i was here

i love the week between christmas and new year's day.  there's a magical pull to the future while looking back with gratitude and (mostly) satisfaction.  how do you acknowlege this transition? 

i do it with 'standing here' self-portraits.  i try to take at least one per month and really enjoy looking back at the places i've been and the space i inhabited.  some of them are fun and flighty and some really put me back in the emotion of that moment.

this year my feet touched both solid ground and undulating funhouse floors.  i slipped a few times and had to call at least one time-out to lie down; but mostly i stood confidently facing all the love, regret, beauty, acceptance, rejection, grace and fear.

some of the best places i stood in 2010:

• my home.  the home that loves me.
• my garden.  day or night, sun or stars, flora or snow, she always whispers, "do it."
• the cold pacific, who welcomed me home to california.
• the warm atlantic, who showed me i could stand solid even with shifting sand beneath my feet.
• bikram yoga class.
• with the most beautiful, talented, graceful women.  feeling like i belonged.
• at the door.  the same door i hovered around throughout 2009.  i'm still standing here wondering what's on the other side, trying to plan for all the possibilities and pitfalls.  i am slowly moving toward courage and away from the misconception that i can tip one toe into the unknown while the other foot holds firm in the certain.

thank you for standing with me.  where should we go in 2011?

happy

turns out

even though i chose the words beautiful and fearless to focus on in 2010, the word that chose me was grace.  how about that?

christmas color week: stripes!

thank you annie for hosting a beautiful color week!  this weekend i plan on visiting all the colorseekers.

christmas color week: silver

christmas color week: red

christmas color week: yellow

christmas color week: green

five senses friday*

{see}

• holiday color everywhere in anticipation of annie's color week!  see here for more deets.
• perfectly clear blue skies.

{hear}

• driving to richmond on wednesday, i found a radio station playing only instrumentals of john lennon music.  it was magical.  i cried. 

{smell}

• christmas pine
• cinammony-peppery-chocolately mexican cocoa
• paperwhites

{taste}

• indian pumpkin soup

{touch}

• heat, sweat, power, grace:  i love bikram yoga.

*fsf inspired by abby

hooray for me, hooray for you

small but meaningful recent accomplishments:

• christmas tree up and lit
• survived (and weirdly, kinda liked) first bikram class and going back today
• stopped myself from buying a vintage coat and felt okay with it
• made art all weekend
• ate the most amazing pistachio gelato sprinkled with crumbled up italian cookies and candied pistachios on my birthday with zero guilt and absolute bliss
• am happy to be 46.  i feel good and am really excited about life.  my birthyear sister graciel noted that, numerologically speaking, my age now equals 1, which symbolizes the beginning.  how can i not be excited about that?

one little moment on the big c gave me some beautiful perspective on age.  if you don't know the show (first of all, it's incredible!), cathy is 40-ish and has just been diagnosed with cancer.  she really begins to cherish life and live it like she's always wanted to.   her aunt comes to her birthday party when she hasn't yet told her family she is ill. the aunt is in her fifties, is dressed in a cheap dress from the junior department and has that face (you know the face!) morphed into unrecognizableness from too many surgeries.  when they are saying goodbye at the door, cathy looks at her with love and says, "it's a privilege to grow old."

what have you done recently that deserves celebrating?  tell me in the comments.  i'll be over here applauding your brilliance.

just because

i often need a reminder to trust that things will work out as they are supposed to.

now it's december

and after all that reflecting and gratituding, it's time to take some action and play a little 90-day game i like to call "embrace and release".

beginning today, here's my plan:

embrace:  bikram yoga (i know! me, the girl who hates to sweat!)
release:  toxicity, restlessness and hopefully about thirty pounds.

embrace:  simplicity, order and i-have-enoughness
release:  purchasing more clothes (something to make the bikram yoga seem easy)

embrace:  transition, transformation, authenticity
release:  shame, fear, resentment

would you care to play along?