plans now to paint a tree on the wall. how exciting. trees are lovely. baltimore is pretty green and we have a roof! i'm going to make a lovely little garden on it.

here's a thought:
"The journey to health, wholeness, sanity, well-being, happiness - is all one. It is all a journey of self-love (or love of God, love of life - love is the key word). As we learn to love ourselves better we naturally tend towards better habits. And sometimes this self-love can come through self-discovery, which can come to us through our search for health, wholeness, sanity, well-being, happiness. If searching is the chicken and self-love is the egg, we can tap in at either point of this endless upward spiral cycle."

nestled in the corner of the fire escape landing, outside my fourth floor window,is a nest. inside the nest are two white eggs. is their mother coming back to them, or have they been forgotten?

from a little inspirational email:

There is a Buddhist Concept - "I do not take more than I need", that gives me great peace. It is a simple way of being. Just contemplating it seems to make one feel lighter, and more free.

today (and yesterday, and this week) my own consumerism has been coming more and more to light. once upon a time i toyed with the idea of getting "leave nothing but footprints" tattooed on my feet. how beautiful would it be if a person could reduce their own consumption to the point of sustainability? this year during Earth Week i watched "no impact man", a film about a man and his family who reduce their impact on the earth dramatically. his transition was anything but peaceful, and being a documentary there was a lot of focus on the drama between him and his wife. still, it made a lovely point.

i have been a consumer this summer. while i have been careful, i have also lost the peace that comes with underindulging myself. a person who has just what they need is so beautiful. there is tension between being in want and having too much. to find the place between those two and rest there...that is lovely.

my nature wants to start making lists here. what can i give up? how can i consume less? that too robs me of peace. to make a peaceful step toward wanting less, needing less, and consuming less will be in itself a challenge. goals and routines aside, i am hoping that this transition time will help me move in that direction.

i will see many of you soon!

so many beautiful things:

please watch this.

Eve Ensler: Embrace your inner girl | Video on TED.com

"bullets are actually hardened tears"...

so you say you want a revolution,

well, we all want to change the world.

i love oakland cafes.

The Queen

You told me that the sun had made you
black. In your face I could see the legacy
of a million queens and I knew that it must have been
our forever bent toward eternal fire that made you.
And when you lifted nine whole fingers,
telling us of your tribe and royal parentage,
both lost somewhere between this benchless park
and insanity, I believed you.
Like a volcano, like Iceland you said,
your last finger, your soul, your life in this city
erupted in to poetry, into rhythm
spoken by the fevered hungry who crouch
beneath liberty's yellow flag
(yellow was the color of your tribe), and sway.
They sway to make the world begin to turn
closer to the sun, burning our skin,
burning our memories of royal heritage until
forgotten you approached a group of strangers,
speaking swift poetry, lost, for want
of a reality that matched your burning dreams.

in a cafe today

first: how can i find a better way to make these thoughts permanent? my life is a random shambles of scraps of paper ideas floating around.
second: the well coiffed young lady behind me was just speaking in Russian on the phone.
third: the girl outside the window has her nails painted the same shade of faded pink as her cigarette box (this thought was actually first)
fourth: there is a congregation of greenpeace kids (students? volunteers?) sitting outside on a break. they have been combing this area for doners for the last two hours.
fifth: no matter how good the book is, it is hard to read when you really really have to pee.

Sometimes only tears restore the heart's equilibrium

- the Russian Dreambook of Color and Fight

Yesterday I decided to go to the MOMA. Every regular day it’s an $18 admission but, on the first Tuesday of every month it’s FREE! I put my happy little camera in my pocket, laced up my new shoes, sent my group off on a City Search and started the walk. It’s about a mile down Market to Third St. from Civic Center. The MOMA is tucked off to the side across from a ½ block of fountains that were also very beautiful.

At the door a red-bearded guy was handing out tickets. I checked my (too)heavy bag – what a relief, I love places that take my bag for me – and wandered up the huge staircase. Oddly enough there was a little bit of a line to get onto the stairs because there was a lady there checking tickets. I kind of wanted to tell her look lady, it’s free today, did you miss the memo? But no, she was checking tickets, so I showed her mine (it said ADULT $18 on it so I guess that made her happy) and got in.
My tour started swimmingly when the first room I drifted into featured a Frieda Khalo and Diego Rivera side by side, both painted while they visited San Francisco. I drift through art museums. The tiny type-A portion of my brain tries to scope out the layout of museums, hitting every single room and a frenzy to see everything. I try to squelch that part. Instead I drift. I linger in front of pieces that capture my attention and usually if there’s a bench I take it as a sign to sit and absorb the paintings in that room, even if I wouldn’t have otherwise. I get mesmerized by some amazing stuff that way.

The WORHOL exhibit was up, filling up the third floor. I had never seen a Worhol before, and here were dozens of them! Fabulous.

I also found myself absorbed by the people who were looking at the art. There were all kinds of people wandering around. I think the free admission drew people that might otherwise not have been able to fork out the admission cost. The people walking the museum alone were the most interesting. They were from all different ages and backgrounds and were just being consumed by looking at art. Everyone there was so fascinating and the art pieces themselves took were different pieces altogether when seen through the people watching them. I sat beside one man for a while looking at this (link coming soon!) piece. He sat as thought He was waiting for the piece to move. And it did! I found myself flooded by the orange ambiance. The tension between the purple and orange pulled me in. I think the man I was sitting beside felt it too. We sat for a while, just looking.

It’s funny that these pieces are just hanging in the MOMA. It’s funny that on most days of the week people need to pay outrageous amounts of money to go see them. And it’s funny that people do it. Even though it was a free day, the people there were paying something. They paid what it cost them to get there, they paid the cost of time, they walked around in huge circles, up and down stairs, looking at art just hanging there on white walls. A dear art professor once told a class of mine that art is very rarely painted to hang in museums. Much of the great art in the world has spent much of its life hanging in living rooms, studies, and private art rooms. With the evolution of the museum art became public. I can wander into a room and look at a Khalo, Revira, Picasso, and Matisse within ten minutes. Is it beautiful, or is it a corruption of the artwork? Like I mentioned, art’s environment changes it. I looked at Rivera’s Laborers differently alone n a white wall than when, hanging on that same wall, a little boy steps in front and is told by his Spanish-speaking mother that they have a print of that piece at home. It would, of course, look much different in its original standing, shouting out to the reality of common laborers as people, worthwhile subjects for a famous piece.

Well, that’s about all I have to say about art this morning. I’m going to the food bank with my kids today, then Harbor House Day Camp (yay!) then we have our last Host and Directors family dinner tonight…yipes!