Happy New Year

Apologies to anyone still reading this blog. I find I never feel like posting here anymore, though I can't yet bring myself to let the blog die a dignified death.

Ah well.

I'm incredibly happy. Life with Mike is marvelous. Hope everyone is happy too.

When in Doubt ... Buy a Bicycle

I’m often asked, “Marian? What is the secret to life?” And I always reply,,”Put something painful between your butt cheeks, and pump strenuously with the bottom of your foot.”

***

Just over the top, well not just over the top, but past, and to the left of the new handlebar grip on my new blue bike, I saw a woman fishing whilst wearing a Chinese hat.

On a different subject, but related to the same lake, but not related to the Chinese fishing hat lady (or maybe it sortof is) ... wouldn’t it be nice if we all owned one of those fancy inner tube fishing men things? You know, those floating, inflatable chairs that fishermen use. I saw one of those today too. A man sitting in his inflatable floating chair, drifting among the reeds.

How I came to see the Fishing lady and the man sitting in his inflatable fishing chair is my recent purchase of man-and-women’s greatest invention - the pedal bicycle.
Taking my own advice, I put something painful between my butt cheeks, pumped strenuously with both feet, and ended up this Thursday afternoon at Howarth park.

All the coolest people in Sonoma County know about that park. They’re out there jogging with dogs, jogging with baby strollers, walking in groups or alone, biking. They’re swimming, and paddling kayaks. They’re sitting on the grass with a book, they’re doing chin ups. There are overweight people, and old skinny people. There are athletes on trillion speed mountain bikes, and middle aged ladies on touring bikes.

Mike and I like to go there and ride the path around the lake. We power up the hills, and fly down the other side. Along the shady parts of the path, there are blackberries to snack on. We stop for a swim, and a rest on a picnic table, eat an apple, drink some water. Canada geese live in the lake. They practice their flight patterns all day.

The sun goes down, it gets dark, but it’s not cold because it’s California. My hair is damp from my swim, and I’m wearing just my bathing suit under thin warm up pants. But It’s okay because it’s a California night and it’s warm. If there’s a softball game happening in the ballfield, we watch for a while. If not, we use the field to play frisbee. Driving home in the dark, I let my hand float outside my open passenger window. The air feels silky on my skin.

I Feel Wonderful

I'm having such a nice night. I have my CD's playing, I'm drinking wine, and photoshopping pictures I took of Mike. Mike is in the studio across the deck, shooting still lifes with the new soft box I helped him make today. It's very peaceful.

The CD's I'm playing are very nostalgic for me. I played them over and over again during a time when I was going through a massive, traumatic upheaval in my life. For those months I literally felt like I was moving through some kind of cobwebby dream. Nothing was real. I couldn't believe I'd made this change happen, and I didn't know what would be the outcome. I was scared, and thrilled, and a million other things I can't begin to describe.

Memories are strange. There's no point, really, in trying to explain them to someone who wasn't there. Even for those who were there, the memory plays differently for them. Memories are a lonesome thing, which to me, makes them all the more poignant.

And so I have this music that I'm playing on this nice and peaceful evening. I'm living another dream, this one is beautiful and wonderful and everything I hoped for.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say, and I feel like going back to my photoshopping now, so I'm going to end this post. I'm looking forward to looking back on this night as I listen to these same CD's. New memories are being created right here and now, with the same music as backdrop. I feel completely at peace.

A Lovely Morning

I enjoyed a lovely morning today. While Mike worked on some new paintings, I sat on the floor nearby and sewed a drawstring into a pair of sweatpants. We were companionably silent together as the radio played music and Conrad puttered around on top of his bird cage. It was a simple, uncomplicated time together. A nice way to begin the day.

I celebrated my first ever Fourth of July this past week. A week before had been Canada Day, and I completely forgot about it!

Canadians don't tend to fly the flag very much, so it was cool for me to see American flags up in front of a lot of homes. The sight made me nostalgic for Canada, somehow. The patriotism of Americans made me feel proud of my own home country.

For my first 4th in the States, Mike and I celebrated by eating gigantic hamburgers and lighting firecrackers in the back yard. In between the firecrackers we had fun shooting his BB gun at targets I'd made that afternoon.

After dark we drove out to see the fireworks display put on by the fairgrounds. We stood together under the huge night sky, me leaning back against him while he wrapped his arms around my waist. The fireworks were awesome, but for me the most beautiful thing happening was the fact that Mike and I are in love, and we were there, holding each other in the dark.

In the few months that I've been living here, we've created a number of lovely memories. We've gone for long drives through the picturesque town of Bodega, to the coast. We've knelt together on the sand to collect tiny, pretty stones. We've laughed at ourselves trying to capture the incredible breakers with our camera's, pressing the shutter split seconds too late. We've spent days in San Fransisco - wandering through the Presidio ... Fisherman's Wharf ... Market Street ... taking pictures, or just walking hand in hand.

On arriving at the city, and again as we leave, we always stop at the look out point where all the tourists are gathered to shoot pictures of themselves with the famous bridge as a background. Everyone is laughing and calling and pointing, posing for pictures and taking it all in. All around us we hear the sound of various languages - tourists chattering excitedly at the idea that they've arrived at their destination. The California vacation they've planned and saved for has begun. They've come from all parts of the planet, and they're thrilled to be there.

I know exactly how they feel.

Whew!

The dumpster has been filled and taken away. All the junk is gone. I can't believe we filled the entire bin! Now we're resting.

Happiness is a Giant Dumpster

We keep saying we have to slow down in building things in the back yard, so we can relax and just make art, but we end up with more and more plans. We have this great momentum going on, we're just rolling with it, the place is looking great!

Last week we completed the wisteria arbor. It looks professional. Mike designed it, and we built it together. I used a miter saw for the first time in my life (power tools are fantastic! I've also used the saw's all to cut up the hot tub equipment ... yeehaw!)

For the arbor we used some new wood, and some that was recycled from the deck that we've started pulling up (we're going to build a new one). We'd talked about what to do for the wisteria for a while, since it needed some support other than the fence. We decided it was a bad idea to dig up the plant and bring it to the arbor we planned to build at the other side of the yard. The plant is too big to survive digging up, so we brought the arbor to the wisteria.

What a beautiful structure we built! We stood there looking at it the evening we finished, and we looked at it again the following morning ... what a beautiful structure we built.

Now we have a giant dumpster in our driveway - big as an apartment. We're throwing in all the junk we've been collecting as we went along in our projects. Some of this junk pile was begun before I moved in here - when we clear it all away this week, I'll see a large part of the yard that I've never seen before.

This morning the dumpster arrived, and the man eased it into place. We stood on the front porch, watching it happen. Then we spent the next several hours dragging junk from the back yard to the dumpster, pulling junk from the garage into the dumpster, filling the wheelbarrow, filling the black garbage can, and heaving it all into the dumpster. We sweated buckets. We were dirty and sore and unable to see in the glare of the sun. Finally we decided to take a break since it was 101 degrees. (lol)

What a great day, I feel wonderful.

We took two showers, ate dinner and went for a nice walk along the creek behind our house.

Tomorrow we'll work on the dumpster again. We have it for a week.

Making Memories

Mike and I are making a new raised bed in the back yard, around the weeping willow tree. We’re doing a lot of cool things out there - building a rock wall, making compost bins from chicken wire, pruning the olive tree, and the apple trees, and the pomegranate tree, redoing the path. Now we’ve started this new project, even though the others are not yet completed.

The yard is a mess with all our tools and tarps with soil piled on top. We have chairs out there for when we take a break from working in the hot sun. We have sawhorses with a sheet of plywood on top to hold tools, gloves, water. We take measurements, draw diagrams, drive to the hardware store and buy lumber, load it into the honda ... the other day I made the trip home, stuffed into a tiny space left on my passenger seat, while the lumber formed a roof over my head. I was completely encaged, laying on my side with my knees under my chin. I’m having a blast.

Yesterday we built the frame for the new raised bed. Today we began the work of attacking the adobe soil with a pick, heaving it out of the bed and treating it with stuff to fix it so our plants can actually survive there.

It’s always exciting to think about how the yard will look when we’re all done. But it is these days, when we’re up to our eyeballs in the job of creating, that I want to remember always.

Tonight we were sitting on our chairs under the beautiful spreading canopy of the sugarless maple (don’t know if that’s what it’s actually called - maybe there’s no such thing as a sugarless maple ... maybe it’s a mulberry....) We were hot, and tired, and proud of what we’d done. We had a little orange juice, and some water, Mike had his smokes.

It was that lovely time of day around 6:00 pm when the sun is less intense. The air takes on a subtly different tint. The birds are out looking for bugs, and the ducks who live in the creek behind the yard are up to their usual mating games - flying over the yard or along the creek, the male chasing the female who squawks and tries to outfly him.

I sat there looking across the yard, listening to Mike talk about our plans, and I remembered again that these days are precious. We’re getting to know each other, building a life, working together to make changes to the yard that has been his for many years, and mine for only a couple of months link.

It’s much, much more than just landscaping. We’re creating memories, and learning each other’s ways. We’re working together to figure things out, and taking care of each other. He brings out glasses of water or juice and reminds me to stand in the shade, and I bring us a banana to share. We stand on the lawn, leaning on our shovels, talk and laugh for a while, then get back to work.

It’s a honeymoon. These are the days for us when everything is new in our relationship. Everything is being created for years from now when we’ll look back and remember.

Dolls

I made a clay boot for a doll the other day. The doll is laying on the work table in my livingroom. She's waiting for me to make her other boot. She's waiting for me to attach her head and arms and make her some clothes.

I began making the doll several years ago, and then gave up because I felt stuck. She travelled in a box across the ocean. She lived in the box under my bed. She travelled in my suitcase in the hold of a greyhound bus, to the beautiful place I live now.

Now, in my beautiful new life here in the land where the sun always shines and my man is the best thing that ever happened to me ... I'm ready to finish the doll. So she's on the work table in my livingroom, wearing her new boot, waiting for the rest to follow.