Obama in Portland!

And another Obama item! He'll be in Portland on Friday morning! Rally at 9:30, doors open at 7:30--yes that's a.m. Yawn. But I'll be there, along with Paul. Our silly children are content to let this historic moment pass them by as long as they get to sleep. :-P

Tickets are free but required. Go here for more info. Oh, oops, too late--they don't have any more tickets. I'm glad I got mine!

Obama's Race Speech

I knew, when I read this morning that Obama was going to address the race issue in a speech, that he could do it well. But Paul and I just listened to it online and if I hadn't been tired and closing my eyes on the couch, I would have jumped up and cheered. It was amazing! Please, please listen to it if you haven't already.

And to top off my evening, I just read this post on Andy's blog. Andy, you've got a way with words!

I've been hedging my bets somewhat on who I plan to vote for, but it's sealed now. Obama addressed race in a way that hit just the right note. I want him for my next president.

Feeling what's right in the world

I just read the latest post on my sister-in-law's blog, and have to recommend it to you all. LaDonna is proclaiming for today what is good in her world, contrasting with focusing on the negative. I was feeling this way yesterday too--looking for the good and finding it, because there is good all around us.

Good Things I have enjoyed this past week:
1. a walk in the rain with Maria
2. seeing daffodils and other spring flowers, and smelling their delicate scent
3. eating a delicious lentil soup on the first day of Lent and really tasting it
4. sitting in silence and in community with others at our Clean Monday Retreat of silence
5. kissing each person who came to Forgiveness Vespers on Sunday and asking for and receiving forgiveness
6. seeing yet another knit-in-progress with rich earthy colors and feeling a bit of oh-so-soft silk yarn from Magpie's ever-present stash

And those are just the ones off the top of my head. I am so blessed.

Tears

I've been kicking around some ideas about tears for a while, and wanting to blog about them, but I'm not sure what I've got that's cohesive. So, I'll bang it out here and see what I've got.

A couple of weeks ago I took my kids to their tae kwon do class. Usually Paul takes them, as he takes the class with them, but he was out of town. I'd never actually sat in on a class before and I found it interesting to finally see this great teacher they've talked up in action. In contrast to many sports coaches, she is gentle and lacks the macho attitude, and doesn't think that tae kwon do should ever be actually used to hurt anyone unless someone first is intent on hurting the student.

I witnessed many different emotions during the class. Some were excited over learning something new, some were anxious as they were new in the class, some were frustrated over not being able to get a move they were working on. At one point, the teacher had more experienced students work with less experienced students. When they came back together, I saw the teacher talking with one student, a girl of about 12. She first cheerfully said "don't worry, he really gives good advice!" And then, in a stage whisper, said "why don't you go get a drink of water." It was when the girl turned to do that I saw that she was crying.

It was interesting to me that I'd just been discussing tears with a friend. An emotional moment had occurred in church for her just the day before and the tears came. It wasn't anything that hadn't happened to me before. She told me that she is an intellectual, and tears are a no-no for intellectuals. The perception is that it somehow sullies logic to have tears involved.

My question is: why are tears shameful to us? Why is crying seen as something that makes us less objective and more volatile? I told my friend that I have been trying to allow myself the freedom to cry when I need to, but it is difficult to do so in the moment. Tears are unpredictable; we cannot plan for them and how they will be received.

I am not an intellectual, but rather am a deeply practical woman. Tears are no more acceptable for practical people than they are for intellectuals. What good comes from them? They don't get dinner on the table. They muddy things and get in the way. And yet, I am firmly convinced that they are necessary and good.

I'm not someone who cries very often, or feels the need to. But I think that tears are a sign of a depth of soul, that we haven't gotten too jaded. Tears show that we still feel. It's easy to hide emotion as long as tears aren't involved. As soon as the tears come, like for the girl in tae kwon do, everyone knows exactly how you feel.

And so, if people know how you feel, they know that you feel, and that you are an emotional person. Somehow it has become a good thing to mask our emotion and only appear as even-keeled as possible. In our relationships with people, emotions are good and necessary, they help us empathize, they help us see what is truly important. And it's the relationships that are the main thing in life. Perhaps relationships are life. Relationships are what make us human, and because we are human we have relationships.

My Girl Hibiscus

Today Hibi is 14.  14 seems so much more firmly entrenched in the teenaged years than 13.  13 seemed sweet and young yet, eager, still waiting to find out what happens in life.  14 seems like she knows all about this teen stuff.  Plus it seems loud.  She got an electric guitar for her birthday!  Paul and Hibi actually went and got it on Friday, so she's had it for a few days, but today Paul went out and got the amp that she was still missing.  Suddenly our lives are more...live!  She really sounds awesome on it.  And she really needs a microphone now, so we can hear her singing over the guitar!  

I attended a discussion on feminism on Sunday evening, and I was sharing about how Hibi made me a feminist, not the other way around.  I shared about her correcting me on the use of the pronoun--when she was one year old, I'd be saying something like "look at that squirrel!  He has a nut."  And she'd say "She, mom!  That squirrel is a she."  But I forgot to say how life-affirming and powerful her actual birth was.  I think that's when she started making me a feminist--at the moment she was born.  No messing around--when she kicked and broke my water, it was four hours until she came out.  She was just ready.  

She was just reading this over my shoulder and laughing about the squirrel thing.  She says it's silly.  But my dear Hibi, you are not silly, even though you act silly sometimes.  You are seriously making the world a better place, and I love you!

Garden Path

Here's what we started out with yesterday (we converted it to garden space in December):

And here's what we did with it!  


Last year when we went to the Rebuilding Center and bought a cart-load of broken granite counter pieces, we paid $50 for them and were happy for it.  Yesterday, I went and found the same size of cart-load, and asked how much.  The guy said $15!  I tried to talk him up but he'd have none of it.  :-)

I even found a fossil in one of the pieces.  

And here's how the established garden is looking, this first day of March.  St. Francis was Paul's Christmas gift.  We like him there.  

Gardening Dreams

I dreamed last night that I went out to check out my garden, thinking of what I could plant new this year, and found just old plants from last year had taken up all the room there. No room for anything new and exciting! Ack! Not even everything that I had last year was there, just some of it. I think my brain is telling me it's time to start working on garden plans. Or perhaps there's a deeper meaning here....

It's certainly not true, anyway. (Phew!) In December, we converted the second half of our front lawn into garden space, but it's still just dirt, not even a garden path yet. We're going to work on the path this Friday. It'll be a starburst pattern this time, to complement the labyrinth on the other side.

Anyone else working on garden plans? Or actually planting? One gardener's blog I read who lives here in Portland is talking all about the seeds she's bought and started indoors already. I'm thinking, am I behind? Oh no! I'm also wondering if I'll just do the lazy thing and buy starts at the farmer's market, like I did last year (after trying to start plants indoors and failing miserably) or will I do what it takes to get a system set up for starting seeds? What have you done, and how does it work?

I'm sure looking forward to all those tomatoes, and basil, and squash, and greens....I still have some live plants in my garden, but they're all harvested out, and it's not quite warm enough for them to start growing again. Although the garlic I planted in November is coming up!

Spring is such an exciting time in Oregon. I'm looking forward to it!