The year is new!

We started the new year on Cannon Beach, and  fish sandwiches for lunch (photo by Patrick, who shot this during a second beach walk with King while I sat in a coffee shop and wrote lists in a brand new notebook. Good lard). 

*****

I had the strongest sense of a reset with this new year. As deeply as the obligatory renewal you might have felt as a kid, because that's what you understood the New Year to be. But add something genuine and intentional.

We're in a new house, in a new city. There's that.

Our baby is turning into a kid. There's that.

So on the one hand I have an opportunity to settle into something―a routine, a small space that I can configure into a clean slate. And on the other, continual change has rooted itself―King is learning things all the time, getting bigger, doing new feats.

Clean the slate. Make room for growth.

I piled up resolutions for the coming year. Intentions? Change-makings? Whatever they might be called, they're an attempt to uncover the single line that runs through all the things I do. There is one of those, right? Aren't we all motivated by a simple principle, or set of principles? And I don't mean any of those rules that we can pick and choose from to live "good" lives. I mean the actual thing that actually motivates most of our actions. The thing that is probably double-edged. (Money, for example. Does being motivated by money represent greed, or a sense of security? Charity: does it contribute to community, or a sense of ego? Health: a sense of wellness, or a fear of death?)

(Both! They are all both!)

What I'm coming back to for myself is: I want to know that what I'm doing ... is doing something.

My Letters East cards: are helping people stay in touch with each other.

My design work: is contributing to a community that I want to help nurture.

My yoga practice: is helping me see deeper into myself, and helping create an environment at home that might inspire King.

God, is this dead simple? Am I just saying that I want to make sure I live life like a human? Maybe this is a good time in the world to be intentionally seeking a human life, though.

Here are some other things this "doing something" year means for me:

A year of no sugar. Holy hell. And Patrick's on board, too. We'll keep honey and bittersweet chocolate in the house. Otherwise, desserts, donuts, pancakes with syrup: no. Except maybe birthdays. And next Christmas. A year of no sugar, because sugar is doing ... nothing (except all those magical happy-making things, but I think they might be a trap).

Stepping away from Facebook and Instagram. Not probably for the whole year, but at least to start. And there's nothing wrong with those things. I just want to see what I make of my time when I have more of it. So far: reading books, playing solitaire, getting into board games with Patrick. More time with King in my lap. Also, there are plenty of people I will miss not seeing every single day (on my phone). So I'll reach out to them other ways. Right? That's the idea.

Me and King, out. She's getting bigger and more intent on spending time with friends (she's started using their names! She recounts things she did on play dates!). So, me and she leaving the house every morning for a weekly routine: story time at the library, bus trips to the science museum, play dates, play cafes (where she runs around with kids while a shop full of parents drink coffee and do their own things; on our first visit last week, I worked on spreadsheets. Heaven).

I have about a billion more things in my head that I want to get into this space. So that, too. More of this. I like this. I even have more ideas for this (like, who would like a paper letter?).

But another thing for this year: slow, steady. There's time.

i carry your heart(space)

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)

e.e. cummings (full poem) 

I found out Saturday that there is a small part of myself that I carry with myself. It's wrapped in bamboo floors; gentle, intentional voices; a mat.

Inside it is every moment of yoga I've practiced since my first yoga practice, two months after King was born (look at that photo above, tiny little King with her friend, Miss Lindsey). Also inside it is every sliver of my life that I'd carried to the yoga studio, onto the mat, into the poses.

I found it out Saturday because, somehow (after nine months in our new city), I attended my first Portland yoga class.

When I unrolled my mat, I was unrolling my mat in Winston-Salem. When I started settling into position before this class, I was settling in before class at Paz Studios. I was a little overwhelmed by all of it. I warmed myself up with a child's pose and, with my head down, let my face contort in something like anguish.

It went on like this throughout class. The instructor led us through a three-part breath, and I saw a flash of Lindsey doing the precise same thing during one of my early classes. As I got into a warrior pose Saturday, I heard Elliot's voice reminding me to check my heel alignment.

The experience unpacked an entire part of myself that I hadn't met since we left North Carolina. I rewound all the way to that first private session with Lindsey. I'd brought King, wrapped her in a scarf, and set her on a blanket to watch mama. I wasn't very strong yet, but Lindsey made it so clear that what I could do was what I could do and I should keep doing it. She played with King, was delighted by her. My whole life was in that room in that moment, and that's how it felt every yoga practice thereafter.

Is this how yoga feels for you? Do you slowly unwind the entirety of your life, see it, record it, reserve space for it? (Maybe this is why hip-openers make me want to cry, like a knot that I haven't figured out how to undo.)

How do I finish this without collapsing into sentimentality? Talk about how excited it makes me? Yes.

The whole experience made it easy to commit to more yoga. Morning and evening, hot, restorative. I want to read books, too. I have a copy of the Tao Te Ching (am I going too far?).

And I've finally started sketching again, because I want to figure out a way to see what this all looks like.

In praise of this mullet

I'm sitting here not sure if this will be a long or short ode. I just know I need to write it.

My friend Lara—I first met her when we both lived in Knoxville, Tenn., almost six years ago, and now we live just two miles apart in Portland, and our kids are two months apart in age, and they play like friends.

Anyway, she cuts hair. And she cut my hair when I was tired of watching it grow out, itching for something drastic, wanting to give approximately zero-point-two f*cks about this contraption on my head (was I growing it out because I wanted to have long hair, or because I thought I should want it, or because it was some next logical step to some thing that was happening in my life? These were the dumb questions bouncing around my head about some stupid hair).

And so she was like, "what about a mullet?"

And I was, like, "yes."

(Some folks say it's not a mullet. But if I shake my head, the back of my hair swings, the top of my hair stays right in place. I'd say that's the measure.)

And so this mullet. Almost as soon as it was cut into my hair—and I saw all my other dead (more dead than dead) hair on the floor—it hit me all at once what it is to wear a mullet. It's to say "Society, I see these beauty standards you have. And all I've gotta say is 'fuck 'em, and look how goddamn fucking beautiful I am.' "

And basically who needs asterisks to replace the Us in your FUs when you know what the fuck you want to say?

When you're a mom who just wants to take over the world, is all

I'm almost positive I've told you this before: that within about five minutes of King being born, I realized I wanted to do  E V E R Y T H I N G.

It was an acute awareness of the potential energy stored up in all my mechanisms. I knew I wanted to make things, help people make things, create spaces for people to make things.

It hasn't let up. If anything, it's somehow become more intense. With every new idea I have, or project I say yes to, I become more convinced that life is great, things are moving in the right direction, and also that I'm crazy.

There is no larger mission set by any of the projects I'm doing. They're loosely tied together by the fact that they call on creativity and problem-solving, and that I am moved by them. Website redesign; book design; illustration; collaborations with film lovers, the highly literate, the environmentally minded; I'm learning to write code (front-end and back-end, please); and I'm finding myself impassioned to create a space (virtual? real) for other mamas who want to do this everything-thing. ... This is only about half the list.

I think in a different time, or under different circumstances, I might consider myself a Renaissance man. Polymath.

And why not now? Why not let myself be that thing?

Maybe it's the sense of, or the lack of sense of, accomplishment. Save a few items here and there, nothing is ever done, and one thought is so often interrupted by another. This might be the particular nature of mamahood. I don't have to go into detail about that whole set of facts (endless dirty diapers, toys that need to be picked up, explaining how to put on a shoe for the twenty-third time, blah blah blah).

Don't you think of Renaissance men as being folks of accomplishment? People notable for how much they did? Or is that me misunderstanding the process? Is that me looking back on history, once a life is done and you can catalog eighty years of learning, practice, experimentation?

Maybe those people we call Renaissance men would never, ever have felt done. Would have been driven mad by all the things in their head that there doesn't seem to be room for; that the entire earth could not possibly provide enough room for.

And now it's time to wonder why it would even matter for me to label the things I do or suss out the direction it's all headed. So what if my moments are crammed with ten things; so what if I'm not sure what it's all leading to. 

What's really incredible is that this is all making me very happy. I'm frustrated and overwhelmed and sometimes staying up until midnight but I am  V E R Y  H A P P Y.

Settling in

It's been nearly two months since I wrote that I wanted my eyeballs back ... time to sit with moments and not be distracted by other moments.

In that time, we've moved into our tiny house. We bought the tiny fridge (and we never have had a problem fitting everything we need into it, not even after our biggest grocery shoppings). I have reconsidered the size of my wardrobe and am currently experimenting with a single, small drawer's worth of clothes (it's working so far!).

We've walked and ridden our bikes all over town. I visited with an East Coast friend last week! I've rearrange my work space no fewer than three times. I've picked up new design projects and even started a conversation with a local craft consignment shop about hosting my cards (I AM EXCITED).

We've gotten serious about budgeting. We staycationed for a week (which, I realized the night before that week began ... meant we were still vacationing in Portland, Ore. Which is, like, our no. 1 favorite vacation spot).

I've walked and walked this neighborhood of ours. Old trucks. Dinosaurs. Look at those bears.

We've hiked and hiked. (Rainbow filter provided by nature.)

I'm still working on getting my eyeballs back. Right about now in life—nearly two months after we moved into our house—I'm feeling like I can see the horizon, instead of seeing weeds. I cleared the weeds. That was a lot of work. Now I'm standing looking over that horizon thinking about how I might travel it.

Hey, I even wrote a letter. When I signed it, I threw my arms in the air. A completely involuntary celebration. The horizon is wide, and it's all right there!

I want my eyeballs back

Things are looking VERY GOOD for us to be moving into a new home in Portland in little less than a week. This is the kind of news I wanted to sit on until it felt precisely certain. It's taken too much energy to get here; I didn't want to spend even more energy to explain it, if things had fallen apart.

This new home is tucked in the corner of a sweet neighborhood five miles from the center of the city; and it's small. It's so small that we are thinking about getting a very, very small fridge (10 cubic feet). There's a breakfast nook—it's 4 feet wide by 5 feet deep. There are exactly two, tiny bedrooms. And one bathroom that's just big enough for a tub and toilet and pedestal sink.

It's the kind of space that has me truly rethinking my wardrobe and kitchen tools and books and stuff and time. The allocation and importance of each.

In the past many weeks, we've looked for and found this house; I've had several incredible design projects on my plate; and our baby has turned into a real-life toddler (as of this week, she can climb/fall out of her crib ... just in time to move into her new house and maybe a growed-up bed).

And, I don't know, something about this storm of events keeps me returning to this notion that—allocation of time and stuff—I want to put down my phone. That I want to step away from screens at every chance I can take.

I want my eyeballs back.

I want to pull them back from this space where they've been floating, six inches in front of my face, in a stew of words and backlight and twitching, two-dimensional images. I want to plant them firmly back in my skull and let them rest. And then open them and look out through them to see the light fall onto things. Onto and into a little (baby)toddler face. Onto a street. Onto and through trees. 

I want to feel that power again to choose where I lay my gaze, to hold a gaze, to try very hard not to avert my gaze when challenged. Feel the roundness of those eyeballs as they shift to take in information.

[end poetry]

I've started leaving my phone at home when I take Saazie and King on walks. I don't bring technology into the bedroom. I try to read a book or listen to the radio during breakfast—no digital anything until an hour after I wake up. And to be more clear, I read a book OR listen to the radio. If I'm reading, I want to read. If I'm listening, I want to listen. And if I'm looking, I want to look. There is so much to see. King eating breakfast or climbing over the couch or playing in the tub. People walking down the street, firefighters washing their truck, bats collecting in the air just above the street.

I have a little plan to take this a step further after we settle into our new home. Unpacking done, office set up, clothes folded and put away ... and that's when I'll turn off everything for a week. Just one week. I don't know exactly why, or what will come of it. But doesn't it sound delicious? Doesn't it sound like impromptu dance parties in the kitchen, and digging in the yard, and conversations with the neighbors?

Reconnecting with routine

This is what it looks like when I find my center again. Rows of freezer sandwiches. Homemade whipped cream, plain yogurt, berries reduced in sugar. No fancy, scratch-made version of graham crackers. Just those familiar sheets from Honey Maid, sealed in the same brown plastic I remember from childhood.

+++

We started looking to buy a house in Portland, and man did that do a number on my brain.

One week ago, I was happy in my tiny apartment, sitting at my perfectly appointed work desk, doing and thinking all number of things.

Six days ago, after having casually looked into homes here and there, we found one we thought might be great. It was a little more money than we were hoping to spend, but it would have been worth it.

Five days ago we put in an offer.

Four days ago our offer was passed up for something better.

Somewhere along the way my brain got rearranged. This house, I thought it might have been The One, moving us out of our cramped little space and into ... King's childhood, into a home big enough to host friends and family who visited, onto a tree-lined street, nestled in hills.

I think my brain got trapped in that space. But now a void of space (what is that even?), because the house wasn't going to be ours. So my brain was a vacuum, and I became desperate to fill it with a home any home that we could possibly get but my god this housing market is tight and expensive and there are so many options but only so many of them that we can afford but what if we just spend a little more money or maybe we don't need to live so close to the city what if we live in some next-town-over because, by god, we need a home.

+++

Somehow this weekend we also did really wonderful things. We picked five pounds of blueberries on Sauvie Island (we've already eaten most of those by the fistful). We went on a four-hour hike. We had donuts and coffee. Twice! We ate dinners with friends. We watched that gawh-ram season finale of that gawh-ram show.

It was truly and deeply good.

So when I started to feel desperate again come Sunday evening and into Monday, I had to ask, "Why am I feeling like this? Why when there were so many good things?"

Luckily all that goodness did its job and gave me perspective. Made me shake my head and doubt how seriously I should take myself feeling so desperate.

"Why, when this apartment was wonderful a week ago am I trying so hard to escape it?"

So I scrubbed off that crud. Did the grocery shopping. Stocked our home with vegetables and fruit (persimmons!) and a half-gallon of heavy whipping cream. Made freezer sandwich cookies. Things were starting to look like something again.

And then I cleared off my desk. This is my perfect, tidy, modest space that feels complete.

I scrapped my to-do list, too, and put just one lonely item onto it. Do you see that little piece of yellow tape on the window up there? Email Justin. Look at that. Look how simple it is to get back.

Just do this one little thing and you'll get back.

Trust trust trust

One thing this kid is definitely doing, is asking me to trust her. Early and often.

It's been a long time since I've been around little tinies, so I can't quite remember how independent they are, and how soon. But I do know this King baby sure does seem to conquer and own her space. And climb it and try to escape it and run acrost it.

I was working at my desk a couple of weeks ago when I turned around to this:

"This box was here. So I was supposed to climb onto it, right?" 

Well, yeah, actually. Life is full of boxes, and you either climb them or you walk on by because you don't think you can climb them.

No surprise that the next day she'd not only climbed onto the box, but had first dragged it to that door so she could fiddle with the handle.

And then the other day, I turn around to this:

"Oh, just hanging out on my couch, ma. I'm gonna shuffle down in just about one minute so you can continue to take my picture. Like I like."

I was washing dishes recently, with a view of that there couch. I popped my head up from scrubbing a plate to see King not only on it, but elbows perched on the back so she could get a good view through the window to the street below. Then she walked the length of the couch, back and forth. I couldn't see her feet, but my mama brain was pretty sure they were teetering along the edge. Trust, mama, trust! Anyway, I'm good at falling.

I'm more of a gray-leggings-and-onesie mama. Gray sneakers, even, with little blue shoestrings. But this doll has started reaching for headbands and hats and pink and dresses.

In fact, she absolutely cannot get enough of hats, and herself in them. She perches them on her head and then runs over to her little toy mirror and laaaauuuughs.

And it doesn't have to be a hat, necessarily. Just as long as it can sit on her head.

So it's, like, "Trust me ma. I like these things, see? And can we start talking about my plans to climb INTO Mount St. Helens in a sequined gown? Because I've been thinking about it ..."

Man, this girl. I like her. I like my little heart attacks every day, and slowly and silently running up behind her because she—oh, I don't know—is perched on her belly, on the edge of a table, three feet off the ground because she finally figured out how to do it.

She's a tough little piece of bread. I'll regret the day I ever put in writing that I'm grateful she hasn't gotten herself into too much trouble. But until that awful day that will never actually come, I'm learning how to stay a little further away, for just sweet extra moments, watching her explore.

Bold action and being creative

This is a Sunday Letter at its heart, but I keep waiting for a Sunday that isn't busy or crazy or on the road, and if I keep waiting for that Sunday this letter may never get sent into the wide world. So hello, Sunday Letter on a Tuesday.

What I want to say—have been itching to write about since the idea started scratching around my brain—is what it means to me to be seeking confidence in my creativity. And that it has something to do with cutting off my hair, too.

There's a collection of thoughts that always seem to bubble when I've had a new idea—a new idea like my pattern-design greeting cards. The collection of thoughts (which I'm having a hard time writing out because they're more like inarticulable feelings) crystallize into this question: "Will people like it?"

Wherein "people" means "the entire collection of humans that could possibly know about this idea." As if that group is actually able to act as a single force. And as if my idea needs to pass some kind of test posted by the "people."

Consequently, new ideas sometimes die early deaths because—while they're still bouncing around my skull—I'm convinced they won't pass the test. They won't find a home with the people.

But something occurred to me a couple of weeks ago. Focusing on the people means I'm overlooking a much more important group: my people. The ones who would see my new strange creative ideas and feel resonance, and reach out and say, "me, too!"

And in whatever moment it was I realized that, I immediately felt a confidence to act on it; a confidence that acting was the act. 

Old way: Have an idea; worry about the people; give up idea; have another idea; people; stop; idea; people; stop.

New way: Have an idea; make it; share; find my people, slash, my people find me; people cheer; new idea; make idea; share; people; cheer; idea; make; share; people; cheer; idea; make; share; people. 

Creativity / individuality / self / hair

Hair? Right, this had something to do with hair. 

I've been growing my hair out, because it's an idea I had, that I wanted to see what it would look like. I've never been good at taking care of long hair, but I find it so pretty. There are ladies out there who make it look, just, so damn pretty.

So I was growing and growing and many moments along the way I wanted to cut it. "But what if I regret it?" ... "But what if it doesn't look good?" ... "But what if people don't like it?" (By the way, that is not code for "What if my husband doesn't like it?" He thinks I'm purty pretty no matter what and I know it. It's for real "what if people don't ...".)

What if people don't like it? What if people? People people people.

But then I was looking through old photos last week, and seeing myself with little bangs and a bob and remembering how much that felt like me. Me me me.

So I got out the scissors and chopped. Choppity chop oops chop more chop chop.

I was still carrying around that worry about people. It's part of why I knew I definitely had to cut. Because I had to live with that worry, and just do this thing I knew I wanted to do anyway.

I felt a rock in my stomach once it was done and un-undoable. A little anger at myself for being rash. But it only took a day to realize the cut felt like me. It really did. It felt right and pretty.

And now, part of my daily mission for myself is to practice this move to confident individuality. Something as simple as coloring in my tiny foxes with tints I like but I'm not sure work together. 

Try it! Try try and just see!

... And knitting and knitting and knitting

One thing I wrote about to Liz was this strange phenomenon: that despite my long, growing list of projects, I decided out of nowhere to start knitting. And knitting more. And I haven't stopped knitting.

All these knitting projects have been one-skein or less, which feeds my compulsive nature to finish that skein.

My first project was washcloths, knit from good ol' Sugar'n Cream cotton yarn. Each cloth used just a fraction of a red and white ball, so I made four. And I felt guilty and confused for about the first three of those washcloths. Why was I spending time on my butt making things we already had? There were so many projects on my list! So many ideas that were idling while my hands were too busy to write them down.

It wasn't until the last washcloth that it hit me: this little break from work-work was akin to, I don't know, what athletes do when they train? Take a day off, right? To let their muscles relax and recover before they put them back to work.

My brain was freed from its constant hum of problem-solving and list-making. 

And yet, somehow, also, it was free to solve problems, and start sketching out new ideas to put on lists.

With every stitch ... think/ing/think/ing/think/ing. But loosely, without urgency.

Once I finished my washcloths I was fairly decided to keep yarn on a needle. To give my brain that space.

Everything is happening in this way lately: I'm scrambling to figure out what place Thing A and Thing B have, and is there room for Thing C? There's some level of frustration or anxiety or worry about it. But then ultimately there's a click, and A and B and C seem to become, just, normal.

Happy moments from the week

This note! From Emily ... from THREE MONTHS AGO! She'd sent it to me when we were still in Winston-Salem, but just about to hit the road for Portland. We must have started forwarding our mail early, so it took three months for this little guy to make its way to our mailbox. And what a sweet surprise it was.

And if you're lucky enough to get a hand-written note from this woman ... man, then you're lucky.

Good goddamn, the light was so good for this dinner with King. All those facial expressions—if you could hear her, you could hear how she's articulating and emoting all this wonderful gibberish. Asking questions, telling stories, being perplexed.

Love that King.

Happy mama day, and messes

This is quickly becoming my favorite corner in the apartment: this little space on my work desk populated by photos of my babe, tools, a good-luck chicken from my best friend, and now an open terrarium of air plants that Patrick got me for Mother's Day, from Bestow PDX. (That place, by the way, is a one-woman wonder run by Nyki, who's filled a corner of St. Johns Coffee Roasters with succulents and strange vines and beautiful cut flowers.)

Probably we'll hike today, and eat some kind of good food. A day like lots of other days, because the days these days are good.

And about eating good food: This kid does ... sometimes. She always finishes her pesto pasta; a lot of times she tears through a quesadilla. But breakfast? Maybe a half-banana and a few pieces of cereal. More likely, though, I find all her cereal bits scatter on the floor, and half-smashed pieces of banana flung across the room.

And then I realized something: lunch and dinner, she and I always eat together. Me eating in front of her, helping feed her the remainder of her meal when she's gotten kind of bored but not quite full.

For breakfast, though, I'm usually sat on the couch trying to squeeze out the last bit of my pseudo-solitary routine before the day is turned over to my to-do list; my being-in-charge-of-deadlines-and-creatures list. Meanwhile King is in her booster seat on the floor, left to quietly figure out breakfast by herself.

Earlier this week I happened to have a little leftover smoothie that I wanted to her to eat if she'd take it. And of course I'd have to be sat on the floor with her to spoon feed her or, as it turns out, help her drink it from the bowl.

And then this thing happened where I saw her eat more breakfast than usual. I just had to let her experiment with her food. Dip her Cheerios in the smoothie. Dip her fingers in. Drink from the bowl, eat from a spoon.

It turns out that, that whole social aspect of sharing a meal is—as far as I can tell my little social experiment at home—something that starts so, so early. Mealtime isn't just about food. It's about communion, asking questions (what happens if I put a Cheerio and smoothie together, Mama? Can I find out?), getting answers (yes! and Mama, it tastes good!). Which means it might do me well to listen, and also make room for her to air her ideas. Which right now are very messy ideas. 

But look at that happy face! Look at that filling-up belly! 

Personal project: Cards!

This! This is my personal project I've been so excited about!

All that pattern sketching—that started when I needed a distraction from packing boxes back in North Carolina, and found its way into a letter to Emily—I decided to take it seriously.

The past month has been about meditating on a theme, penciling, inking over, re-inking, digitizing, test-printing, paper-sampling.

I owe inspiration and gratitude to Emily, whose own line of cards have been so fun to use. And to Cary at Camino Bakery. She and I collaborated on Valentine's Day cards (and all-around good love-cards) for the shop, and she cheered me on to do my own.

These ladies and my own pattern sketching swirled around my brain until this line of cards seemed to manifest on its own.

It's been incredibly fun designing them, and collecting markers and pencils and crayons to test the color-it-yourself designs.

Life is funny. Who knew about greeting cards? Who knew that I would find a project driven entirely by own internal engine? I can't quite express how gratifying and scary and strange it is to have decided that something I made should be out in the world just because I said so. 

This little announcement is probably out of order. I still need to print the full run of designs for this first collection—called "Tulips"—and set up my little merchandise shop online. But I couldn't help myself. I'm nervous and thrilled and had to share.

I'll get everything in order soon soon soon. And until then, I'm dreaming up new collections.

Sunday Letter: April 12

This week was about being busy at home, doing lots of work at my desk, going on long walks with my energetic dogs, and taking advantage of the little moments between to notice things.

Like this kid's feet up there. When do those little pieces-of-candy toes stop being so adorable? They are slowly killing me. Also, she'd brought me that dress, so I put it on her.

Lots of city workers doing their thing outside our second-story apartment this week. I'm sure some number of them saw me dancing with my little dancer.

This guy was meticulous. He leveled that poured concrete for I don't know how long. We're on the same team, he and I.

She still mostly says "whassat," to mean "What is that thing," and also, "see that thing over there? I want it." I'm trying to get her to say "water." No go, but so far we've managed to understand each other perfectly.

Also, she said Mama to mean me, her mama. For the first time ... SHE SAID MAMA!!! I was trying to be all cool about it, but I'm ecstatic. I love it every time I hear it! Which has been about three times total.

Where are the lines drawn between habit, routine, and compulsion? Because that toasted bread up there? I eat it every single afternoon for a snack with my coffee no matter what. I'm serious. It doesn't matter if I'm not hungry, or if I just finished lunch thirty minutes earlier.

A side note: Patrick got and made us a sourdough starter (from Carl Griffith's Oregon Trail Sourdough Starter), so we're working to take our homemade bread to the next level. This is one of my life dreams. Now I just need to get to know this beast well enough to break away from the starter-provided bread recipe (which includes oil, sugar, and baking soda), and start making a lean dough.

I've started a new lunch ... habit? routine? compulsion? I pop my kernels up in a cast iron skillet (with an oil screen to contain the mess), toss in with melted butter, salt, and a little bit of pesto. 

This goes on behind my work desk when I'm not looking. She is an explorer-scientist and I can't wait to hear about all her discoveries.

Sunday Letter: April 5

Look at that kid. This is how she's been falling asleep for naps lately. She's too wound up from LOVING LIFE to fall asleep when she's free to roam (even in her crib). When we put her in her bouncer, though? She rocks herself to sleep, and it's the sweetest. Especially when she's wrapped up in the big fluffy dress my dad brought her from Colombia.

This week I've tried to pick up our good camera nearly every day. Somehow these pictures end up being more thoughtful—I suppose because I have to reach in a camera bag and uncap the lens and stick my face behind the viewfinder. YAY! (Another Em Dash card.)

And these good-camera photos also seem to capture things that my naked eye doesn't. Like that big girl up there. I didn't notice how grown-up she's become until I saw it in the still photo. That shoulder. That foot!

And that face. Getting so certain. Also, I think she might have my squinky eye, and I love it.

Making time for bread, too. My first loaf was a dense mess. I inadvertently used a whole wheat flour and ended up with slices that King spit out immediately. This is the second loaf. King ate it. Gobbled it up. And the third loaf I baked yesterday is even better—higher rise, those slashes baked up more distinctively, slightly airier crumb. Extra time for photos and bread is time well spent.

She'll barely put up with being carried if there's ground to cover. She walks with a determined sashay. She falls a lot more now. Busted big fat lip the other day. But, you know, she seems willing to pay the price.

Best friend time! Mela and her family came down from Seattle, and she brought King an Easter bag. So thoughtful. King and Ollie (HE'S SO HANDSOME!) played around each other a whole lot this weekend. I think King needs a little more growing up before she understands she can play with Ollie. That'll be such a good day, to see that. In the meantime he was quite the considerate soul.

Sashay sashay sashay ...

Sunday Letter: March 29

Over here I'm getting back to work and to a fully Lindsay life.

That up there is my first iced coffee of the year, and a chocolate chip cookie (with sea salt on it, of course), and a computer and a notebook just out of sight and some sketching and it's all on a table in Case Study Coffee's downtown shop.

There's no baby here. King's with Patrick. I think they're hiking. The beauty of this moment is that I don't have to know what they're doing. I just have to know what I'm doing. And what I'm doing is writing in a coffee shop—and randomly running into a guy I went to elementary school with in North Carolina. No shit. I ran into Mario Gallucci and his wife; he's got an art opening this Friday. I think we'll go.

Normal life is also about getting sick. Cue a mug full of sliced orange, lemon, and ginger, steeped in hot water (thank you for the tip, Mela). This was a cold that, I swear, had been lurking in the shadows for months. It was being considerate, waiting for me to get all the hard work of moving finished. And then boom and then I'm on my ass and my baby was still happy but then she got sick too and now she's got the same raspy cough that I did and snot running out of her nose. 

I'm slowly figuring out how to put my work space together. Washi tape on the window so I can organize my to-do list, and so it can be the alive thing it is—one column for to-dos, one for in-progresses, one for doneses.

A special little two-year-old had a birthday just as we were getting to Portland. I finally got his card decorated (card by Em Dash Paper Co), and you can see a little peek of King's contribution inside: her first artwork for her first pen pal!

Cannon Beach! One of our intentions upon moving to Portland has been to take full advantage of all the nearby beauties—parks, hiking trails, beaches. This past weekend was our first big little trip. An hour-and-a-half to the coast to walk a mile up the beach and watch these dogs go crazy for all the other dogs (Saazie up there is holding her breath before she lets loose on Tinto, who couldn't hold his breath if he tried—all panting exhales and excited yelps).

Along our walk through the beach neighborhoods I saw this little rock with a pasted-on heart and thought of one Ms. Paige Lester-Niles in Winston-Salem, who does things like plant love notes around downtown for people to find accidentally.

And this kid. Can you tell by this photo that she's four days into being sick? No? That's because the champest of champs. Little tiny ox.

Sunday Letter: March 22

This past week was about almost very nearly settling into a normal routine. I managed to unpack and organize all but a few boxes; we got internet to the apartment on Tuesday; and I started back in on design projects shortly thereafter.

Saturday was farmers market day! There are only about a billion markets happening in the city throughout the week, but this happens to be the very market we walked around seven years ago. On that day way back then, I'd thought "this is where I need to be!" I even shed a corny silent tear. So it was a nice little thing to be on the market this weekend.

King wasn't too sure about the pickled beets.

You know which vendor had one of the longest lines? The BISCUIT vendor. Y'all. The South. Pine State Biscuits.

We walked a little less than a mile to get to Barista Coffee on 3rd. Worth a little trek. Tiny shop. And it was full of babies!

The apartment is feeling homey. The dogs are making themselves comfortable. There are just about as many places to sit as we need if we don't mind sitting close, and lots of windows.

King is King is King. Her little play area takes up about half the walkable space in the living area. She dances in it and throw things out of it. She thinks the lens cap of my camera is magic. 

I've finally sent off my first real-life letter! I'll write about it here later this week; I wanted to give my brothers plenty of time to get it and read it. No spoilers.

Until we meet again

Much love, Lindsay

Sunday Letter: March 15

Small, small space.

We spent a lot of energy before we even left Winston-Salem trying to pare down our belongings. No more washer and dryer; goodbye second bed, old dressers, tables; a lot of my grandmother's larger pieces of furniture are living in my brother's basement.

And yet when we got here, as soon as we stepped foot inside our space it was clear: we'd brought too much. So goodbye, entire bedroom set; goodbye gray couch. We're nearly done unpacking—in part because one solution to our small space is that we left all our books in boxes, and crammed those boxes (neatly) into the closet in King's room.

But among the things we haven't given away—and won't—are little pieces of art, gifts, cards, statuettes. These are things we collected from our past lives in Roanoke, Knoxville, Winston-Salem of course. Things we bought because they were beautiful, or that people gave us.

I'm grateful we've had this small-space experience to help us get rid of that which was extra. But I'm even more grateful, being so far away, that we have managed to collect so many meaningful totems in our lives. I get to look around and see people in our things, and very distinct memories that are special.

Thank you, things. Thank you, people. We will always make room.

Much love, Lindsay

Sunday Letter, March 8

Sunday letter. Little hello from way over here, to you all way over yonder.

We made it some several thousand miles through beautiful country (this beautiful country; this country is beautiful!), and landed in Portland on Thursday afternoon. Our belongings arrive Monday, and I'm thankful for the lag because our (wonderful) apartment is comically small. We want to live small; it's why we chose 800 square feet. But seeing it—it's the real life of our decisions. We spent a couple of fraught days planning how to dispense with the extraneous large pieces of furniture that would be too much (Habitat for Humanity!), and how to cope with feeling like dunces.

Done. Coped. Looking happily ahead. And up and around and down because damn it, Portland is gorgeous.

You can see St. John's Bridge from our apartment, and nested under it is Cathedral Park. And up there in that photo is a willow tree growing at the base of one of the arches that give the park its name. That willow: being big but looking very, very small—a perfect little illustration of how I feel in this gargantuan space. Little-big Southern girl nestled very comfortably in a landscape that, from far away, makes her look smaller than she is. But you get closer and closer ...

I'm looking forward this week to getting our things; unpacking boxes and all my thoughts about this move (writing those in a letter to my brothers that will take me days to write); getting into a little routine once Patrick starts his job and it's just me and that girl King and those dogs staring at each other; and filling my time with all the things that will fill next week's Sunday Letter.

Much love, Lindsay