More Farmland

Where: Somewhere between NY and VT, from an Amtrak train
When: July 1, 2010

Farmland From an Amtrak Train

Where: Somewhere between NY and VT
When: July 1, 2010

Guest Artist: Dave Powers

When: July 2, 2010

Occasionally Dave wrests the camera from my death grip, and when he does he takes some pretty fabulous photos.

Scene From An Amtrak Train

Where: Somewhere btw NY and VT
When: July 1, 2010

I have a whole series of scenery from the train ride that I'm awfully excited about. I'm going to intersperse the family pictures with them, just to throw a little variety in. Plus there are some nature/flower pictures I'm excited about too! It was a productive trip, as usual. So much that's inspiring up there!

Happy kids!

When: July 2, 2010

Mom and Dad

When: July 2, 2010

My Man, the Man My Man Smells Like

When: July 2, 2010

I have a whole bunch of photos from the weekend, and a lot of them are family. I kind of want to put them all up at once, but I think that will be a little overwhelming. So I'm going to try to stick to one a day.

Title is inspired by what is easily the best commercial ever made:

Splish Splash

When: July 2, 2010

Paws

Where: Home
When: June 27, 2010

I like how you can see everyone's feet - Pandora's, Kitten's, and Dave's.

There must also somewhere be yin

Where: Rubin Museum of Art, NYC
When: May 30, 2010

In my Shiatsu class, our teacher always has us do Qigong exercises to warm up before practicing. The other day, he commented that in the exercises, it is extremely important to always be aware of balance in your body. When there is yang, there must also somewhere be yin. If one area of the body is doing work, another area of the body should be at rest. This is also true in our work - it's very easy when concentrating on someone else's body to ignore building tension in your own, and if you don't pay attention you will end a session feeling burnt out and sore, or even injured.

I've been taking the concept into my yoga practice as well. I now begin each practice with Qigong, to help remember what the flow of tension and relaxation feels like. Then in the yoga, with each pose, rather than concentrating on the areas of tension, I'm trying to notice the areas that are relaxed. Practicing this way, asking in each pose "where are the areas of yin", is helpful in several ways:
1) Asking this question causes areas of my body to suddenly let go - areas I hadn't realized were tense in the first place.
2) By noticing the areas that have let go, it seems to provide a "role model" for the areas of tension, allowing those areas to also release as much as they can, and letting me go a little bit deeper into a pose.
3) Sometimes there are no areas of relaxation, which tells me I need to back out of or adjust the pose until there is more of a balance.

There are a few things this type of practice is bringing up for me:
1) I hold tension in my body so habitually that I don't even notice that it's there until my body lets it go.
2) The body is a mirror for the mind. My body will let go where and when it can - and it knows more about what is tense and what is not than my conscious mind does - but it needs the right pattern of thoughts to create the necessary changes. When I concentrate on the areas of tension, breathing into them and willing them to let go, I only get more tension.
3) My body is almost certainly responding in unnoticed and unexpected ways to my thoughts, all the time. This idea kind of freaks me out.

Kitten says: I love you doggy!

For something a little different:


That's the Kitten, with her favoritest creature in the whole world.

Let's Dance

Where: Rubin Museum of Art, NYC
When: May 30, 2010

Went to a dharma talk tonight. I haven't thought about meditation practice - other than to chastise myself for the lack of said practice - in months, so this was a refreshing change.

However, the lack of practice this year, combined with my relative mental stability, has really made it clear to me how beneficial a mindfulness practice can be to one's mental health. I haven't had a serious, lengthy bout of depression/anxiety since the fall. I still have my days, of course, but I seem to come out of them sooner and with less effort. I feel as though a lasting change has been created in my brain, with old, well-worn pathways getting replaced with new, shiny, less depressive ones.

It makes me curious about what could happen with years of consistent daily practice. Although not enough, apparently, to actually DO it! I'm not really sure what the block is, precisely, but it has felt strangely, massively immovable since December or January. I get cracks and shifts here and there - I think yoga is helping to ease me back in.

More of the Tiny House in a Landscape

Ages ago I posted a picture of a cabin on my in-laws' property, which is currently a storage shed, but which had been lived in by the original owner of the house while the house was being built. I sent it over to Kent Griswold at Tiny House Blog finally, since he has a weekly "Tiny House In A Landscape" feature, which is what inspired the shot.

Anyway, he decided to include it this week! Hooray! And there have been some questions - how is/was it heated? Are there floorplans and interior views? etc. I am going to see if I can find out about the heating question, I suspect the answer is a stove of some description, I do not believe there are any floorplans, and I did not take any pictures of the inside, as I think just contains, um, well, gas powered sharp things and other items that one would tend to keep in a shed.

I do have some alternative views, however - this one is from the back, and as you can see, there is a door here as well for some reason:



This one is really more atmospheric than useful, but again from the back and side:



More of the side - the windows above look like they may belong to a loft? And the siding may be cedar shingles, perhaps? I'll ask.



And one more from the front, because it's all dramatic and that's fun:

Near

Where: Highline Park, NYC
When: May 30, 2010

Metallic

Where: Hudson River, from home
When: June 16, 2010

Lately the camera just hasn't left the house. School was intense last week, but now that mid-term exams are over I won't have a reasonable excuse for not taking it out to play. I'm honestly feeling a little uninspired by my surroundings recently.

Namaste

Where: Rubin Museum of Art, NYC
When: May 30, 2010

Ethereality

Where: Highline Park, NYC
When: May 30, 2010

From the Latin aetherius - how gorgeous is that word?

Stand Out

Where: Highline Park, NYC
When: May 30, 2010

Whoops! It's been a while since I posted, not sure how that happened. First week of clothing experiment has gone swimmingly. The heatwave broke, so I wore my pair of jeans more than I thought I would, but that was fine. A couple of things I noticed:

1) I take much better care of my clothes when I don't have very many of them. The jeans, skirts and other reusable items got folded and/or hung after use, instead of tossed on the floor.
2) Getting dressed was still fun, but easier and faster.
3) There was FAR less laundry. Easily 2/3rds less than before. I apparently used to have a clothing change 2-3 times a day (this is the only way I can explain this phenomenon, I don't actually remember this happening ever), and then reused nothing and just tossed it into the laundry basket or on the floor, resulting in a mountain of only trivially dirty items to spend energy (mine and the planet's) washing for no good reason.

So I'd say, all around, this has been great. I think I'll reduce the number of shirts - I didn't wear all of them, and one that I wore I realized I didn't really enjoy wearing all that much.

If anyone is sleepy, let him fall asleep

Where: Home
When: June 5, 2010

Title is a quote from John Cage's Lecture on Nothing. It seemed appropriate since last night I lay tired, hurting, and wide awake from 10pm to 4am. I wasn't even all that panicked or upset about it until around 3:30am. Everytime I came close to dropping off, which seemed to happen about once an hour, my body would jump violently, bringing me right back into wakefullness, or one of the animals would make an innocent and normal noise, or something would creak. "Let me fall asleep" became a desperate mantra by the end.

I have a midterm, clinic, and a Pathology final in the next week, so I am anxious about the loss of sleep and the sore throat and sore muscles that kept me awake, and I'm anxious about missing school today. However, it has been quite peaceful. It's finally cool outside, so I've had the window open. A cool breeze, Couch, medicinal tea and Native American flute music have all been tremendously soothing to my body and brain. I'm hoping it will give my immune system the boost it needs to fend off whatever it is fending off. The animals seem to find the music soothing as well, strangely, they aren't being nearly as restless and/or playful as they normally are during the day.

Plethora

Where: Highline Park, Chelsea, NYC
When: May 30, 2010

I am continuing to mull minimalism, and am enjoying perusing various blogs and discussions about the topic. It does tend to get fairly repetitive, fairly quickly - there are really only so many ways to communicate "Let's all have less stuff. It's nice. Here's how I ended up with less stuff - I got rid of most of it. Ta da!"

At the moment, these are my two favorite blogs on the subject:
mnmlist because the subjects aren't just about the stuff, but also about mindset and approach and philosophy behind the relatively unimportant stuff. Also the guy lives in Guam. How cool is that? And where the heck is Guam?

Simplicity By Sunny because I find her writing style entertaining and a little manic and fun.

SO. Let's talk about clothing, shall we? Because after I went through my desk drawer, I decided the next most obvious thing to tackle was my closet. And my other closet. And the chest of drawers. Dear god. I am shocked and appalled by the amount of clothing I own! And I'm not going to talk about the pile of shoes, out of which I wear two, occasionally three of the pairs. I just don't have the strength, so let's not go there.

I thought briefly about taking a picture of the mountain of material heaped on my bed, but shame took over and I chose not to expose myself so very deeply. Now, it's not that I haven't done this in the past. I have frequently, in the past, decided that everything I owned was old and broken, and that I looked messy and dowdy and 10 years older than I am and that I wanted new shiny - but this time, THIS TIME, I would be scientific about it! I would go all What Not To Wear on my ass, and brutally throw everything out that I didn't wear or that didn't look good, and then I'd go out and carefully, thoughtfully purchase The Perfect Wardrobe, and I would have nothing in my closet but stunningly perfect outfits, where every piece cross referenced with every other piece, and I would have NO CHOICE but to look perfectly put together every time I walked out the door because of all the SCIENCE.

But that never actually works. Because you know who has two thumbs and bought all those clothes in the first place? This girl. (That joke works better in person, with hand gestures, but try to go with it.) You know who is going to go out and do it again? Oh why yes! Yes. That would be me. So this time, the rules are going to be a little bit different. In that there will be actual rules.

At this point in the evening, I have successfully ripped through my wardrobe and gotten rid of all the obvious things to get rid of. But now I'm down to the hard part - I'm down to the clothes that I consider wearing but don't quite ever actually wear, the shirts I like but forgot I owned because they were hiding under above referenced mountain of material, and clothes that I wear but really probably shouldn't because they make me look like I haven't showered. (This is usually because when I put those particular clothes on, I totally haven't, but whatever and who's checking anyway!)

I am also down to the part where I need to decide just how far I want to take this concept. So here's what I'm thinking:

1) Long-sleeve shirts, sweaters, winter/fall/spring jackets, heavy anything gets a reprieve until the weather stops reaching post-apocalyptic temperature levels every day. They make me sick to look at them right now, but that's not their fault.
2) I am leaving my sock and underwear drawer alone.
3) I will select clothing for the next week. (This was Dave's idea.) The rest of the non-selected clothing will go elsewhere, but will not go away. I will wear the selected clothing (and only the selected clothing) for a couple of weeks, and see how I feel. For example, do I miss the illusion of choice? Am I bored with the current selection? Do I long for THAT shirt, or THIS skirt?
4) I will not use this purge as an excuse to go shopping.

If I desperately long for the unchosen items, I will reconsider the line-up for the weeks following the initial experiment. Obviously, if we get a cold snap or it pours rain for days or anything resembling an insurance company's definition of an "Act of God" occurs, I will reconsider. But in the mean time, I'm going to have some fun experimenting with what it's like to have fewer choices in my closet.

Passing By

Where: Up
When: November 2, 2009

100 Things, huh...

I like reading blogs about tiny houses, and alternative (to me and my life) ways of living in, seeing, and thinking about the world, and so on, and today I stumbled onto a couple of different people who have taken up the challenge of narrowing down their possessions down to 100 things. Total. Well, everyone seems to group things like "underwear", and "socks" as one thing, which is nice and hygienic of them, but still that's not a lot of stuff.

So I've been thinking about this, and I wonder just how many things we have lying around here. I'm pretty sure that I have 100 things in this desk drawer. Here's a picture to distract you for a moment while I go and check.



Ok, I'm now finished pulling out and documenting every item in my drawer. I will spare everyone the full list, but the answer is: well, WELL over 100 things, if you count each item and don't group like items, such as pens or blank cds. If you DO group similar things, it's around 60. That's just the things IN my desk, that doesn't even include everything ON my desk.

Even though most of the things in there are useless and/or not used, I only got rid of a handful of them. It is really, surprisingly painful to think about getting rid of most of this stuff. Either the item has a use, even if it's not used, and therefore it feels like a waste to just toss it, or I am attached to it for the memories it holds.

Some examples:

An extra (empty) wallet. It's very pretty and embroidered and my mom gave it to me. I want to sew in a long thin strap and use it as a little purse for when I'm wearing a dress. I would put the chances of me doing this at about 5%.

Three lens cloths. I never use these. My camera is probably sad about this.

A chain necklace that a friend in college used to wear on his wrist all the time but he gave it to me one time when I was feeling really sad.

A letter from my Dad.

A 10 Euro note. How do you get rid of money, even if it's money in a form that you can't ever use?

Two house keys. I don't know what house they are for.

A point and shoot camera I never use.

A stack of random pieces of paper - comics and photos I printed and had in my cubicle when I used to have to sit in a cubicle, business cards, a note from Nana, a note from one of my sisters, pieces of wood painted by my niece and nephew, more letters from Dad, farewell cards from people I knew in London. A postcard I bought from the Louvre when I was on my semester abroad. Mostly things I'm attached to and just can't seem to let go of.

I don't quite know how to think about this minimalist movement. On the one hand, it appeals to me to have my space feel less cluttered and more easily mobile. I like the idea of being able to comfortably move into a space that's smaller (and less expensive) than the one we're in now. When I pay attention, I feel the weight of these objects on my consciousness, it's a weight of responsibility and a weight of memories I'm scared I'll lose forever if I let go of them.

On the other hand, one of the reasons I like all this stuff is that it makes the space feel like someone real lives here, someone who's gone places and experienced things and who has memories and foibles and has made mistakes and has silly things that aren't immediately necessary. Empty spaces are boring and feel clinical and, well, weird, and a little inhuman somehow.

Anyway, it's late so I'm going to go to bed and will see what I think about all this tomorrow.

What is out there

Where: Rubin Museum of Art, NYC (This is a fantastic museum, dedicated to Himalayan art. I had never been there before. It's the perfect size, intimate and not overwhelming, and is filled with well selected, well described objects.)
When: May 30, 2010

"What you do for yourself, any gesture of kindness, any gesture of gentleness, any gesture of honesty and clear seeing toward yourself, will affect how you experience your world. In fact, it will transform how you experience the world. What you do for yourself, you're doing for others, and what you do for others, you're doing for yourself.

When you exchange yourself for others... it becomes increasingly uncertain what is out there and what is in here."

--Pema Chödrön, "Comfortable with Uncertainty"

Where: Regent's Park, London
When: May 10, 2009

Morning happens when I say it happens.

Where: Home
When: May 28, 2010

That's Pandora, rather than the more commonly photographed Kitten. Panda (our nickname for her) is more reserved, and is much less of a ham. And is serious about sleeping in, regardless of the often noisy morning activities of the creatures she lives with.

Moonscape

Where: Florence, OR
When: April 23, 2010

We rented bikes today, and it was fantastic! Rode up the river as far as the bike path goes (which turns out to be 10.5 miles) and then back, in about 2 hours. I completely forgot how ridiculously fun riding a bike is! I was grinning like an idiot the entire time.

A Woman Is Walking

Where: Florence, OR
When: April 23, 2010

Variation on A Woman Stares Out At The Sea

Kitten Coil

Where: London, UK
When: March 27, 2009

I just went to the gym. By myself. In the middle of the day. Which surprised me by how ridiculously decadent it felt. When I walked out reveling in the post-cardiovascular-plus-some-weights-and-a-nice-long-stretch-workout glow into the beautiful afternoon we're currently having, I felt cleansed, refreshed, and relaxed in a way that I haven't felt in months. It felt like I had just been on vacation for a week. Bliss.

Gwen

Pack Puppy

Where: The drive back from the beach to Eugene, OR
When: April 23, 2010

The Land I Grew In

Where: Bradford, VT
When: November 7, 2009

The view from the house I grew up in, where my parents still live. That is the Connecticut River, and New Hampshire. The snow-capped mountain is Moosilauke.

One excellent side effect of the relatively disastrous climbing day Sunday of last week was that I got to see my parents one more time on Monday morning, and I also got to see my younger sister and give her several hugs. Today is her birthday, I wish I could be up there. Dad made waffles, and the weather is apparently lovely so they are going to set up the hammock.

They are also (re)engaging in the Sisyphean task of clearing out years of accumulation from the sheds, which have recently been outfitted with beautiful doors and windows, so I'd love to help with that too, you never know what you'll find in that kind of effort. I wonder if our old Castle Grayskull is still in there...

Impressionistic

Where: West Village, NYC
When: April 19, 2010

Ah, weekends

I had a little more excitement this weekend than I was really anticipating. My friend and I, seduced by reports of good weather, headed up to New Hampshire this weekend to (the theory was) climb at Rumney and Cannon. Saturday ended up being rainy for most of it, so we headed up to North Conway and did a couple of climbs in the afternoon when the rain cleared out.

Then Sunday we decided to climb at Cannon, specifically, a route called Moby Grape. It's about 8 pitches. It took much longer than anticipated, and while my friend has had far, far more epic days, it was easily the longest, most mentally and physically trying day of my life. It involved 12 hours straight of climbing (well, periods of climbing followed by periods of standing still and shivering while belaying) that was frankly far too hard for my current level of strength, and we topped out at 9:20pm. Then we had to find the trail down by the light of head lamps, and not slip, fall, break an ankle, or accidentally step off the side of the 1,000 foot cliff we just climbed. It took us just under three hours to get back to the car.

We got back to the car at midnight, and still needed to somehow get the 6+ hours back to NYC on no sleep and far too much activity. After we have to reduce our speed to a crawl due to far to frequent moose encounters, and after I nearly fall asleep at the wheel, and my friend became suddenly incapacitated (thankfully just prior to taking over the driving) by vicious leg cramps that lasted for a horrifying 30 or 40 minutes, we gave up and drove to my parents place, which was much closer than home at this point.

We get to my parents place at 2 in the morning and I refused to scare them by pounding on the door or calling them at this hour, so we slept in their driveway in the truck in sleeping bags instead. I still ended up scaring them by knocking on the door at 6:30 when we woke up, but to be fair I thought Dad would already be awake by then. So after a few minutes of confusion and explanations, I had the best, hottest, most wonderful shower I've ever had, followed by a delicious-beyond-description breakfast in a warm and sunny room, and suddenly all the cold and fear and exhaustion of the day before didn't seem all that bad, and in fact started to take on the colors of a fun and exciting adventure.

And that right there is the sickest thing about this climbing business. No matter how horrible it gets, you end up wanting to do it all over again. I mean, LOOK at how glorious the day was!


(I think I took this shot. My friend definitely took the rest of them.)

(That's me.)

(So's that.)

(See how dark it is already? We still had two or three pitches to go at that point. I had just come to the realization that I was at the limit of what I could mentally and physically handle, and had realized that I had to keep doing this for at least another 4-6 hours anyway. The next pitch included a cave/roof that thoroughly broke me, in a way I have never been broken. I somehow managed to recover from the screaming, crying hysteria and figure out how to get up and over it, but it took a little while. But the point is - now it's over! And surely next time will be much better! What?? I don't have a problem.)

Where: Florence, OR
When: April 23, 2010

Kitten says: I can haz study?

Where: Home
When: May 11, 2010

Ok so it's not the greatest photo but it makes me giggle every time I look at it, and that's not nothing. I was laughing so hard while taking it I could barely hold the camera straight.

She had been trying to "help" me all day with the studying. This help included: scattering notes all about the floor, so that I have to read them so I can put them back in order, sitting in my lap and bumping the hand with the pen as I'm trying to make note cards, and insisting on laying in my lap but also ACROSS one or both arms.

The main reason that her name remains Kitten is that she continues, at 4 years old, to participate in antics like this, and to have that wide-eyed kittenness in her approach to nearly everything in her world.

And their necks crane

Where: Hudson River, from home, NYC
When: May 4, 2010

Title from Massive Attack's "Pray for Rain". T-38-ish hours until the concert!!!

I desperately didn't want to do my yoga this morning, I was feeling all cranky and tired and just wanted the interwebs and coffee, but thanks to the contract I did it anyway. I'm glad I did. And now I have coffee and interwebs anyway!

Salty Dog

Where: Florence, OR
When: April 23, 2010

I have a whole lot of moody black and white stuff lined up, so I'm going to try to break it up a bit with a liberal sprinkling of adorableness, otherwise known as Rufus.

I renewed my yoga/meditation "contract" for this week - I anticipate that Thursday will need to be skipped, due to the Massive Attack concert on Wednesday, but I might be able to do at least the meditation part. I am actually finding the reintroduction of meditation into my routine to be one of my favorite parts of this. Well, that and the gradual increase in flexibility. During the week, when I only have time for a few poses, I am concentrating them on the hamstring/low back tightness. Loosening these areas up make walking, and sitting in class with a straight back much more comfortable.

The Bird's Way

Where: Florence, OR
When: April 23, 2010

"Now you can enter among diverse beings and travel the bird's way without hindrance, free at last."
-- The Silent Illumination of Zen Master Hongzhi, "Cultivating the Empty Field".

Pray for Rain

Where: Florence, OR
When: April 23, 2010

Title from the Massive Attack song of the same name.

Tree Me

Where: Eugene, OR (on the way up Spencer Butte)
When: April 25, 2010

I loved the woods out there. Here, the trees are more varied, and there tends to be a lot of undergrowth - bushes, smaller trees, etc. Out there, it was just big straight pines, and the undergrowth consisted largely of ferns and big rocks. It had a really cool, quiet, primordial feel to it.

Someone else's feet

Where: Florence, OR
When: April 23, 2010

OH bare feet. These aren't my prints, but after taking this shot I took my shoes off too, since it seemed like such a good idea. I think a good 30-40% of my joy about the beach was getting to be barefoot. The sand was exceptionally soft, it was delightful. I got to be barefoot most of the time while outside at Kripalu this weekend as well.

Soft sand and thick grass underfoot make for the most deliciously sensual experience. It's wonderful for walking meditation as well, you can focus so intensely on all the different sensations on all the different regions of each foot. Plus you have to watch out for hurty stones and sticks, so spacing out is effectively discouraged.

Nose, With Dog

Where: Eugene, OR
When: April 22, 2010

This is Rufus, our friends' adorable puppy. There will be more pictures of his adorableness posted later on, don't anybody worry.

I'm posting tonight because I won't have time tomorrow morning, because I'm doing a week where I spend the morning doing meditation/yoga, along with breakfast without distractions. It's an experiment in a particular planning method which involves making a very specific, time limited plan for a change you want to implement in your life. You have to write it ALL down, and there are rules about what you write down - for example, you have to be VERY SPECIFIC about the change, and about the time frame, and about the conditions under which you are allowed to deviate from the plan. And then you have to sign it. I think the signing is a little silly, but Dave assures me there are studies about human nature and our unnatural obsession with contracts. Ok fine.

The interesting thing about writing it all down was that it took dedicated thought about what normally happens in my mornings, and what precisely I would have time for, and what I would have to give up in order to implement this. It really drove home the reasoning behind the plan, and also why most "I'm going to do xyz from now on" type plans fail so reliably - making a change is hard, largely because we've already filled up our lives with other things we value but don't think about, and then when the moment comes to make a choice, if we haven't anticipated and made a decision about the moment in advance, then we go with the habit rather than with the new.

For me, I realized that it's incredibly important that I leave the house with the dog at the same time that Dave does, so we can walk him to the train. So I couldn't leave earlier with the dog to make more time, because then I'd come home and he'd be gone and I wouldn't get to say goodbye and that would make me sad. It also didn't seem to make sense to do the yoga while he's getting ready and leaving, since saying goodbye (the main thing I value) and his getting ready would interrupt the yoga (which seems counterproductive).

I also really value having coffee and breakfast in a relatively leisurely manner. So I had to be very strict/realistic about the number of yoga poses I was allowing myself, while also deciding that the email/blog surfing makes the coffee/breakfast time far more leisurely than it had to be, and therefore nixing it in favor of meditation/pranayama/yoga time pre-breakfast.

Finally, the 10-20 minutes of yoga isn't really all the practice I want, so I also included in the plan one day - on Saturday morning - where I would go through all the poses I learned over the last weekend. And then Sunday I take off. And then I reevaluate the plan, and make adjustments as necessary, write out a new plan for the next week, and sign it.

So that's the plan! We'll see how this goes. I'm excited. I might need to make a similar plan for all the studying, today was the first day back at school and while I am super excited about the personal training course I'm taking in addition to the massage therapy, it's going to be a LOT of work to stay on top of all this.

World-Weary

Where: Home
When: April 20, 2010

My girl is finally starting to show her age. It was a stressful week for her at the boarding kennel while we were gone, it seems to have taken a lot out of her. Several days of rest have helped though, she's perking up now. This photo was actually taken just before the trip.