Again this year a bird has made her home in a hanging plant on our porch. This plant is a better choice than last year's and so far there are at least 3 babies that I can see but it's hard to tell without disturbing them. They're wrens and every morning mom comes back with a noisy breakfast for everyone. I water the plant by misting it each day so I don't drown them.

Isn't this all there is? At the heart of who I am is a this giftwrapped package of connections to people living and dead, people I've never met, people who died hundreds of years before I was born, people I talked to yesterday, people I loved twenty years ago, someone who made a film that changed my view of the universe, someone who wrote a poem, built a house, touched my hand, passed me in traffic and smiled or not. And then also the other side of it, because communication is both receiving and transmitting, the people who get me and know when I'm joking and give me stuff to play with and love me and kiss back and send me crazy links for the intertubes and pour juice into my life because they respond. Isn't this all there is? I'm only me because of everyone else, and so is everyone else I think.

That was just a terrible title, wasn't it? But anyway, you have to read this guy with a british accent in your head unless you always have that going on in which case just think as you normally do. So this very funny british guy is married to this german woman, and he's, well, just very very funny. Read it.

Another one is this bunch of little things that have a kind of Steven Wright quality to them I think, don't you? Ah, I've snuck in another link. I think it's an OCD thing. (Do you find yourself wanting to hyperlink information to things like "OCD"? As if the people you're talking to just arrived on the planet and they really need a guide...it's craziness, I tell you. )

I'm sorry, there's something in the way?

I like to play with the oops pictures I take. Sometimes I like them as much as the ones that turn out the way I thought they would.

I do that in the physical world too, save things, pick up broken things to use for something else, only in the physical world all those things start to get in the way. Pictures are very forgiving about that.

I'm working on my editing skills, leaving out more things and leaving in more space. I need the practice.

Joy.
There's only so much motivation in good conscience, at some point there has to be joy.
Gas prices are high? Good. We have no business destroying the planet because we would like to have summer fruits in the middle of winter. But...
But when does it get to be fun? When do we replace endless suburban lawns with home gardens and mini-farms and people who know their neighbors and swap harvests?
Everything is in place except the joy of it. We have the internet, we have all of history and all of the planet literally at our fingertips, we can share the contents of our consciousness with people all over the planet, we can become more and more transparent, we can see the solutions as well as the problems, but right now the joy of it all is a little elusive for a lot of people.
And it isn't quite fair and certainly isn't motivating if the people who have only ever known shopping at the mall which they drive to in their SUV are just disparaged and despised by all the morally superior, I-would-never-do-that folks like me at my worst moments. If people don't feel connected and don't get the joy in working all this mess out to get into a future that works better than this present, they're going to cling to what they know. Who wouldn't?
So, joy. I think it's a moral responsiblity.

Just a little while back the mother of one of my clients died. Krissy and I visited her in the hospital when she first got sick and when she said "I don't think I'm going to be around much longer," Krissy started looking at the ceiling, talking to the ceiling, and I kid you not, humming. I don't think Krissy's very comfortable with either hospitals or dying, just a suspicion on my part, you know, what with the ceiling-talking and the humming and all.
I'm not so uncomfortable as all that. I got indoctrinated through being a sick kid for a long time and thinking that all the grownups were dumb and that their attempts to pretend I was going to be fine were as transparent as glass and then -- hah! -- I fooled them all and I'm still here. But I won't always be, and neither will any of us, and that isn't a disaster, it's just how it is. It messes with my head a bit when I don't think it's time yet (like I have the master clock on this or something?) or when I'm too attached to let go yet (I hung out in the morgue room at the ER years and years ago ARGUING with a guy who insisted on continuing to be dead), but the basic concept is embedded in my consciousness somewhere:  this is a temporary gig.
I think this is part of the reason I've been drawn to work with people who are at the end of that temporary gig quite a lot in my past.

I still miss Pearl, that woman who just died. I miss her great stories that I used to sit and listen to for hours when I dropped her daughter off at home. I miss her voice, I miss her hugging me goodbye, I miss her for her daughter too. And I think that's good, I think we're doing something right if, when we're done, people miss us. I think it's a good thing to leave that kind of space behind.

To our eyes flowers bloom and fade so quickly that we can't keep up with deadheading the garden but we're just the same as those flowers. We're slower-motion blossoms. You know the end part of American Beauty, where Lester remembers all the wondrous bits, that's how I feel every day. Every single day something is so beautiful and tender and fragile and temporary that tears come and I fall in love and grieve all at once and that's the world, that's what life is like, really like, if we look at it -- if we don't look away or pretend or get drunk or go shopping or numb ourselves as fast as possible because it's all just too much. Every day is a celebration and everything is precious and amazing and it's all temporary and all of it hopefully breaks our hearts, and then maybe one day they break open and the whole world can just rush through us.
I love being here so much. 

The moral of all this, though, is: if you're going to have Krissy around at the end, make sure you put something pretty on your ceiling.

A little while back I was hanging out laundry on our "solar clothes dryer" aka clothesline and ran into a little woodchuck who seems to have built a home with babies under the shelves with all the garden supplies, under the kitchen window. And yesterday I finally saw one of the baby bunnies Krissy has been telling me about. There's a clutch of them out in the tall grass next to the house, little brown soft things hopping around just outside the fence. Lyra is enchanted by them.
The little bird nest on the front porch is empty again but wrens nest more than once over a summer so she may come back for another round. We got to see the babies from being eggs to being fledged and watch (and hear!) her feed them each morning. (Sorry, little bugs!), because the porch is just outside our bedroom window.
We live in a city, just a 15 minute walk from downtown, but there is so much life in our lives.

This morning I woke up and Krissy was curled up with Lyra, our puppy, and one of the cats was asleep on my belly and another next to my shoulder and Willow was tucked under the blanket at my feet the way she has been every night for the 9 years I've known her and of course as soon as I stir she's up and following me, ready to be anywhere I am.

The other day the little girl I work with used a whole sentence with correct pronouns and no echoing and I almost fell on the floor. She has autism and something about pronouns is just very confusing for her. She lives in this world without placeholders like "you" or "I". And I kind of like her world. But it's amazing when she moves a little more into mine.
When we walk around town we hold hands if there's traffic and she will squeeze my hand and then say "squeeze" meaning that she wants to be squeezed back.  I love that.

Every single day is so full, full to overflowing. There is so much joy I can't hold it all in. And it's always a surprise, every time.

I need to get the recycling up to the street, this is the week they pick that up what are the dogs doing when is lyra going to stop eating everything she sees I'm hungry what do we have to eat lets see oh next week I need to give the dogs revolution again can't forget that what was that poem I was trying to find maybe I can look it up online where did I put the book it looks like it's going to rain I need to take the clothes in off the line mmmm chocolate oh crap I work early today I have to get dressed what do I have to wear that's cute I like cute is that dumb but I don't care really I wonder if those shoes will get here today maybe I can use that plastic sheet to make a stencil but I still need to get the fabric paint brown and green I think or is that going to be too flat maybe some orange or gold too where's my phone don't forget the pager I think I'll make a smoothie we need more nutritional yeast hippie flakes my friend used to call them wonder what he's doing now and his exgirlfriend too bad she didn't go to med school or maybe not who am I to say

and this is why meditation exists

The other night I dreamed that I was sleeping. No, really. In my dream sleep, I was in my bed, Krissy was sleeping next to me, it was all just as it is. And in the dream I woke up. Then things got strange. I woke up and had a hard time seeing because the room was so dark and I noticed something moving over the window and realized that there was something - was it a bird or maybe a mouse, so dark it's hard to tell - nesting in the curtains. For some reason I found this upsetting in the dream world (in real life, anyone who knows me will tell you that I would not find this upsetting. I would probably build some kind of shrine around the nest and then take pictures of it. I definitely wouldn't feel unsettled by this kind of discovery - of course there should be animals nesting in the curtains, why not? But in my sleep I was upset by this.) Then I woke up. The room was really dark and it was hard to see. Krissy was sleeping next to me. It was all exactly as I had just experienced it. There was a long process of figuring out that, first of all, I had been asleep and there was nothing nesting in the curtains (it helped that there is no window on that wall in waking world) and then that I was actually awake and in the usual world (I'm still never positive about that part). Now what kind of person plays tricks on themselves by dreaming that they're dreaming? I think maybe I need more recreational activities.

Alright, people have been posting about this test so I took it too and here's how it turned out:


VIA Signature Strengths

Here are your scores on the VIA Signature Strengths Survey. For how to interpret and use your scores, see the book Authentic Happiness. The ranking of the strengths reflects your overall ratings of yourself on the 24 strengths in the survey, how much of each strength you possess. Your top five, especially those marked as Signature Strengths, are the ones to pay attention to and find ways to use more often.

English Test Results #1   -   July 29 2008
Your Top Strength

Appreciation of beauty and excellence
You notice and appreciate beauty, excellence, and/or skilled performance in all domains of life, from nature to art to mathematics to science to everyday experience.
Your Second Strength

Curiosity and interest in the world
You are curious about everything. You are always asking questions, and you find all subjects and topics fascinating. You like exploration and discovery.
Your Third Strength

Gratitude
You are aware of the good things that happen to you, and you never take them for granted. Your friends and family members know that you are a grateful person because you always take the time to express your thanks.
Your Fourth Strength

Kindness and generosity
You are kind and generous to others, and you are never too busy to do a favor. You enjoy doing good deeds for others, even if you do not know them well.
Your Fifth Strength

Zest, enthusiasm, and energy
Regardless of what you do, you approach it with excitement and energy. You never do anything halfway or halfheartedly. For you, life is an adventure.


Well, okay then...

Anyway, everyone consider yourselves tagged if you're so inclined.