Wherever it is that Joel finds this unending source of love, to which he bestows upon me in such attentiveness, I must find.  I must locate this resource in myself.

You've no doubt noticed me writing a lot about marital stretching, musing on the pains and pleasures of a maturing wife.  I've made some sense of it, with the help of mental pictures and a patient therapist.  Allow me to share. 

For the last four years, I've been in a deconstruction phase.  First, I found courage to take apart family and not be afraid of separating myself from what I found toxic.  Then my soul directed itself to question all things religion, church, god and the Christianity in which I was raised.  After god, it was taking apart myself in the form of my external beauties and internal artist.  As if that weren't confusing enough, I then had to start honestly examining my marriage.

I began this process standing on solid high-rise, a weapon of destruction handed to me by the very things I doubted. Despite my best efforts to ignore the need to deconstruct everything I loved, I still I distrusted the stability; I needed to destroy it in order to test its substance.  The fear of hurting others in this process with my flying debris, or that I wouldn't be able to put any of this chaos back together, paralyzed me for much of the process.  I pushed through, but as usual, my soul didn't give me a choice.  Its message has always been very clear: Engage or die.

There I am, standing on this structure, swinging a sledge-hammer, reluctantly.  Finally, it's all torn down, all in crumbles.  My face is streaked with dirt and tears, and I'm petrified, "What the hell have I done?"  Boulders of what used to be my beliefs, my identity, and my relationships lie cast about in wild and painful destruction.  I'm sitting on a boulder, observing all of this.  I am so tempted to gear up and hastily put it all back together.  But what if I didn't have to?  What if they weren't mine to put together in the first place?  What if I don't have anything to do with it, oh goodness.  That thought sends thrilling relief through the spine of my soul.  

Instead of the impulse to reconstruct something recognizable as Candace, I finger through the pebbles and dirt. What I am finding is gold nuggets of self and gems of goodness upon which this new me will no doubt be built.  Some are remnants from my previous self, some are forged as a result of destruction.  

I was drawing this visual of me sitting on a boulder in my journal last night.  Joel returned from the store, and asked me to explain (it was hardly recognizable as my drawing abilities are laughable at best).  In an effort to glean from his abilities, I asked him to please draw me sitting atop a boulder in a field of rocks and pebbles.  He did so, but then the most beautiful thing accidentally happened.  He continued with the drawing, sketching a tree, himself in it, overlooking the deconstruction of my soul, communicating with the cosmos in his cerebral way.  He's so patient with the stars, the vastness of the universe.  Of course he could be patient with the vastness of me.  It's nothing to him. The addition of himself to this picture made me shed a few unnoticeable tears.

I had no guarantee that I would find him here, and I am tremendously relieved that we've been given more time to be together.

Joel and I joined his parents this last weekend in Greenwater, Washington, located in the foothills of Mt. Rainier.  We did exactly a lot of nothing.  Well, Joel climbed two trees and threw several large sticks for our family dog, Abbey.  However, my particular kind of nothing meant reading, staring at the fire, taking naps, sunbathing, playing boggle, sipping various beverages, meandering pleasantries with the parents, and allowing that angst-y boredom to sit on my bones and soak deep into the soil of my soul.  It turns out that boredom, if indulged, can actually feel a lot like peace; however, the conversion requires intense mental discipline and I am practicing and practicing.  Just like anxiety and excitement.

(Sidenote: My therapist recently mention that anxiety and excitement feel the same in the body.   Apparently, I've been very excited for the last 10 years.  Sigh.  Anxiety in my being is as familiar to me as my husband is.  I see it, I breath through it, I recognize it, and yet it persists.  I'm beginning to get accustomed to its presence as a part of my DNA and consequently have stopped letting it have so much attention.)

Why do we fear boredom?  Why do we feel the compulsion to constantly fill the rooms of our houses with background noise?  Why are so many of our hobbies and activities escapist in nature?  I can't help but feel that we must be running from something - even from the nagging fear that maybe we are more shallow than we think...or that if we stop to examine the hard parts too much, they will take over and we will be sad.   How interesting it is to know a person by how they spend their leisure time.  I have no express point here, and certainly don't intend to sound judge-y, but I am reflecting on the goodness of boredom and how few people I know are genuinely adept at soulful-rest.  Everyone I know values hard work and is exhilarated by the "go-go-go" of daily life, but a tragic few feel equally motivated to rest (I am not talking about mindless rest such as sleep or various forms of entertainment and technologies - though of course they have their merit). I therefore fully believe weekends such as these are vastly more soul-satisfying than I realize.  Even within our marriage we have noticed that intentionally pursuing individual time to day-dream has been so good for us both.  I happen to have a lifestyle where planning that time is easier for me than for others, but as our pursuit of a family begins to birth itself in our brains, I want nothing more than to master this discipline BEFORE it becomes challenged by children.  Nothing like setting up ridiculous expectations for a family, right?  I am certain they will be dashed - and that my life will morph into something unrecognizable to me now, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't idealize on some regard.  Either way, I want to prioritize these mind-vacations.

To your dreams,
By day and by night.


A video of Joel at the treetop:


for larger and more photos:

Camping w Mom_Dad Greenwater

I have a lot on my mind of late. Joel and I are looking toward the future and trying to plan with wisdom and with soul.  I keep working on scenarios, financials, and timelines  that might afford us optimal happiness.  It's driving me a bit crazy.

The other night, I walked to my yoga class.  I left intentionally early.  I stopped to smell the darkest purple lilacs, a luxury in their differentiation from my lavender-colored bush at home.  I noticed the sounds of the neighborhood and stumbled upon a girl dressed in sparkly pink mary-janes, pushing a stroller and talking to her cargo playmate, a younger child also dressed up.  I giggled at her nonchalance.  It made me walk lighter.

I entered the glorious old building.  I smelled the age in its bones.  I caressed the thirsty wood on the staircase.  I was dwarfed in the enormity of the windows.

I arrived to class earlier than expected. I took my deliberate time setting up the mat, blocks, blanket.  I found the place I wanted to do my practice.  I tried really hard to meditate on the moment.  I kept getting distracted by the flashing leaves outside the window.  Mission accomplished.

I kept Thomas Moore's quote in my head.  

"The soul is nurtured by want as much as by plenty."
found in Care of The Soul
Chapter 9, "The Economics of Soul: Work, Money, Failure, and Creativity"

I realized how guilty I feel about how much I want from life.
Conversely, I realized how entitled I feel toward those goals.

I carried both in my paradox pouch and let myself feel the nurturing embrace of desire;
the sheer goodness of wanting.

The reason you know?

A photograph.

Always, a photograph.

Be at peace.

Oh how I love it when my need for a PJ day and the weather cooperate.

  No restless ants in my pants, no clocks ticking with judgement, nothing needing done save a hot shower, a late afternoon press of coffee to make, and deciding which movie to watch next.  

A good Saturday morn indeed.

May yours be good for the soul.

~crm

I am going home tomorrow.

I have so many mixed emotions about the time I've spent here and away from my home.  It truly has been the best of times and the worst of times.  I am a bit lost as to how to explain it, but I told my sister-in-law, it's like a taffy-pull machine on my soul and heart.  I belong in two places at once, and cannot wrap my head around it all.  I plan to return in a few weeks to bring my sister home with me, so it will be very quick that I get to see her and Clara again, but even so...my soul feels like it has jet-lag.

I've had a few thoughts on my mind lately...my usual sprinkling of questions to do with existence, relationship, and art.    Spurred by the intelligent lyrics of Neko Case, Dostoevsky, and a young Plath, I've come to realize how my routine here includes less writing than I am used to.  I suppose this could have a lot to do with settling in and all the creativity and soul required to listen to where the objects of your life want to be placed.

But it is also something that I suspected would happen out here...without people.  I did roughly 60% of my letter writing in cafes and restaurants, whereas here...I have yet to find a place.  I am sure this requires actually LOOKING for a place, but I am still in the needing towel-racks and "what the hell am i going to do with these window treatments" phase of life.  This, up until now, has been a justification for me ignoring my own soul.

Add guilt.  In order to make this time worth it, I feel as though I must find a use, a purpose, and true meaning.  Without this directed (read 8am to 5pm) purpose, I feel bathed in guilt.  There is some sort of firebrand scathing my ass to be thankful for all I have right now.  So many people are looking at my life with puppy-dog eyes...as they should!  I mean, it's really amazing right now.  I must admit the temptation to downplay it or justify it somehow...as if me struggling with it would make it easier for them to swallow or wanting to sometimes scream that I've had enough pain to last a lifetime so I somehow deserve it.  Both of these excuses would be a gross oversimplification of all the nuances and adjustments happening right now.   My husband is working his ass off to provide this life for me, and I do not take this for granted.  But I also somehow feel the need to explain to people that I am also working my ass off.  Like Plath, I am "forging a soul amidst great birth pangs" and how this takes a non-American, non-commercial, non-paying kind of work.  So I guess there is something inside me that thinks if I just feel guilty or downplay how wonderful my surroundings are or how well I take care of myself that will make it easier for other people to swallow.  I believe I can handle both the good feelings and the bad feelings of those I love, but I also know that god gives, god takes away.  What makes my life rich is comprised of my internal work, not my external circumstances.   How privileged I am to have the pleasure of that thought, a bliss reserved for a person whose basic needs are met.  This is an admonition to myself as well as to those of you finding envy and pity riding on your backs.

And oh, my surroundings!  Yesterday, while driving into town to do a Costco/Trader Joe's run, I spied a momma cow and a baby cow (going to google to look up the appropriate word) ahem CALF.  The calf was feeding and tucked just so into the mother's underbelly.  I almost died from the distraction (these country roads are curvy and unpredictable, like the best kind of woman), and I almost cried from sentiment and beauty.    I find myself gradually getting living in the city out of my system, finding new routines and activities that replace and heal the severing.  For instance, I've been a cooking machine!  In the city, it's far cheaper and easier to eat take-out 2 or 3 times/week.  Here, there is absolutely nothing convenient about it.

But what is convenient it a life of quiet study, endless reflection, a new-found enjoyment of social activities, the building of fires, the company of my saint, the planning and execution of meals, and the saunters through the wet forest floor.  I knew these things were far more necessary than take-out.

As well as my online community, I've been the happy recipient of your happy thoughts towards me and this new life.  This amazes me.  I dream of a time where you are around my hearth, sharing my tea, and knitting (because you all knit in my mind, of course).

Thankfully,

crm

The purpose of my most recent Redding trip was to finally be a part of my best friend Jackie's delivery of child number three. I haven't been able to be there for the other two children (missed the last one by a DAY), so I took advantage of my flexible situation and went down for the two weeks right around her due date. We were hoping that fate would be on our side so I could be a part of it.

It's magical; divinity sure pulled a rabbit out of a hat with this one. And boy, after Levi came, it was the hardest thing in the world to get back on that plane. I have always had a serious case of baby fever (NOT parent fever, sadly), and this only made it soooo.much.worse. He's my new favorite 5 day old.

There was talk about me extending my plane ticket, but alas, the saint and I had made a huge decision right before I left for the trip, and I needed to get back to execute the plans. We have decided to move to the country. It's a rather long story, but Joel will be working from home next month and we do not have enough room in our little city-cave to accommodate the both of us here. Not only that, but in order to maintain my stay-at-homeness, we needed a cheaper place. These are the practical reasons.

The soulful reasons, and the vastly more important to me are these: We are slow-pokey souls. We want a simpler life, a quieter life, a more intentional life. In order to do this, we need to unbury ourselves from the debt of our early 20s. We need to be in the forest. We need space to spread our wings and test our courage in flight. We need to be closer to his parents.

The move happens this next weekend - so this week is me packing and taking trips out there. We've already spent more time in the car this week than we probably have all year. So there you have it, we will be upgrading Chateau Bookling into Bookling Manor.

Right around my birthday, I posted a 12-month challenge blog. The first month's challenge was to stick to my budget. Well, all I'm going to say about that is that I tried really, really, really hard. And though I wasn't entirely successful, it was remarkable how just even paying acute attention to it made me spend less. August came and went and I never got to report or tell you what September's challenge was. Well, I decided that September's challenge was moving to the country.

Dears, I hope that you put goals in place as a guideline for yourselves and not a binding contract. I am learning to give myself a WHOLE lot of room in this way...even to boast to the world that "I AM RUNNING FOR 5 HOURS A DAY" and then not doing it if it turns out that it wasn't a goal I could keep, or didn't want to keep...or whatever. Needless to say, I am not the kind of person that will ever become a body-builder or have drive to accomplish something with unwavering focus, but I tell you, I AM the kind of person that can extend myself the amount of graciousness that I can extend to those I love - and that is a rare gift.

You may have noticed a theme around these parts lately. I've been somewhat obsessed with the idea of becoming a "real woman." In the last year, I sewed my own my own dress, learned to make jam and pies, and shot guns. Though I've joked about these things being the crux of my coming of age, I realize that I've treated something rather intentional and meaningful in a cavalier manner.

Lemme s'plain.

One of the ways I've learned to be kinder to myself in the last few years is in self-definition.

In a home where there is X amount of love and Y amount of kids fighting for X amount, a child will do anything to stand out, to form her own identity. A child becomes the "smart" or the "athletic" one; she'll be named the "outgoing" one or the "stubborn" one. These labels are not put there maliciously, but they do indeed stick. We are taught from an early age to focus on one goal, to decide who we will be well before our soul's reveal their essence, be this one person so that we are easy to figure out, easy to handle, easy to love.

I looked at my soul carefully, turning over the rocks, inspecting the bugs. Turns out I had a concrete box poured around the garden of my identity. This box was suffocating my roots and killing off the new growth. For example, I used to hate pink just to hate pink, I used to be so serious because immature behavior was irritating. I never wanted to fit into any status-quo of womanhood so I decided that I don't wear short skirts, I don't draw hearts, and I'd never be caught dead doing something as boring as staring at a flower or using my imagination. Granted, I also didn't do some of these things because they simply did not interest me at the time, but I realize that if I had continued on a path that did not allow for my interests to change, my soul would be stuck. Hell, I was so cut off from my natural desires that I wouldn't even know which new things I would want to try. My opinion about them would have been formed well before I had experienced it.

And that's my point. Why do we form opinions about things we know very little about? Perhaps it's fear that breeds the desire to squelch that which we do not understand with petty definitions and wounded resentment for an identity we couldn't have because someone else already claimed that label.


I hated pink, so as an experiment, I wore pink fingernail polish for months. It made me laugh all month because of the frivolous joy of being a little girl. Turns out that I actually don't like pink after all, but at least I know that it's because of my natural taste, not bull-shit labeling.

I thought I found sewing and baking boring. So, I decided to delve into it...break some needles, get my prissy hands dirty with dough! Turns out that I love to create, but was SO PARALYZED that I would look stupid in the attempt or that the product would dash my hopes and leave me with a big pill of disappointment to swallow, that I had convinced myself that I was in no way an artist. But I am an artist. I never thought that a pie would show me that more clearly than my writing or my photographs.

I was scared to shoot a gun at first...which is totally typically girly I guess. But because I was in touch with how I felt on the subject ("Hello, anxiety and nerves. Hmmm, you must be scared to shoot off your big toe. This makes perfect sense! Let's be scared"), I was able to stop using every little thing to define myself. Here's the way it sounded in my head,

"Am I the kind of girl that enjoys shooting guns because I want to appear bad-ass to the men in my life? If that is the case, why should it be about how they perceive me rather than what I actually enjoy doing? And what the hell do I actually enjoy doing, after all? Will the other females think I am doing this to just get attention? Am I doing this to get attention? Is that bad? Why is that bad?"

OR

OR DING DING DING

"I'd like to explore shooting more. I think I started liking because it's a natural curiosity born from being a cop's daughter. Also, I am a voracious learner and enjoy the intimacy of sharing else's hobbies. I'll spend time with this person who can educate me on how to shoot AND enjoy myself in the process. I will be concerned only with what I think of myself and not drown that voice out with the PERCEIVED opinions that others have about me. Also, I like guns because I DO feel empowered, bad-ass, and sexy."

Yes. I vote for the third option.

But let me tell you, all of this filtering takes an awful lot of work. Many find it an exhausting trait in me; many find it an inspiration. This is not important, and truthfully, I wish I didn't know either way, for everyone is easily-influenced to some degree...and I don't want to be doing it for anyone else but me.

And there you have it. CRM version 9.15.09. This is by no means an exhaustive definition of Candace. Perhaps tomorrow she'll will learn to love brussel sprouts and all of a sudden despise Prada (GOD FORBID!).

Well, it's approaching my newly imposed (read before midnight) bed-time here, and I am fighting off my late-night urges towards the mint and chip divinity
that lurks in my freezer. lately, i've been taking to dipping my oreo's in it as well.
but i CAN'T tonight,
for you see my dears...i've already had desert!
the tall lover i call the saint took me on an after-dinner walk.
we somehow ended up at Top Pot donuts.
we split a plain old-fashioned and a cup of drip.
the perfect date night...for only $2.35.

We had to take this aforementioned after-dinner walk
because of the well-timed and well-executed dinner i made for my hard working mister.
i baked a whole fryer chicken (which was covered in olive oil and thyme)
for 1.5 hours.
i then made mashed potatoes
and mom's famous cooked carrots from some beauties we bought at the market yesterday.
i then tossed up a salad with the lettuce and tomato also purchased at the market,
and everything came out on the table as hot as could be
within 10 minutes of joelio walking through the door no less.
though i am no gourmet cook, i can multi-task like a mo fo!

if i would have been a really good wife,
i would have had kelly's famous chocolate cookies baking as well.
but i am not a really good wife.
only a multi-tasking, cleaning, organizing, bill-paying, sexy one.
c'est la vie.

speaking of the market,
i am sitting in front of the most GORGEOUS bouquet of peonies
that i hand-picked from a vendor yesterday.
if only i had my camera,
you could see them too!
they are bursting open, 6 whites and 3 deep pink.

speaking of my camera,
you will be happy to know that the saint purchased me a new one.
i shouldn't complain, because at least we had the money
but i had to use savings and that savings was going towards this:

i do not regret it.
because i was seriously missing an appendage without my wee point and shoot,
but STILLLLLLL.
sigh.
it should arrive in 5 more business days.


speaking of sigh,
my sweet kitty has decided that our bed (even with me in it)
is the new place for her to use the restroom.
she did this once when we were out of town, and now we cannot really get the smell out of the mattress.
consequently, she keeps going back to that same spot
despite all our creative best efforts to redirect her.
i have washed both pair of my sheets 3 times each in the last month.
and now, to make sure it stops...
we need a new mattress.
SIGH.
the matress we have now is a $1ooo mattress
(donated to us when we were first married).
DOUBLE SIGH.
so
for now,
kitty is banned from the bedroom.

this makes me sad because i love to cuddle with her in the mornings when she
walks on me and lays right in the crick of my neck and purrs her little heart out.
but her walking on me
the other night
did not produce such cute results.

today is not lost, however.
i had a lovely lunch with devon - who made me a wonderful meal and escorted my soul
around her lovely garden.

today also marks the launch of my new little project,
in case you didn't have enough of my writing as represented in three blogs.
my fourth one can be found by clicking on the picture to the right, up top, to the right of my portrait
over there------------->>>
don't tell anyone it's me.
it's a secret!
the secret snob...