Nourish

After any health crisis I find I look back to habits I may have abandoned which brought long lasting benefits. One of those was juicing vegetables. I am back to gathering up my favorite bouquet and preparing the juicer.

I have more energy, over-all well being, and satisfaction when I juice. We are what we eat and I have learned that over the last year as I look back to the start of my weight-loss project one year ago.

                                                Why does juicing become burdensome?

  

 Rule number one: always wash the juicer parts immediately after juicing. While the juice nourishes the body, the clean juicer nourishes the mind. Bottoms up!

Book Signing

Two weeks have past since surgery; recovery is officially over. It was time for an outing and I fulfilled a wish to drive north to see Jacqueline Winspear at Third Place Books. I was not disappointed. With charm and wit she talked about the spark that kindled the story for her latest "Leaving Everything Most Loved".

   She wondered her whole life why people left everything they loved to go to unknown places. Her aunt emigrated to Canada with young children and husband during the fifties when many left England, and other European countries to start over in a place of more opportunity. Asking her mother why they left, she was assured that it wasn't because they were unloved. She remembered receiving the airmail letters that sounded crinkly and thin. These would come from that far off place called Canada. At age four she started a fund to raise money to go visit. Eventually she went when she was nineteen. 
  I reflected on how my life was exactly the opposite. I was the little girl whose family left. We received the crinkly, thin airmail letters from grandparents and aunts. My dream was to go back to Silesia and see the homeland my father talked about.

    Another spark for her novel came from her childhood. There was an Indian woman who taught in her school who brought 30 saris and allowed each girl to wear one during class. Hers was peachy and the feeling of silk on her skin never left her memory.

   Someone asked her about her book cover illustrations. She is lucky to know the artist and collaborates with him on each book. When they both agree on the illustration, a woodcut is made and the prints come from his painted woodcut.
   The fact that Maisie is influenced by Eastern philosophy comes from the connection England has with India for the last hundred years. Yoga and meditation were not invented in California twenty years ago, according to Winspear.
  The mapping of each case came about because Jacqueline was recovering from a very dangerous fall off a horse during the writing of "Maisie Dobbs". She used over sized posted notes to map out her book and incorporated that concept.

 A phrase Winspear used to describe people who had time to come together to talk was the "chattering class". I looked around the bookstore and thought about the 200 plus people of the chattering class who were hanging out in a "third place" listening to an author. Some were playing chess on the floor, others eating in the food court. Most arriving by car and some by wheels, parking in the most ingenious bike rack.

 
  I am so glad  I went and am genuinely relieved to hear that number 10 is not her last "Maisie". She knows when they will end, but she is not telling. Next year she is releasing a book with a new subject, but the following year she will bring back the meditating, brave detective.

Picking Up Mail

   I do admire creative mailboxes along my rural road. Mine, however is plain green because I use it as a place to park my bike rather than a work of art.

Some mailboxes catch my eye because of the color, especial with surrounding flora and fauna.

                                                 Others are just darn cute and make me smile.

  Mailboxes can become the center of a larger work of art. I wish I could find a picture of my father's gnome sculpture which he placed on top of a stone pedestal. The gnome mailbox was part of a series of seven dwarfs he sculpted which he placed in different places in our yard. Can you believe that the gnome was stolen one night, pried off it's base. It must have weighed 100 pounds.

   I should ask my mailman if he enjoys delivering mail to the more creative folk in our neighborhood.

    I've started collecting some pictures of unique boxes to please my sense of the whimsical.

My brother was a mail carrier and I so enjoyed his stories about the people on his route. He knew a great deal about their lives from talking to them but also from the kinds of mail they received. There was a special bond he developed, often becoming the neighborhood watchman. 

    I still watch for my mail everyday and though 75% is junk I get excited for the occasional letter from family and friends. Maybe my blogger friend Diane is right. She invited us to try going back to the snail mail of yesteryear. Hmmm.

Textile Art

I live in a town of artists and musicians and our town does appreciate them. At The Hardware Store Restaurant Gallery there is a showing of textile artists.

The clothing highlights Nancy Sipple's beautiful needlework. I smocked the top of a girls dress once upon a time and I remember the painstaking time it took to finish the yoke.

These stuffed birds represent Henry the VIII and his wives. Each is wearing regal velvet and brocade.

This was my favorite. Embroidery on top of dyed background. In days past girls all learned these skills from their mothers We used our hands to darn socks and stockings, cherishing the careful, even stitch. The machine has replaced the work of our hands but it can never replace the beauty of the artist's touch.

Losing the State of Normal

  I am in recovery. I can't decide if it is a return to a normal state of health, mind or strength or the action of regaining somethings taken or stolen. Whichever definition is correct I am feeling both. This is week two of surgery recovery and I didn't anticipate that under anesthesia I would lose the ability to read my body.

    I am searching for the unencumbered, physical me behind the rubble of weakness and pain. I had signs of setback yesterday which prompted me to call my surgeon and wake her up to garner advice. She sleepily told me to go back to bed and wait for a few hours. Vulnerability is sitting in her office the next day waiting to be told I had messed up my progress. But, the truth turned out to be less dramatic. I was healing nicely. I just can't read my body through the medication.

  I have been between a rock and a hard place, a fragile spirit trying to buoy up a tired, harmed body. I have a history of exceeding my physical strength. Take the week after delivering my fourth child when I decided to go roller skating. That was me proving that I was invincible.  Now, almost sixty. I see that I am fallible and will need to be okay with that. I guess I always was fallible but just couldn't see what was true all along.

"Calm is a practice. Calm people are breathers. They ask questions like, do I have enough data to freak  out? And will freaking out be helpful?" Brene Brown

Family Bakers

Baking is very popular in our family. To make a loaf of bread is a joy and an accomplishment.

                Gather up utensils and start the action. Easter braided bread was on the table Sunday.

     A cinnamon, lemon, sugar glaze was skillfully painted by the hand of the master baker.

                              And the finished product was light, yeasty, and perfect with the ham.

                                               Keep those fires burning and the buns rising, kids.

Today Is My Last Post

   I have finally seen the light and have come to the realization that writing a personal blog is a vain and self-centered time waster. Nothing good has come of this so without further adieu, I quit!