New Year, Back to Work, Back to the Garden,Back to the Blogging....

Well, it's been about a year since I last posted. I wasn't kidding about life being busy I guess. I'm not sure how that happened. Sorry, I don't think I can muster up enough interesting information or insight in this one post to justify a year of absence, but at least I am committing myself to starting again here. I'm still living in a canyon at the edge of L.A. most of the time and at our farmhouse in Maine when we're not. I still work part time and mommy full time, and although I can call L.A. home and recognize that this is my life, I still look around me frequently wondering what I am doing as part of this smoggy, traffic clogged, city of dreams. But hey, the weather is gorgeous this time of year! Day to day I figure it out.


 Let's see, Torin learned how to eat food, sit, crawl, walk, run and started talking in the last year. Pretty crazy! I mostly just seem to be holding onto his shirt tails as he flies along, both literally and figuratively. He is the apple of my eye and the vice grip around me knees yelling "MUM-EEEE!" He is too precious and it goes way too fast. I just bask in him every day, while hourly having my patience and endurance strained and stretched, and then when he lies next to us at night I still occasionally cry because he's just so beautiful and amazing, and he's my baby, at least for a little while longer.


 It's winter. Well, actually winter seems to have been last week in L.A., where we had some chilling 50 degree weather and everyone freaked out for a few days, and now it is back up to 75 and is spring but anyway, it's time to plan the garden again. It's time to get psyched up on seed catalogs and dream big dreams. It's my annual season to beat my head against the wall as I try and figure out a way to grow food in my ever shifting, vagabond life. I've got some ideas though! Almost a year ago we moved down the street from our old house. We've got some more yard and some more sun, but I think I will have to give up on building anymore raised beds in houses that I am about to move out of. I recently got a copy of The Urban Homestead, by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen. Their super cool book reminded me of some of the tricks of the trade that I used to use in my urban gardener days. Some of those same tricks may just come in handy to create some more portable growing and composting options for me these days. For now I'll just say I am going scavenging for 5 gallon buckets and maybe some old tires soon. We'll see what happens.


When I first moved to L.A. I was worried that it might change me, that I might be converted to more enthusiastic consumerism, might become more enamored of television or concerned with whitening my teeth or something. Well, I think it's safe to say that that isn't happening. Other than procuring a mild obsession with cheap Asian spa treatments and recently having a sudden urge to write a screenplay, if anything, my sense of myself as a dirt worshipping, farmers market frequenting, critic of mainstream American culture and lover of 1800s farmstead living has not budged. Well, now I know. You can take the girl out of New England, but not the New England out of this girl. I've done a fair amount of traveling about in my life, but even now, in our fourth year here, I just don't think that I will ever be able to truly call any other landscape home in the same way. But L.A. has worked it's way in there too. This is home now too for sure. I'm still working out my relationship, as you can see. But this is where my son was born, this is where his first little friends live, this is where we work and where his brothers will be. This is home too.



Me and my sweet pea last week in the wintery weather (brrr, 55!)

Mama hummingbird, a fairly recent piece

Our current yard and my studio (sweet, huh!) Next time more on art making!

My New Job

Torin is four months old this week! Wow. I can't believe he was still inside four months and one week ago. Labor seems so long ago now, and it feels like it was another person, a free person with coherent trains of thought and endless capacity for productivity who slept at night and had time for things like getting a haircut who actually was pregnant, not me. Man, she did not know what she was in for! Anyway, that other person has been replaced by a new me. The Mommy Me!

Basically, I've realized lately that the oxytocin coursing through my veins from his birth has largely worn off by now, but sleep deprivation goes on and on, and add in the return to the real world of earning money and recalling those professional goals and aspirations,... and I am finally starting to understand a bit what the Mommy Job is going to be like.

Due to teething and a fast metabolism, Torin is back to sleeping not more than two to three hours at a time, EVER. And since he also is very firm about the fact that he doesn't like a bottle EVER, guess who else is also up every two to three hours around the clock? The little cutie also needs me to adhere to regular bed times and nap times every day! Schedules are not really my strong suit, but I comply, because the alternatiive is really not worth it. The Chief must be obeyed.

I now wake up for the day before seven am every morning. My natural sleeping hours are somewhere between 11 pm or so and 8 or 9 am. The 5 am to 8 am hours formerly being my most important sleep time. Not so anymore! I don't have a most important sleep time these days, because somebody else, somebody tiny who sleeps in my bed with me, now dictates everyone's sleep patterns in our house. And HE gets up at 6:30 every day.

I have started my script reading job again, which is wonderful because I can do it from home, but is terrible at the same time because I need to use my brain to do it, which doesn't work so great anymore. The Chief bounces in his chair and dozes or fusses or nurses or chews his hands and drools on my shoulder while I sit at the computer to work on them. He interrupts me regularly to do more important things like baby yoga and diaper changing, but I go back to them and eventually by sheer force of will and some editing help from my husband, (who despite his sleep deprivation can still spell), they get done.

And, to keep my heart happy, and to prepare for a couple of upcoming shows that I want to participate in, I need to find time to paint regularly again as well. For this I demand the luxury of someone else watching the chief for a few hours. And it is heavenly and over all too soon. No offense though, Torin, you will always come first now.

Then there is time spent eating, bathing, laundrying, bill paying, shopping, cleaning the house, e-mail, and some time stolen away for facebook and occasionally socializing as well, and on rare and ideal days I get to meditate or do some yoga....and there goes my life!

And now I see. There is NO WAY I am going to get to everything that needs doing in any given day, or week, or year. I must make choices. All the time make choices about what is important, what I can live without and what I can't. What I must do and what I can let slide. What I'm going to focus on and what I'm going to regret.

And meanwhile, this baby gets cuter and more fun everyday. How could I not want to spend every waking and sleeping moment focusing on him?

And I KNOW that I am a super lucky mom. I am SUPER lucky. I have a supportive, capable husband, we both largely work from home, and I have had nearly four months with few financial responsibilities in which to focus on Torin's early days. Torin himself is happy and healthy. I have a place to live, a car to drive, and God-willing enough money to keep having these things. I have good food to eat and am in relatively good health. I have friends and family, far flung though they may often be. And still, from my incredibly privileged position, this is one tough job.

Torin is perhaps the very most delightful job that I have ever had in my life though, and as challenging as this mommy thing is, I am so very happy to be doing it.

California Christmas 2011

December in L.A. is ripe pomegranates, avocados and citrus and finally the end of the fresh tomatoes. It is the leaves falling off the sycamores, (only to re-foliate themselves in a couple of short months…) It is frost in Topanga and clear, sunny days in the 50s and 60s. It is fake snow and a holiday water fountain at The Grove. It is red bows on the topiaries in Santa Monica. It is holiday tamale season. It is parties. It is cars decorated with wreaths and reindeer antlers. It is movie premiere season and awards hype. It is Las Posadas on Olvera Street with atole and pan dulce. It is lights on palm trees. It is poinsettias growing on the front porch. It is starting to feel familiar to me. This is my third Christmas here. Can’t believe it!

I found myself remembering my old house in the woods in western Maine this week. Back then I made most of my own presents. I even made my own wrapping paper! I remember the light from the grey, snow filled skies, and the crackling sound of the fire against the silence of the frozen winter woods. How far I am from that time now in so many ways! But really, the rhythms of the season, the flurry of activities, and the spirit of warmth and giving and spending lots of time with the family remain, no matter if I am in snowy woods or the strip mall filled San Fernando Valley.

This year we threw a big party on the solstice, which was kind of a feat with an 10 week old. It was a success though and fun was had by all, (I hope!). We had Mexican hot chocolate and glug and overflowing tables of snacks and a fire in the hearth and out in the fire pit in the yard. Torin was passed around the party and managed to fight off sleep until much later than usual. Before that was the gift shipping day to family on the east coast, in which I appeared as a cross between a kangaroo and Santa, with Torin strapped to the front and a massive ikea bag of gifts on my back as I crossed the streets in Santa Monica. Before the party also came a huge grocery shopping expedition with multiple lists and bags piled in the car and more than one nursing session for Torin in the supermarket bathroom as we ran from store to store for several hours to get all of the ingredients for special holiday recipes. Then there was the last minute gift scramble and the longer than it seems like it should be wrapping session. We topped it all off with Christmas Eve Posadas on Olvera Street. There was warmth in the air and children running around and vendors closing shop and restaurants filling up on the oldest street in L.A. as we waited outside the original adobe house there and listened to the musicians in colorful ponchos singing on the porch. Mary and Joseph came out looking somber in their polyester robes and shepherd’s canes. They were followed by singers with candles and then slowly the rest of the crowd fell into step behind them as they walked up and down the street looking for room at the inn. They were, of course, turned away again and again until they finally ended up back at the stables of the oldest house in L.A. The musicians played again, people sang, and then we all had sweet atole and pan dulce on the house. We drove home and fell asleep watching Christmas movies on the couch. Santa roused himself/herself to stuff the stockings and put the last minute gifts out, and then Christmas morning came all too soon. Or not soon enough for my 12 year old stepson, but it came just the same and we had a special breakfast, which is always unappreciated by the children in their haste for unwrapping, and then presents and the carnage of boxes and wrapping paper and packing peanuts etc etc. I haven’t slept well in oh, say, 11 weeks or so at least, but I slept even less last week, and by the time that I had cleaned up yesterday afternoon I had a headache and a cold. I fell asleep before Tim’s amazing homemade lasagna dinner, but I feel much better this morning. Man, Christmas is so much fun….sometimes too much!

I am happy to see that Torin loves Christmas though, even at only 10 weeks old. At least he loves the very best and most important things about Christmas. He loves people and was so entertained to see all the guests at the party, and to see the crowds on Olvera Street. He loves when we are all together as a family too, and enjoyed snuggling together and watching movies. He was so happy Christmas morning with Nick and Brick around and everyone laughing and talking. He got his first dose of the Christmas spirit, and it filled him with gladness, as it should.

Meditations on Mothering The Chief

From the persistent fog of my current, sleep deprived condition I have been craving to write, before I move too far away from this pivotal time, about the helpfulness of the tools that I gained from spending some serious time in meditation before Torin was born. (It’s only taken me seven weeks or so to get around to it….but I guess I have had other things to do.) I didn’t really realize at the time, but it was such a luxury to go so deeply into concentration during my last retreat. I think it was the last time that I will get much stillness of mind for many months. I got so sick of it at the time, but now I think back on it fondly. Isn’t that always the way?

I digress though. As I believe I have mentioned before, vipassana meditation retreats are deeply unpleasant, uncomfortable and quite a challenge, but so worthwhile. Labor is kind of like that, but magnified to the nth degree. And messier. I used the same tools though, that I had developed to get through unpleasant, uncomfortable, boring meditation sessions, to now get through those INCREDIBLY painful contractions that came to push him out into the world. I remembered that everything passes and changes, again and again, over and over. I tried to get outside of myself and observe my labors objectively. It really was helpful to manage the pain. And afterwards it really was helpful to hold onto those same lessons to ride out the incredible waves of intense emotion that came upon me in the first few weeks after his birth.

Another reason that I have been slow in writing this, is that I find it so hard to concentrate on a task like this these days. Throughout each day I am interrupted so many times by The Chief, and then a session of nursing, changing, soothing or amusing is in order, and when that job is through I don’t remember what it was that I was doing before. (It strikes me now that this is kind of like my life overall these days, in that I can’t quite imagine what I did with all my time before he came, and I also can’t quite imagine what I ever did without him.) At home though I am constantly finding evidence of my previously unfinished activities, like archeological remains of my morning, leaving clues for me to help me rediscover the narrative of my day. And then other tasks go undiscovered and slip my mind completely only to resurface days or weeks later, or perhaps not at all. (Sorry to any of you reading this that are perhaps waiting patiently for me to respond to something….I have forgotten.)

My mind works in these circles of distraction as well, which I notice most clearly when I am trying to meditate. It’s a success these days if I get a few minutes of concentration in during a 30 minute meditation session. As well, I spend much of my painting time rocking or nursing and looking at my half completed work, imagining what I would paint next if I could stop bouncing on the exercise ball with the fussy baby. It may take a few days before I actually get back to it. Slowly I plug along though!

So, those are some of the things that have changed. Now as I sit in a cabin in Big Sur where we have headed for our first family vacation with Torin, looking out at the Big Sur river flowing endlessly by under the redwoods, and as I sit here in my oh so distracted mind, in my ever changing life, I must just keep remembering that everything changes. I have to keep adjusting my goals, expectations and frequently change plans midstream. And I have to be good with all that, and for the most part I really am. Because The Chief is of primary concern. He is so precious, and every day, every week bring so many changes. So many new things that he can do, so many new articulations of who he is and who he will be. He as well is constantly changing. And the full force of my concentration is for the most part now focused on him. Just as during his birth all my energy went to his delivery to this world, and now many of the calories that I eat go to nourishing him and sating his hunger every couple of hours, also my concentration just naturally flows toward him and the protection and care of his tiny, helpless, (yet loud but incredibly cute,) little self.

Chief Bringer of Joy

I can't believe it. I have a ten day old baby boy. Torin Colter Rhys. He's been on the outside for so little time, and yet every day as the sun sets I feel sad that another precious day has passed. He will only grow up and further away from me from here on. As my friend Jen, who is the mother of a nine month old said, "About twenty minutes after he was born I had the awful realization that he would grow up and get married someday,.... and it wouldn't be to me! And some other woman would be the most important person in his life." Of course she doesn't really want her son to not grow up and get married, and I would be heartbroken for Torin not to grow up and away from me. But he's just so precious and tiny now. And he's so attached to me, we're still so close. I am in an altered state these days, brought to me by my boy.

Torin is a Celtic word meaning chief. Colter is the name for the metal disc that goes before the plow. We chose it because of a beautiful line in a Philip Larkin poem, referring to the, "colter of joy." So we named our baby the chief enabler of joy. And he is, and it is such a piercing, fierce joy.

The birth itself was a good experience and I was able to bring him into the world without major complications. He was vigorous from the start, and has no trouble breastfeeding or advocating for his own needs. But he isn't too fussy either, and only complains when he means it. I love him so much. And this whole fierce rushing in of joy and love when Torin slid into the world has broken me open like nothing else. My body was broken open, my life is broken open, my spirit was broken open and my heart is so tender and open. It hurts everything is so tender and open, and I can feel the joy and pain of this life so intensely. This is the state that we can all strive for spiritually for years, and can rarely achieve. And Torin has brought me there, at least for a little while.

With his birth I've crossed a threshold. It's like I am standing on a bridge, watching a river rush by beneath me. And this rushing water is my life, running away underneath me. It has always been there running, but I just couldn't see it until now. And now I do. And it makes everything so beautiful and poignant.

Everything Changes

We've been back in CA for a little over a month now. It's been a busy month. A period once again where there has not been much naturally occurring time for reflection. We brought Nick to college, and have been having a few nights each week without kids. Except for the one still on the inside that is. The days have been full of the business of life, in addition to preparations for the upcoming birth and our changing home and routines. We've got tiny clothes, diapers and little blankets around. There is easy to prepare food in the freezer, bottles in the cupboard and infant acetaminophin in the medicine cabinet.

I feel like a storm is coming or something. Something unknown is headed our way. I am reading all the books and following what seems like good advice to prepare for something that I just can't quite imagine. Somebody else is coming out of my body. I don't know him yet, but I have never been closer with anyone in my life. And he is coming out and we will meet him soon! I can't really wrap my mind around this, and I don't think there is really any way to prepare for it any more than we have...

And as much as things will change for me, I can't even imagine what it will be like for our baby boy. He has been living in water, not exposed to air or needing to breathe or eat, for his entire existence so far. He only knows light and dark and the way that things sound when muffled through liquid. He has been floating without much influence from gravity, and for the past four weeks at least he has been living life upside down in his increasingly cramped little world. He's going to get the squeeze of his life through the birth canal soon, which should help empty his lungs of amniotic fluid, and then he will be out in the air and the light and his circulatory system will switch directions, the umbilical cord will pulse and then cease to function as it did, and then God willing he will open his eyes and breathe! It's too bizarre, I can't believe it. But they tell me it's really going to happen. In fact, it's happened to all of us. I just can't believe that we all get here this way.

Yet at the same time I am increasingly aware that things cannot go on much longer as they are. My abdomen is stretched to the limit. There is little room in there anymore for anything but baby, including the air in my lungs at times. I feel the pressure of another body in there on my hips and groin when I stand up. Getting up from a lying down position has become particularly difficult, and considering how often I get up to go to the bathroom every night, it's a bit of a chore. This just can't go on too much longer.

But what happens next is a big mystery. I've imagined it many times so far, but it is still so unknown. I am getting ready to cross a major threshold. My body is about to do something that it supposedly is perfectly prepared for and designed to do, but it has never even come close to experiencing before. And where there were two of us there will now be three. I feel the magic of this time everywhere I go these days. Strangers ask me, with excitement in their eyes, when he is due to arrive, and then wish us luck with smiles. I take stock of our lives and see the baby implements piled up, the relative orderliness of the house, the waves of well wishes and offers of support from friends and family, the happiness in our household. I feel very lucky and rich. I find myself wishing again and again that all babies and mothers may be as happy and supported as me. Everything changes, always. But for me I know it will change in a big way very soon. And it will be changed forever. I wait with some trepidation but plenty of joy and gratitude!

So Long Summer!

Summer in Maine is so sweet and so fleeting. We arrived here on the 14th of June, and there were a few days that still needed a coat, and one I think where I wore a winter hat. But the world had turned sweet and green and there were rhubarb and strawberries in the garden and the days were oh so long. Then so soon it all turned vibrant and sunny and summer exploded. Bricky went to camp at the beach every day and became browned from the sun and swam for hours a day like a seal. Strawberry shortcake tasted like sunshine itself. The peonies and roses unfolded. The garden came up and the wild valerian perfumed the fields. Friends and relatives and parties and festivals followed each other endlessly. Then by the end of July the blueberries ripened low in the grass, the tiger lilies bloomed, the bee balm blossomed and the tomatoes hung heavy and green on the vine. Summer at its apex in a few short weeks. Now it is not even the middle of August and the greens are bolted, there are more fruits than flowers, and the dark comes much more swiftly already. It is such a swift and dramatic turn of year here. It makes the passage of time so visceral. I fear the melancholy, utterly unknown two weeks ago, that always creeps in this season. Must everything be so fleeting? Can there never be ENOUGH time? Must I already face the tasks that won’t be completed, the relationships that won’t be renewed, and the visits and excursions that won’t be taken this year? Sadly, yes. It’s been a good run once again, and I am glad of all of the wonderful things that we have done, and all of the sun and fun that has made its way into our lives in the last couple of months. It’s almost over for this year though.

I have been all about action this summer. The pregnancy nausea finally passed just about the time I hit six months, soon to be replaced by incredible restlessness. I toss and turn at night and my legs and calves cramp up. Hormone surges got me cleaning out the barn, gardening and weeding, organizing our finances, putting together cribs and gathering tiny hand me downs. No painting, no blogging, no reflecting: all preparation. Nesting. Getting ready for the un-readyable. The magic, visceral transformation that is coming our way. I have gotten a lot done. I figured that I should just harness the energy while I could. I don’t know how relevant all of these tasks have been to preparing our lives, my mind, and my heart for the arrival of our little man, but it felt right. Babies really need organized barns, right?

Riding the tide of the summer though has reminded me, and in my labors I have occasionally paused to think, how fast it all goes. The seasons turn so swiftly. The toys and books and papers that I found in the loft were all so relevant to the kids just a few short summers ago, and are now so utterly forgotten. It takes my body less than a year to grow another new human being. A year from now when we return here again he will have teeth, and be able to crawl and to eat food other than breastmilk. The year after that he will be walking and running his way into childhood. I do try and remember these things in my busyness. I do try and pause to feel the beauty and gravity of the fleeting moment. My son and I, although I don’t know him yet, will never be as close again as we are right now, sharing one body. Life moves on, springs forth, disseminates. As the summer in Maine ends for us and we head back to L.A., I feel myself just breathe for a moment and look at where we stand. Despite my somewhat organized barn, there are many things that aren’t exactly the way that I had hoped or pictured them for this time in my life, but I just can’t care about that anymore. This is my life. I’m trying to hold onto the beauty and witness the complexity in every moment these days.