Paint me in colors
A brush of your Love
Anything I can be
Linger in details
It feels so real
Convincing me as I breathe
This world is a playground for the mind
The only exit is a shift in paradigm
Use your vision wisely, tell me
What do you want to see?
Paint it with your will and what you dream
Will be, will be
Vision condenses
Reach with your senses
Paint until you feel free
Awaken essence
Your incandescence
Is lighting the boundary
Expanding outward
Light everything you find
Illuminate the world with the light you are inside
Love and justice, truth and patience
Blazing brightly burn
The measure that you radiate
Determines the return
So burn...
Capture with sable
The light and the shadow
Render and represent
Inward comes outward
Reality conjured
By contours of your intent
This world is a playground or the mind
Search your heart and make your mark on the canvas of space and time
Choose your vision wisely, tell me
What do you want to see
Paint it with your will and what you dream
will be, will be
9.10.2011
8.06.2011
a thank you note to my bicycle
dear beautiful machine,
I am sending this letter to you in order to make clear and plain the fact that I love appreciate you. Your gifts to me come daily, by wind in my hair, by earth rolling by underfoot, by water from within and without, and fire that burns away every calorie I can consume. Your unfailing ability to make everyday more fun and bring opportunities for learning and growth is a breath of fresh air. I wonder if you know, dear wheeled friend, how much I feel indebted to you for all you do. Your sweet simplicity demands so little in the way of maintenance that I fear I may not show you the attention you deserve. So please accept this gratitude, for I sincerely mean every word. I love you, you wondrous wheeled treasure, I really do.
Love,
jaymi
I am sending this letter to you in order to make clear and plain the fact that I love appreciate you. Your gifts to me come daily, by wind in my hair, by earth rolling by underfoot, by water from within and without, and fire that burns away every calorie I can consume. Your unfailing ability to make everyday more fun and bring opportunities for learning and growth is a breath of fresh air. I wonder if you know, dear wheeled friend, how much I feel indebted to you for all you do. Your sweet simplicity demands so little in the way of maintenance that I fear I may not show you the attention you deserve. So please accept this gratitude, for I sincerely mean every word. I love you, you wondrous wheeled treasure, I really do.
Love,
jaymi
5.26.2011
embracing emptiness
I like the feel
of all the empty houses on the street
during a rainy weekday morning.
The homes are like minds;
when the people are gone,
and all the movement inside stops or slows,
it becomes peaceful,
tranquil,
quiet.
The people have all gone
in their noisy cars
off to some other place.
Yet, in their absence,
something of a person’s essence remains behind in a home.
Something of my mind remains in my head
when I meditate and send my spirit off
in some mantra vehicle
to some other place.
In this way, empty homes are meditating,
considering the possibilities of coming alive again
with some new spirit inside.
During this quiet, private space,
where I am inside my home,
and not inside my head,
I can hear the empty echos of quiet halls,
tiny paws of sleeping companion animals scuffling across the floor,
the amorous calls of a pair of birds.
Moving outward,
my spirit expands beyond these four walls
and I envelop all the emptiness I can find,
in every house,
and feel the temporary quality of it,
knowing that in a matter of hours,
all this quiet turns into a flurry of
movement,
consumption,
humanity.
I breathe in that peace,
I breathe in that chaos,
and I take peace and chaos
out the door with me,
my mind, my body and move
in some other place.
4.18.2011
Monday Morning Commute
This morning I woke and promised to start the day with purposeful joy. I allowed myself to sleep in for ten more minutes just for the deliciousness of the experience. I woke my daughter, fed her the breakfast of her choosing, chock full of sugary sweet bad-for-you-ness and smiled with her as she savored it. I bicycled my precious child and two tubs full of recyclable materials down the street. Thankfully, I only spilled the plastics and not my more precious cargo. I got the opportunity to see how strong my little girl has become when she held the bicycle steady while I gathered and reattached the wayward milk jugs and fruit containers to our family bike. She then climbed back aboard and we finished our commute to school. She said, "I am trying not to compare the smell of gasoline burning from the cars with the smell of the flowers," and I realized how aware she is of the juxtaposition of two scents among the many in our neighborhood. Bacon and greasy potato breakfasts mingle with cumulative cigarette smoke dancing with laundry detergent steaming from the dryer vents and car exhaust fighting with the delight of the blossoming trees and flowers. It's a wonder we don't find ourselves overwhelmed by it all. But instead, we let it all wash over us, with joy; and in a way, we are overwhelmed, but we move with such grace, balanced on two wheels.
1.20.2011
how much?
How Much?
How much do I care
About Peace?
Do I care enough about Peace
To ride
My bike to work
To not say, “It’s too far”
And instead just move closer?
And quit when I get there
Say Enough is Enough is
Enough
I will not work for the Man
Anymore
Do I care
Enough About Peace
To ride and ride and ride
Cleaning my mind
Until I find
A real job
Working for everywhere, everyone, everything
Else in the world?
Not real like 9 to 5
Real like keeps me alive
Not real like Peter Jennings
Real like Amy Goodman
Not real like “Somebody’s gotta do it”
Real like Earth Island Institute
Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty
International, Global Exchange
South Yuba River Citizens League
Real like if I don’t do it
Who the hell will?
Do I care
Enough about Peace
To admit
That all inactions are actions
And all actions are votes
Not voting is
Voting
To vote
With my mouth
With my conscience and wallet
And my ballot while I‘m at it?
To Buy
All organic
All the time, always
From sheets to roses to
Underwear to sprouts?
To cause
A commotion at Safeway, say
Let me know when you make the transition
And I might reconsider my decision
To never shop here again
To digup
My chemically dependent
Heavy drinking lawn and
Replace it for good
With a permaculture garden
To share
With my neighborhood
To ship
Forty pounds of corn
And 5000 gallons of water
To my refugee pen pal in Rwanda
Every day for a year
Before eating one more mouthful of
Cow?
To build my house out of straw
Make it small
Fill it with compact florescents
Superinsulate the water heater
Make certain
Every splinter of wood is
J. Butterfly Certified?
And once I‘ve built it
To stay home
To not fly
To forsake air travel
And its suicidal tendency
To warm
Up the world, its
Insatiable greed
For being there and
Here, on the very same day
And Fuck those little plastic cups
Anyway
To let
My fingers
Do the walking
Right out the door of
The businessasusual yellowpages
And into the National Green Pages
Every time the American in me
Can no longer resist
The urge
To consume Do I care
Enough about Peace
To de-cumulate?
To sell half,
Of my shit,
Then give half of what’s left away
Today? Except for the television
Much like a landmine
Must be destroyed
Before maiming the mind
Of one more little boy
To have
Just one child
To adopt
Between one and eighty eight
And to meditate
On the origins of
Impatience, anger and hate
So that I may never yell
At any of them
Or anyone else I love
Or don’t yet love
To spend
As much time with them
As I do sending
Interoffice email
At my job
Real, or not
To remember
That the truth has been found
I can’t buy from Exxon
Without Prince William Sound
I can’t buy from Chevron
Without hired helicopters
Gunning N’goni to the ground
Not from Shell and that little thing
With Ken Saro Wiwa
Not from the Unocals
And their Ivy League Pals
Shilling on Niteline
Promoting the new
Uzbeki, Afghani,
Osama bin Pipeline
And therefore,
To commit
To a reduction
In internal combustion?
To drink
And drink and drink
Burning gasoline
Until I feel fiery compassion
For the eternal sufferers of my
Infernal dedication
To internal combustion?
Infernal internal eternal
Combustion
To admit
I‘m addicted
To my automobile
My own two little
Axles of Evil?
I keep finding myself
Back at the pump
With every finger
On the trigger
And I know in that moment that
They is me
I am them
Pushed and sucked and pumped
Through a dirty oil
Filter
Do I care
Enough about Peace
To sell
My car?
To hitchhike
But refuse to ride
In any SUV-8 commuter?
Range Rover, Range Rover
Send our black soldiers
Right over
Jesus Chrysler, Honda Krishna
I keep finding myself
Back at the outlet
Ready to plug something else in
Or check something else out
Do I care
Enough about Peace
To clothes
The Gap or at least
Stand in front of The Gap
With a picket?
To never
Set foot in
Wal-mart K-mart Ware-mart
Bi-mart Petsmart Star-mart or
Star-bucks again?
How ’bout Home Depot?
To stop
Buying clothes made of oil
Sewn by 8-year-olds in dark factories on
The other side of the planet
Sold in stores built on wetlands
Farmlands, once quiet lands
So-far-from-where-you-live lands
So hemmed in by asphalt big
Trucks broken glass and
Mufflers so underserved
By public transportation that
Driving there seems like the
Only reasonable way
To get there
But which are too cheap
To pass up?
Do I care enough
About Peace
To stop
Buying those clothes
To shop instead at thrift stores
To buy organic cotton hemp recycled
Clothes made by people I know who
Live on my street?
To acknowledge
That peace is, redwood trees standing
Peace is, worldwide family planning
Peace is, organic peach canning
Peace is, Alice Walker in the Oval Office
Sitting at the big desk
Peace is, live music in my kitchen
Peace is, your grandma riding her bike to
The bus to the farmers market
Peace is, a living wage for the
Columbian peasant who grew
My cup
Of Coffee
Peace is, the collective self-esteem of all
The world’s kids
And I‘ve got to wondering
If you gathered all the ten-year-olds in
China, America, Afganistan, Nigeria
And Mexico City
Into one giant circle
And gathered all their self-esteem
And put it in a laser beam
Of light
And shot it into the Night
Would it make it to the Lincoln Bedroom
Would it make it to the Moon?
Do I care
Enough about Peace
To cutup
My Discover Card and
Send it back to the bankers
Who are using my money
To finance the erection
Of the 3 gorges dam
To displace a million people
Brown, voiceless people
To drown the great Yangtze
And 5,000 years of cultural history
Beneath the largest chunk of cement
Ever conceived by Stanford University
Engineers
To distrust
Scientists with technological cures for
Organizational problems?
DNA cures for tomatoes that ripen
DDT cures for mosquitoes that bite
Nuclear cures for energy problems
Nuclear cures for war problems
Nuclear cures for nuclear waste problems
“This just in! Top scientists announced today
that they’ve found a cure for ignorance,”
All the newsmen blared.
If Einstein was so smart
Why didn’t he see we weren’t ready
For MC
To be squared?
To revolt
Every time some corporation
Commits inappropriation?
Steals
A word, a plant, an idea, a gene
A famous face, mental space, sacred place, or
Sixth grade class?
Get the hell out of my watershed
Before I copyright our whole language and
Trademark your ass
To boycott
Their labels
Never worship their stars?
Carry scissors and markers and
Stand in the street
Offering on-the-spot removal of
Swooshes® from feet?
Do I care
Enough about Peace
To educate
Myself
In the Arts
Of resistance
By seeking out the real news
In Boycott Action News,
In Adbusters, WorldWatch, Mother Jones,
And Yes! Magazine?
To climb
Up and up and up the ranks
Of the Ruckus Society?
To recycle
But only as a last resort?
After reusing, retreading, reducing
Rejecting, and rejoicing in the replacing our
Throwaway culture?
To wear
A plate and cup
In a cloth bag on my shoulder?
Ready to catch
Spontaneous nourishment without notice
Without needing virgin
Old growth disposable tableware
And when the cashier say, “Paper, or Plastic?”
I‘ll say no
Thank you
To ask
questions about everything
I demonize, criticize, generalize, jeopardize, ostracize, canonize
Fantasize, memorize, advertise or supersize?
About everything I say I can’t live without?
About everything I stand for sit for work for play for
Pray for pay for
Live for?
About everything I eat, buy, do, make, facilitate,
Drive, consume, produce, wear, think,
Believe, value, throwaway and
Leave Behind?
Do I care
Enough about Peace
To light myself on fire on Las Vegas Boulevard?
To walk
The talk?
To walk and walk and walk
To walk to the White House
To walk to Iraq
To walk to noplace in particular
Holding a sign above my head
That says
One Walker for Peace
Ignoring mind closures and no trespassing signs
Testosterone fueled egos and
The intentionally blind
Planting tiny peace seeds in
Every fertile, bare patch of
Human mind
That I find?
Do I care enough
About Peace
To ride my bike
To work?
-kipchoge, 2003
this poem was written by someone who does care. find out about him at www.gingerninjas.com
How much do I care
About Peace?
Do I care enough about Peace
To ride
My bike to work
To not say, “It’s too far”
And instead just move closer?
And quit when I get there
Say Enough is Enough is
Enough
I will not work for the Man
Anymore
Do I care
Enough About Peace
To ride and ride and ride
Cleaning my mind
Until I find
A real job
Working for everywhere, everyone, everything
Else in the world?
Not real like 9 to 5
Real like keeps me alive
Not real like Peter Jennings
Real like Amy Goodman
Not real like “Somebody’s gotta do it”
Real like Earth Island Institute
Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty
International, Global Exchange
South Yuba River Citizens League
Real like if I don’t do it
Who the hell will?
Do I care
Enough about Peace
To admit
That all inactions are actions
And all actions are votes
Not voting is
Voting
To vote
With my mouth
With my conscience and wallet
And my ballot while I‘m at it?
To Buy
All organic
All the time, always
From sheets to roses to
Underwear to sprouts?
To cause
A commotion at Safeway, say
Let me know when you make the transition
And I might reconsider my decision
To never shop here again
To digup
My chemically dependent
Heavy drinking lawn and
Replace it for good
With a permaculture garden
To share
With my neighborhood
To ship
Forty pounds of corn
And 5000 gallons of water
To my refugee pen pal in Rwanda
Every day for a year
Before eating one more mouthful of
Cow?
To build my house out of straw
Make it small
Fill it with compact florescents
Superinsulate the water heater
Make certain
Every splinter of wood is
J. Butterfly Certified?
And once I‘ve built it
To stay home
To not fly
To forsake air travel
And its suicidal tendency
To warm
Up the world, its
Insatiable greed
For being there and
Here, on the very same day
And Fuck those little plastic cups
Anyway
To let
My fingers
Do the walking
Right out the door of
The businessasusual yellowpages
And into the National Green Pages
Every time the American in me
Can no longer resist
The urge
To consume Do I care
Enough about Peace
To de-cumulate?
To sell half,
Of my shit,
Then give half of what’s left away
Today? Except for the television
Much like a landmine
Must be destroyed
Before maiming the mind
Of one more little boy
To have
Just one child
To adopt
Between one and eighty eight
And to meditate
On the origins of
Impatience, anger and hate
So that I may never yell
At any of them
Or anyone else I love
Or don’t yet love
To spend
As much time with them
As I do sending
Interoffice email
At my job
Real, or not
To remember
That the truth has been found
I can’t buy from Exxon
Without Prince William Sound
I can’t buy from Chevron
Without hired helicopters
Gunning N’goni to the ground
Not from Shell and that little thing
With Ken Saro Wiwa
Not from the Unocals
And their Ivy League Pals
Shilling on Niteline
Promoting the new
Uzbeki, Afghani,
Osama bin Pipeline
And therefore,
To commit
To a reduction
In internal combustion?
To drink
And drink and drink
Burning gasoline
Until I feel fiery compassion
For the eternal sufferers of my
Infernal dedication
To internal combustion?
Infernal internal eternal
Combustion
To admit
I‘m addicted
To my automobile
My own two little
Axles of Evil?
I keep finding myself
Back at the pump
With every finger
On the trigger
And I know in that moment that
They is me
I am them
Pushed and sucked and pumped
Through a dirty oil
Filter
Do I care
Enough about Peace
To sell
My car?
To hitchhike
But refuse to ride
In any SUV-8 commuter?
Range Rover, Range Rover
Send our black soldiers
Right over
Jesus Chrysler, Honda Krishna
I keep finding myself
Back at the outlet
Ready to plug something else in
Or check something else out
Do I care
Enough about Peace
To clothes
The Gap or at least
Stand in front of The Gap
With a picket?
To never
Set foot in
Wal-mart K-mart Ware-mart
Bi-mart Petsmart Star-mart or
Star-bucks again?
How ’bout Home Depot?
To stop
Buying clothes made of oil
Sewn by 8-year-olds in dark factories on
The other side of the planet
Sold in stores built on wetlands
Farmlands, once quiet lands
So-far-from-where-you-live lands
So hemmed in by asphalt big
Trucks broken glass and
Mufflers so underserved
By public transportation that
Driving there seems like the
Only reasonable way
To get there
But which are too cheap
To pass up?
Do I care enough
About Peace
To stop
Buying those clothes
To shop instead at thrift stores
To buy organic cotton hemp recycled
Clothes made by people I know who
Live on my street?
To acknowledge
That peace is, redwood trees standing
Peace is, worldwide family planning
Peace is, organic peach canning
Peace is, Alice Walker in the Oval Office
Sitting at the big desk
Peace is, live music in my kitchen
Peace is, your grandma riding her bike to
The bus to the farmers market
Peace is, a living wage for the
Columbian peasant who grew
My cup
Of Coffee
Peace is, the collective self-esteem of all
The world’s kids
And I‘ve got to wondering
If you gathered all the ten-year-olds in
China, America, Afganistan, Nigeria
And Mexico City
Into one giant circle
And gathered all their self-esteem
And put it in a laser beam
Of light
And shot it into the Night
Would it make it to the Lincoln Bedroom
Would it make it to the Moon?
Do I care
Enough about Peace
To cutup
My Discover Card and
Send it back to the bankers
Who are using my money
To finance the erection
Of the 3 gorges dam
To displace a million people
Brown, voiceless people
To drown the great Yangtze
And 5,000 years of cultural history
Beneath the largest chunk of cement
Ever conceived by Stanford University
Engineers
To distrust
Scientists with technological cures for
Organizational problems?
DNA cures for tomatoes that ripen
DDT cures for mosquitoes that bite
Nuclear cures for energy problems
Nuclear cures for war problems
Nuclear cures for nuclear waste problems
“This just in! Top scientists announced today
that they’ve found a cure for ignorance,”
All the newsmen blared.
If Einstein was so smart
Why didn’t he see we weren’t ready
For MC
To be squared?
To revolt
Every time some corporation
Commits inappropriation?
Steals
A word, a plant, an idea, a gene
A famous face, mental space, sacred place, or
Sixth grade class?
Get the hell out of my watershed
Before I copyright our whole language and
Trademark your ass
To boycott
Their labels
Never worship their stars?
Carry scissors and markers and
Stand in the street
Offering on-the-spot removal of
Swooshes® from feet?
Do I care
Enough about Peace
To educate
Myself
In the Arts
Of resistance
By seeking out the real news
In Boycott Action News,
In Adbusters, WorldWatch, Mother Jones,
And Yes! Magazine?
To climb
Up and up and up the ranks
Of the Ruckus Society?
To recycle
But only as a last resort?
After reusing, retreading, reducing
Rejecting, and rejoicing in the replacing our
Throwaway culture?
To wear
A plate and cup
In a cloth bag on my shoulder?
Ready to catch
Spontaneous nourishment without notice
Without needing virgin
Old growth disposable tableware
And when the cashier say, “Paper, or Plastic?”
I‘ll say no
Thank you
To ask
questions about everything
I demonize, criticize, generalize, jeopardize, ostracize, canonize
Fantasize, memorize, advertise or supersize?
About everything I say I can’t live without?
About everything I stand for sit for work for play for
Pray for pay for
Live for?
About everything I eat, buy, do, make, facilitate,
Drive, consume, produce, wear, think,
Believe, value, throwaway and
Leave Behind?
Do I care
Enough about Peace
To light myself on fire on Las Vegas Boulevard?
To walk
The talk?
To walk and walk and walk
To walk to the White House
To walk to Iraq
To walk to noplace in particular
Holding a sign above my head
That says
One Walker for Peace
Ignoring mind closures and no trespassing signs
Testosterone fueled egos and
The intentionally blind
Planting tiny peace seeds in
Every fertile, bare patch of
Human mind
That I find?
Do I care enough
About Peace
To ride my bike
To work?
-kipchoge, 2003
this poem was written by someone who does care. find out about him at www.gingerninjas.com
12.07.2010
temporary darkness
Tonight, riding home, I found a temporary darkness. The city is "beautifying" the 10th Street corridor between Woodruff and Rural. They have bumped out the curbs and this spring will probably see some flowers planted there in the new patches that will be green space. I bet Keep Indianapolis Beautiful will even plant some of their yellow daffodils. The daylight in the spring will last a bit longer and dawn a bit earlier. But, for now, the darkness. The installation of new street lights has deemed it necessary to shut off the power to that little beautified corridor for a while. And each night that I ride that tiny tunnel of darkness, I look up to the heavens, and I see stars; the original street lights.
12.05.2010
Full Circle into Winter
It was just over a year ago that my family relinquished the automobile in favor of the bicycle lifestyle. And this past year has been one of the greatest for our family. We have reached a whole new level of financial self-reliance as we have chipped away at our cost of living until we could comfortably live on a Starbucks wages. We've eaten well, not had any of our utilities shut off, and kept our home. Wahoo! I feel like we've been through some kind of boot camp for escaping the "American Dream" (read that to mean attempting fulfillment through materialism and consumption) and crash landed into minimalism, self-reliance, sustainability, and freedom. Wait, wasn't that just a checklist for the original American Dream? Well, who cares what kind of dream it is; I'm just glad to be living a dream at all.
This past year has been one full of gifts. Some were the kind of gifts that your Self (big S) gives to your self (small s). Like realizing that you are physically strong after a lifetime of thinking you were the type to easily bruise and need help both lifting something heavy and getting something off the top shelf of any cabinet. Some of the gifts were the kind you were born with and didn't know were anything special at all until other people noticed and then convinced you that you really did have a special knack for something that not everyone has. Other gifts were less metaphorical and more literal; like the totally awesome bicycle trailer that one of my daily customers at Starbucks gave to our family. The new trailer was a gigantic upgrade from our old one and with a little mending on my part recently, will likely last us as long as Isa can fit inside it (perhaps one more winter?). All these gifts have made our year more than just simple survival -- these gifts were the ways we experienced a great abundance during what might be called a lean season.
Winter, I believe, was generally considered a lean season. Not much can grow during this time of year in many climates. Of course there is the harvest time feast of Thanksgiving and the more wintery feast of the Solstice, or Christmas, or Hanukkah or what have you. But then, modern giant 24 hour grocery stores notwithstanding, many people lived for the rest of this lean season on what they had canned and stored from the previous growing season. And in a way, we have seemed to survive this past year on the Fruits of the Spirit that we had canned and stored. We relied heavily on forbearance, for example to keep our home (ha ha!). But really, though, self-control has been a lesson of this past year; as has kindness. Love and joy are fruits that kept ripening for us again and again, even after the first frost. Old friends have come back into our lives. New ways of doing things we had done before have surprised and delighted us. The blessings we have accepted as our own continue to bloom and grow. I look ahead to our coming year and excitement swells in my heart for the fun and beauty we might discover there.
And really, I just sat down to blog about how much I love to bike in the snow. But I guess I did that last year. :)
This past year has been one full of gifts. Some were the kind of gifts that your Self (big S) gives to your self (small s). Like realizing that you are physically strong after a lifetime of thinking you were the type to easily bruise and need help both lifting something heavy and getting something off the top shelf of any cabinet. Some of the gifts were the kind you were born with and didn't know were anything special at all until other people noticed and then convinced you that you really did have a special knack for something that not everyone has. Other gifts were less metaphorical and more literal; like the totally awesome bicycle trailer that one of my daily customers at Starbucks gave to our family. The new trailer was a gigantic upgrade from our old one and with a little mending on my part recently, will likely last us as long as Isa can fit inside it (perhaps one more winter?). All these gifts have made our year more than just simple survival -- these gifts were the ways we experienced a great abundance during what might be called a lean season.
Winter, I believe, was generally considered a lean season. Not much can grow during this time of year in many climates. Of course there is the harvest time feast of Thanksgiving and the more wintery feast of the Solstice, or Christmas, or Hanukkah or what have you. But then, modern giant 24 hour grocery stores notwithstanding, many people lived for the rest of this lean season on what they had canned and stored from the previous growing season. And in a way, we have seemed to survive this past year on the Fruits of the Spirit that we had canned and stored. We relied heavily on forbearance, for example to keep our home (ha ha!). But really, though, self-control has been a lesson of this past year; as has kindness. Love and joy are fruits that kept ripening for us again and again, even after the first frost. Old friends have come back into our lives. New ways of doing things we had done before have surprised and delighted us. The blessings we have accepted as our own continue to bloom and grow. I look ahead to our coming year and excitement swells in my heart for the fun and beauty we might discover there.
And really, I just sat down to blog about how much I love to bike in the snow. But I guess I did that last year. :)
11.12.2010
morning ride
pushing/pulling pedals
poetry in motion
this morning's mountain pose
now grounded on tiny metal platforms
hovering in cyclical orbits
light/heat radiating
between the remnants of night
illuminating the city
and it's halo
enlightening the mind
and it's halo
shining upon the faces of passersby
and their halos
pulling/pushing pedals
two hollow tubes roll
putting a pillow of air
between me and the earth
levitating in perpetual motion
poetry in motion
this morning's mountain pose
now grounded on tiny metal platforms
hovering in cyclical orbits
light/heat radiating
between the remnants of night
illuminating the city
and it's halo
enlightening the mind
and it's halo
shining upon the faces of passersby
and their halos
pulling/pushing pedals
two hollow tubes roll
putting a pillow of air
between me and the earth
levitating in perpetual motion
6.23.2010
Creativity Found!
Thanks to some thoughtful friends and some serendipitous scheduling at work, I was able to relax into spontaneity which led directly to a burst of creativity! My friend Echo came to pick Isa up last Saturday afternoon after work. Joshua was working the night shift at his job, so I found myself enjoying some truly FREE time. After my last blog post, this seems like such a pendulum swing. I had planned on using my alone time to paint, but alas, I was surprised to find myself sewing. I have been feeling the effects of the 90+ degree days with high humidity, not only when I'm sweltering in our home, but also when I'm out on the bike. I have a little cotton skirt that I bought a few years ago that seems to be the only comfortable clothing I can wear in this heat. So, instead of searching like mad for a few more of these lightweight skirts, I decided to make some. I hopped on my bike and pedaled my way to the thrift store down the street. I scoured the whole store, not missing a rack, searching for suitable t-shirts to convert into cycling skirts. And for less than $10, I have made four skirts. Not only are they comfortable and perfectly suited to my needs, but they are each unique, one of a kind creations that flowed from unplanned, spur of the moment sewing! FTW! Here are some photos of these fun little cycling skirts:
This is the first one I made. The waist band is made from a tank top that someone gave me a few years ago. I loved the material because it was really soft and colorful, but the tank itself was really unflattering on me. The bottom of this skirt is made from an old green turtleneck that has been sitting on my sewing desk since last fall. It was just waiting for me to make it into something new and useful!
This second skirt is made from one of my favorite shirts. About ten years ago, I bought this amazing little shirt in a boutique in Chicago while Joshua and I were visiting our friend, Jay. The front was this screen print of art nouveau style ladies. The back was a very light green color. The back of the shirt became a waistband for this cute little skirt, and the art nouveau ladies got cut from the front of the shirt and sewn to this turquoise t-shirt I found at the thrift store for 89 cents, which became the bottom of the skirt.
The collar of that turquoise shirt became the handy little pocket on this skirt; the sleeves, once cut open and then sewn together, became this skirt's waistband. The "make it yourself" patch was bought from a little left wing bookstore in Toronto while I was there with my friend Eric (Dirklette) in 2003. I've been waiting to use it for a long time!
This skirt is made from a thrift store t shirt too. It's a heather-y sort of red color. It was SO soft hanging there on it's hanger, I couldn't resist. It had these cool contrasting ringers on it's short sleeves and collar, which I had planned to use to make pockets for this skirt, but I decided against them once I had gathered the skirt at the hips.
It seemed too plain, though, so I added this little bike patch, which I just sort of sew-sketched onto a piece of scrap t-shirt.
6.10.2010
creativity can be elusive
Sometimes I want to write; other times I feel too private to share my thoughts. Over the last few months, I've been writing in various little notebooks and keeping a gratitude journal, but not updating my blog. It feels, three months after my last entry, like an insurmountable task to "update" this to a current state.
In brief, and to reorient the timeline, I am still working full time at Starbucks on Mass Ave. Joshua is also now working full time again. Isa is just getting ready to start kindergarten at a new charter school nearby. All of us are getting our eight hour days away from home, it seems. Joshua and I both working full time has taken a toll on us, but we persevere with love in our hearts and thankfulness on our lips. At least we have just enough money to scrape ourselves out of loan defaults and past due notices. We are just now catching up financially. We haven't quite caught up emotionally...
I am still interested in painting and writing music, but the time crunch of us working opposite shifts and having only one parent home at a time to care for Isa has made finding uninterrupted time to be creative rather evasive at worst and fleeting at best. Sometimes, I find it necessary to forgo sleep to find the quiet time to reach within and pull out some kind of expression. This, of course, means that Isa is sleeping and so music has been shelved in favor of the quieter forms of expression like writing and painting. When I'm just too tuckered out to express anything, I read. I've been reading A LOT lately.
Our garden is coming along, but nowhere near what I'd dreamed up. If we had an extra day in each week, maybe, but at least the wildflowers will be coming up soon. Most of our vegetable seeds were neglected a bit too long. The only sprouts are sweet peppers and boy, will we be eating a lot of those! Hardy little things, I'll have to remember that.
This sounds like complaining, but really, life is pretty good. I am thankful to have an intact family after the stress of the last year. Isa is still thriving and so ready to start school. I am seeing this time of busy-ness as a temporary phase and know that both financial and temporal abundance is just ready to burst into bloom in our lives.
In brief, and to reorient the timeline, I am still working full time at Starbucks on Mass Ave. Joshua is also now working full time again. Isa is just getting ready to start kindergarten at a new charter school nearby. All of us are getting our eight hour days away from home, it seems. Joshua and I both working full time has taken a toll on us, but we persevere with love in our hearts and thankfulness on our lips. At least we have just enough money to scrape ourselves out of loan defaults and past due notices. We are just now catching up financially. We haven't quite caught up emotionally...
I am still interested in painting and writing music, but the time crunch of us working opposite shifts and having only one parent home at a time to care for Isa has made finding uninterrupted time to be creative rather evasive at worst and fleeting at best. Sometimes, I find it necessary to forgo sleep to find the quiet time to reach within and pull out some kind of expression. This, of course, means that Isa is sleeping and so music has been shelved in favor of the quieter forms of expression like writing and painting. When I'm just too tuckered out to express anything, I read. I've been reading A LOT lately.
Our garden is coming along, but nowhere near what I'd dreamed up. If we had an extra day in each week, maybe, but at least the wildflowers will be coming up soon. Most of our vegetable seeds were neglected a bit too long. The only sprouts are sweet peppers and boy, will we be eating a lot of those! Hardy little things, I'll have to remember that.
This sounds like complaining, but really, life is pretty good. I am thankful to have an intact family after the stress of the last year. Isa is still thriving and so ready to start school. I am seeing this time of busy-ness as a temporary phase and know that both financial and temporal abundance is just ready to burst into bloom in our lives.
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