10 things & old friends

part of the saturday ritual series

it feels like my head is not as crazy as it used to be, and i have a greater capacity for sitting still and reflecting.  for some reason, i've been remembering old friends and projects from the last ten years.  missing them, but also really feeling grateful for getting to meet and work with some of these amazing people.

also, though, feeling grateful for the cute, hilarious, engaging little people who surround me right now.

1)  remembering & missing my old writers' group in oklahoma.  just got janet's new novel  red weather in the mail.

2) and that got me thinking about yun, another oklahoma writers' group friend, who is one of the raddest ladies i know.  she's both an astrophysicist and a beautiful poet.  check out her books the book of jade and the carp.  here's a sample poem from diode:

Three Lotus Ponds

A boy had three lotus ponds:
sky blue bloomed in one, sunrise pink in another,
ivory white in the third.

He had three palaces: one for the cold
season, another for the hot season, another
for the rainy months. Leaning on carved
sandalwood panels, he listened to musicians
starry-eyed women plucking strings.
Their slender white fingers shone in the mist.

One day, he left the palace for a walk.
He saw a wailing crowd by the Ganges,
a corpse on a funeral pyre.
As it burned he felt the change within him.

Years later
a bowl of water became the ocean.
He became the Buddha.

3) saturday morning provo bakery donut ritual--chocolate with sprinkles for moses, bavarian creme for cecily, glazed for lula.  luckily i don't like donuts very much (one of the few foods i don't like very much.)

4) saturday morning yoga class.  i love my studio.

5) saturday afternoon international cinema to see this movie.  it's shaping up to be a chinese themed day.

6) chinese new year's banquet tonight & hearing cecily and moses speaking chinese together to psych me out. (they are in a chinese dual immersion language program at school.)

7)  provo library jaunt.  a favorite provo spot for me, and a lot of other people.

8)  kids doing chores.  cecily has been sweeping the front porch every week since the beginning of the school year, and i think she's finally mastered it.  if you've been to our house, you know that sweeping the porch should be the last of our cleaning priorities.  but it's doable for an 8 year old.

9)  finishing last marina abramovic poem in my new mini-marina a. series.

10)  thinking about our days with seattle experimental opera, listening to liquid girls.  still like that piece after all these years.  and especially the dance choreographed by juliet, one of the best artists i've ever had the privilege of working with.