Niyas Place

Sonoma: Notations of ironic style

Sonoma Life?

I have to write this with a wry smile. From Chris Reed’s stand up comedy at the Sonoma Market (where people would rather wait in line at his register than miss it) to the fact that no one bats an eye when I walk downtown with a rabbit or two in a stroller.

Sonoma is ironic ready.

In the hardware store last week as I searched for small firewood pieces for the pot belly stove I bought for the recent housewarming party, I over heard a man say to a woman,
“Mam, what do you need?”
“A husband.”
“We don’t sell husbands, Mam, and we don’t take them back as returns either.”
She said, “I’d like to speak to the manager then, young man.”

Such scenes are a daily occurence. Things look normal. You see people walking down the street looking fairly day to day, and then suddenly, they break out into song…a comedy routine, or a complaint about their dear old dog, wife or husband who slobbers too much. Or... they quite literally break out into song, as I’ve seen a few times while minding my own business in a restaurant or shopping in a market.

Sonoma folks are ready to laugh and ready to share.

The theme of sharing is a big one! And, it appears to come from the grapes themselves. I mean, we do live in the valley of the moon with more grapes per square foot than freckles on my face. I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone here is always a tad tipsy from the fumes alone.

This weekend at my housewarming party Marilyn Monroe (performance artist: Diana Dawn—Fabulous by the way) made a surprise appearance. All the therapy I had gone through that very day at the clothing store about a camisole I intended to purchase for the party that was a tad low cut went out the window. Some of the men had a funny dazed look on their faces. Their food got cold, (probably cold anyway when you cook for 35 people that can happen) and they all wanted photos taken with her. I did too. I also wanted better shirt therapy and to add a French Poodle to my collection of furry creatures.

The party was a huge success.
So many amazing and talented people enjoying the large deck, the rose bushes, palm tree, redwoods, huge oak tree and all that great wine they brought. I was flooded with the most special housewarming gifts as people came in. Even a framed photograph of my little Dakota with a shadow of his grand ears.
My neighbors came, they brought wine, oranges, and lots of Sonoma sarcasm.
The winemaker and photographer Rick Bolen of Bolen Family Vineyards who I’m designing a wine label for came with his wife and a half case of his wonderful Pinot and Merlot. My clients and their families came. Simone Cox, blues and gospel singer led us in a soulful harmony of Summertime.

The list goes on of entertaining events and warmth. But one thing is for sure, the Sonoma spirit of sharing was alive and well, even Marilyn shared her ample offerings from the grave.

• • •
Dakota is still sharing, but just his grumpiness because it reminded him of being at Burns Feed Store as a baby with all the kids coming in and out wanting to hold him. Though all that attention impressed upon him what a handsome rabbit he is, he’s simply a one-woman rabbit and it was all a bit much.

Who Are You? Consult a Rabbit!

Dakota had a near miss with death recently. Upper respiratory disease and his little stomach shut down. He's okay now but somehow his struggle (our struggle for his life) made me think of the who and what we are.

I thought about the lady who runs the bar in the village of Carces, FR. Her pink hair, brown skin, swimming pool water eyes that appeared pressed in vat of charcoal—lots of eyeliner, and a very large smile. She talked constantly in French to the drunks and the caffeine charged patrons, whether it was 7 a.m. or 11 p.m. Espresso in much of France is delivered in bars. You don't know when you walk in who’s on uppers and who’s on downers. I thought she’d be scared to have that job. Just like I thought Dakota would have developed a personality disorder by now, given his chronic upper respiratory issues.

Neither was the case. Which made me wonder about other things I thought I was right about, yet was dead wrong.

For instance, I don't really think we choose what suit we wear before we are born. I don't think we walk into pre-life store and say, that one! I want to be a rabbit or I want to be red head with more freckles on my face than I can count. But if it were true, I wish I’d chosen to be a light bulb in a hot New York restaurant with super powers to download all the stories I saw from my light bulb point of view to a writer.

I diverge.

Still I was curious. So, for the heck of it, I asked Dakota. Why Rabbit?

I figured if he could tell me this I might find myself in his answers. Given that I’m going through a career transition which seems to be taking as long as a sex change operation would.

It went like this:

Me: Dakota, why are you a rabbit?

Dakota: Because rabbits are smart, clean and they don’t make a fuss. They are self contained unlike dogs.

Me: You sound British to me. But maybe that’s because of the week I’ve been having with British Airways. Still, why not a cat?

Dakota: They can’t control their moods and they eat meat.

Me: You sound pretty clear that rabbits are the superior race in the animal world.

Dakota: No comment.

Me: Okay, let’s take another angle, especially since today I have all this oozing admiration for you. Here’s something I need your advice on. I get compliments on my hair a lot more when I don’t wash it for at least 3 days. I’m thinking I should make a shampoo (with the help of the Science community of course) and call it ‘Dirty Hair Shampoo for Women with Thick Hair (that Looks Ravishing-- Dirty.)’

Dakota: You mean you don’t have someone from your species who grooms you everyday?

Me: Sigh…cringe, wriggling in my seat—'I think the doctor is ready for you Dakota.'

•••

Me: Who am I Dakota?

Dakota: Not a rabbit. And, you should work on that!

P r o v e n c e

I haven’t seen any rabbits in the small village of Carces, except on the menu, so I’ll give you the ‘Life’ version of this my little word-stacks today.

I’ve been here only two days and now I see why my friends said, “You may not return.” I thought to myself, ‘You just don’t know the love of a good rabbit, if you did you wouldn’t say that.’ But, I must tell you that this place is completely mesmerizing. I’m getting obsessed. Not to mention how hypnotic the winds of the Mediterranean Sea are.

I just may have to have my rabbits sent on some Animal Airbus. If there isn’t one, there should be. A big ol’ airplane that serves those edgy, modern animals set to visit their humans all over the world--completely equipped with treats and people who wait on animals. I think this will happen in my lifetime. I am hopeful.

BACK TO PROVENCE
For those of you who don’t know, Betsy and Ken Kobre of SF Ca (these people know how to LIVE, I want to be just like them when I grown up) have offered me their incredible three-story villa that is seated in the heart of Carces, South of France just above Toulon and Marseille in exchange for a painting. See their beautiful website with photos and their artists who have passed through like me.

I’ve been to France before, but not the South of France, only Paris. In the past 48 hours I've had experiences with the food, the wine, the men, the dogs, the pigeons,the language, the architecture, the winds from North Africa, the drivers, the sea, the very fun French people to mention just a few. I'll begin with the pigeons.

FRENCH PIGEONS
The pigeons don’t have self confidence issues here. They belt out their coo so loudly, they sound like owls--even in the strong winds of the Med. They are loud and fat and they look at you like you owe them. Entitled. They are Euro pigeons with American attitudes! It’s not just the French pigeons either--they are the same everywhere in Europe. Venice, Florence, Amsterdam, maybe not so much in Transalvania where there are probably homeless vampires that feed on pigeons. The pigeons probably don’t want to be noticed as much there. The pigeons are probably skinny and humble there with soft voices.
The pigeons here are sort of like the French men. Completely in your face with their hunger, but magnificent and noticeably charming at the same time.

FRENCH MEN
I came into Carces after 18 hours of travel. I didn’t sleep a wink on the plane. I got lost immediately. My phone didn’t work here. I spotted this man walking around the village whistling and smiling. I finally gave in after circling him a couple times and asked for help. I'm not sure what he thought but he immediately put his head into the car and looked at my legs. I pushed his head back out of the car and he laughed. I asked him, “Où est l'avenue Ferrindad?”
He spoke fast French. I began to use my hands. That universal sign language that looks apish and silly but does the job.
I got out of the car. He lead me to the street I was looking for.

He wore a white chef shirt that smelled like laundry detergent. He was a large and handsome man. He laughed at me (just the first of many) when I spoke French and would put his hand in my hair and say things I didn’t understand.
Finally, after he asked me how long I would be here, did I have family? Did I have a petit amie (boyfriend) or mari (husband)? I said, both of course. But he pressed on. He wanted me to go out with him on Thursday night. I said, no, Je suis ici pour peindre et visiter --I’m here to paint and visit-- he laughed and said Ce soir puis? Tonight then? It was midnight. I said in broken French. I am going now, you go this way and I'll go that way. “seul?” he said, amazed. Alone? Oui, yes, seul. “No problem he said and then went on for another 5 minutes—something about how lovely I am and something about my curls. I tapped him on the shoulder to interrupt him and put my head on my hands and yawned and closed my eyes. He laughed hard and got it. He kissed my on both cheeks, and we said our goodbyes.

The next morning I woke up early and went out to find a bakery. As I approached the bar that served alcohol, tobacco and espresso, another French man stood there on the corner. I looked like a bottom feeding crawdad with a perversity of red hair, I swear to god--I was barely awake. But this man looked like he wanted to eat me alive. I hadn’t even brushed my teeth. He followed me all morning as I did my stuff. I was amazed.

CARCES VILLAGE RESTAURANTS
Last night, Easter Evening, all the restaurants were closed except Le Saigon. I was the only one there. I waited until the owner was done sweeping the floor. He gave me a menu. I gasped. There were illustrations of ducks standing up like people with their wings around each other in a buddy sort of gesture and below it an illustration of baby pigs suckling their mother, and under that all the pork dishes. The shrimp looked like a shrimp. Just laying there like it was already dead so I ordered the shrimp.

I’m sitting now in a quaint restaurant that serves mostly duck and fondue. It’s called the L’oie du bois (The Goose of Wood?). The waiter speaks and little English, and I speak a little French and the crowd behind me keeps laughing at my French. The waiter assures me they are laughing at him because they know him. In our conversations, I’ve learned that he listens to Blues in English only, he was a graphic designer for 15 years and the previous owners are artists as well. They draw. When I said ‘Moi, Aussi’ – Me Too, regarding the graphic artist for 15 years, and that I am here this week to paint and draw mostly, he seemed not impressed. Sometimes, I am very aware of my American-ness here. I wonder, are we trained in some way to be touchy feely, empathetic, and say things like ‘me too’ as a branching connector to others.

DESOLE -- 'SORRY' IS NOT A POPULAR WORD HERE.
I do know we say ‘I’m sorry’ a whole lot. I haven’t yet heard the phrase, Je suis désolé (I’m sorry) here—yet it seems to come up like a rite of passage in America, maybe even a weapon, a eradication of guilt, permission to trample. You see this in Peets or the grocery story sometimes. A person jumps another in line or spills on them while reaching for the half and half. Or you hear “sorry” in conversation where people are trying to be demure to connect. But it’s used a lot in our society. I had no idea how much. But here, in France it feels simply unwise to say it.

In fact, for instance, this group that keeps laughing at my French, well I waved them away and said, C’est Bon – it’s good, it’s fine, go away. And, they laughed more. Now I have their attention. When I said to the waiter “I’m sorry” (for not speaking better French) he looked down like he was embarrassed I had said it and the group behind me buried their faces in their food and seemed to pretend I hadn’t really said that. “I’m sorry” is clearly an act of tainted pride, an embarrassing thing. You just don’t do it here. And I find that as liberating as all the imperfections.

THE IMPERFECTIONS ARE LIBERATING
Walking to this restaurant, the smell of wood smoke and burnt cheese in the air, the loud creaking sounds of shutters closing and my heels clicking loudly on the brick. People live in heavy stone, so heavy, so old. I passed an old French prison, littered with beer bottles, plastic cups, but no gum that I could see on the ground.

This town is full of its own reality. Its own smells and sounds and people are more than tolerant. This is IT for them. This is how it’s always been. Seems a bit obvious to say that. Except I was raised in California. California where change is a religion of sorts--imperfections worked on, covered and tweaked. The power to transform reality into something new is quite exciting in California. So, this stone that will always be here and always was with its musty smells and the streets of creaky sounds is somehow a comfort--exciting in a different way. Like a film with a really good writer who knows how to write it so unto itself that we can’t help but fall completely and utterly in love with the story no matter the content.
I love California. I love the oak trees, the smell of eucalyptus, the acorns on the ground, and even the grumpy people driving Cayenne SUV’s and honking at me for getting in their way when I ride my bike. I know where they are coming from. They worked hard for where they are, right? Here, that same attitude comes out in the pigeons. And it works. Damn it if I don't want to buy them freshly baked bread from one of the 4 bakeries in this village of 2500.

FRENCH DOGS
The dogs speak French!
When I tried the same words in English only a quizicle look.
A woman was out walking her dog with her father and she told her dog to turn left ‘La Gauche.’ Later when I saw the dog and she was in the market. I said, ‘go left’ – the dog looked at me quizzically and froze.
Maybe ‘left’ sounded like arret! Stop. But English made no sense to this dog, that’s for sure.

THERE IS SO MUCH MORE TO SAY
I’ve gone on too long.

Tomorrow night, Le Val for dinner, more painting all day and Thursday, Friday, Nice and Eze. But I’m so enjoying painting and playing with the French people here in these villa. They tease and challenge me sweetly about my language skills. I may skip Spain and keep painting and exploring around here. We'll see.
Bandol, which is near Marseille and Toulon is stunning. The sea was so active it sprayed my windshield as I drove near. I bought some wine, it was only four dollars. An incredible Cote du Rhone red.

The sense of freedom here is tangible. It’s wild in that way that you can be when you really trust someone. Europe has always felt that way to me--unto itself, wild, wild, wild like the wind, and old as the sea.

Lord, Don’t Let Me Be Half the Rabbit My Rabbit Thinks I Am!

Rabbits have no concept of their bigotry. You are either part of their clan or you aren’t.

They test you.

When you get down on the floor and do the things they do (especially Dakota) eating or grunting at his rear-end (I don't recommend this one) or pushing the ball around…well, you’ve somehow earned the merits of clan member. Translated, this means he thinks he's me-- A giant rabbit, but with weird spots on my face, no ears, and lacking in some of the superior qualities most rabbits have, like fur. He doesn’t care. He likes the size factor.

Caila has other methods. More… err…uh-female methods. She comes bounding up for snacks and decides day-to-day or sometimes hour-to-hour what she will and won’t eat. Berries have recently gone out of style for her. Now it’s Hawaiian flavors or the rear end view. And she waits to see if I’ll cave. I always do.

Lately, I’ve been re-entering the painful and humiliating art of yoga.
Caila does downward dog (err, rabbit) better than anyone I’ve ever seen. Lately, when I take a break from work, I go into the rabbit cave (translates to room in the house), and I practice my own downward dog. This gets her going. She runs under me and reaches up and touches her nose to mine and then runs to the litter box and keeps her eye on me. Either I’ve entered a competition with her or I’ve conducted a ritual of the tribe. By mimicking her, I comprehend her values, understand her with her best trick. Or, I’m just a big lug taking up space in the cave.

By appealing to their narcissism, not my own (do you think I feel smart or sexy crawling around on the floor with 5 lb mammals?) I earn my place in the rabbit hovel. I am allowed to be obeyed. I am big bunny. When I say don’t chew, they stop. When I say, eat your lettuce its good for you, they do. Or when I manage their poop targets to the litter box by showing them where it goes, the next day is better.

Here’s the problem.

Although, there are many things Dakota and I agree on; like, strong legs will pretty much solve any problem in life. And, you can never have too much attention from the opposite sex, there are still things that don’t work.

Like, when I don’t join him at the breakfast bar (translates to bamboo mat where their hay, parsley, spinach, and other rabbit delicacies go in the a.m.) -- he now waits all morning. If by around 10 a.m., I haven’t joined them he finally gives in. What he does she does after him. So, both finally eat. They wait, and then they eat.

Was it always this way?

No.

I’m the fool who has proven that I can be as much rabbit as anyone. I did it to get them to obey me. Using human methods on animals that are by nature genius's at making family is not intelligent. I passed their tests and now I am a traitor by not living with them day in and day out in their rabbit cave.

I warn you. Don’t try these methods at home unless you plan to go all the way. Before they were just rabbits. Yes, special rabbits I’ve hauled across the country a couple times who have the toughness to live outside and inside—But rabbits. Cute little fuzzy things that wag their tails and hop for joy when love comes their way. Tubby little rabbits I’ve had to put on diets a couple times. And moody too! But, generally, you know… just rabbits. (Well okay, very, very special rabbits!)

Now, guess what? They think I’m a rabbit. I wish they were human.

When they hear birds they look at me like, ‘well are you going to shoot it?” Rabbits fear birds.
When I come home from travel I’ve broken their hearts. They mope for days.
When I don’t sleep with them, they stomp and chew on cardboard more and more.

This has gone too far! Pretty soon they will no longer remember their original place in nature; that of a prey animal. If anything they prey on me—At least psychologically.

Sonoma gets prettier and prettier by the day. I have built an outdoor hutch for them. When I put them in it do you think they enjoy it when I’m not there?

No.

Dakota says, ‘yeah we’ve let you into our clan. But I’m still the boss, and you need to commit one-way or the other!’

He drives a hard bargain.
He’s the stubborn, constipated type. You probably guessed.

So that's my ramble for the day.
Do I really want to be half the rabbit thinks I am? No. But half the human?

YOU BET!

Lavendar and Wildflower Honey Crème Brulèe

Now that I live in Sonoma and the temps reach the 70’s daily, it’s difficult to consider a deep read of fiction. Not that I would have access to it, given that my books are in a deluge of boxes in the garage. But, naked now of the sub zero temperatures and howling winds that drive the mind to grow a new imagination, I find myself reading a cookbook. I linger on every word. ‘Garnish’, ‘ramekin’, ‘lavendar blossom’, ‘mesclun greens’, ‘toasty flavor’, ‘fig jam’.

While waiting for the moving truck (four days late), I found myself getting a salad to go from the charming and apparently acclaimed restaurant, The Girl and the Fig. The artwork alone makes you want to try everything. I went in for a salad and walked out with a salad, bread and fig jam, fig lotion, more jam, a side of eggs (need protein in stressful times) and a cookbook that I can’t keep my face out of. The staff was all too happy to chat with me about ‘whatever’ even though they were super busy. I wanted them to adopt me, take me home, give me a bed to sleep on and serve me Crème Brulee because the floor at my house was getting old; as I waited for the driver who had been subpoenaed for sleeping on the side of the road in the truck, and had no keys to drive the truck for awhile.

I took my food in boxes to the park and tried to convince my body that I was in ‘real warmth’, this is the real sun and it’s okay to relax and enjoy. After lunch I fell asleep in the grass. It was like a dream. I woke up with red tail hawks flying above and the view of a man in a convertible mini reading a book. Coming from Boulder, a place where there is lots of mental and physical space, I had forgotten that people sneak away to parks often in the Bay Area for an ample slice of non-demanding privacy.

Somehow in this place of plenty, Sonoma CA, reading a cookbook instead of fiction is perfect. And today, as I make Creamy Polenta, Braised Chicken with Prunes and Olives, Lavendar and Wildflower Honey Crème Brulee from my new cookbook, and assume a normal workday, I’ll be looking out my backyard at the bunny hut, a palm tree, a huge oak tree that seems to keep the Sonoma Creek safe and two baby redwood trees that Dakota goes a little nuts around when he smells them.

So, why leave Boulder and move to Sonoma? ...you are wondering. I’ll give you a hint. I needed warmth and my poor lungs couldn’t take the altitude in Boulder. And it was time to come home. But there's more! There’s always more…and much that I have yet to discover. Like maybe I couldn’t live without The Girl and the Fig Cookbook and Dakota couldn’t live without those redwoods and Caila his better half can’t live without both of us being healthy and happy. That’s the kind of rabbit Caila is, very sensitive and caring. Unlike her unruly but extremely characterized counter part Dakota.

Dakota says, ‘Any place with this many smells has gotta be good.’

ps: He's jealous of the rooster that wakes me up at dawn because he knows that's one of my favorite things and he hasn't refined his vocal chords beyond a grunt here and tiny sneeze there...

On Chroma, Cows, and Christmas

“How would you suspend 500,000 lbs of water in the air with no visible means of support?” Answer: “Build a cloud.” — Bob Miller, Artist

A couple hundred years ago the art of Painting went from trade to profession. Color became a scientist’s tool for uncovering important information about our molecular structures, and artists were given the power to infect culture from the prestige of the wealthy and the critical thinking of academics.

Today, a similar infection of culture—emissions offsets, environmental commodities.

Today, the announcement of the scientific discovery of Kangaroo bacteria having the power to curb the methane expulsions out of a cow’s rear end, has a similar fashionable shimmer to it as Monet’s announcement that he is certain that the color of the atmosphere is violet, and that in three months everyone will be painting the sky in violet hues. To imagine a time where a painter’s intuitive discovery of color was as exciting and new then as today’s magazine advertisement to give the gift of an Emissions Neutralizer—Co2 offset credits, depending upon value can range from stocking stuffer to full blown big (green) boxed Christmas gift, is so fun to think about.

But why am I thinking about it?
I’m snowed in for one thing without a lot to do today but look out at what Delacroix called ‘no color’ –the white, blanketed earth. But I look for the color, because everything we can see and call color is an illusion of contract. We can’t see it out of relationship to other colors. Just because white isn’t a primary (or black) doesn’t make it not exist. That seems obvious to me, but I’m not a Delacroix. I’m a Sisk who paints in bold, bright and what the museum community calls regressive colors, because of children’s toys. And more directly, pertaining to often destructive, regressive events in our history and now, like war. A language system that uses bright colors to signal assertions of belief, threat, and what they are fighting for.

But white? The bright blanket of stillness I see out my window?
It’s the neutralizer, the non-message, the blank space, the place where light refracts upon itself. I have to say-- it’s not neutral to me. The way the bright white doesn’t break and color is hidden somewhere underneath and somewhere above the clouds—to me, is anything but neutral. It’s overwhelming being forced to see the world around me as one monochromatic stretch. Now, if I could make a bed of tulips that would survive in this snow—along with a heat lamp on my deck and the ability to serve Christmas Dinner out there, this would be paradise.

When I was a skier—for only a short period of time, as I pummeled too many people on the slopes from my clumsiness—I felt no differently, blinded by white everywhere--happy though for the contrast of buildings and people around. How did the Eskimos do it?

Back to the exciting environmental explosion. Here we are, the world is breeding environmental tools, solutions, ideas like dust mites to dirt. How much is commodity, how much will save our planet? I wonder if 18th century Europe thought impressionism would save their lives—as it tickled their economy, serving royalty, created renewed energy in the church telling their stories within the architectures. Art may have saved lives at this time in history.

Back again to the environmental thread (see how it keeps becoming art?)

I design product interfaces for a living.
I’m designing one now—a really large and complex environmental bank that our government, corporations and energy generators will use to offset and manage greenhouse gases and energy. It’s an exciting space to be in. And I’m struck by the newness, the innovative conversations with my colleagues. I’m struck by the opportunities to say—the atmosphere is violet and see how the thinkers and doers organize their efforts around perception, need and business acumen, into environmental technology that helps save the planet and tickle our economy in new ways. Of course with that comes corrupt ways as well. But hey, there was Monet and then there was Van Gough. We seem to have learned from both in different ways.

• Dakota takes his usual contrarian posture with me. Give me snow, give me snow, I love to roll around in and dig in the snow. Who cares if your overly sensitive painter’s eye needs more color and contract or that you can’t get out of the garage to get food. I have food, I have snow, I have a warm girl bunny…get a grip! *

• Dakota is now three years old. I’ve given up on him changing his personality, so I throw snowballs at him. He thinks it’s a game. Yeah, right!

Related links to the essay:
Cow Painting is from my collection. To see more: www.niyastudios.com
If you are interested in immersion into a wonderful and brilliant blog on color—mosaics, photos, discussions, essays—you must go to: www.athenadreams.com

Rakish Reeds of Rabbit Money

I’ve come to believe that everything you were as a child, you are now.
Yes, there’s some editing involved as we become adults and trade out what’s possible for what’s practical. Zzz...

But, as I look back on everything that’s good in my life now, somewhere along the line I was…like a gymnast spotted in some awkward but successful contortion. I was shown in life that inspiration could meet success if I was bored enough, brave enough, and mischievous enough to try.

When I was nine years old I raised angora rabbits and sold them for five dollars a piece to be shorn for yarn making. I was a rather fashion hungry fourth grader and my Mom’s taste in school clothes didn’t cut it for me—(she’s gotten better over the years). I didn’t plan it this way. But after my neighbors gave me a couple of angoras, I woke up to find many babies, little white almost furry, golf balls in the cage. This was on a farm in Redwood Valley Ca. A small farm with an abandoned caboose, and a pig next door that loved to eat purple morning glories.
Inside the abandoned caboose was where my first boyfriend became my boyfriend when he put his arm around me... on a rotten, flea invested, sprung mattress. It was the scariest, most romantic moment of my nine year old life. And then, he ‘went with’ my best friend Susan when the school year began and asked if I would be his summer/caboose girl (don't go there) while Susan was his winter school girl…but this is another story altogether.

One day, about a month after the baby angoras were born, another neighbor came by and offered to buy the litter. He asked how much? I fumbled, sputtered, and I glimpsed at how much I would miss them but thought about school clothes. I thought about looking good for caboose boy, and yes, competing with my best friend (she says shamefully). I said, “Five dollars a piece.” And so, began my first entrepreneurial business.

After graduating from University of Santa Cruz, although my motivations were a bit more complex, they weren’t any less excited than when I sold the little rabbits. I was working at NeXT Computer and I wanted to use my psychology degree towards something artistic. I was interested in brains processed creativity. The most interesting conversations seemed to be around designing the faces of all the interactivity in computing we're experiencing today. So, I would show up at NeXT at 5:30 a.m. and consort with people around this question “What makes an intuitive design?” Iconography, color, and words, interactivity and the psychological patterning of our brains got me as excited as...well you don't want to know, because geek will come to mind... (And, yeah I was there when Jobs was around shaking it up, but I'd rather talk about the relationship between five dollar rabbits and sputtering career advertures.)

A month later, I had created a mock portfolio and was off to interview with several companies on the East Coast for visual interface design positions. At Lotus Corp., it was the same rabbit selling moment. How much would you charge to re-design the face of our leading business product?
What made me blurt out a random number that I thought was way too high, but turned out to be too low was the same feeling I had when I realized the rabbits could make more rabbits. As long as I keep drawing pictures and studying how our brains process interaction, I’ll have more interviews--more chances at this. They wanted to see sketches. So, on the plane, instead of the usual coffee and cream, I ordered Vodka. It was good. I’d never had Vodka straight up. I drew a bunch of crazy pictures and faxed them the next day. They offered me the contract. But, another offer was in the works--a lead visual design job at Claris Corp. And, it was in CA. so...there you have it.

From Rabbits to Entrepreneurial adventures in Design. All of it feeling about as silly as a girl could feel. As a director at Macromedia said to me once, you consultants always have your bare asses out on a very long limb of a very high tree.

My response:
But when I get dressed, damn I have good clothes!

--------------
Dakota doesn’t understand why I don’t wear fur like him. I tell him because if I did this would change our relationship considerably. Like I wouldn’t be talking to him in person, it would be on some other level. He SO doesn't get the whole eating rabbit thing. When I talk like this he gives me a stern look like I’m making no sense and then he gets very busy and ignores me altogether.

Arranged Marriage

Let's talk marriage!

QUESTIONS:
If you don't marry your best friend, can she/he become your best friend?
If you marry your best friend, will he/she become less than that?

If I take the question of best friend out of the question, have I become an American? Is there no hope for me?

WHAT THE RABBITS HAVE TAUGHT ME.
--That's Caila up there in the image by way. What a little priestess, eh?--

When I adopted Dakota, he came with a chubby brother. The cutest, chubbiest, most docile, sweetest, slow moving rabbit you've ever seen.
One day I came home from work to find chubby nearly dead. Dakota, apparently, to show who would be alpha, tried to castrate his brother. Oh, the religious possibilities here! As it turns out Burns Feed store forgot to tell me that unaltered males do this at around four months old.

After chubby recovered, I sadly gave him up to a sweet little Japanese girl and her family. I was now in charge of taming ABEL, who, once he won my heart became Dakota (in Lakota Sioux, this means friend').
I decided Dakota and I were stuck with each other for at least a year until I taught him some manners. He was a bossy little shit! He called me out regularly to fight. I have the scars to prove it.

HOW DOES ONE FIND SUCH A BOY A GIRL?

We went out every weekend and literally interviewed girl rabbits to be his mate.
It didn't matter if she was ten pounds to his measly four pounds. If they didn't take to him right away he tried to kick their ass!

FINALLY.

We went to a breeder of Sable Tipped Lops. Little Caila came bounding out. All feet and curiosity. She was eight weeks old. Her feet were longer than her body. He came at her. He lunged. He tried to bully. She hopped sideways over his body and looked at him like, "what the heck do you think you're doing?" This confused Dakota quite a bit.

The next thing that happened was a sort of miracle. He put his head under her stomach. Why? Did he think she would protect him from himself?

HE WAS SMITTEN. That was it.

Now he follows her around like she's his security blanket. He gives her hours of grooming. He sits up next to her while she sleeps to keep guard and protect her. And, yep he lunges at her when I walk into the room, because, well, as far he's concerned this is Utah or India and he has a couple of wives who adore him. But she and I know who's really boss. And IT AIN'T HIM.

So this is an arranged marriage that worked amazingly well. He pulls his crap and she doesn't move. She still holds that look in her eye "What are you doing? Is this necessary? And he gets embarrassed and immediately gets busy cleaning his feet to look busy.

ON MARRIAGE AGAIN--BUT WITH PEOPLE

So back to the question about marrying your best friend. Well, all the magazines say this is unrealistic. You marry a partner; you do the things you do. You plant peas; you make pasta and drink red wine together. You fight over the thread count of the sheets or parenting philosophies. But according to the current party line on marriage, the expectation of friendship is, well, passé, silly, old fashion.

On the other hand, if he's my best friend there's a less likely chance of my trying castrate him. And, if he adapts creatively to my strength of character, why wouldn't I give this marriage all the affection and devotion I would give a best friend? :)

• • •
Dakota also agrees that marriage and strong friendship go together. He says respect has a lot to do with it. He also hates talking in these mushy ways. So I'll give it a break now.
• • •

ALTHOUGH HE LOOKS PRETTY MUSHY TO ME IN THIS PHOTO.

Script Done. Redhead Undone

FADE IN:

INT./EXT. BUSY STREET - CAFE - DAY

REDHEAD walks towards a chic cafe on a busy street. She's wearing a sun dress and flip flops that are too big for her feet. She has more freckles than ever from the non-stop ninety degree days. She has a large worn out leather purse on her shoulder with an iBook in it. It's lunch time so she stops an ice cream truck driving by.

ICE CREAM TRUCK MAN
How can I help you?

REDHEAD
An ice cream sandwich please. Do you have other flavors besides chocolate for the outside? Pesto for instance? Or basil, raspberry? Fruits and vegetables are important in any healthy diet.

ICE CREAM TRUCK MAN
(pretends not to hear)
Vanilla or chocolate?

REDHEAD
(sighs)
Vanilla. I mean, I guess...I'm still getting some of the food groups; protein and wheat.

ICE CREAM TRUCK MAN
(no expression)
That will be $1.35.

REDHEAD
(looks at him curiously)
I think this would be the perfect job for me right now. Do you have a job application I can fill out?

ICE CREAM TRUCK MAN
Mam, I'm a solo act.

Kids are lining up. An ice cream frenzy is building behind her.

REDHEAD
(enthusiastically, like she's found a partner in crime)
Me too--at least right now, I'm down the last five scenes in my screenplay. It's nerve wracking. I haven't spoken with any of my clients in weeks. I've been writing for sixteen days straight. My house smells funny. You should see...

ICE CREAM TRUCK MAN
(looking nervously over her head to the excited kids)
Mam, you need to move aside, I have a business to run here.

He waves her off.

FADE OUT:

• • •

The above is a fictional parody -- a metaphor if you will, on the emotional landscape of my past month.

Backgrounder:
I pitched a novella I wrote to producers at a conference in June.
Five of five asked to read the script I had not written and didn't know how to.
I took a month off work to learn and to write it. I figured two weeks to learn and set up notes, two weeks to write.
I completed the first draft, 111 page play in 18 days.
And now am in the rewrite phase with high hopes to send it out by the end of August.
First I need to chum up to two upset, neglected bunnies and get over the bronchitis I got in the mix of stress-- and eating...well, not so great.

Owners manual for anyone seeking a life that includes both art and business:

1. Should you take a month off work to learn something completely new, like: Write a novel or play, learn a musical instrument, a new language or paint a series of paintings. Make sure you have your cupboards and refrigerator stocked, a message on your machine that says, "I'm in artistic purgatory, and believe me, I absolutely can't wait to get back to you, but it will be long past your interest in talking to me; please forgive me in advance."

2. Don't work naked. It scares the neighbors. And believe me, they are already scared of you!

3. For Writers: Make sure you have at least one friend who makes you laugh and knows your drink. This is very important. Otherwise, your characters suffer your grumpiness.

And, they don't deserve it.

They wait patiently for your attention and come to life with the slightest sliver of it. They entertain you endlessly, they love you, they hate you, they don't notice you, they are insecure and overly confident. They are a huge stack of imperfection--so treat em' well, treat yourself well and the clients who come back to your when it's all over. Because they are the real thing!

4. For those of you who can work full-time and write at night and weekends. I'd give 100 freckles to be like you. I think and brainstorm from Friday night to Sunday night and the real action starts to write itself on Monday when most people go to work. I risk a month of client-free living to write. I'll let you know how it turned out as soon as I know.

5. You may think this is a romantic venture. You may see yourself as I did, like this:

BUT IT'S ACTUALLY MORE LIKE...

6. Practice your passion whatever it is. Even if you get sick like I did you're still smiling from your internal organs--your heart, your kidneys, your liver...they are all happy. Even if the dishes in your sink are growing mold and your rabbits show you their backs more than they used to.

7. Buy a bunch of great music. If you aren't a smoker it will help curb the desire.

8. Remember, even if doing what you love most of all obsessively looks incredibly selfish to others--keep the faith. When you're happy you give 3 X's more in the end.

--Make sure you stock your closet with rabbit food. I'm still catching shit on this one!--

BOULDER CO: Dispatches

WHAT I'VE LEARNED IN BOULDER SO FAR:

1. When riding my 9 year old mountain bike around, if I listen to my i-Tunes biking mix, I have pretty convincing fantasies that I'm a mean, lean biking machine. Until I get strange looks because I didn't realize I was singing out loud or doing a little bicycle dance. And then reality crashes in harder when I see that the digital roadside speed-odometer says 17 miles per hour, and bicyclists are passing me (circling very wide), and the speed limit is 40.

* So Boulder athletes if you're reading this blog and you see an efforting, crazy looking redhead singing to Ani Difranco or making a complete fool of herself in other ways...just send me a little love--it goes a long way. A thumbs up will do. I realize that while you'll imagining all the great stuff you'll put into your power shake when you get home, I'm imagining a large glass of Chardonnay and wishing I had the guts to drink at 10AM. So just throw a peace sign or thumbs up my way. I'm not picky.

2. Some (more than I ever thought possible) of the men in Boulder, apparently appreciate curvy women. Bless you!

3. When I order a latte, the whole process goes faster if I ask for 2 percent milk or Soy. It can take the Barista time to either find whole milk stuck way in the back of the refrigerator, or to process a request he/she hasn't had in quite awhile. For a writer who doesn't want to loose the creative surge going on and just needs her caffeine IV, it's easier and faster to say 2 percent please.

4. The Waste Water Treatment Plant smells really good. A musky, soapy-like smell. Is this a good thing?

5. I have learned a love of gardening, how good vegetables and herbs taste from your own garden, a distaste for milkweed and big time appreciation of good neighbors.

Dakota loves Colorado. The birds make really loud sounds but can't get him because he lives in the penthouse suite with 2 adoring females.

The Upside of Procrastination

Recently, I cleared the decks in my design bizz for a few weeks of uninterrupted screenwriting.
It's amazing how animated and compelling the world looks when there is a meaningful goal to avoid in life.
I never knew how much pleasure procrastination could yield until I created the time and space to do what I most love, write and paint.

The sounds of the birds outside are so loud I imagine myself in a jungle drinking a Mai Tai out of a coconut in some exotic part of world. There are massage therapists instead of monkey's hanging out in the trees, anxious to serve. And the taste of food is so good when avoiding meaningful goals, that suddenly all those cookbooks I never read spill out onto the living room floor. How to make something out of beets that doesn't taste like dirt becomes the new goal of the day. As I'm doing that, Dakota runs by (no I'm not thinking rabbit stew. Jeez, get your minds out of the gutter!) and I wonder if I'm patient enough if I can pull all the fleas out of his fur. So the next hour is all about finding them. I never do, which is no surprise since he lives indoors.

I listen to the Roaches. I sympathize with her asking for her job back. I'm a little envious. My bosses are many (clients) and sometimes they take me back and sometimes they don't want to reward bad behavior (taking time out to write) and just call when they damn well feel like it.

I come back to the computer. I decide computers are boring and instead cut out photos of my cast. My wish list for the film I'm writing. Suddenly they start having conversations. Many that have nothing to do with the original material I'm adapting. But now the computer is interesting--It's fast. I can get all this dialogue on the page. Then the doorbell rings. It's FedEx delivering books, music and cosmetics that are part of a scam. Okay, so for a minute I thought I'd get the laptop. My gardener laughed at me. Nobody ever gets the laptop dummy! I fired him. For 30 seconds. I need him. I know nothing about the variety of plants in this new land that I live. Anyway, I spend the next 2 hours unraveling the hairball of the scam. I loose my business email because I'm now getting 60+ emails a day. Normally, I'm smarter than this. But it was so much fun doing that instead of learning something new like screenwriting and feeling dumb in (now that I think of it much higher quality way) another way.

Anyway, you get the picture. I think I've found a new drug of choice: Procrastination. Even washing dishes takes on a whole new dimension. So much better than struggling with the page, getting more intimate with my characters issues and, yes, there it is, confronting those issues while holding it together to tell the damn story. Writing can get a bit... uh, messy.

But what a great feeling at the end of day, a day of not being seduced by procrastination. When instead of aiming for results I find myself in new places that I never could have planned.

That first layer of a story is so much like the first layer of an oil painting, shaky and completely unknown. But ecstatic because you never know where it will take you. And believe me art has its way with me never the other way around.

I often think the real upside of procrastination is that it provides that contrast to deep artistic satisfication.

Some days, there's this feeling that by sheer virtue of not giving up, it's so much more satisfying than I ever thought procrastination was. So there it is, the choice of hours of wasted time trying to find fleas in rabbits that have none, or battling it out with internets scams, or learning how to cook beets better when I know I'll never like them anyway. OR to throw myself into my work and see what surprises there may be at the end of the day? Procrastination makes the choice that much more clear. Perhaps that's its real upside.

Dakota's staring at me right now, and I know what he's thinking. To him, what's the big deal? Life is a large bed of procrastination pleasure because there is no goal. Easy for him to say as Caila licks his ears now and I feed him strawberry treats and indulge him in many rabbit purring sessions a day.

Maybe we create animals lives as we feel life should be...I dunno. He's the thinker; I'm just the messenger.

Territory | Dispatches from a screaming squirrel

Leonard Shlain claims that we didn't need language until farmers began to fight for territory.

I think those farmers must have sounded like the angry Ma Ma squirrel telling me off in gutteral sounds that sort of sounded like ("If you do that, I'm goinna hurt ya--real bad."), as I approached the tree with a saw. You'd think I was stealing one of her babies the way she was cackling and yelling at me at the top of her little squirrel lungs. I was standing on a bar stool because to buy a big ladder disrupts my ID as a woman. (I know, I know...but everyone has their little things that outline them, eh?).

Anyway, I'm no good at this sort of thing. But the 75 mile per hour record winds the night before that had me whimpering in the closet near the bunny room, had torn down many good branches from the native trees in my backyard. When I came out the next morning, yard looked like a scene in 'What Dreams May Come' where the tree in the painting was crying, melting and all but becoming a river of sadness.

I had to cut down some of the large branches that sagged into the hot tub and yard. As I did so, the squirrel family I have been observing and I thought befriending for many months went nuts. No pun intended.
Ma Ma squirrel ran back and forth, yelling at me. At one point she gathered all her kids as I sawed away. I looked up and 2 feet above me was her angry face and right behind her-- the squirrel mafia. A very mean and focused looking bunch.

"Listen" I said firmly, I feed you Macademia nuts from Whole Foods. When you tore up the deck furniture, what did I do? I forfeited the cushions to your winter baby fest. I feed you, I donate bedding, I even give you water at times. You can go without one or two branch, its going to die anyway." She just keep staring at me, meanly. She was going to jump me I could feel it.

I thought about the news. The squirrel in Denver with the plague. "Excuse me" I said to her. I went into the garage and put on my welding goggles and long gloves. She was still there when I came back. For her this was war.

"Look, this is going to happen whether you like it or not." I looked around to see if any of the neighbors saw me on my bar stool in sequin, green thongs (vs. the usual Crocs), wearing my robe still and talking to...well, it would seem to them like...talking to myself to them, I'm sure.

I cut it down.
I put out some cashews and almonds for them--a little extra for their stress and felt no guilt.

I mean, really! Does Dakota know that not all boy bunnies have their own room or a girlfriend he really didn't have to work that hard for? Does this Ma Ma squirrel know that I make mothering easier for her by providing bedding and nuts so that her little ones (and I've seen this in action) aren't constantly pulling on her dried up motherhood? No.
Dakota still chases Caila away when I walk into the room because he wants to own both of us. Not content with just one. And Ma Ma squirrel still wants every branch in that damn tree because this is her queen-dom. And she still yells at me when I don't put the nuts in the right place -- this is new behavior, but what's next?

Luckily I have my own territory to escape to from all animal demands.
My converted garage into art studio and dance floor. AHHHHH...what a joy. i-Tunes, chinese lanterns, even an old, comfy couch and warming weather that makes the temperatures perfect. But the escape wouldn't feel as good if I didn't have screaming squirrels, plants that need daily attention and a rabbit that thinks he's my husband.

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The Blue Grit of the Creative Life

Recently I’ve endeavored--so far mostly in my head--to live a creative life from one focal point; though the resulting products may be many. This train of thought began a couple of months ago when I added up all the time it would take to do every project in my head . It equaled only five years of a potential forty (such the optimist) years left to live. And I hadn’t accounted for the fact that all these ideas would likely be traded in for new ones in a month or a year or even a day. Ideas are sneaky that way; a ball of fire that refract off your heart like the sun to water—mostly compelling, always disposable, changing and like the coyote, tricky.

So I've begun to see art as the art of building the spaces in one's life to embody the river of the ideas that come through. And, that its very important to purchase a really cool raft to jump onto when necessary so that one doesn't drown.
I used to think I had to act on every idea I had. That if I didn't, I was somehow spitting in the eye of the Gods. But imagine what my daily existance would be like if I acted weekly on a new import of ideas such as this list:

• Illustrate novella and sell to a publisher who publishes to the audience of weird off beat fiction.

• Finish next series of paintings in a month. Get representation.

• If bored with next series of paintings go back to silk painting but finish series of welded screens to stretch them on. Sell to local restaurants.

• Brand projects for the organizations and people I believe in, no corporations for a year, just earth, animal, food and wine friendly folks. Gear website towards this goal.

• Buy a sustainable trailer and build an art studio on a plot of land with a lake to swim laps daily. Start a blog on the process.

• Continue fundraisers to raise money for underdog causes to raise awareness. PR.

• Create a series of bunny books to brand bunnies as the next cool fad (like penguins, only Dakota wouldn’t be caught dead holding onto an egg for months, more likely he would try to train it be yet another adoring female in his harem and when it didn’t work he’d likely stomp on it).

• Finish novella in Provence France where the novella actually ends. Call it research. Write it off. Oh yeah, I don't have a publisher. That won't work. Try anyway. While there take some dance classes in Spain. Buy a stringy dress and don't let anyone at home catch you dead in it. Only wear this dress in Spain. In fact, buy a dress for every travel experience of the year...

The list goes on. But every idea has its marketing tasks associated and I'm just not that Type A. I need my hot tub, my morning spacing out on the sounds of the birds, planting herbs and cleaning out smelly ol' ponds (new chore this weekend) and just plain not thinking of anything creative and laughing about stupid things, made up things with a friend for the sake of laughter.

I've decided that ideas are like the water I give my garden. Necessary for the sake of creative fertilizer, quality of life, learning and the reward of reaching. And its good to have people who enjoy this type of creative musing; to have lots of outlets and creative spaces to engage in (see next blog on how the architecture of a space influences creative decisions). But perhaps take more of an attitude like Dakota:

If Dakota could speak on creating --for him this mean babies that look exactly like him:
"So what! I can't make babies with Caila, its spring so I'll try anyway. We'll have fun, we'll roll around in the grass. Sometimes I won't know which end is what; which is North or South. No matter. I have carrots, I have a lot of room to run, I have water, I have food, I have love, and when I don't have those things I sulk, I think deeply I write dark poetry in my head and I clean my fur for the females. Its good to stay clean and smelling good no matter what's going on because you never know what good things could happen.

Shhh...Quiet, The Ocean Is Talking

I am at Sea Ranch, a ranch of houses on the coast of California near Gualala.

So far nothing I've seen about the animals here is normal. They are fat for one thing. And they don't scare. Yesterday, a herd of deer in the yard. I opened the sliding glass door expecting them to dart off into the Madrones. But they only looked at me, un-startled and kept chewing their grass. The babies were very curious and lost most interest in the grass and stared at me unflinching as I ran a roll of film on them.
And then there are the geese that live at the water tower in the town of Mendocino. Lets just say that when it comes to them getting what they want they pull out all the stops. They waddle and talk and overtly hint for food by sticking their long necks out and turning their head up in a curious, yet forceful way.

I'm sure these are British geese. They have all the social mastery of the Brits. Food is a sort of social passport, so if you don't feed them within the first 3 minutes of the visit they waddle away, heads down, butts only halfway wagging in obvious disappointment. They don't look back (stiff upper beak) they just mutter on in their own language--deeply wounded. I asked the street artist if they ever get fed. He said, "they get fed all day long, and they talk way too much. And they're fat too." He did drawings of the town and sold them to tourists. He called me 'Sistah'.

This kind of stuff may seem day to day to most, but I feel like a spectator at Carn-i-val. Watching the kites and gulls, my eyes can't get enough, the contrasts of colors, how the mist of the ocean lays a blanket of saturation, illuminating the reds in the woods, the purples in the rock, the greens of the ocean and cyan of the hot tub. Oh and the wine label wall paper in restaurants I've seen in Sonoma and how the restaurant owners do make a point of not condoning arrogance. A vigil for the humble.

My hands look younger here. Well, I was younger here--perhaps a mirage?
I grew up in Willits the town of the Skunk Train--which I only rode when I wanted an office space apart from my family to write in. Willits was also the town rednecks and marijuana but I hear its evolved into skateboarding and a horses' paradise. But yes, when I was 13 I faked my age to get a work ID so I could wear rollerskates and a mini-skirt and hook meal trays onto car windows. And I saw the police ask black families to leave town. My whole purpose in life, when I lived there was to leave. Now, a few decades forward, here I am a mere 50 miles southwest and I'm swooning over the smell of the damp bark, the shape of the Moronne trees swirling into the sea charged sky. I'm enamored by the mustard weeds, and taking photos of the yellow fire hydrants because I haven't seen any like them anywhere else. But the ocean, that wild winded heartbeat out there; the womb of this world. Its got me hooked. And at times like this I would swear I'm visiting the hospital of my birth, its motion is constant.

People are rather 'huggie' in coastal areas I've noticed. My friend Simone noticed the same. "What is it with all the hugs? she said. They better know Me before they go hugging me." I was glad I hadn't hugged her when I first met her, probably would have woken up on the other side of the room.

In the cafe 'Hello Beautiful" is a normal greeting from men. One woman sitting in her pajamas and clearly just out of bed was joined by a man looking who said "hey beautiful, can I join you?" Hair straight up, jean jacket, glasses, and pale in that way that says, "I haven't been vertical long enough for the blood to visit my outer layers, like my skin"--later his girlfriend came in a bit after pj woman left and they hugged and held hands a lot.

What is it about the sea that makes people so, well...you know...schmooshy...and touchy feely? I was told 3 times in an hour how beautiful my hair is. A sailor asked if he could sit with me and the waitress asked where I shopped for clothes.

But how can one help it when you're near the ocean, the elements turn on a dime. From pouring rain, like last night, to torrential winds and gorgeous blue skies like now, to hot and calm to cold and foggy. One's defenses could be torn up here and the comfort of holding hands or someone noticing your beauty -- because beauty is in every pore here..the houses, the vegetation, the food, and then of course the people--well, this is not so bad really. Not at all.

I live in Boulder Co. now. Rock. Big slated rock. And the people? Definitely not talking the latest in how to wear mini-skirts at mid life or what color they should buy for their faux contact lenses. But wow, can those Boulder folks belt out an argument about the headlines of the day. I was in Safeway before I left to get munchies and heard an argument all the way to the door from employees in the meat department.

Today, I fly back to Colorado. I really wish the rabbits would hop into my hair and do some real damage because they are so excited to see me.
But, sigh...no. It will be a good 4 days before they forgive me for leaving. They'll huddle in their corners and look at me like; who the hell are you? We've moved on. They'll put their long ears over their eyes when I try to make eye contact. "You left us, you get to suffer." they'll say in their clever bunny ways.

But I'm not going to think about that. I'm instead going to go eat some great food and have a nice glass of Ca. Chard. and some sourdough bread. Why does everything taste so good here? I was this close to paradise as a rebel teen and thought this was the worst place in the world. That Ca. was so boring. What an idiot! Dakota agrees. He's dreaming of green; a sea of greens for rabbits. His version of a sane government.

On Romance and Rabbits

The love life of my rabbits is enviable.

Let’s start with hierarchy. Dakota is 4 and 2/3 lbs. Without telling you how much I weigh, you can probably guess I’m larger than he is. His girlfriend, Caila weighs at least 2 lbs more than him. Dakota used to weigh only 4 lbs but living large in Colorado has made him put on some love handles. He rolls around in his morning hay like a Buddha or a blowfish on crack.

As far as he’s concerned he owns me and I’m being a good love slave, the minute I give his girl (who routinely sniffs my butt when I feed them; just to make sure she fully understands the full extent of the competition) a little attention he stops all his frolicking, jumps up high comes down and gives her a good growl. Since she’s a bit (well, very) codependent in the situation she gives me a hurt look—like my very existence is required but dangerous to their love-life (bunnies are all about dignity you know). She then dutifully hops over to him and starts licking his ears in apology for my bad behavior.

Things have changed.
I remember some years back my boyfriend giving me a book called ‘Codependent No More’ and sent me off to his therapist who smoked long stemmed cigarettes. She looked at me lazily like I was just another multi-colored mosquito, a radio tuned to static, a female who’d be better off in the Convent or begging for food on the streets vs. begging for love. “What about your cigarettes I’d say to her, aren’t they a dependency of sorts?” She’d take another drag and wait for me to pull a miracle out of butt and heal myself--become a dignified woman like her I suppose.

But do you think Caila needs a bunny therapist or better yet, that Dakota would even consider it? No way. This arrangement works brilliantly for them (well, him). He gets adored by both females. And he gets even more love from her when he gets jealous of my affections towards her.

You see, it all balances out. Caila loves to take long naps. Dakota won’t sleep when she sleeps. Instead he sits next to her, alert and watchful; the protective man. When she’s up and eating, he’ll take his rest. At night when the lights go out, he comes running to me, lays flat on his stomach for his nightly love. He makes cooing and purring sounds before I’ve even touched him. Lately he’s been teaching me how to clean him. He gets his head under my hand, licks it for a long time and then pushes his entire body under my hand.

And while she’s co’ with him, he’s co’ with me. He gets the sniffles when I do. And I’m starting to think he sleeps when I do. He doesn’t sleep in the day when normal rabbits sleep. He has his own kingdom of romance and he doesn’t skimp.

DAKOTA’S LOVE MANIFESTO

• If you don’t adore me, I’ll kick your ass.

• Size never matters. I’ll love you passionately even if you’re Ginormous like Niya and I know I’m a stud no matter my size. I’m not small, they are big. Love is love, period!

• Codependency in my partner is the rightful order of things if she’s not Alpha. I know most female rabbits are Alpha, but that was a mistake from the start. I’m correcting that.

• I eat first and get all the love and females I want but they’ll always have a home with me. I’ll watch over them and protect them no matter what faces us in life.

• If Niya takes us to the Vet I will not apologize for how I hide under Caila. Women are stronger in these cases, that’s just the way things are. Don’t judge me.

• I’m not a Male chauvinist pig, stupid! I’m a rabbit not a pig.

• I like to stand on my back legs and show Niya and Caila by belly and yawn it always brings the girls to their knees. I like that.

• Pet my nose and I’m all yours. I’ll do whatever you want.

• I’m not fat, I’m happy. I’m just a very happy rabbit who knows his priorities: women, food and a little hump here and there when I can get away with it.

I would give you my opinion about all this but Dakota hasn’t asked. And he has this way of freezing me out by putting his ear over his eye when I’m telling his stuff he doesn’t want to hear, so I’ll save it!

ver·i·ta·ble dolphin

Swimming the other day a man in the lane next to me said, “You are a veritable dolphin, it’s way cool”. The word, 'veritable' felt like the water—lyrical, mutable, changing with movement. The music of the word itself made me happy. But due diligence pulled me to the dictionary and I was pleasantly surprised by its meaning.

ver·i·ta·ble
absolute: used to emphasize a figurative concept.

Honestly being an 'emphasized figurative concept' made me feel like a Superstar. But then again I am abstracting a bit here. The thing is, swimming is a discipline for me. Something I connoisseur – (ie. the daily choices; which suit is best for sprints, which goggles, the best hair goo to fight the chlorine, etc) into action almost daily. It’s a place where I mitigate input from the outside world. It’s a place for play and cheating in gymnastics because gravity has no say or influence in the kind of disasters that would otherwise happen out of water doing the same somersaults and back flips. It’s a freedom; forgiveness of the hard things in life; the soothing mother of hard objects and knotted thoughts.

I suppose part of my addiction to swimming and water in general has to do with old pride. I never learned to swim as a child, and was challenged by a roommate years back in Palo Alto to join him in Masters Swimming at Stanford. I was a disaster. But once I realized the swimmers were hitting my feet to pass me in the pool not because they were picking a fight in water (really? some new martial art?) I got mad enough to be competitive and then I couldn’t stop until I learned. The coach was a sweetheart. He worked me twice a day. I was swimming 3-4 hours per day, going through a suit every two weeks. Now when I see people at the pool wait for their own lane I’m a little disoriented. I guess I got the Chinese version of swimming society in my first years of swimming. Very crowded; an ecosystem of sorts.
So, if I’m being languid, veritable, dolphin-esque it’s because I feel spoiled rotten by having my own lane. It’s like going on a date with someone really hot, who adores me and whom I adore; being taken to dinner, ending up in Venice Italy where there are no cars, and having my favorite silk robe delivered to me. Adn then wearing it to sit cross legged on the bed and talking all night while munching on yummy Italian food and wine, and waking up knowing I have the full freedom of a day or more without structure and I'm where I want to be with the person I want to be with. Okay, so I went a little overboard on that metaphor. I started writing and my fingers got out of control. Typical!

Swimming is a great luxury in life. I doubt I’ll ever stop. It reminds me how much reward comes from discipline. Because even after ten years of swimming 4 + times per week, I still drag myself down there and avoid it as long as possible before I go. But once in the water I don’t understand why all of life isn’t this way.

I did swim with a veritable dolphin once, in the most absolute sense of the word. I swear it was a boy dolphin and I swear he was messin’ with my head (in a good way). It was in Hawaii and I lost my group in the ocean. A school of dolphins came to them, I could hear them screeching about it but couldn’t see them. Suddenly something very soft and gentle was nuzzling my toes. I thought it was a shark being coy and screamed. Then he came out of the water and laughed the way dolphins do. I looked down. He was doing circles around me. I tried to out-swim him for fun. Yeah right! He was having a blast though. He’d get within inches of my face and blow little bubbles and then come behind me for a little surprise nudge on my calf or ankle. I pretended to drown to see if he would save me, he just kind of hung out and looked at me like I was silly. You can’t fool animals.

When I told the group this story they were jealous. I guess none of the dolphins hung out with them and that’s what they were really after. “Maybe he was a sheperd dolphin, sheperding me back to the group”. “Or maybe” said this guy in our group “he was just a guy in the water flirting with the girl in the tight suit”.

Anyway, Dakota our fearless rabbit says “Fish stink but if you need an identity that bad, I’ll go with Veritable Dolphin for a time, a very short time”.

I can live with that.

3,234 lbs of Unconditional Love!

I was watching one of those animal hero shows the other night. This one took place in Arizona.

Imagine this:
A small house. Two middle aged men--brothers. 49 dogs. 49 dogs inbred.

The dogs were all about the same size and weight, approximately 66 lbs. Most had the same illnesses due to the inbreeding.

The one man was very choked up when the animal rescue took them all to the animal hospital to take care of their health issues. He didn't know if he would ever see them again.
In the next scene the woman in charge of the situation had taken him aside and told him exactly what he needed to do to get some of them back. He had to clean his house.
Now, because the house was so stinky and messy from two men and 49 dogs living in it for several years this took several weeks.

As for the dogs, many had to be euthanized given their state of health. And many were restored and given to good homes.

But this is what got to me...
When the woman came back and inspected the house and it checked out, she returned 7 of the 49 dogs. She said it was clear that the dogs loved these men and the men loved the dogs. The man admitted that in his experience this is the only way to have so much unconditional love and it got out of control.

49 dogs x 66 lbs each is 3,234 lbs of out of control love and health risk.

So, this is my convaluted way of wishing you all thousands of lbs of unconditional love in 2007, (but maybe skip the inbreeding part).

Risk it all and have a fabulous year!

---
I did run this story by Dakota (of course)--he was smug about it all (of course)--His attitude was why stuff a house with 49 dogs when one rabbit will do?

Illustration Note: This illustration in portion of the this piece is the cover of the online dog portraiture site: www.dogzcafe.com

Needles, Newfies and Knotted Knickers

Yesterday I ran away from home.

Several weeks of design and conference calls from my home office left everything in my home except the bunnies and hot tub un-nested, un-scented with the feel of home.

As I drove to a very tiny little town called Sulpher Hot Springs I could almost smell the amber sanctuary of the earthly minerals in the car. I imagined pulling up to Christmas ligthts and the smell of wood smoke; a few skiers enjoying some mulled wine by the fire wrapped in warm cotton blankets and babbling the way people can when they find deep relaxation. Oh yes, I was certain I was headed toward the red river of freedom for a day. The kind of day that would give me energy for the intense month of design work ahead.

The drive from Boulder through the gorgeous windy roads near Golden, the tunnels and then up highway 40 turbaned with patches of snow, skiers taking any available run on the side of the road. I must say was one of the most inspiring drives I've ever had. Sipping on my double late (I had beg for whole milk this time. 'Get that fat free milk out of your hand! You trying to tell me something Bubba?') and munching on some homemade banana bread seeing these vistas and this road for the first time--yeah, it was a slice of 'so good to be alive and so good to be here in Colorado' for sure.

NEEDLES
I thought about my acupuncturist. Damn it hurts when he sticks those needles into my hand. "Everyone needs a little S & M in their life, right?" I found myself saying out loud to him, although I thought for sure I only said it inside my own head. He laughed. I was a bit mortified. But I haven't had a meaningful date in a year so strange things come out of my mouth sometimes. Luckily laughter, is a sort of forgiveness. But I thought about how amazing it is. How one day I feel all caddywompus (thank you Shireesh, I love that word) and I have swimmers ear and then after seeing the needle doctor I'm driving to Hot Sulpher Springs and feeling great, even after weeks of stress, and no earache. (Hmmm, I wonder if acupuncture can transform the personality of a little rabbit with way too much attitude. I think you all know who I'm talking about).

NEWFIES
And I thought about the little Auburn haired Newfoundland puppy that I will give a fabulous home to when I get him. His name is Oliver but I don't think he's born yet or even conceived. I've called about a dozen breeders, and considered many options but am holding out for little Oliver who is destined to be spoiled by a fellow redhead and dominated by a little macho rabbit named Dakota. Now I'm pretty sure that as my car swayed this way and that, coiling through the Rocky Mountains, while the stars made their way to their reunion with the sky that I was heard in my little prayer for Oliver. I'm fairly certain he's thinking about me too. All the lakes I'll take him to and the people he will meet and how weird he will think I am as I struggle or dance to solve a design problem.

KNOTTED KNICKERS
Okay but now to the conclusion of the story. The knotted knickers part. (Yes, people really do wear knickers even when the destination is hot pools that emerge from the snowy earth).
When I drove up, the place looked very cozy, as I'd imagined.
As I walked in I was a little surprised by very loud, WalMart style Xmas music, the Motel 6 feeling architecture and the loud voice of a man at the front desk speaking not so nicely to someone on the phone. I checked in for my massage and went to sit down. I didn't know if I would do the pools given the drive back required a little tension. Wet noodles shouldn't get behind the wheel. : )
Anyway, the man on the phone approached me in the waiting room. "You need to pay for the services ahead of time. No pay, no service!" "But I don't know what services I'll want, or what tip I'll leave. It's pretty standard to pay after the services." I had never been asked to pay ahead in a situation like this so I was confused. And he looked mean. "You don't pay, you need to get out" he said. The other man in the waiting room looked at me like he was confused by this man's behavior in a place of holy relaxation.
So I exited. It was hard to get into this place, honestly. It was okay with me. The drive there made the day for me.
As I left he said, "fine but I'm still charging your credit card".
My cell phone had no reception at Hot Sulpher Springs.
So I stopped at a nearby restaurant. A man who looked like he came out of an episode of Twin Peaks approached me. There was 2 people in the restaurant. The pay phone was out of order.
"I need three things, food, a phone and the fastest route back to Boulder".
"Why not eat here?" he said.
"Well, I'm in a rush". I suppose I wanted to find a place with cell phone reception. Not to call anyone in particular but to feel like I wasn't in the Hotel California.
He said "you have 3 minutes on my phone, 3 minutes! After that I will cut you off. I can't do it, do you understand?"
I was wondering at this point if this town was in one of those haunted places reality shows. And now my knickers were starting to seriously knot!
"Okay" I said. I called my credit card company--the one that I used to reserve the massage, but he cut the line just as I was giving them my name. As I left the restaurant I listened hard for that ringing off the hook sound. I wanted to feel a little bad for tying up his line so the experience could be somewhat real. I'm sure that it had happened one day way back, the restaurant was packed, he had call waiting then, and the phone didn't stop.

I stopped and had a glass of wine at a local grill on the way out of town. I chatted with the host about how they made all those animal heads on the wall look so peaceful at the moment of death. How did they do that? Some kind of hunter's version of restorative art. But he wasn't a hunter. He was a peaceful man and we both swallowed hard at the fact of these animals. I told him about Hot Sulpher Springs. He said that I should have impersonated a local. It's true, I had my flourescent orange scarf on and little rose clips in my hair, tall boots and a bright "spoil me at your hotsprings because I'm so tired from work" look on my face.
Context. Context. Context.
The night got better. The stars filled the crevices of the valley's I drove through. The moon made the turbans of white snow look like silver rivers and a man in a local ski pub at Winter Park bought me a cup of coffee and wished me a safe drive home.

***
Dakota? He wasn't sympathetic. 'Serves you right for leaving me in the first place'.

When Forced into Scrambled Lines We Make One Line Anyway

I spent my life at sea level. Now I'm at above 5000 feet and the climate adjustment has scrambled my brain. I'm a regular anagram of humanity's imperfection these days. Today, it's gray outside. After several years of writing fiction in gray weather I think to write today. I scramble in current daily interactions to summon up familiar reference points from other places that help shape my relationship to Boulder. And in doing so, I might as well have put salt in my coffee instead of sugar.

It seems when one decides to change, one decides to let the layers of chaos reign; for awhile anyway. New scenes, new events, new people with one point of focus--new organizational structures for living.

Mountain biking in Boulder under big skies where each quadrant holds a completely new landscape is very different than Mountain biking in Forest Park, Portland under gray skies and many, many trees. I had more than enough oxygen and pleasant visions of people, dogs, florescent greens everywhere. And yet something inside was panicked without the sky I have now. But where's that oxygen? My mileage on the bike has gone from 10 miles per day to 2. But the mileage of the spirit is another thing altogether. Even in thin air and scrambled it's easy to see that the land here in Colorado is story filled, empathetic, and gently expressive through the animals and people.

I think about the web.
How are we organizing our relationship to something so episodic and random?
The web is lateral not linear, it doesn't establish time in a hierarchical fashion. We create that hierarchy when we take control of our relationship to it--the context of it's meaning in our lives. I think the same is true for the big changes. The big moves, the new babies, the losses, the new ideas becoming concrete in the world.

Change is a whole world within itself. It's necessary, and it's just this thing that calls you out and says, "So everything's messy and wonderful and frightening, you started this, so whatyagonnado 'bout it?"

My answer today is to let the single line live amongst the scrambled. That is, adventure into the things that are different, random and some that are the same -- the foods that I've never eaten before, the thin air that feels like it's choking out old thoughts and forcing new. Something tells me that amongst all the unfamiliar something else is taking shape. I am just the little flutist in the corner with messy red hair cheering it on.

Dakota on the other hand, on November 7 just held up a simple sign: "I Vote No on Change." That's a rabbit for ya!

Niya's Exhibit News

The Boulder Co. Arts Alliance completed the juried selections for the 2007 selected artists. I've been chosen as a featured artist to exhibit 'The Girl Series' for the month of May. Boulder County features a local artist at Barnes & Noble every month for The Art on The Walls Series.
However, I have 48 linear feet of wall space to cover. So, all other things put aside, it's time to paint, paint, paint!

The Artist Reception is: May 1, 5:30-7pm.

On another note, I recently met the people who make it all happen at the BCAA at The Black Cat Restaurant opening. Not only was the Morgan Chardonnay out of this world, but I had a strong feeling that the wine spinning around in my head didn't make these people anymore interesting. It's a wonderful organization, full of energy and alacrity. I'm very honored and excited to be a part of it in my first year in Boulder. So, come if you can to Art on the Walls! You may even meet Dakota in his best fur.

Do Not Exfoliate in The Sauna

What is a newcomer to do with all that dry skin? Especially coming from the moistened air of the Pacific Northwest. But it's true, we need to check it at the door at the Boulder Recreation Center!

As I lounged, lizard-like in the cozy dry sauna I recalled my massage therapist at the St. Julien telling me that on one of the Boulder city websites is a long list of the things our tax dollars pay for. One of those things is the open space beyond my backyard. I wonder if one day I'll see exfoliating salons next door to oxygen bars downtown? And this would be added to the long list of things that keep this town vibrant and proud. I'm not complaining. I'm delighted. But I'm still afraid to enter the Unisex bathrooms I see in various places, including bars. Since this isn't an Allie McBeal episode, I'm not quite ready for the real thing.

Some other things I've noticed in my new digs:

Some cafe's don't serve whole milk here. 2 percent or Soy? they say as I order my double late. Whole? I say, curiously. One guy squinted like I said a bad word in front of his child. The whole milk and 1/2 and 1/2 portion of Whole Foods is kind of sad. It's small and the brands are a bit unknown. But I do live near some farms. Maybe I can cut a deal with a farmer. A blog about cows, with cow illustrations for weekly rations of unself-conscious Whole Milk. I love Milk. And this is why I get no sympathy when I complain about not being able to loose that last ten lbs.

And then there is, The Best Of's. Mom and I noticed people had so many best of's to tell us about. The best cafe, the best salsa in town, the best happy hour, sushi...and on.
It's true Boulder is tauted to have the best of many things. And the list that follows is no mockery; right now I believe every word. I've added some of my own 'Best of's':

The Best European Cafe sharing-the-table atmosphere
The Best Happy Hour--too many to list
The Best Lake for Dogs
The Best Feret
The Best Prairie Dog
The Best Muscles
The Best Socks
The Best non-flushable toilet (I made that up)
The Best Rock on The Best Trail with the biggest mountain lion
The Best 'Issue' of the Week
The Best Mindful of Mindless Beginnings and Fearless Endings (My mind has a mind of it's own, I'm trying to demonstrate the Buddhist Calling here).
The Best Emissary of the Arts
The Best Curious Spirit
The Best seeker, evolutionist, mystic, cowboy poet, cowgirl alchemist, internet warrior, change agent of the integration of change
on the whole
planet...

Oh yeah, and the best air too...it smells like a baby's cheek after a lukewarm bath in the atmosphere of the most patient (and best) Mom in the world.

And then there are the animals:
The wildlife issues I haven't gotten a handle on yet. I hear debates about what to do with the mountain lions and bears. And I heard from someone that prairie dogs are being shipped out because they are in the way of baseball games. I'm sure the prairie dogs didn't like their holes being clogged by baseballs either, but I'm sure there's more to this story.

I like the Prairie Dogs:
I was on a mountain bike ride yesterday from my house to Boulder on the Cottonwood Trail (just a few miles on a gorgeous trail along a creek; I honestly can't process how beautiful this place is quite yet) and there were many prairie dogs. They remind me of my rabbits--curious, and so adorable. They look like part seal, part dog and part rat. Anyway, I was talking to them, saying hello, etc. and one of them started wagging it's tail really fast. I was pretty happy about this. I thought it was happy to see me. Then I did a little research on the internet. It turns out they do this when they think there may be a territorial dispute. It's true I'm in my little pink bubble in my first month here. But hey, it's not like reality stalls in getting back to us. So I'll take a few more weeks of the pink bubble.

The Pretty Men:
My Mom and I were walking down the street and she noticed many good looking men about my age. She wondered how it is that I don't see them. My mind was elsewhere like on the fine food and wine. I will say though that as I was swimming at the pool the other day I couldn't help but notice that I was surrounded by stunning, outgoing members of the opposite sex. In fact, I was the only woman in pool. Maybe there should be a registry for the this place...there probably already is.

On Fine Food and Wine:
I'm pretty excited about learning a lot more about food and wine. This town is passionate about it. In fact, there is a blog that is a great read. It's full of knowledge, local experience and culinary inspiration: Culinary Colorado by Claire Walter.

Many things seem possible in Boulder. Well except for accurate predictions on weather. It's hard to be bored here. Everything from Martini manicure outings to passionate politics, art events, blogs, and people who show up on time. Okay, that was a shot at my most recent past in Oregon. But I have to say, it's been great how people are so on top of things here. But Oregon can really predict the weather; sometimes to the hour!

A little about the trip from Oregon to Colorado:

This photo is partially taken from the rear view mirror of the Penske from my camera phone and partially of the Flat Irons. A view from my neighborhood.

For those of you wondering how I made it across Oregon (I already miss everyone. Damn it, I hate this part of moving), Idaho, Wyoming in Colorado in 2 days towing my car in the yellow truck, bunnies by my side? No problem. Well, okay the first hour was hell. I wasn't sure how I'd get through the next 21 hours. I coped by driving fast. I barreled down the highway at 75-80 and waved at other truckers, feeling that trucker pride. The only somewhat scary thing was when an impressed biker asked me to go to the Go-Cart field with him and trolly around in little boxes with engines. I told him I concluded that stage of adventure when I was 8 years old and wished him luck. I was pretty worried about the rabbits and was of course incredibly relieved to get them here.

My home is charming, cozy and so much more than I'm used to. The bunnies are learning to be indoor vs. outdoor and their room is next the art studio. And I'm fascinated by the big yellow tree outside my bedroom window which is now shedding the last of it's leaves and showing it's woody bones to the nearing winter.

I live amongst ponds, lakes, pumpkins, hay, sushi and IBM. An off-beat but charming combination of environmental infrastructure.

So, welcome me home to Colorado because soon you'll be here and I'll be welcoming you as a visitor. I'll be sharing my best of's, the cedar wine cellar, opinionated squirrels and wheat grass brownies. Dakota will be so spoiled by then he won't need me so I'll have to get a dog or tame a coyote or something.

ps: I don't think there is any such thing as wheat grass brownies and yet somehow I wouldn't be surprised if there were. But you'll find mostly culinary adventures without consistency in my home and often without healthy ramifications. Not sure how long I can get away with that here in such a health inspired place--or even want to.

pps: The photos that lead this essay were taken in my neighborhood, mostly at Munsen's Farm where I shopped tonight for squash and sweet corn. To see more photos of the trip, the new house, etc. Click Here.

And if you like reading about place I would also recommend my dear friend of 30+ years Susan in India Blog.

Moroccan Stew | Orange | Soul's Braille

This isn't a Martha Stewart tip on ethnic food styles or the story of orange or new age interpretation's of the human soul. (Oh, but if I were queen of the world and had that kind of all powerful credibility, who knows)? No, this is more stream of consciousness goop--a thumbprint of a busy, slightly mischievious redhead contemplating change, in a season of change.

I was on this fabulous mountain bike ride this morning, dreaming of the Moroccan Stew I would make today and how expensive saffron is--how Moroccan Stew has every fall color in it. And how I would never know anything about it if not for my Around The World Cooking Parties some years back when we made a new meal a week from a different country.
And then this little squirrel ran out in front of me, stopped, looked at me, looked at the big nut in it's paws and ran looking to bury it quick. It probably thought I would take it and use it in the stew. Animals have this infrared beam on our thoughts. It's a little unnerving.

That got me to thinking about how I was already organizing all the containers of my life for fall. How everything from work, to writing, to painting to men to cooking, to new friends, to old friends, to favorite cafes, and using my cell phone as my project manager of life...etc. etc. would all work together to create the perfect me. How boring is that? It seems fall is not only for canning peaches but for canning how to live and feel as well. I wondered if anyone else does this? Is a natural transitional vice or virtue? I wonder if we lived in a mud hut as my friend in Taos is intending to do this winter if we be burying our food for refrigeration and growing our own Saffron for the stew, never mind giving up the cell phone as project manager. I'm a ways away from that kind of letting go.

Back to Moroccan Stew. So orange and red/brown and mysterious in flavor. The braille of a foreign land -- the stories and secrets seem to be stewing in there (pun intended).

I just can't eat it and not feel a little wild.
I think of fall as this kind of inner braille. All our priorities for the year and the things we regret not doing in the summer, our joys, grievances as a year is ending all seem to culminate and surface in the fall.

I doubt this will be a fall of canned words, and calculated ways of living. Things are breaking up, change is a foot.
I think it may be a fall where I'm a little terrified that people will see the sauce from the stew on my shirt because I'm enjoying it just a little too much. That laughter will come spilling out in really untimely moments. That professional scripts that have kept me up for over a decade will begin to erode as new business and design passions lead the imagination.

As I travelled the soft dirt paths on the bike I also thought about all the 911 retakes I've watched over the past 2 weeks. And how a little instinct could go a long way at this point in our history. As our world continues to not get less scary politically and more chaotic, designs for how to live make less and less sense and a little wildness could be the beginning of real action--a revival of instinct. Could letting go of how we think we're supposed to live be the beginning of the kind of wild that is practical and sensible for all concerned? Could wild be the new sensible?

Back to the stew again. I know that I'll be serving it up as often as possible this winter. I think the secret ingredient is the saffron. So foreign, red and full of earthy flavor--it's hard to think of much else but the warm comfort of it.

I'll skip the canning this year, at least of anything other than berries, that is.

--Dakota glared at me as I wrote this. He doesn't like the word 'stew'. He's offended by the whole rabbit stew thing that only unenlightened soul's (his words, not mine) take part in.