little black journal

Shane and I were in the middle of our Sunday evening routine (60 minutes and an end-of-the-weekend cocktail) when the news blurb started flashing across the bottom of the screen – ‘stay tuned for an important update from President Obama regarding Osama bin Laden’. I looked over at Shane and he raised his eyebrows before darting for the laptop, ready to scour the Internet for the nation’s latest headlines. I crossed my fingers, praying that the news would be good – after the segment we’d just watched on Lara Logan’s horrific experience with sexual assault by an Egyptian mob, I didn’t know how I’d handle more heavy news. Fifteen seconds of web-surfing was all it took for Shane to give me the late-breaking report – Osama bin Laden had been killed by American troops. Hoo…ray? I would have expected to feel immediate relief from such news – I would have imagined myself clapping my hands with the sweet taste of justice being served, celebrating with anti-terrorists across America as we learned that we could finally rest easy in knowing this terrible man was no longer a threat. But I wasn’t inclined to clap, or shout from the rooftops, or even breathe a sigh of relief. I was unsettled, for reasons I couldn’t put into words. I suppose there was disappointment in knowing that despite this leader’s demise, the war on terror would still rage on, claiming more lives and perpetuating more fear and more racism and more cultural divisiveness. There was sadness in knowing that his death would not bring back the loved ones whose lives were lost in the attacks of September 11th. And ultimately, after hearing from friends that encouraged us to view the situation through the lens of a Christian American, rather than just an American, I realized the root of my uneasiness – as a follower of Christ, I am called to love my enemies, no matter the circumstance. Is there room for justice and retribution in this love? Absolutely. I’m not saying bin Laden should have been allowed to walk free; but rejoicing in another man’s death feels far from Christ-like. So instead of celebrating, I will pray for reconciliation among nations, for our country’s leaders to be richer in wisdom than in ‘intelligence’, and for a future where the atrocities of terrorism can be fought with means other than violence.

‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.’ -Matthew 5:44

There are days when I am struck with the undeniable impulse to shop – today was one of those days, and being that I’ve been practicing great restraint since my big closet purge last month, I decided I would allow myself a little retail indulgence this afternoon.  I hit up a couple of department stores down in Southcenter, hoping to find a cute top or two to wear on our upcoming vacation.  After several unsuccessful bouts in the dressing room, I had to ask myself:  what is up with the latest fashions these days?  It’s like clothes are intentionally being made to fit the female figure poorly – to bunch up in all the wrong places, with ruffles in unfortunate locations and fabrics that either rest on your hips like a cardboard box or find that one area of your body that you’re less than thrilled about and cling to it for dear life.  We’ve all had those strike-out days in the dressing rooms – I guess today was my turn.  So I wandered over to the undergarments section, thinking I could surely find something to buy there.  And I was kind of appalled by the fact that more than half of the items in that section were designed to squeeze, push, tuck, and hide, with comfort apparently being waaaay down on the list of selling points.  So I need a push-up bra and a pair of Spanks in order to wear that stylish new top that’s really just going to make people think that I’m pregnant, anyway?  Sometimes it’s hard being a woman.  Not to get all ‘woe-is-me’ – I know that I am blessed with a closet full of perfectly wearable clothes, but seriously, it shouldn’t be that hard for me to walk into a store and find a shirt that is going to reaffirm the positive body image that I’ve worked at for years.  I deserve to feel good about myself, and I deserve to actually feel good while feeling good about myself, rather than feeling pinched and squeezed and concerned about compromised blood circulation.  But I wasn’t going to let the man get me down, so I hopped back in the car and sought solace in the aisles of DSW, knowing that you can always count on a good pair of heels to come through in a clutch.  Strike three – apparently it’s sandals season in Seattle, as evidenced by three-quarters of their inventory.  And since my toes aren’t quite ready to make their Springtime debut, I left the shoe shore empty-handed.  In the end, I drove back home with a new pair of one-size-fits-all earrings* and spent the remainder of they day in my favorite sweats.  You win some, you lose some.

(*full disclosure:  OK, I also found a pretty flattering new raincoat, but my frustration seems so much more justified if I leave that part out…)

From the minute I rolled over in bed this morning and lazily opened my eyes to the sight of sun-shiny skies, I knew today would be a good day.  And indeed it was – full of so many small and simple pleasures.  It’s amazing the joy that can come with just a little bit of warmth after a long string of chilly days.  I wore a tank top outside for the first time since I was in Florida; Shane and I got our p-patch plot underway, with cute little tomato plants, lettuce starters, and beet seeds; I watched Shane play basketball with the neighborhood boys and smiled as the big kid in him made his Spring-time debut; I traded in my Cabernet for a glass of cold, crisp Riesling; I poached an egg for the very first time and served it on top of a perfect veggie-filled risotto dish…  We wrapped up the evening with dessert and a movie with friends, and I am falling into bed tonight with just the very smallest tinge of pink on my sun-kissed cheeks.  And all feels right with the world.

The sun has finally made an appearance in Seattle - the flowers are blooming, the trees are bursting with vibrant shades of green, and extended daylight hours mean that I am no longer making the trek to and from work in the dark.  After what felt like an exceptionally long winter (although if I say that every year, are any of them really ‘exceptionally’ long?), I am thrilled by the promise of Spring in the air.  But somehow, even as Seattle sheds its misty veil and shines in all its Springtime glory, all I can think about is getting out of town.  Maybe it’s a bit of travel envy – our friends Jack and La Verne have headed off on their 2-week voyage through China; and I just sent Brian and Nicole a list of Parisian sights to see, as they’re stopping in France on their way back from Africa.  Maybe it’s restlessness, as I’ve been spending my weekends cooped up in the living room or the print studio, working on my art.  Or maybe it’s the knowledge that this time last year, I was camped out under a beach umbrella in Mexico, reading David Sedaris and drinking margaritas; and this time two years ago, we were just returning from our romp through Paris and Portugal and Spain.  Whatever the reason, I am downright antsy.  Fortunately, we are just a couple of weeks away from our trip to Chicago/Minneapolis/Alexandria (Shane’s Minnesotan hometown), and thanks to my husband the trip planner, our Midwestern vacation is looking like it will be pretty fabulous, full of delicious food, artisan cocktails, good art, plenty of baseball, and some quality time with the family.  Can’t. Hardly. Wait.  But lately, I’m dreaming of places farther and farther from home.  First it was a long Autumn weekend in New York, where we’d frolic through Central Park and dine on patios in Greenwich Village.  Then it was a few days in a cozy little cottage on the coast of Maine, where we’d bask in the Fall colors and smell the ocean air.  From there, I progressed to visions of ringing in my next birthday in Paris, where we’d drink wine at sidewalk tables in the Marais and eat Nutella crepes on the banks of the Seine.  Then Shane started talking about a desire to see St. Petersburg and southern Finland, and my head really started to spin.  It’s hard to say where our Fall trip will take us – work schedules, rising ticket prices, and other priorities might mean that we end up settling for a weekend getaway in Washington’s wine country.  But for now, I’m going to let my mind wander, and remember those dreamy evening picnics on the Seine and that afternoon I dozed on a bench in the Jardin des Plantes…

As my next art show draws nearer, I’m beginning to feel the pressure to really get things done, so I purposefully set aside this weekend to 1) get creative and 2) get organized.  I was up early Saturday morning, and after whipping up a quick batch of blueberry muffins, I threw the mixing bowl and muffin tin into the sink and cleared the counters for a different kind of mess.  Our living room and kitchen became a temporary studio, as I littered the island with trace paper and photographs, taped sketches on the wall, and queued up a string of Friends reruns on the TV.

I hardly left the house all weekend, getting out only for a coffee date with a girlfriend, a short stroll around the neighborhood to take in a breath of fresh air, and a very rushed 15-minutes-before-closing run to the art supply store for more paper.  Thank God for the row cherry blossoms around the corner from us – a walk beneath their boughs was just what I needed when I started to feel cramped and cooped up.

It is both daunting and exciting to see things starting to come together – there are moments when I feel overwhelmed with the amount of work left to do and wonder, ‘What did I get myself into?’, and there are moments when I find such fulfillment in seeing a piece take shape that I wouldn’t trade my art-making for the world.  It felt good to be focused and productive, to be completely caught up in the act of bringing weeks of doodles and sketches into something that will eventually hang on the wall as a collection.  It might have been the first time ever that having a messy kitchen didn’t bother me in the least.

A few recent happiness-makers…

The Epicurious iPhone app:  I have come to discover that it’s not the act of cooking that keeps me from preparing homemade meals; it’s really the act of meal planning that I find so daunting.  I’m overwhelmed by the possibilities and the unknowns (c’mon Martha, demi-glace???) when considering what to make, and so I resort to the same rotation of stir-fry with store-bought curry sauce, pasta with store-bought marinara sauce, and soup that has “NOT HOMEMADE” practically printed on the label of the can.  But thanks to the convenience of having a number of simple, healthy, non-pretentious recipes at my fingertips via the Epicurious iPhone app, I’ve been on a cooking streak as of late.  I can scan their recipe collection on my phone while on my way home from work or while I’m lounging on the couch, tag a few favorites, make a shopping list and send Shane off to the store for the week’s ingredients, and voila!  Lots of hearty soups (we made this the other night and really liked it), veggie-filled pasta dishes (this one is on the list for next week), and plenty of muffin recipes to keep my baking streak on track.

Black Raspberry Green Tea by Republic of Tea:  I picked up a can of this at the Coffee Mill while I was back in Florida, and I have quickly become a believer in the difference between quality tea, and the cheap stuff that you pick up at the grocery store, just ‘cause it’s on sale.  Full of flavor and fragrance, and so, so good on a cold rainy night when all you want to do is curl up on the couch with Harry Potter and something hot to drink (I have had a number of these nights recently).

The new iPad:  I will admit that as with all things technological, I rolled my eyes when Shane started his sales pitch to me.  With two laptops, two iPhones, and a desktop computer in the house, I was hard-pressed to understand why we needed yet another gadget.  But dang, it’s pretty cool.  It’s going to be perfect for travel, considering the backache that usually ensues when I try to lug around my laptop in addition to my camera and Mary Poppins-esqe purse.  Super-sleek, super-light, super…Apple.  Kudos to Shane for not giving up in his tireless week-long hunt to get his hands on one so soon after their release.  Only strike against it is that it is so stinkin’ perfect for techie time-wasting: Angry Birds, YouTube surfing, Zappos browsing – I’ve been sucked into it all…

Survivor – Redemption Island:  It’s true – the latest season of this reality trash has me hooked.  Don’t judge.  Until you’ve bitten your nails throughout an intense Tribal Council, hoping that the nice guy will be spared over the back-stabbing hussie, you just don’t know how good it is.

You know those funny little segments on Jay Leno where they prove just how uninformed the American public is by asking random strangers on the street if they know the name of the Speaker of the House, or who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?  My worst nightmare is that I would be one of those unfortunate interviewees, that I would stumble over answers to embarrassingly simple questions about our nation or current events, and then people would cringe as the facade I maintain of being well-rounded, well-informed, ‘in the know’ is shattered.  I am married to a man that checks the New York Times headlines on his iPhone before he even gets out of bed in the morning, and although I know he loves me unconditionally, I’m sure he shakes his head a little when he sees that I don’t catch the simplest of political jokes on 30 Rock, or that I scan the headlines of Us Weekly rather than Time when in line at the grocery store.  Yes, it’s true.  And so, in an attempt to stop being the person at the dinner table that is constantly steering the conversation away from anything to do with government or war or late-breaking news, I’ve been making a solid effort at enlightenment. I’m checking news websites, I’m asking questions, I’m scanning the Seattle Times rather than the pretty design magazines while getting my morning coffee in the kitchen at work.

I spent quite awhile last night going through the past month’s posts on Boston Globe’s Big Picture, scanning the amazing collections of photos that depict what is going on in the world at large.  And when I was done, rather than wanting to pin a gold star on my chest for being up-to-speed on the world’s latest happenings, I instead wanted to cry.  Had I known the pain that would shake my soul by seeing image after image of suffering, destruction, loss, and unrest, I probably would have chosen to go to bed early, saying a short-but-sweet prayer for Japan before I drifted off to sleep, thinking to myself that really, that was the best I had to offer.  I wouldn’t have been faced with the truth that I should also be pouring out prayers for Libya, as missiles fly overhead, and people tremble with fear as they flee their homes and hope their lives will be spared.  I wouldn’t have even known to pray for residents of Ivory Coast, where people are looting and killing wreaking havoc on the country over opposition to its leadership.  I wouldn’t have been shaken by the image of a father in Miyagi Prefecture weeping over his lost son as he kneels in the debris that was once his home.  So…now I know.  I know that I should be praying with fervor.  I know that I should be angry and saddened, full of compassion and desperation.  I know that I am undeservedly fortunate, with my warm home and my stable government, and my life full of so many comforts.  But I wish I knew how to bring peace to Libya, how to reunite a missing child with her grief-stricken parents, how to rebuild a city from absolute ruin.  There is so much more that I wish I knew.

After a particularly dreary week in Seattle, my mom and I boarded our plane yesterday morning and landed in tropical Florida last night. Although I love the Pacific Northwest, with its distinct seasons and chilly Winter evenings that can be spent snuggled up on the couch with my favorite blankie and a cup of tea, I was feelin’ due for some Vitamin D, ready to trade in my puffy down jacket for the cute sleeveless tops buried at the back of my closet. Looking forward to:
– Soaking up some sun, and giving even just the slightest tint to my disturbingly pale skin.
– Painting my toenails hot pink. Then actually being able to wear toe-revealing shoes.
– Catching up with my grandma, who happens to be the sweetest, kindest woman I’ve ever met.
– Ordering iced lattes from the Coffee Mill (this is the coffee/gift shop that my grandma and aunt have owned for years, and I have loads of fond memories of visiting this place as a kid).
– Staking out a perfect patch of sand on the beach, spending hours there reading, relaxing, listening to the waves wash all my worries away (how’s that for idealistic?!).

Peace out, Seattle. Try to get all that rain out of your system while I’m gone.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my plate. Figuratively, I mean. How big is my plate, how much stuff is on it, am I filling it too full, or failing to maximize its area? My life is in need of a minor re-org, as I’ve been feeling swamped but also unproductive, and unable to take on anything new, or even successfully maintain the relationships and activities that I already hold dear. So, I’m taking inventory…what’s on my plate, can any of it be pushed aside and fed to the dog, and what do I want/need to make room for?

Work is…work.  My job obviously consumes more hours than anything else; I am a full-time architect and have accepted the time commitments and responsibilities associated with that.  The best I can do is minimize night and weekend work, which I’m usually able to do, although duty still calls more often than I’d like for it to.  Exercise is another one of those necessary time-consumers – I’ll call those evening runs at the gym ‘eating my broccoli’. As much as I detest that treadmill, with it’s countdown clock that seems to run at about one-third of the speed of normal time, missing my work-outs puts me in a physical and emotional funk, so I just gotta suck it up and make sure they happen. Kind of like housework – I’ve just gotta do it, and as much as I hate tackling those piles of dirty laundry or that sink full of dishes, I sure am glad I made the effort once it’s done.

Then there’s the stuff on the ‘want more of it’ list, like my creative outlets – taking pictures and blogging and art-making.  I get so much satisfaction from an afternoon spent drawing in my sketchbook or putting together a good blog post, but these are some of the first things to get pinched when I’m running low on time or energy. And even when I do pretty well about keeping up with things (setting goals like my weekly sketching exercise have helped a lot), I am still left wishing there was time for more.  Maybe it will always be that way, and I should just be thankful for my creative thirst.  Then again, thirst can be irritating, exhausting, unsettling.  Not sure if/how/when to quench it.  And there’s Shane, my most favorite person in the world, who I’m always wishing I could spend more time with. If I were to assign him a place on my plate, he would be my double chocolate fudge brownie, served with a scoop of perfect vanilla gelato (if you know how much I like dessert, you will understand what a compliment this is). All in all, we do a pretty good job of being aware when there’s a lack of quality time, and making sure that we set aside an evening or a weekend to reconnect when we get off-track.  It just feels unfortunate that the disconnect has to happen in the first place.  I have several friendships that would also benefit from a bigger time investment – I want to have the kind of schedule that allows for mid-week Happy Hour meet-ups, or Saturday afternoon outings to the cafe.  Workin’ on it.  Other ‘want-more’ activities include cooking, traveling, reading, participating in neighborhood events, sewing, being more involved in our church, gardening, and staying closer in touch with family.  Phew!

I want a tapas-style life – lots of little plates of varied and balanced flavors.  I don’t want to let work be that giant serving of heavy Pasta Alfredo that doesn’t leave room for anything else.  And I don’t want to-do’s like exercise and housework to keep me from enjoying my dessert or that after-dinner glass of wine.  So…what to do?  I’m realizing that there’s not a lot (or anything) that I’m willing or able to push off my plate at the moment.  But I could make better use of the limited hours that exist in a day.  I’m going to give morning work-outs a go, to free up my evenings for other things.  And I’m going to scale back on the TV time-wasting – there’s nothing wrong with indulging in some quality veg-out time as needed, but I watched 8 episodes of Grey’s Anatomy when Shane was out of town a couple of weekends ago. That was quite possibly not the best use of an open Saturday afternoon (damn you, MacDreamy!).  So, here’s to hoping that few small steps can make a big difference.  And to promising that there will always, always be room for brownies.

(Random aside:  I made my (ok, Martha’s) mint fudge brownies today, and they are quite possibly the best thing ever.  Worth every single gooey calorie…)

Shane sent me an email while I was at work yesterday that said something to the effect of, “Hey, it’s supposed to be really sunny this weekend.” I quickly replied with, “Really? Time for an adventure?” Within minutes, my all-star trip planner of a husband had mapped out a perfect little Saturday jaunt. We were up early-ish this morning, and after a quick breakfast with Jack and La V at Randy’s Diner in Tukwila (imagine Denny’s, but with an even older crowd, and even bigger pancakes!), Shane and I were off to Bellingham to do a little exploring. Our first stop was Larabee State Park, for some sunshine-absorbing and sight-seeing. We shivered when we stepped out of the car and into the crisp February breezes, but decided we would still brave the cold and take the short trail down to the water. Ten minutes later, we were standing on a tiny stretch of beach with the sun glinting off the waters of the Bellingham Bay, and I knew: this was going to be a very, very good day.  We tucked ourselves into a nice little spot on a rock out of the wind and spent awhile just listening to the sound of the water, breathing in the salty air, shedding the week’s stresses and to-do’s.  It was…perfection.

Post-walk, we headed into Bellingham to check out the town.  The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent eating, shopping, drinking, drinking, eating, and shopping.  Lunch at Taco Lobo, perusing the modern wares at Digs, coffee at Woods, cocktails at Temple Bar, dinner at Tivoli, and, for good measure, a quick stop at the Tulalip outlets on the way home.  Did I mention this day was perfect?  We had a chance to really get caught up with one another after a busy week, I delved deeper into Harry Potter book 4 while sipping an exceptionally creamy latte, we found the finishing touches for our dining room make-over, I discovered a new cocktail Shane can’t wait to mix up for me at home (a variation of the Sidecar:  Cognac, Cointreau, and lemon juice, served in a glass rimmed with cinnamon and sugar), and we both ate and ate till we could eat no more.  Thanks, Bellingham, for being so good to us when we really had no idea what to expect.

There is something so satisfying about a day that is simultaneously busy and relaxing – I’m heading to bed tonight tired, but refreshed.  Amazing what a mini-adventure can do for the soul…