Overcrowded

from Organic Style magazine, no longer in print

"If your life is in harmony..then your life is full and good, but not overcrowded. If it is overcrowded, you are doing more than is right for you, more than is your job to do in the total scheme of things" - Peace Pilgrim, Activist

{Written in 2008. Just found this post that I never published. Funny how we find things when we need to.}

There is work that gives more energy and there is work that strips you of vital life energy - and making the distinction is key to the health of your body, mind and spirit. Full schedules are not the problem - pushing yourself beyond your limits is. So again, know yourself - know what you are capable of and where you are pushing too far, too hard and too much.

For me, it is the simple and extremely difficult path of learning to say "No". My natural inclination is to say "Yes" without even thinking about it - and then feeling overwhelmed and overloaded when I am over-committed. So, I am practicing with little triumphs - saying "no" to little requests for my time and energy.

As I get clear about my "work in the total scheme of things", it gets easier to say no - to events, tasks, jobs, opportunities and things that do not serve my greater purpose and life mission. And all of a sudden my calendar is no longer overcrowded, though it is still full.

So I urge you - look at your days and see where you too can pause and make some space.

Heading north

It's official - we are moving. We are moving to Mill Valley. We are moving in two weeks.

Part of the the relief I felt when I learned that our house offer had not been chosen was due to one very big unknown: will we like living in Mill Valley?

My gut says that warmer weather, more space, more green and more families can't be bad, but what if we don't have the same values as our neighbors? What if we really miss the energy and forward thinking that comes with living in the city? What if the commute is intolerable for my husband and drastically reduces the amount of time we have together? What if we just hate it?

These are big what-ifs and our solution to the what-ifs is to become renters again. And that is exactly what we have done. We found a little house with a lot of character and a lot of room, a small back-yard, two bathrooms and a porch right outside the kitchen door. Its quirky and perhaps a bit odd, but its us and hopefully when I get over the "oh my god there is so much to do", I will feel excited about this change.

For now, this citymaus is going north and moving to the country - even if it's just 25 minutes from where we are now.

Stay tuned...I will keep you posted.

Birthday redeemed

Here is how you make-up for a not so great birthday:

1. Hire babysitter for 4 hours during the day on a Friday
2. Vow to not do any work during those 4 hours or do anything on your to-do list
3. Find free parking on the street, which rarely happens in San Francisco
4. Arrive at Kabuki a few minutes before 10am to avoid the waiting list
5. Get crazy and ask for a last minute 30-minute massage appointment
6. Book that appointment without second thoughts
7. Find your locker and turn cell phone to off
8. Get to the bathing area and just be for 30 minutes
9. Have a 30-minute totally divinely amazing fantastic massage
10. Spend 40 more minutes in the bathing area without looking at the clock

Loosy, goosy and feeling good, I meandered into my favorite Japanese grocery store before heading to the car. With a California sushi hand-roll and a bottle of Milk Tea in hand, I crossed the street, found a ledge next to the sidewalk to sit on, let the sun stream down onto my face and slowly savored every bite as I watched the world pass by.

And that is how you redeem a birthday.

The wait is over and mostly I just feel relief.

The right house is still out there and when we are really ready, it will be there.

Mourning Domino

It happened again - this time it didn't even make it up to our apartment.

For months, I have been mourning the loss of Domino. Please don't laugh or take me any less seriously when you realize that I am in fact talking about a home design magazine, or more accurately the former home design magazine. This is where you see that I am equally passionate about beautiful things and spaces and craftiness as I am about sitting in silent meditation and learning to live in the present moment.

Domino was different - it was clever and accessible and quirky and fun. It spoke my language, talked about my kind of people and shared inspirational images of spaces that I would want to live in. And though the world of design blogs now fills a bit of the void with thousands of design inspirations and suggestions, what is missing is the experience of the turned page. Whenever I opened our mailbox and saw the plastic wrapped treasure amidst the sea of advertisements and bills, I knew that later that evening I would get to sit in my favorite chair, drink my favorite tea and journey into the pages of this printed world of beautiful things. Guess you could call it a creative pause.

And then, just like that, it ended because apparently someone had misjudged the demographic that so piously followed Domino and so it ended. Just like that. After the initial shock subsided and I allowed myself a bit of disappointment, I was able to detach myself and simply accept that all things come to an end at some point and that change is inevitable. So I moved on. Until the first Glamour arrived and it all bubbled to the surface.

I will apologize in advance if you are loyal to Glamour magazine. Please keep reading and enjoying it. When the first one arrived as a replacement for the remainder of my Domino subscription, I figured I would try my old ritual. But with every turn of the page, I grew more disappointed and dissatisfied. "How could they pick this crap as the replacement?" were the words that raged in my head.

For months, I have kept giving it another try. Kept schlepping the magazine upstairs though my ritual grew shorter and shorter and slowly faded completely. And then today, when I opened the mailbox and saw it yet again poking over the other recyclable advertisements, I just made the decision to stop the how-could-they-send-this-instead chatter and dumped it straight into the recycling bin. And can I tell, that simple little gesture stopped a flood of negative and distracting mumbo jumbo in my already chatter filled head.

Making an offer

There was nothing mindful about the last few days.

I felt like I was hovering a few inches from the ground, in this mad frenzy to get it all done - the "it" of making an offer on a house when your tax returns aren't done, your finances are not in complete order and you have no idea if the bank even wants to give you enough money to make it all possible.

So for three days we scrambled and typed and organized and typed some more and categorized receipts and made spreadsheets and input numbers and ran reports. And by 2pm today, more miracles have happened than I could have ever imagined. Tax returns are complete, pre-authorization letters are emailed and an offer is on the table.

And now we wait.

Born today

Today is my birthday and it doesn't feel like it. I got all kinds of calls and emails and messages on Facebook with people hoping that I was doing something special or doing something relaxing or doing something really nice for myself. But I wasn't - I was scrambling to get a year's worth of expenses and income to the CPA so that she could do our taxes so that we could get a pre-authorization letter.

So it's not a birthday that will go down as one of the best, but it may go down as one of the most memorable. Because though it wasn't relaxing, it was full of movement and energy and hope and excitement. And really, a birthday is about celebrating being alive and today, I certainly felt that.

home inspiration {christie brinkley}

Sometimes people's homes surprise me. I never really thought about what kind of home Christy Brinkley would live in or that it would be something that made me swoon.

So I did some snooping and of course it turns out that she had the help of a stylist and of course now I can say that I adore the work of Kim Ficaro. Its eclectic and earthy and elegant and lived in and loved. Pretty much fits into my modern rustic label, if I am allowed to create my own style category.

Making it a movie

There are experiences that change your life. There are travels that change your life. There are people that change your life. Their are circumstances that change your life. And sometimes there are books that change your life.

Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat.Pray.Love appeared in my life at exactly the right moment and at exactly the right time. I laughed, I wept, I lamented, I pondered, I dreamed and I realized how utter complex and complicated this thing called life is and that that is indeed the only truth we ever have to learn. It's how we learn to deal and handle that complexity that is indeed the purpose of the human experience.

And sometimes handling it means falling apart on the bathroom floor and other times it means walking with divine grace and dignity. And that is what Ms. Gilbert's book did for me. It reminded me that spiritual practice at an ashram in India and twirling pasta under the moonlight in Italy are two sides of the same coin - they are not separate, ever.

And now, this book is being Hollywooded. And first I wanted to cry because my experience with this book was so embodied due in part from my own travels to Italy and Bali (India will happen at sometime), that I didn't want any of that to be squashed by the picture perfect images that come from a motion picture. But then I saw that Julia Roberts is playing the lead and my heart softened, just a little. I don't know her, but I think she is the real thing, as authentic as a person whose life is so surreal can get. And so, when I saw the image of her riding through the rice fields of Ubud, I just smiled.

Because at the end of the day, young or old, famous or not, this book is about being real, being authentic, loosing yourself, finding yourself and having the ability to laugh about it all and in the end, eat the big bowl of pasta.

New Vintage

Interiors shot by stylist Selina Lake

Is that what this is called - new vintage? I think I still like modern rustic better. But what do I know...

Both seems to have rough edges, signs of wear, faded patches, clean lines, modern silhouettes, and femininity.

It's lovely and it seems to be what everybody is doing - even the traditional and classic designs of J Crew have a softened edge, a touch of sparkle and the gentle pattina of age.

For inspiration and a few style ideas, check out:

Piperline

Sundance

JCrew

Anthropologie {for the romantic}

Home

Some days it is hard to see the importance of cleaning up the blocks for the tenth time or kneeling on the kitchen tile cleaning up Puffs, leaking blueberries and smashed up string cheese for the fifth time, but then the mailman brings my copy of Seeing the Everyday and I open it up and I read this:

"The home is the place where our names are first uttered with love and therefore where we first discover that we mean something. It is the site where both human beings and human values first make their appearance in the world. It is the center from which we define and understand the nature of everything we encounter in the world." (by David Patterson)

This is why every choice we make matters. This is why I am home.

picking up the pace

{written may 30}

I see the irony here, being such a proponent of slowing down but there are times when it is time to simply slap it in the *%@.

Today is one of those days. Okay, May 30th was actually one of those days and now it is over two months later and if I don't start now, I may never.

I have been waiting. Waiting for the right blog name and the right image. Waiting for the time to go back and write: about giving birth at home or learning the difference between pain and suffering, about what the first 4 weeks of parenthood are really like, about all the magical and mind blowing things that happen on a daily basis, about the boredom that sets in mid-day when you have had no other adult human contact.

But as I sit and wait for the time to write about what has already passed, I am missing the opportunity to write about what is happening now. And what I have learned is that writing in the now is juicier to read and more healing to write.

So, today I am picking up the pace and looking ahead. Every so often I will glimpse into the rear view mirror, and perhaps share a bit about what I see there.