Rabbit Mountain
January 5, 2012 § 4 Comments
This warm weather is too weird for early January. But if it’s going to be here, then I’m going outside in it. After getting the horses all fed and turned out, I headed home to fetch Tassie for a hike before I got too settled in and too lazy to go back outside. (I love my cozy moments of sipping coffee on the couch.)
We went to Rabbit Mountain instead of our usual hike round the lake, just for something different.
The thing about Rabbit Mountain is that it’s rather odd, and to me, slightly uninviting. You drive in towards a series of small slopes and notice at once how strange the color is all around you. The whole landscape is a kind of pale yellow-green-tan, dry, rough.
I’d be lying if I said I find great beauty here. I don’t. It is arid and exposed, and the sun beats hard. I find myself wishing for streams and the shade of deciduous trees.
Still, the place is interesting in a desolate, old West kind of way. And it makes for a nice hike, the effort of going upward, the breath coming faster, the very healthy-feeling beating of your heart.
And what’s this?
A yellow brick road?
So warm, today, that I had to take off my long-sleeve hoodie and hike in my tank top and jeans – and I wished those jeans were shorts, so badly that I looked down to consider if the holes in the knees were big enough that I might rip the legs off below (they weren’t).
We found a few patches of snow where T was able to cool down. She panted from the weight of her winter coat and working against gravity. She snorted and rolled in and ate the snow for relief.
Down we came with oxygen in our lungs and blood and a few more photographs on the camera.
Another place to have seen, to have traveled across, to add to our collection of notes about the world.
Resolution
January 1, 2012 § 4 Comments
Isn’t it a funny word? I find it interesting how many definitions the word resolve has. What fascinates me particularly is how resolve can be synonymous with determination (“He stepped forward with resolve”) yet it also can mean to move from dissonance to consonance – most directly in music, but the idea extends to matters of opinion, problem-solving, working through an issue – ending the tension to reach a resolution. And yet – and yet – the word can also mean to separate. What?
Language is so strange. English, especially.
My conclusion, as I’m inclined towards peacemaking, is that resolutions might be built on this handful of definitions. As we make lists of what we want to do or not do this upcoming year, can we move with determination towards things that will bring us together into pleasing consonance? This doesn’t mean we all have to operate on the exact same opinions, beliefs, and perspectives – we can remain our separate, unique selves, like notes in a chord. And yet as we consider who we are and who others are and who we want to be, perhaps we can learn how to live together in harmony.
On that thought, here is my 2012 resolution list:
1. Be generous. Even when I have little. Generosity needn’t be expressed only by the giving of material things. Time, work, kind words, a small note in the mail – these count, too.
2. Be frugal. Don’t spend on unnecessary things, and get what I owe paid off. (All right, that’s a bit lofty for a year, but make significant advancements in this direction.) Debt creates discord, in one’s spirit as well as in relationships, even purely financial ones.
3. Be healthy. That means being healthy personally as well as promoting health in my environment – physically, ecologically, and economically. If my body is forced to operate on poor fuel and/or my actions contribute to degradation and toxicity around me, that puts me (and others) in a state of disrepair. True, we all age, but let’s age well. And let’s have land and water that go on being clean and fertile beyond our lifespans. Good health tends to foster happiness! And happiness tends to foster harmony.
4. Be optimistic. I must confess I have been a bit of a negative Nancy this year. Part of me wants to defend myself by saying that I feel everything strongly and express it openly so y’all get to go on the ups-and-downs with me. But the truth is that I have caught complaints coming out of my mouth far too often and have gotten into a habit of tampering my eager, rosy hopes with the dim glasses of criticism and self-doubt. (It doesn’t all get on this blog – but my friends and family have heard it more than once.) And the worst part? It drags the people around me down with me. Aiyaiyai. So optimism. Looking for good, holding onto truths, closing the door on regret and shoving aside fear and self-deprecation.
5. Be faithful. For me, this goal directs itself towards two closely related realms. First and foremost I seek to be faithful to my Father God, His saving Son, and the amazingly wildly loving Holy Spirit. Second, I will be faithful to my loved ones. This means to stand up for them. To step in for them. To be there when needed. Even to put them before myself. Because faithfulness is the fruit of the kind of love that is more than just a feeling.
Can I do it? Will I do it? The good thing is that these are not deadline goals. They are lifelong goals. (And I am a lifelong learner! Yay!) The next steps for me are to (a) remain conscious of these goals – maybe put a list on the mirror or refrigerator or nightstand, and (b) map out what changes I might make – big and small – to foster and further these things in my little old life.
I am not one of those who is afraid of resolutions! No, sir. I am resolved. Resolved to resolve.
What are your goals this year? Do you like or dislike New Year’s resolutions? Do you have any suggestions for me regarding mine?
Happy New Year!
January 1, 2012 § Leave a comment
May yours begin with as much happy expectation as a dog about to take a long, off-the-leash walk.
Love, Tassie & Erica
Texture & textiles
December 31, 2011 § 1 Comment
I have been getting all caught up in Dear Genevieve, another room makeover show on HGTV that’s somehow more fun than the rest. Genevieve is so talented and rather enchanting in the way that she works with her clients and team, and I like getting drawn into the creative process of seeing what is and what can be. So I watch it while I am knitting or cooking. And I’m noticing that it affects the way I look at the world around me. Isn’t it fun how sharing perspectives and ideas can do that?
Walking the other day, I found myself noticing all different sorts of texture. Colorado is not, from my perspective, particularly colorful (despite the sign at the Nebraska/Colorado border which reads “Welcome to Colorful Colorado” – comically placed in the dry, tumbleweed, eastern plains part of the state). And this time of year, color is especially scarce. All seems shades of brown and gray, except for the blue sky and sometimes the white snow. So as we walk and I look for what is pleasing to the eye, I am drawn to nature’s textures.
I think – and Genevieve confirms! – that in designing a room texture is key – especially in rooms that use color sparingly. A white room needn’t feel sterile with the right textiles and woods to warm it and soften it. A room that involves lots of browns or dark colors can avoid being heavy or dull with the right surfaces to reflect light and maintain interest.
I love design that is nature-inspired, culture-inspired, and especially that involves reclaimed objects. I love walking through nature thinking about what I could make to reflect it. I love looking at how other people have expressed the landscapes they live in or travel through.
Here are a few of my favorite Etsy shops:
And I’ve just gotten started on Pinterest! Here’s where you can find me:
What kind of design do you like? Does nature inspire you, or do you find inspiration somewhere else? How do you decorate your homes – or dream of decorating them?
Feeding time
December 29, 2011 § Leave a comment
These days I get to see the sun set every evening that I am at the barn to feed horses. We begin when the sun is close to the mountain tops. We end in darkness. The fading light is our timer, keeping us on our toes almost as much as the horses pacing and snorting and nickering for their food.
Snowmelt
December 29, 2011 § 2 Comments
It was not a white Christmas. On Thursday Colorado got a heap of snow, and on Friday I drove out of it to a balmy, brown Iowa, and on Sunday I drove to an equally balmy, brown South Dakota.
No one complained about being outside without a jacket on, however!
Today I am back in Colorado, where we have had an interesting morning. You try moving 34 horses through a slick, sloppy mess of mud and ice – and add some powerful gusts of wind! (Forecast predicts the winds will get up to 80 mph today.) It’s a bit of a workout. At least the weather is warm. At home I poured a cup of peppermint tea, stretched out for a short rest, and decided Miss T. deserved a walk.
So we went outside to watch the snow melt.
There is sun and blue sky and water running, running everywhere. The snow sort of crunches and slides beneath your feet. We splashed through puddles at every intersection.
Miss T. gave herself a bath with more than one satisfying roll in the lingering patches of snow.
And we found evidence of snowmen . . . who had seen better days.
Despite the cone-laden evergreens, twinkly decorations, and a pile of newly-opened Christmas presents, can I just say that it feels like spring?
The Christ Candle
December 27, 2011 § Leave a comment
The final advent candle, the Christ Candle, was lit at home, as much as Iowa is home still. It shone steady and white, surrounded by three purple and one pink candle in the middle of an evergreen wreath in Christ Chapel. The church that I went to as a teenager and young college student has been meeting in this college chapel, as an engineer recently told the congregation that the roof of their old brick building is on the verge of collapse. So we filed into the chapel of my college days and sang classic Christmas songs and watched families gather.
I don’t have a picture of this fifth candle, but it is the most important one. The birth of a King. A humble coming in what is, to me, a perfectly beautiful, earthy, close-to-the-world way to be born. In a stable, surrounded by living things, with nature nearby. It seems right for the King who would not be afraid of the world’s grittiness, but would instead engage with it. One who would find beauty where others could not; who would draw forth joy and shine; who would dedicate His life to restoring His Father’s creation, and to training and imparting others to do the same.
And it is a reminder, isn’t it, of who we might be, wherever we come from. Because of the One who was an example. And the One who made us with purpose. Where do we come from, after all? What might we be?
Heaven and earth. Heaven on earth.
A Lake Superior Poem
December 19, 2011 § 2 Comments
My graduate school and poet friend Amy just chased her heart north, to the North Shore of Lake Superior. I am so glad for her, especially because this place is one of my homes, too – never a place I have lived, but I place I have known myself to belong to, to be somehow intangibly (and yet, so very tangibly) connected to, smitten with, inspired by. It is a place I crave.
The summer after I graduated from high school, my family took a trip up to the Lake of the Woods, into Canada, and down along the North Shore Drive. When we reached the lake we had been in the van bickering and bored for too long, and then we’d gotten out at a rest stop and stumbled upon a trail. Suddenly we were all in better tempers, as the water reached blue into the distance and the breeze whisked its way around us.
And there was a moment when I stood on the rocky shore and felt my chest fill so terribly, wonderfully full. And I felt my heart know I belong here. For a long while I outlined my plans for the small house I would have where the waves rush and fall against the rocks and the pines.
I have since then known that same feeling in other places, though not so many as to make this one decrease in significance. Instead I am glad to find them, to gather them like precious stones. A few years ago three friends and I went up to ski at Lutsen, and I got to see my lake in winter. Several weeks later I wrote this poem.
—–
askance
at winter’s edge of shoreline, Lake Superior breaks into glass,
shards that creak and clink when we step softly across.
white-blue sky reaches down to the distant blue-black
where ice gives way and water moves free. now and then,
a rumble and groan. we keep close to shore. hold a stillness.
listening, it is, for beginners. only common sense in asking
the lake if we might cross its cracks and heaves, if
we might find the rare structures of winter on water.
—–
An afternoon in Estes Park
December 13, 2011 § Leave a comment
Colorado visitors almost always go to Estes Park. Is it too touristy to be special? I tend to be an off-the-beaten-path girl, but I have to admit that I like to swing by the traditional tourist spots as well. Curiosity gets the best of me, I suppose.
I first went up to Estes Park about a year ago. A couple friends and I drove through Rocky Mountain National Park, where the snow fell on a laughing, flustered wedding party, and we climbed on boulders and caught an impressive view of an elk. On the way back, we stopped in Estes for window shopping, dinner, and specialty chocolate. The town reminded me of Spearfish, South Dakota and Ely, Minnesota – those outdoor-focused, rustic-quaint small tourist towns. I like them.
Caramel apples, scarves, headbands, candy shops, hearty hamburgers and crispy fries, truffles, conversation, and the winter shades of blue and dark green and white made for a happy day.
Don’t be afraid to walk the beaten path now and again! Sometimes it turns out to be well-traveled for good reasons.
Kinds of Honey 