Posts

Birds

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I'm into birds now. I was catching up with an old friend who asked me how I had gotten into birds. How does something like this happen to a nice gal like you? My response to her was lengthy and thorough. I thought it would make for a good blog post.  So, it all started when I joined a birding walk with Women's Wilderness. Have I told you about WW? Hmm, let's back up a step. So a few years ago I went to an event in Denver called Women Powering Change. I think it was somewhere around 3/8, International Women's Day. It was just one of those things where I thought it looked interesting, had no one to go with (or likely didn't try to find someone to go with), and went to this thing by myself. I felt super awkward when I stepped into the room. There were so many people and this was going to be a lot of socializing (what Dan and I would call "excessive socializing"). I almost turned right around and walked out. But I didn't want the ladies that had just check...

my first sound bath

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I have a whole slew of posts in my drafts, but I decided to write a fun one. Because I do fun things allll the time. Why aren't I writing more about that? Last night we went to our first sound bath ever. This event was produced by Denver Yoga Social  and it was also our first event with them. They apparently do dozens of events every month. (I have my eye on the one at the Denver Aquarium or Yoga, Sake & Sushi) Last weekend I made a candle over at the Creepatorium . Check out their events. I've bet they've got some wacky stuff going on. The candle making was pretty tame, and honestly delightful. We were taught a bit about what the fragrances can invite into our lives as well as the flowers, herbs, and crystals. The invitation was there to infuse some magic into your candle, or you could just make a pretty candle. It was suggested that we save our candle to light with intention the night of the new moon which was last night. And heck yeah, I did.  I've since been fas...

friendship pt. 2

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 I think American movies really fucked me up.  Sometimes I think I have a warped sense of friendship. I often say I don't have any friends. That's not entirely accurate. Is it? I have a lot of friends. What is it I actually want? This graphic is from Shasta Nelson, founder of Girlfriendcircles.com. The site still exists (just learned that today) but it is a shell of its former self. It used to be a site for women to connect and form friendships with strangers. I met a woman on the site that I was friends with for a few years. We'd regularly meet, once a week, and share what was happening in our lives. When I look at the site now and Shasta's site ShastaNelson.com I just get a bit sad. It was a good idea. It just didn't work. At least not for me.  I created these activity pages  based on the activity in the book We Heal Together by Michelle C Johnson. On page three you can see how I filled out my community web. I was pleasantly surprised at how many groups and peopl...

poetry

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I've been thinking a lot lately about my roots. And being mixed. And what that means.  I remembered a poem I wrote over ten years ago about being a mixed race, bi-racial person. I hadn't thought of this poem in years. Forgot it existed. I wrote it in a creative writing class at Aurora Community College taught by Wayne Gilbert. Really cool dude. Still out there making poetry. (Search for him on YouTube.) This was my first, and only since, deep dive into poetry and spoken word.   Why are poets so confusing? I wondered. Why can't they just say what they mean in plain language? I've since come to realize that the heart's language is not English nor Spanish nor Japanese nor any other human language we've invented. Our human languages are often no match for the language of our heart. So we try to translate our emotions as best we can using the language we can.  No wonder we so often can't understand each other. I went looking for this poem from years ago. My first...

Celebrating 40 years of Alice

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I want to do the impossible. I want to share how amazing this year has been. I want you to know, really know, how great it was. I wish everyone could experience what I did. And so I'm a bit sad. It was a great year and I'm a bit alone in my ecstasy of it. It's also gone forever and only available in my fallible memory. I wish it could be stored, in detail, somewhere else besides my fickle brain. Also, now the year is over, and I'm left wondering "what's next?" It wasn't just the travel that made this a great year. Although there was a lot of that.  I pre-gamed with Mary in Dillon in mid-September. We traveled internationally for the first time as a family to Cancun, Mexico. It was also my first all inclusive. Dangerous things. I gained at least 10 pounds that week! We visited my friend Kevan in Texas for his fortieth. We visited my brother's family in Arizona. We visited my friend Cindy in...

race

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I'm starting off 2023 with my hardest parts, apparently. My " thoughts on friendship " post in January was a sensitive subject for me to explore. Race is a very raw subject for me right now. It's fitting but not planned that it's February and Black History Month. And so here's my "thoughts on race". With a similar disclaimer to January's post that these are my thoughts now and will be different from my thoughts in the future and are different from my thoughts in the past. Everything is impermanent including me, my body, thoughts and feelings, and experience. I'm bi-racial. I've known this from the time I was born. I remember kids in school asking me, "What are you?" Sometimes I'd feel like being cute and say "I'm human!" or "I'm American!" but that usually didn't fly. "No, no. Are you white or black?" "I'm mixed." I'd say. "Oh! Right." they'd say. It w...

friendship

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My thoughts on friendship are complicated. I've been wanting to write this post for a long time. I only write it now with the disclaimer that everything changes. Everything is impermanent. So, my thoughts now on friendship will not be my thoughts later, and are not the thoughts they used to be.   I lost a few good friends over the last two years. It's hard. It's hard because a part of me thinks that friendship should last forever. BFFs- best friends forever, right? It's hard because it's like a romantic break up where you're just never supposed to talk to that person again. That person was a huge part of your life and you're supposed to continue in the world like they no longer exist. And it's hard because it causes me to think that none of it is worth it.  US-American Society feeds us ideas, every day, from birth till death. Ideas about what our skin color means, how our bodies should look, who we should love, and how much money and things we should ama...