

sweet time

      

December 9 • 2023

I love how autumn takes her sweet time in Southern California. 

Each morning I'm greeted by this lovely companion.

Today is windy. Leaves have been flying and swirling on the street. 

By January, she will be bare. 

A time of rest + renewal.

Then time to begin again. 🍃

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 

XO b

please enjoy yourself

 

December 8 • 2023

Daisy and I were heading out the door when I saw Linda across the street. She was wearing her signature winter hat, black sweatshirt, and because of the morning chill, a red blanket draped over her like a cape. Linda refuses to turn the heat on in her house even though the system has been checked out. The house might blow up, she tells me. 

Seven in the morning is too early for a chat with Linda, so with dog in tow, I bee-lined it around our car and scurried down the sidewalk. Silly, I know. But on the other hand, if my goal these days is to keep the nuttiness numbers down on my mental health richter scale, it makes sense to make a dash for it. Trust me.

On our return home, I saw the white sign she'd posted. On Fridays, Santiago, the gardener, comes to tend to Linda's yard. I was curious what she'd written since Linda can be bossy and is often unhappy + negative about pretty much everything. I walked over for a closer look and  there was this delightful note. It felt like a sign. Not just for Santiago, but for me.

And maybe you too? 

It landed like this: 

What is waiting for you? 

What needs only you right now?

+ the final invitation:

Please enjoy yourself. 

XO b

why is it like breathing?

 

December 7 • 2023

Words are guides. Simple reminders. I need them daily.

From a very young age, words are how I've attempted to organize my world. I remember sitting up in the tree on the side of our yard in Wilmington. Dad nailed a small plank of wood over two branches for my desk.  I'd sit inside the branches with a clipboard, paper and pencil, and write stuff. It was my own little writing fort. 

What was I writing at six years old. Seven? 

Why is it like breathing to me all these years later? 

Why is music like that for someone else? Or scuba diving? 

It's a curious thing. I like wondering about it. 

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

There are cartons of journals in our garage. They made the trip to California when so much other stuff didn't. Before the move, I remember taking some journals (3?) and burning them on the bonfire out back in the yard. After flipping through the pages, so much darkness written down, I thought, Why am I keeping these? My daughters always knew something was up, coming home to find me out back, a big burn going. Hey Mom, everything okay? They were usually right about that. It was only a few books. I couldn't finish the job. The rest came west. 

I built a lot of fires over the years in the backyard of our Pennsylvania home. We had a big yard, full of trees, so many fallen branches. Pitchfork in hand, I'd rearrange branches that had tumbled out. I'd drink an ice cold beer and watch the fire dwindle, my face red and hot. That was the best part. Those bonfires were deeply satisfying. I miss them.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 

How did I wander from the girl in the tree to boxes of journals and bonfires and beer? And here now, on my back patio in California, there are no more bonfires for me. At least not here. The books are in the garage, waiting to be aired out. The more I read and learn about the shadow, hidden, fertile part of humans, of myself, I know there is much I could learn, and let go of, if I had the courage to open a carton and start reading. What part of me lives in those pages? What part could use some daylight? I'm thinking a project for the new year. 

Words are guides. Simple reminders. I need them daily. 

XO

♥️ b

the word project

December 6 • 2023 

Last month I did a talk. 

It's short. Just for today, I'll keep this short too.

Have a watch and see what you think. 

+ 

Pick a card.

+ share what you picked in the comments if you feel like it. 🍁

namaste, lovelies. 🙏

b ♥️

what frida says

 

December 5 • 2023

What Frida says.

See what happens.

Namaste,

♥️ b

with elation

December 4 • 2023

Love After Love by Derek Walcott is one of my favorite poems, ever. I encourage you to look it up, print it out, keep it close where you can read it daily. In my college English classes, we dip our toes into poetry and play with creating our own blackout poems.

This playing with words and language can be done with newspapers, magazines, a page out of an old book, a letter ~ any piece with words on it. I like using poems. I recommend trying it. It can be a simple meditation. Try it with another person, your kids, your whole family.

Use the same poem + see what shows up for each of you. It's mysterious.

This one is on our fridge. Sometimes, it blends in with the photos of family and dogs and other messages stuck on with magnets. Often I miss the message, but today,  I read it. It's brief and to the point. It says to me, wake up. 

Love your life.

♥️ b

until the next time

 

December 3 • 2023

All I'm saying is, it's easy to tumble.

I got up this morning and let Daisy out. Daisy was up twice in the night, pining (whining) to go out on the patio. Then bark. I brush my teeth, splash cold water on my face, put the kettle on. Then comes the habitual glance at the phone. Someone has sent me a message on Instagram which leads to seeing another friend's post of a trip to Tuscany with her handsome guy, and a scroll through her post (slides 1 - 5) ~ a church, cobbled streets, balconies, ancient doorways, the two of them clearly in love. 

Back to the kitchen to make tea, I step in something sticky and that's when things take a turn into a parallel plot line to If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, how one thing leads to another, except there's no cookie.

Wiping the  sticky off the bottom of my bare foot, the tumble happens, fast ~

Well, this is disgusting • why did the landlord choose this tile • why is the dog limping all of a sudden • will I ever get to Italy • why can't I...

then comes a loud knock on the door, not once but multiple times. Daisy is barking and I see, I know, it's Linda, our elderly neighbor, on the slippery slope of dementia, eyes wide, wearing a winter hat, sweatpants, slippers. I open the door and Linda leans in:

Can you please take me to Gelson's? I'm desperate! I have no food in my house.

This is not true. Linda's fridge and freezer are packed, cupboards stuffed with canned goods and boxes of things. I know this because I have taken her to Gelson's. She doesn't believe me when I remind her of this.

 I'm not taking you to Gelson's right now, Linda, it's eight o'clock and...

Linda is a story for another day. Linda is a short story, a novella, a full-length play. She's knocked on my door many times but today, her appearance shoves me down the rabbit hole of how strange and sticky life can be. 

Linda goes home.

After my tea, I walk the dog. Chat with a young woman and her baby brother in a stroller. I see tiny birds, tucked inside the slender branches of a birch tree with small golden leaves. Back home, the branches of the lemon tree hang heavy. The bright yellow fruit bigger this season after all the good rain we had last winter and spring. 

In the shower, I wash the stickiness off until the next time I step in it.

♥️ b

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

woman • book • dog

 

December 2 • 2023 

In my late twenties, after a truly horrendous depression which took me to my knees, literally, I had a therapist who helped me find my way back to standing on my own two feet. He was tall and funny, a gay man in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania which at the time probably wasn't all that great for him. He would occasionally call me Blanche, which I loved because I come from a family of multiple nicknames. If you join my family at a gathering for the first time you might find yourself confused about who is who. 

But this is not about my therapist, or nicknames. It could be about our sweet new pack member, Daisy (more on her this month), but this meditation is a continuation on practices and how they can keep us grounded, somewhat sane, maybe even save us. 

I can say that writing has saved my life many times over. 

And for that I am deeply grateful. For that I've been devoted to this simple practice of writing every day for over thirty years. I've written in all kinds of notebooks: gorgeous journals from Italy, leather journals with tie clasps and thick ivory paper, small books that I could hold in the palm of my hand, large black sketchbooks, orange books, plain old composition books with graph paper, lined paper, pages with tiny dots. I paint pictures and make my own covers. 

At times, I've written on legal pads because I thought this stuff is so embarrassing, so whiny and mean, I can't put the words in a book. But all that stuff shows up in my journals too. 

Along with the story of the woman I met in the bean aisle. Her long coat was a tangerine color. She was tiny, older, and needed help reaching a can of red beans on the top shelf. 

The things we remember. 

I remember her. 

Dr. Falbo was the one who coined woman • book • dog.

That trinity felt, and still feels, the most sane, settling, calm. Though I always found myself with a lover after my first marriage ended, those sweet men didn't tend to end up fully in the equation of my life. At that time, I had my first daughter to care for. It was the two of us until I found Che in a motel lobby and brought him home for us... (another dog story) 

Writing is a map into, and out of, the Self. It's a way to remember, and lay things down.

I need both. Daily. 

I am blessed with a beloved husband, family and friends. So many blessings, seen and unseen. And now, after months of grieving over the loss and absence of our dog, Chewy, back in February, (another dog story), there's a new dog at my feet. Daisy.🌼

And a notebook on my lap.

Just when you think, I'm not doing that again, you do. 

love♥️

b 🐝

Live from Culver City

 

December 1 • 2023 

Claire and I met in Culver City today. 

The Culver City I'd always hear about on NPR when I lived on the east coast. Live from Culver City! Today's field trip included a bookstore, meandering into a couple of shops where a small mug might cost you $56, then a bite to eat at Vida Cafe. 

No mugs were bought.

Claire took our picture in front of the Culver City City Hall. She's been taking pictures of city halls for a few years now. Philadelphia, Portland, Maine, Seattle, Carmel-by-the Sea ~ city halls in big and tiny towns. Now, Culver City's in the bag.

On the drive, I took Topanga Canyon down to the Pacific Coast Highway. At the light where canyon meets ocean, a man was sitting on the ground with a sign asking for help. For a strange moment, he looked like a tree branch, all dusty and worn out leaning against the light pole, cars passing. The ocean sparkling in front of me. Sparkling. 

Along the coast I saw a man by his car. He was older, in good shape, and looked like he'd been taking a morning swim. He was wearing blue trunks, the kind Lloyd Bridges wore on Sea Hunt back in the day. I remember Lloyd's trunks having a kind of belt, but I might be making that up.

Over lunch, we talked about practices we've cultivated. 

Ones that help us stay somewhat sane in this nutty world. 

Drawing

writing

collecting seeds

plant-tending

walking. 🐌

Writing has been my main squeeze practice forever. After listening to a conversation with a poet on a podcast about not worrying so much about "pat endings" or having your story/poem/art figured out before you even start, I decided to get out of my way and write a small post every day this month. 

A December writing project/practice. For the merry fun of it. 🎄

Put down my perfectionist, fussy, overthinking tendencies and tell a few simple stories.

Pesky ego be damned.

Love ♥️

b 🐝