25 Thursday Jul 2013
Posted in Community, Writing Life
I feel grateful for another round of retreating at Earthdance, a community and dance-space for artists and community-builders of many stripes, nestled on a hillside in Western Mass.
Trying to bring love to the manuscript
That familiar, welcoming wood-smell of the Gratitude dorm, new and same heartful, generous people, same novel manuscript for me to wrestle.
The young Rumi was a guest for a few days at Earthdance
17 Wednesday Jul 2013
Posted in Green Life
Once upon a time, I learned a fine method for departing with items once cared for, but currently out-of-use: take a picture.
1st Boston Knit-out Festival I attended
After stockpiling a selection of T-shirts that I wore pretty much to-death, I decided to enlist some assistance and employ this method. The result? A virtual, visual library of memories spun from cotton and dye. I’m still the person I was, who purchased or received these shirts as gags or gifts or glimmers of who I was leaning towards being.
Worn during march on Washington for women’s reproductive rights
Job of old
I miss the opportunity to wear them, now that (most of) these old Ts have been converted to dust cloths and hankerchiefs. I don’t miss the burden of owning more than I can appreciate wearing.
Never wore this shirt because it bothered my eyes
In my experience, hemp doesn’t get as soft as proported
Designed by my gent, and then washed to death
15 Monday Jul 2013
Posted in Boston Moments, Green Life
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On a bike ride home from Dorchester, I got lost.
One confused turn led to another, to another. Traveling down a road lined with brick homes that reminded me of the old military base I once lived near in New Jersey, I stopped in front of a welcoming yellow building. And then I was found.
The best thing about getting lost in Boston is that it’s a fail-proof method for learning what is where and how the neighborhoods connect.
The Boston Nature Center is an urban wildlife sanctuary located on the grounds of the former Boston State Hospital. It offers programming for elementary school age children as well as miles of trails and many bushes under which rabbits graze to their heart’s content.
Lots and lots of rabbits . . .
Look closely for two sets of ears!
Right nearby to the Nature Center are the Clark Cooper Community Gardens. Described as some of Boston’s oldest, this impressively large collection of community gardens probably does not welcome rabbits. In the past, friends and I once spotted some wild turkeys loitering around the edges.
So what have you found when you were lost?
10 Wednesday Jul 2013
This is what I looked like the first time I wandered Washington, DC as a tourist.
With few visits in between, one where I marched in support of women’s reproductive rights, another devoted to the company of friends, I have had little opportunity to explore the city on my lonesome. DC’s charms have remained -for me- long forgotten, under-appreciated, or elusive.
Exhibit in the National Museum of the American Indian
I was fairly sure I didn’t much appreciate the culture of our nation’s capital.
Say DC and I’ll free-associate: khaki, suit jackets, ladder climbing, poverty, gentrification, and blindingly white, granite-smooth buildings. Hot hot heat. Free museums.
However, a whirl around the city astride a shiny Capital Bikeshare rental spun my opinion.
Obligatory White House photo
I had arrived in DC a day ahead of the conference I was to attend on behalf of my “place-based” community agency. Figured to take in a few museums, eat some local fare, visit with my partner’s cousin, and maybe locate an outdoor market. I accomplished some of those, but it was the bike ride that finally won me over.
Coasting down Pennsylvania Avenue in the impressive protected cycle track located smack in the middle of the street, I toured the neighborhoods.
Today, you say DC, I free-associate: charmingly colorful row houses with all manor of quirky embellishments, the sky a blush pink and cottony blue, mural of some of the U.S’s most popular brown faces –Bill Cosby and Barack Obama.
So . . . this is what I looked like on the most recent occurrence of my wandering DC as a tourist. Notice any differences? :^)
05 Friday Jul 2013
Posted in Home, With Friends
It’s a pivotal age, I think, 35. For one, I can no longer click the radio buttons for 30-34 on demographic questionnaires. I’ve been bumped to 35-40. That’s kind of sad.
On the plus side, I’ve enjoyed my thirties -the feeling settled in my skin as my own quirky self, the way others appear to listen more closely when I speak from that space of knowledge which comes with experience- so more thirty, more delight, right?
I rarely engage in big shindigs just for myself, so this year, having friends over for a light brunch, strolling through one of Boston’s grand community gardens, dining at the funky-fine establishment of my favorite Boston-area baking/restaurant mavens, and catching sight of the Boston Fireworks in an unexpected local, felt perfect.
03 Wednesday Jul 2013
Posted in What Is It
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And this thing is . . . ?
Size of a large stone. Spotted on the beach at Jamaica Pond where community members often fish wearing waders. We had some guesses, but you tell me!
01 Monday Jul 2013
Posted in Green Life
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You know how they say books open doors to new worlds? It’s true.
My partner and I frequent our local branch of the Boston Public Library, twice having borrowed a copy of The New Hiking the Monadnock Region: 44 Nature Walks and Day-Hikes in the Heart of New England and renewed it generously. Long title, many trails at various levels of difficulty.
Following our guide (what? you don’t travel out-of-state with library books?), we visited the stone ruins of a mansion built in the early 1920s by an eccentric theater costume designer, several beaver lodges (sadly, none of the occupants sighted) and many chewed trees that hadn’t toppled in the desired direction, and delicate amphibians decked out in bright orange or careful, mottled brown.
Our hike was easy-level and included many reaches into the giant-bag-o-trailmix, so I didn’t work up the level of appetite I might have. Still, I was happy to chow at Putney Diner, a spot famous for its homestyle pies.
Finally, we stopped by Brattleboro, where I introduced David to the one area of Vermont I know fairly well, having visited with my mother and on numerous occasions with friends.
