Back on the Reading Track

Ann Patchett is just so good at helping herself to generous heaps of my time. Our introduction was her beautiful novel Bel Canto, an almost can't stop read, I loved it. Loved it. I've read a couple of her other books, which reside in our living room library shelves because my husband, a hardback lover, is a big fan of Ann's work. None of them have lingered recreationally. They all seem to wrap around my arm and tug me to the chair, like a clingy, but adorable, boyfriend. This though, is about The Dutch House. A work of near-perfection. I bought the book for my Dear, but when someone recommended Tom Hanks' reading on Audible I had to start there. I love reading. I love driving. I love listening. So, I occasionally, if not often, I grab the book and the audio (see Libby) and go. To begin, I loved Tom Hanks as narrator. His voice and style helped me get a feel for Danny as I read. Not a downside, but I see where it might point one in a direction.This was fine by me, because first, I was reading when not listening and also, Tom Hanks. He's offered so many roles with a core of strength and tenderness he didn't do anything but enhance the experience.   

Danny and Maeve are brother and sister, raised by their dad in the grand and glorious Dutch House. Their mother left them inexplicably and while Maeve took on the mom role, Danny was learning some of his dad's role in real estate management. At a point, Andrea, their stepmother enters with all the injustice this entry can bring. 

What we find, hold in our hands, welcome through our ears, is a story of connection and detachment, cruelty and inability, forgiveness and understanding. Danny's story is full of hardship but told through a heart willing to test each step taken without expected malice or prejudice. We're involved in the learning, the unfolding. Here the young children create their own family/echelon within the structure and bond in ways adults can't imagine. In some ways, the story was aligned to instances in my own experience. That's of course, a different post, but the resonance turns out to be more universal than I might have thought. More than one friend talked about how they'd experienced some part of Danny and Maeve's tale. 

It's beautiful with ugly pits and promises.

And, as I said, I loved it.

A Walk on the Lagoon

Every now and then I forget I live in a particularly wonderful part of the world. The California coast is beautiful and so varied in local environs you really can have a practically new experience every day. Alas, I seem to leave this truth in the back of my mind for unlimited spans and stay in the unplanned parameters of my comings and goings.

Almost everyday I pass our 388 acre city park. I do it intentionally. I need to be in that park. The trees are breathtaking every single day - old and tall and rich with branches and leaves and trunks that seem to speak words like established and environment and rest. My kids played and practiced soccer in several of the fields of this rambling space and my first German Shepherd, Max would come along with me and sit and watch them play.  I think romantically about the park because that dog-at-my-side is gone now and we had hours communing with nature and each other as the fall sun set through the trees.

Last week with our Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, I packed my big dog into the car in the early morning and off we went with the 100 foot lead. We explored, watching the birds in their patterns slide across the pond as we rambled in the grass. The air is different in the park, verdant, damp, clinging. Under the tree branches and along the field of green we took what I all too often forget to take -  time. Time for meandering, and looking, and enjoying. My doggy came home muddy and happy and tired. I came home satisfied by a small adventure. I love small adventures.

This morning I heeded the call of another small adventure and ended up walking around our local lagoon. There's a new nature trail of decomposed granite from the back side of the lagoon lined with dormant and perennial greens leading to a bridge where ducks and cormorants entertain - diving for breakfast. It's a unique space with a coop style preschool, where we found a mama gardening, a model boat building shop, playground, picnic area and space to swim. It's a sweet place for a walk with little unexpected vistas every few feet. We made our way around, some 3000 steps and ended up walking past the pretty houses that overlook, watchfully, the nature reserve and golf course.

Our feet are dry. And once again, hearts are satisfied.

And, Natalia.

Natalia Lafourcade

Bob Boilen as been gracing the NPR airwaves with his brilliant series, Tiny Desk Concerts for about ten years. He gives us access along the way, to fabulous music in an intimate setting where we just about believe we're there. Adele, Ben Folds, Blue Man Group, Chance the Rapper, Suzanne Vega, and my new favorite, Vicente Garcia, all there.

I ended up in an interwebs rabbit hole listening to Natalia Lafourcade. That's her above and her music is delight and joy and collaborative.

There's a lot to share here.
Have fun.

AdventWord::Surprise

Surprise

The egg took me by surprise. I was puttering in my garden, picking strawberries when I noticed it. The blue color striking. The brown dots in line with what I think a Robin might produce. But I'd never expect to see it. I've never seen one in my yard. The Bluejay grasps my attention. This was a moment of God's providence for me. God knows me and that I'm very often surprised by what becomes joy. Things that come from small things, like color, or a word, things noticed, kindnesses, love, eggs.

This thing, sticking with the One who turns the world upside down is a lovely thing. Sticking with Him, takes me to places where I'm startled and confused and surprised. I want to find Jesus as I come along with him, as he has come to me with love. I want to look and listen and find him in the unexpected way.

Here, I live in delight.


God comes to us as a vulnerable human baby to an unlikely couple in an obscure place. And in doing so turns the world upside down. Jesus says: Stick with me even if I am different, confusing, or surprising. I have come, and I am coming to you today with love! Look for me. Listen. I am coming in an unexpected way.

-Br. Luke Ditewig

The Farmers Market Day: Flowers

Yesterday I made a wonderful trip to the Santa Monica Farmer's Market. I promise to tell the whole story, right down to the grilled purple scallions we had for dinner.

But for now, for you, a few flowers:

It was almost impossible to walk away from the vibrant fragrance, life and color at just these stands.
Do you have a favorite?

The September Issue & Anna Wintour

Over the last few days I've been taking bites out of a documentary I quite enjoyed: The September Issue - Anna Wintour & the making of VOGUE. I'd started by trying to watch The Devil Wears Prada and had the kind folks at Netflix suggest I watch this. I've loved it. Such an interesting look at how an issue -- the big September issue -- of VOGUE is produced. And there was quite a stunning contrast to the fictionalized story in The Devil Wears Prada. Watching Meryl Streep in her turn as the Wintouresque mag editor was such fun but I certainly didn't get the work ethic and pure sense of dedication to perfection I saw in the actual Ms. Wintour.

I plan to watch it again, and thoroughly digest it, but from my first viewing, I walked away with a few of distinct notions:

Wintour is fully dedicated to fashion and the success of her magazine.
Wintour embraces her decisive ability.
Not everyone who works and lives in fashion is glamorous and young. In fact, the woman who stole my heart throughout the piece is Grace Coddington who is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful but neither of the former. Just magnificent and talented and wildly creative and, well, wonderful. I was pleasantly surprised. Enthused and inspired even.

If you care about fashion at all, I recommend you take a peak at it.

Caterpillar update 2

Yesterday some of the over 200 butterflies waiting in there chrysalises were wiggling.  You can't imagine how giddy I'm feeling. I've never witnessed a butterfly emerging. When my kiddos were three and five we had a butterfly hatchery with 3. Those caterpillars did their work and I saw the butterflies, but missed the emerging. I'm guessing that with 200, I'll see the breaking free. Oh, and they came to my office so I won't likely miss them.

One of the gals I work with asked if they'd be pretty "or just brown." I'm don't really care what color they are, I can't get over:
the numbers,
the place,
the process (the climbing, the hanging, the stillness, the creating of the chrysalis, the stillness, the new ones who join late (real late bloomers), the wiggling and now, the color change - the chrysalises are becoming vaguely orange.

Which means, my friend is going to get pretty butterflies.
And I get 200 butterflies (which will be orange).

I asked a science teacher the other day, why they chose this place to congregate and how all of them got to these broad eaves outside my window. He said, they just know where their supposed to go. He assumed they do this every year. I assure you, they haven't in my three years and no one else seems to have noticed them before.

Perhaps a teeny caterpillar newsletter.

Or a way to hear the Creator.

Those broad eaves have come in very handy in our rainy, stormy, rainy weather.

I depart today with a promise that my camera goes too. And I leave you with great anticipation of the miracle of the butterflies.

In the still of the early morning in the yard the fall rose blooms.
Imagine my delight.

Appreciating

Rain yesterday. Today beauty.

The forecast? Gratitude with a bit of appreciation.