at the weekend

Aunt Connie--thanks for asking to see photos of the garden! I've been a bit too lazy to take any lately (plus it is always dark by the time I get home!!) But I am adding two other photos to make up for it in the mean time. Garden photos shall be posted soon...


This is me, Laura, Buster, and a giant carrot from the garden. We are quite the happy family. *The headlamp was used to find the carrot in the garden cause it was too dark to see without it!



This is a drawing for my class that is in process. It is a distorted self portrait (thank you Mac Photo Booth!) The original is in the upper right corner. I think it is getting there...


In other news: it is the weekend! Work has been so busy that the weeks just fly by... but I am so exhausted come the weekend. A regular and habitual break from work was a brilliant idea, whoever came up with it. I am so for it.

I feel there are other things I have been wanting to share here, but am too tired for it this evening. I shall post again soon!

An occasioned meeting

Yesterday I learned an important thing about eating from your own garden: unexpected friends sometimes show up on your dinner plate.

I had made for myself a meal in which the main component was a salad. I picked the greens from the garden, washed them, and in the process of drying them and tearing them up I happened upon a miniature tobacco horned worm. Her color mimicked the lettuce quite well, so I nearly missed her! I plucked her off the leaf and put her in the compost (I would have placed her back in the garden but they are rather destructive creatures!) After I removed her from my dinner, I had a think about how I would never find a living (non-microscopic) organism in something I purchased from a grocery... and if I did how repulsed I would find myself. Yet, when food is coming from the garden (or farmers market for that matter), it is normal. It is interesting how the foods that we buy in the grocery are somehow--in our conceptual understandings--transcendent from any ideas of ecosystem or natural processes... how we have become so disconnected from the mystery underlying the way our food grows. It's just a little interesting, that's all. :)

an excerpt

This is an except from a reflection dated: 23/11/2007. I reread it today and thought it would be nice to post here. Here is the first bit, it continues, but I will keep it short for now:

A reflection:
My time here, so far.
An adjustment. That's what I'll call it: an adjustment. A transition to something new and alien. A transition away from my familiar and loved. It was a bit of a jolt this time. Pushed off a bus into the rainy street--my life on wheels fumbling behind: luggage too heavy and no one to help. No one to laugh about it later because no one knew. Hailed a cab and read from a paper where I needed to be: Emmanuel College, porter's lodge, please. Lost and fumbling I was. Tired, lost and fumbling. I found the porter--he was kind and offered me a cup of tea. He called me a cab to get me round the corner to my new home.

Matt--number three--was the first person I met at my new home. He helped me get my bags up the stairs. My room was bare and small and the 'garden view' was not quite what I expected. But I decided to make it work. I hung and decorated and titled my head to get a better angle. I made it my little home and got used to the overgrown garden. I count the seasons on the tree outside my window now. By my estimation, winter will be here soon. My window has no screen, I like that. I can put my hand outside and feel the rain and the cold and catch the sun. Before my window tree was bare it would toss leaves into my room. A nice, playful welcome from a long-time resident of this place.

amongst a blade of grass

Work has been busy. My first project as project manager is coming to a stage of fruition this coming week... I have to present it to our client on Monday, to be precise. In the middle of the day today I had to leave the office and walk to a small park nearby... lay in the grass and close my eyes. I had to re-calibrate, really: to place myself back into the grander vision. It is so easy to get caught in the local... in the now. Laying there with my face in the grass, hiding my eyes from the blinding sun, I concentrated on listening. A bird... a cyclist rolling by (how nice, I thought, cycling in the middle of a Friday) ... an aeroplane overhead ... a child playing across the way ... another distinct bird call. This is real, I thought, this is reality. I laid there and held to my breast the knowledge of something bigger: millennia of human activity, eons of cells dividing and molecules colliding... something so big that my mind gave in and relaxed.

all shall be well
and all shall be well
and all manner of thing shall be well

Some photos

Today I am posting a few photos from around the garden. I feel a bit silly posting photos of our garden, but there are some quite pretty things to share and sometimes it is nice to see these things instead of just read about them.

In an attempt to eat in season (or at least buy in season), I've begun freezing in-season fruits to use in the off seasons. Below is a collection of apples and various berries: I took a photo because I thought the array of colors was beautiful.


My mom came over and said: Oxalis? That's a weed! I guess one woman's weed is another woman's treasure. Below is one of the two Oxalis plants I bought at the Horticulture Society sale.


Lavender on the window sill. We've got quite a bit of lavender from the six plants in the garden, so I've been placing it around the house in champagne glasses and mason jars.


'Champagne Bubbles' poppy cultivar. These remind me of the Newnham College garden at Cambridge: the poppies brought such light to the landscaped spaces. The pots these guys are planted in were created on day on a whim. I decided to decoupage some old black plastic pots (the kind that you buy plants in) with The Independent, and then touch them up with a bit of paint. I think they turned out quite fun.


Some lettuce in the winter vegetable garden. Newspaper makes a great mulch AND it's a fabulous way to recycle in your own backyard!


Sugar snap peas growing on the north side of the house. I built the trellis from some sticks I found in the yard and cotton string. It's not the prettiest, but it is working quite well.

Linaria reticulata ('Flamenco'): I bought these at Sumida a few weeks ago and added them to the garden at the side of the house. They do not have a lot of foilage but simply burst into magenta and butternut yellow, so they fit nicely with the bunches of cabbage, kale and leafy herbs scattered throughout.

the first rain

I've begun a book called Botany in the Field (by Jane Scott). It was published in 1984... but I bought it for 2 dollars at the book sale and I don't think that our basic understandings on botany have changed that much in the past 25 years. I quite like what Scott says in the opening chapter. She says: 'among the special appeals of botany is the fact that plants, unlike animals, do not vanish at our approach. Yet they do move in time, shifting images with the revolving seasons like a slow-motion kaleidoscope, as bright fruits replace delicate flowers and the pervasive green of summer explodes into autumn's fire.'

Today I began planting our winter garden. This included a trip to the local nursery and a long chat with the owner about how best to (organically) amend the soil to yield the best crop. I even brought in a soil sample to test and get specific advice about. It's so lovely how persons in this field are (or at least appear to be) so willing to share their knowledge.

Another bit of writing that I want to share; this one is actually a refrain that we sing at church when we take the wine and bread: 'Laudate dominum omnes gentes alleluia!' It means: Praise the Lord all peoples, Alleluia' I find that singing in Latin is quite grounding, espeically during communion. It is a subtle reminder of the Saints who came before and of the two thousand years contained within the ritual.

Today we had the first rain of the season; it was light but so lovely. I found myself strangely aware that this was the first rain I've seen in this country in a year and a half. I think I'd forgotten that Santa Barbara is not a land of perpetual summer. Perhaps I developed a bit of an image reflecting that idea during my time away in a land of (seemingly) perpetual winter. The rain today was very, very nice. I love this time of year and the dampness and the gloom and the chill in the air. The sound of rain hitting the roof and the crunch of leaves under foot; I think that maybe autumn is the season that lends itself most willingly to a sense of serenity and calm.

Borrowing from others

Today I am going to borrow from others.

First: 'Je te manque?' in English this mean 'do you miss me?' or more literally 'am I missed by you?' We were writing sentences on the board in french class using the verbs manquer à and plaire à and a boy wrote 'je te manque?' For some reason that struck me: how often is that actually asked: do you miss me? Perhaps it is just me, but I feel like it is silently considered a lot more often than it is actually said. Je te manque? Oui, oui, tu me manques.

Second: I picked up a book at the Planned Parenthood charity book sale called The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris. It is a reflection about her experience becoming a member of the Benedictine order. In the preface she discusses a process of reading called lectio divina, which I think sounds quite good. She decribes the term as meaning: 'an attempt to read more with the heart than with the head ... a slow meditative reading, primarily of the scriptures, lectio respects the power of words to resonate with the full range of human experience'. I don't have any more to comment on it, I simply thought it worth sharing.

Ces choses que j'ai appris.

Topic one: little trees.
Today I bought a dwarf pomegranate tree. That makes my collection of little trees two. I also have an Australian tree fern growing in the shade of my patio... it will get bigger, but for now it is still young. I figure by the time it is big enough to demand placement in the earth, I'll have moved to a more permanent location... or not, I guess. Regardless, I have developed a profound fondness for my small trees. I never realized how much one could fall in love with flora... I often sit at my desk and day-dream about my plants. J'adore mon jardin!

Topic two: autumnal equinox
So, the autumnal equinox is this Monday...and I think that's pretty exciting. Just in case you were wondering, "On a day which has an equinox, the centre of the Sun will spend a nearly equal amount of time above and below the horizon at every location on Earth and night and day will be of nearly the same length."

Topic three: Picasso in Santa Barbara
If you happen to be a Santa Barbarian (or will be in this town in the next few months), you should pop into the SBMA to check out the exhibit of Picasso's drawings. It is always so much fun to see works in graphite or charcoal or ink done by artists whom we typically think of in oils or acrylics. I think it is easy to create an image of an artist in our heads based on one or two career-defining works... and thus it is both educational and fascinating to see what she or he has done in various media and/or across years. So, Picasso at the SBMA, toally worth seeing.

Today, today.

It is the end of yet another summer weekend in Santa Barbara (some hold to the belief that summer ends with Labour Day... I choose to believe that the end comes at the autumn equinox, September 21ish. Why would anyone admit to the earlier date?)

I've begun my drawing class: so far we've drawn lines and shapes (focusing on positive and negative space). It is quite nice to start at the beginning, at the basics. I had forgotten how dramatically the practice of art can alter ones perception of the world. I sat on the couch in my room this evening, listening to melodious sounds from Portugal, and tried to see the Spanish moss on the patio for its negative space. It tried to see not one continuous shape cascading in tendrils from the place where it hung, but hundreds of tiny shapes dancing about amongst the tendrils. When I looked further into the yard, I saw the sky as a shape bound by trees and structures; for a moment that huge, visually endless expanse was a form that could be rendered. How does it all work? I wondered.

Try it sometime: look for the negative space in the world.

I spent today in the garden... I have a bit of a sunburn to show for it. I've started several plants from seed, and some of them needed to be transferred from there little bins of moss into larger pots of soil. I quite like the process: handling something so delicate, something so mysterious as a seedling. The experience reminded me of certain good qualities of life, but what these are I cannot quite say.

In sum: it was a fine summer weekend in Santa Barbara.

from the other side

Dear friends,
After a brief hiatus--and significant thought--I have decided to blog once again.

So, to begin here is a brief update:
1. I am back in Santa Barbara, working for a small, local company
2. I started back at city college yesterday in French 103. I will start a drawing class on Saturday.
3. I am living with Laura and we have occupied ourselves with a number of home and garden improvement projects these past two months: I've since learnt how to re-caulk a bathtub, how to set gopher traps, and all about fungi that attack peppers and tomatoes.
4. I've decided to stop supporting the large-scale dairy industry (it's not as ridiculous as it sounds... I don't think). It is actually a bit of an adventure because it means learning to use many more goat products and soy-based products. And it feels good to know that I am 'voting with my dollar' every time I decide what to buy and what not to buy.

So that is that.

Something to read and ponder and maybe become disappointed about: Drilling off the coast of Santa Barbara

Something a bit serendipitous, I think: today at the farmer's market I bought a bunch of dime-sized white flowers with great green stems. The lady whom I bought them from used a bit of newspaper to gather the great green stems in preparation for the journey home. When I arrived back at the Portola Place and unwrapped my flowers, I gleefully discovered that the florist had wrapped them in the crossword puzzle page of the LA times. As I cut the stems and placed the blooms in jars and vases around the house, I concluded with confidence that today fate was on my side. I spent the second half of the evening working on the puzzle.

And... Henna! A friend from India offered to do my henna and so of course I said yes! The first photo is a bit awkward, but I think it shows the lovely designs quite well. The second is henna + mushrooms that were growing in the damp shade of the chamomile plant.

jumpers for books

Stuff: Whence does it all come?

Packing is a task that seems to be complained about more often than praised... it is viewed as a chore, really. But to tell the truth, it is one of my favorite activities. I always get excited about packing, so I usually start a week or two too early. This is especially true of the process when the end goal is a drastic move. Before moving to the UK I had a garage sale and ended up selling or giving away a third of what I owned: there is just something good about starting new, fresh. Something good in shedding off the frivolous stuff that has piled up, and giving it to someone who might actually want or use it. There is something good in the limits enforced by a move: they cause one to part with material items to which an attachment would have been (unjustly) justified in other, less transient circumstances. Something good in a move.

With this move I have, likewise, created four piles: 'recycle', 'charity shop', 'Cambria', and 'Emmanuel Road house'. (The Cambria pile contains various items that might be of use to her in London, and will make their way south on Saturday). It has been good to fill these piles: I feel like I am leaving behind little bits of my physical existence in this place and taking back with me only the items that have meaning and/or use. (But no doubt my cases will still be heavy: the category that always seems to win the meaning/use game is books. I have found myself sacrificing jumpers for French histories).

So, the main conclusion of this post is thus: packing is good. It is good to once in a while be forced to lift and shift all of our physical belongings, to remind us just how much we have and to encourage us to part with items and allow them to have a second life.

Across the world and back

First, let me plead for forgiveness regarding my recent lack of posting!

Much has happened since I last posted to this blog. I've started the writing phase of my dissertation, I've travelled to the southern hemisphere, and I've decided to move back to Santa Barbara at the summer.

First things first: writing. Writing, writing, writing. How does one find so many words in such a short time? So, it is really not as dire as that... but looking forward that is how I feel. To think of the project as a whole is quite daunting, so I have relegated myself to thinking only 1000 words at a time.... and then one chapter at a time... and then finally of the dissertation as a whole. It is working so far... but feel free to ask me how I am doing come the end of May!

Second: New Zealand. I spent two weeks at the start of April down in NZ, visiting Kevin and seeing the north island. New Zealand was like a dream: at times so familiar ('wow, this is like the central coast of california!') and at other times a complete mystery (the hokey pokey is an ice cream? I thought it was a dance!) Nevertheless, I had a wonderful time: both spending time with Kev and seeing the country. We did a lot of camping and swimming and I had my first go at surfing. It was quite good, really. :) O, and I chased plenty of sheep. There are plenty of good stories tucked away in that experience... but I will save those for another time.

Third: Santa Barbara. Yes, I am moving home come June. I've decided--for several reasons--not to stay in England for the summer (Mostly it's the lack of good beaches... jk). I plan to be semi-permanently in SB (ie, I do not, at this point, have plans of moving again soon), and I am excited about it! I look forward to seeing friends and family and resuming some of my old habits (but, of course, maintaining some of my new)!

My final point of interest: at the middle of May I am travelling to Budapest with Laura! It should be a lovely trip! So, if anyone has tips on Hungary and 'must-sees', please do share!

That is all for now. I miss you all and am looking forward to seeing you all soon!!

a list

colour: lemon and gold
scent: crisp morning
taste: peruvian coffee
task: thoughts into words
attire: casual

Choas on the River

This last week was consumed by crew. In Cambridge there is a tradition called Bumps. They are a series of boat races that take place over the course of six days, during which each boat rows in four races. All of the crews start 3 boat lengths apart, and the goal of the race is to 'bump' the boat ahead. Bumping includes both overtaking (when bow passes cox) and literally bumping into the boat ahead. It is one of those competitions that everyone knows is (a) unfair and (b) only allowed by health and safety because it is a 200-year tradition. Anyway, we bumped once, got bumped once and rowed over (finished the race) twice. It was a pretty tiring series of days, but great fun! Below are some pictures from the races (the first three are of the getting on race from the Friday before and the fourth is after our last bumps race).

Getting On Race









Getting on race (I am bow, the one in the very back)










My crew after the getting on race












Our crew photo after finishing Bumps





The photos below are from the Boat Club Dinner, a termly black tie event held after races. Sometimes I think people row just to go to BCD. ;)







Sarah, Matt, Catherine and me at BCD












Me and Jean, ie. Bow and Three: we rowed corners together!











My Crew! (minus me; I am taking the photo!)









In other news, Kevin is in Samoa right now with his students, learning and experiencing a lot. Prayers for his travels are much appreciated. :) He arrives back to NZ in two weeks... and then it is two weeks before I head out there myself!

My studies have started to pick up. I give a presentation on Monday to my course and our faculty on my research... should be an interesting day. It is a bit strange to think that I turn in my thesis in three months and three days... and then I am finished with my masters... so quick! Now all I need to do it write the darn thing so that I'll be able to turn it in!

Londontown

Here are some photos from our trip to London:






Chilly Cambridge











Frost on pink blooms







Mom and me: So cold!




















Big Ben













Black Swan (for Kev)

















Prince Charles at his Best.

















Red on Red

















Waiting for Spring Buds
















Cambria came to hang with us for the day
















Headed to dinner

Spainland

Spainland is a word from a Devrenda Banhart song: "If I lived in Spainland I'd still have Chinese children." Have a listen; Evan thinks it's a great song... which means it's a great song.

For Aunt Connie: your little sister made it just fine. We have been to Spain and back, today we're in SUNNY Cambridge to recover from Spainland, tomorrow in London and Tuesday back for a tour of Cambridge. She'll be back to you sometime late Wednesday. :)

Here are some photos of Sevilla:












I'll post more photos later; these are just from my camera... mom took even more!

Another Photo

This photo is my novice crew from last term. This was taken right after our 'big' race. Our college colours are pink and blue, hence the girly-coloured garb. (I have actually started to look in my closet and think that pink and navy make a nice match... someone save me!)

February Eighth

I am 24 years old, working on a masters degree, and still cannot spell 'February' without the help of spell check. No matter how many times I try to figure it out, it always winds up with a red squiggly line under it. LC can attest to this. I usually throw in a few too many u's or not enough r's. I have never been--nor will I ever be--a spelling bee champ. But I've learnt to live with it.



Above are two photos from my recent time in Lyon. The top is the Saône and the bottom is the Rhône (yes, there are two big rivers in Lyon!) I was gone Monday through Thursday. I spent a lot of time in the archives looking at microfilm, but my work was productive.

This morning rowing started up again. I had given into the idea that I could not row this term because of my need to do research travel, but they wanted to get a third women's boat out (and that means only three outings a week and permission to get subs for absences)... so I am back in it! It was good to be back on the Cam at sunrise (don't worry HORSE... sunrise is like 7am, so I am not up that early!) More news about upcoming races, etc later!

Mom gets to Cambridge on this upcoming Tuesday. I've booked our flight to Seville and our hotel and I have been praying for a sunny trip! The weather has been fabulous lately, and I am hoping it remains for mom's trip!

Also in regard to travel, I recently purchased a flight to Auckland to visit Kevin in April. It's a wicked flight (something like 36 hours, layovers included), but it should be well worth it! Kevin has promised a fun time with camping, beaching (!!!) and a bit of sight-seeing. The trip occurs just about the time I will finish research and begin writing my thesis... so it will be a good breather to push me into the 100 pages of work I'll have ahead of me.

That's all for now. I hope everyone is well; send updates sometime! I think of you all often and would love to hear about life back home (it was quite an out-of-body experience to watch a piece on the California elections on French news... the weight of your vote has made news around the world!) Au revoir and ciao!

Last day of January

The sun is just going down on the last day of January. For some of you it is already February and for many of you the last day of January has just begun. What does that mean: the last day of January? Somehow this seems significant. I guess January always feels and sounds new. Say it: 'January'. It produces a feeling akin to that aroused when saying: 'the very beginning', 'fresh', or 'rejuvenation'. It's a month like any other, yet we have been so programmed to think of it as a new start. But, really, I think it is a good programming. I know that I often live between starts and finishes, with 'the end in sight' sometimes the only motivator to keep me going. And to have a yearly, perpetual end-in-sight is really a rather refreshing constant.

But here we are at the end of the beginning, on the verge of the long middle. I made no resolutions this year, so I plan to keep no resolutions (seems the easiest path to success, I suppose). But I do plan to learn and experience this year. Perhaps this year I will try to hear more. One of the most interesting questions I have encountered in my course of study is that of the senses. Is it safe to assume that for all generations vision has been the primary mode of experience? Our world certainly takes advantage of sight as the primary sense, but what of a world in which there were no corrective lenses and only dim, smoky light past sundown or on gloomy days? We did an exercise one day in crew in which we all closed our eyes and continued to row. In that way we were forced to feel the boat be sat and hear the rhythm of the paddles breaking the water. No vision and we still rowed in time. So I think I will try to hear and feel and smell my way through life this year. Of course I'll see the world--it's too beautiful to miss--but perhaps I will close my eyes more often and stimulate a less sensitive part of my brain.

When I began this entry, I intended to tell of my mother's coming trip to Cambridge and our bounce down to Spain, of my upcoming trip to Lyon, and of thesis progress... but you get thoughts on the start of the middle of the year instead. I hope it is a glowing year for everyone. And if not, don't forget that we get another shot at the start in just eleven months.

A difficult thing to do

Here is something that I have come to appreciate: it is hard to get lost in London because there is always a tube station somewhere nearby. I think that thought always provides me with a bit of confidence when I come to this city.

Photos

Before ice skating

Strapping into my skates!

Old Lyon

l'Hôtel de Ville de Lyon

Kevin in King's Chapel

At the Granta