while the saint sautees some chard to accompany our stuffed peppers, i thought i would jump on the computer and wish you a happy saturday - and even better, a happy saturday night. hopefully you have found your groove for the day, forgiven your spouse for buying an xbox, sipped a spot of vodka, pet your sweet kitty, and eased into your evening.

before i relay the goodness of the day, i would like to show off the newest addition to le chateau du bookling! this bright spurt of color and growth is so beautiful. i do love new growth...

my day has been quite lovely. the mister and i slept way too late, made a tasty eggy-pesto breakfast, headed out for our chiropractor appt and a quick bit of household shopping (including our first ever catnip purchase). after that, i did some chores and made the saint follow me around with the camera so i could document my productivity for you all.

grandmother's lamp (which the saint put up for me today)

after i finish this, i will resume my online grocery shopping, do my nails, and play house with the saint as he tries to coerce me into video gaming with him. (did you know i feel about videogames as i feel about harry potter? and this is a bad time to admit that i played (and sang) rockband last night at my cousin's house. it was fun. i admit.)

but i am bored with talking about productivity.
i just want to feel good at the end of the day, and arriving at that is every person's battle.

you may have noticed my late-evening posts of late. i am sure you well know that my most honest inspiration comes to me when the house is still and i am finally in a good mood.


my misanthropic antics aside, i wanted to report that despite (or perhaps because of) a rather discouraging go at it yesterday, i have had what i must recognize today as a good day.

"what did you do today?" my inquisitive brother asks over a pint.

blink.
hmmmm.
blink.

OH! "I made a casserole!"

Mind you, I did a lot more than that, but it really was a good casserole! It was soo good that it was all I could think of in answer to that question. If you find yourself with a surplus of Swiss or Rainbow Chard, please note recipe below.

I had a delightful morning. Thought I am still struggling with getting out of bed before 10am, today I was able to at least jump up and shower right away. I thought the maintenance man was coming today to take care of our mice problem, so I wanted to be prepared (a few months back, he caught me in my pjs! How indecorous).

But then this preparation gave me impetus for a quiet, beautiful morning. I had some lovely conversation, some haunting classical piano, some morning candles, a spot of hot tea, and a general feeling of calm usefulness. I was able to complete today's list and even rework the mother-load list into more usable categories. This productivity leaves me to ask, could it really be that the key to being at home is simply a morning shower and/or getting dressed?! Sometimes I feel simplicity's slap so acutely. Girls who work at home? Any advice?

This also sends me to thinking about the way cause and effect ripples throughout our moods. Since mood is something often so organic, I seriously baffle at how one bad mood can make a day so upsetting...and then how that upset effect can precipitate a change the next day - even if only out of determination to have a better day.

I suppose it all comes back to just letting myself alone.
Feel what you feel.
You will not be lost to it...

And the day ends with a successful tutoring session, a pint with my brothers, a card that warms my irascible soul, and a spot of chocolate cake and port.

i wish i could hoot to you from across the forested floor and hear your call, the call from your soul.
love,
the slow and wide-eyed owl known as candace.

Chard Lasagna:

This was SO easy! There are no real measurements, and I FREAK out with recipes that lack structure...but this one turned out great.

Wash 1 bunch swiss chard in cool water and drain. Trim the leaves from the stems, then roughly chop the leaves and pat them dry. (Don't worry about the exact size of the bunch. These recipes will work no matter what size your grocery store or farmers' market sells.)

*Note: I only had cheddar and I also added zucchini and the result was delish. I would show you a picture, but it's totally gone.

i broke a fatal rule today.
i am trying to forgive myself.
my head cowers in shame.
my fingers tisk with censure.


it was last minute, for which i give myself immense credit.
it was even a sans makeup trip, for which i also give myself credit.
but i do not forgive myself for leaving the house without my soul (there is never an excuse for such debauchery).

this afternoon, in a panic of thinking i might not leave the house today, i spontaneously decided (inasmuch as i am capable of spontaneity; this movie-date may/may not have been on a list i wrote last night and edited again today), i took myself to see "rachel getting married" and after i stepped out of the theater, already wrapped in my own pensive, post-cinematic cloud, i was seduced by the smell of salt and rain.

so i drove to the sea.
in the drizzle of gorgeous seattle rain, accompanied only by Rachmaninoff and Lolita,
i drove to my sea.

and of course. bein sur. por supuesto....
i want my camera.

i had even mentioned going out this week on a photographic sojourn, but i should know better than to force my hand than to just let my photos happen to me (which is why i established the practice of always keeping a fully-charged camera in my satchel).

but not today.
alas.
not today.

also today, (despite the editing of aformentioned mother-load of all lists) i forgot an appointment! i suppose it's the price to pay for not sitting and staring at my calendar for hours on end, and despite pangs of irresponsiblity and disorientation from the surprise at my own forgetfulness - i guess the trade off is that i stared at the sea instead of at my calendar.

the scalded

p.s.
my cat is catching mice! for three mornings in a row, i awaken to her innocently batting around house mice in an attempt to make them play again. one on hand, i am happy that the mice is no longer in my house, but it also means there are mice in my house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i suppose being a pet owner is not for the squeamish.

p.s.s.

my cat likes the water. for the last couple of nights, when i take my hot bath, she sits on the side and tries to bat the water with her paw, or at least get as close to the water as possible (including standing on my torso or exposed knee). last night, she was playing with the water so much that she made the side slippery and her backside totally fell in! she scatted to the far corners of the house and wouldn't allow me close to towel her. i assume she will be no longer involved in bathtime.

Sundays are spent at Joel's parents in Maple Valley, a beautiful 45-min drive from downtown Seattle. We lounge, nap, play xbox (not me), watch movies, eat mom's food, read books, play with the puppies, and do laundry. In general, it's my familial form of sabbath. However, once 9pm roles around, someone usually whines about having "SNS: Sunday Night Sickness."

SNS is the ultimate feeling of dread as the conclusion of the weekend falls upon your relaxed soul and tightens up the knots in your stomach. Its symptoms are general nausea associated selling your soul to the devil in order to make money in America. It can also present in feelings of disgust, irritation, malaise, and fatigue. In fact, quite often, SNS has been known to keep a girl in bed on Monday morning.

As I am now currently aimlessly unemployed, I thought I would no longer be chronically tormented by SNS.

But this time, SNS is different. I do feel the posthumous poison of that old job leaking out of my system, but now it seems replaced by a new kind of sickness.


In an attempt to assuage this gnawing question, and since a lot of people are asking, the floodgates of answers open wide and my "to-do" list becomes a mathematical phenomenon of exponential growth. I have morphed SNS into a new chain of diseased DNA.

OMGWAIGTOT is somewhat unfamiliar to me (though I can now remember its presence on summer breaks, christmas breaks, and vacations) but so far, its presence may look something like me taking out my iphone or small booklet while in the car and start making lists, then making lists of those lists, and then lists on how to incorporate those lists. Typically, I do this until joel lovingly reminds, "hon. you're gonna get car sick...so, what you doin' tomorrow!?"

sigh.

SNS presented in various questions: I concerned myself with my weekly wardrobe, nightly meals to cook, balance of social schedule vs work schedule, anxiety of going to a job for which i was underpaid and overqualified, general irritation at the condescension of working in support, and a nagging existential loneliness that I was doing the opposite of what I was made for...etc.

OMGWAIGTOT seems to present simpler questions:

But the real question:
can i really afford these simplicities?
isn't life supposed to be busy and complicated and overwhelming?
and if i cannot be busy and complicated and overwhelming,
will i busy myself trying to be complicated and overwhelming?

For me,
The unknown has always been worse than the predictability of a day.
Since I am no longer experiencing predictable days,
I am more and more planning ahead so as to provide such things for myself.


Let's turn out the lights.
Slip into the scalding clean of hot baths.
Plan our outfits for tomorrow.
Pack our lunches and preset our coffeemakers.
Forget.
and remember that
no one
knows
what
tomorrow
holds.

(even the employed).

And isn't that kind of beautiful in a:
crying at the oscars,
Obama,
throw-caution-to-the-wind Tice,
shoe-lust,
baby's cheeks
kind of way?

here i am, sitting in the dusk, picking through the small dregs of the tortilla chips to dip in my hummus, occasionally turning my head to see Octavia jump up on a sleeping joel...

here i am, recovering an ailing head with water, reminiscing about the late night talks in the dark with some ladies, wondering why i cried so much, remembering why i love them, noting to drink less next time...

here i am, book open on bed ("How to Think like a Cat"), pondering the existence of a small feisty animal and how she will be in relationship with me for a long time, hoping i can read her signals, praying she will stop eating my curtains, relinquishing to an ugly scratch post...

here i am, irritated that i filled up my weekend so much, aching to spend it alone with joel, having just picked him up from the airport today, propositioning him with a night of girl movies (300 and The Notebook**), knowing how much i needed that week apart, warming to his electric touch, knowing i would die without him...

here i am, in quiet peace at dusk on a friday, amazed that a few months ago, i would be walking home in heels, exhausted from boredom, hungry for vodka and cheeseburgers, and expectant of some friday night life.

to this i am still clinging:
"I beg you…to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without ever noticing it, live your way into the answer..."
Rainer Maria Rilke

we just returned from the four hour trip back from Manzanillo. we stayed in an all-inclusive resort for one night and dears, i left my heart on that coast. combine free booze, tons of food, perfect weather, swim up bars, the sounds of waves out my window, and parents footing the bill and you have a very contento candace.

tomorrow, i return to the states.
it will be hard to de-spanish my brain once again, as i have been thinking and dreaming in spanish this week.

my writing feels like my skin.
warm, but weathered.

tomorrow holds:

i am looking forward to a new chapter of my life, but i am still so anxious and scared. i kind of thought being away physically from the fear would keep me emotionally distanced as well. i should have known better; Emerson warned me of that not three weeks ago. he said that despite all the beauty and benefit of travel, one thing prevails. YOU. you can never leave yourself behind...and so you will find that staring at the Sistine chapel, the Mediterranean, or hagia sophia - that your fears are still there.

and so i know i should turn around and address the fear.
it has always been my strong-suit - to run into the fire...




in a moment of weakness,
crm
(mexico pictures to come this week).

how nearsighted we can be in youth; how wise we can be in pain.

From Two Mexico

From Two Mexico

From Two Mexico

this country has come a long way since i visited last (9 yrs ago).
he he.

well, i am here. despite some scary last minute running through airports to catch flights, i had smooth travel (including emergency exit rows.....mmmm). i was greeted by a balmy 81 degrees and some happy parents. we drove immediately to ¨their¨taco stand and then headed the two hours home from the airport.

it is really better to be here than i imagined. yes, it´s my mother, but despite that obvious comfort, i am surrounding by all the little knick knacks and decor i grew up with. since my parents moved to mexico four years ago, i have really mourned the loss of a home and it was never so good as to see a tattered old familiar towel , some silly frame, or my mom´s infamous ¨heart wall.¨

i sit here alone at my stepdad´s big desk, the house silent save for the tick of an old familiar clock and the sound of crickets through the open window. today i had a thought i swear i never had before...and it felt something like gratitude for my upbringing. i realized that a lot of americans come to mexico, but very few come to the mexico i know so well; the exposure of real people and real food and real culture. this place is really nothing like you have ever seen and i grabbed my camera several times in an attempt to bring you with me, but i was out of battery. sigh. all of that to say that i wouldn´t give up traveling this intimately for anything.

after a dinner of carne asada and horchata (with special guacamole they don't usually bring to the table, but did because they had a cute little blonde at the table with them), a spot of tequila & lime, a DVD episode of CSI (mis padres own all seasons in lieu of tv), i am off to bed.

tomorrow´s plans include sleeping and eating. oh, and perhaps i will sit on my mother´s deck as she waters her garden.

Thursday, my last day as an executive assistant and office manager, was perhaps one of the worst days i have ever had in that office. i was laid off on monday, one full week before my termination date, so i had plenty of time to prepare. throughout the week, leading up to my last day, i was scared and shocked, but never once did i feel paralyzed by rejection.

until thursday.
for some reason, i was cross, sore, wounded by the preposterous notion that this office would run successfully without me. to make matters worse, i was required [last minute] to train another in several of my duties which was humiliating and frustrating...knowing they would have to be retrained anyway at a later date...why was i being subjected to this?

adding insult to injury... earlier in the week, i had crafted a 35 point list of duties that would be expected to be completed at any given time. when i first completed that list, i was so empowered, realizing all i do, how important i was. however, on thursday, i went over those duties with a few people and the overwhelmingly cavalier treatment of my work ("oh! no problem...so-and-so can do that...") injured me to the point of tears.

at several points in the day, i had to slip into a shadowed empty office and let my tears roll incautiously down my exhausted face. my mother sent a particularly touching email, detailing how she was going to (unexpectedly, to me) spoil me on my upcoming trip to Mexico. To be so important to her that day hit just the right unimportance i had felt all morning. I wept almost every time I was alone that day.

I wanted to run home and hide. Introverts despise exposure of any kind, and I especially struggle with it in relation to being new at a job or leaving a job.

But come 4pm, and the best part of my day ensued. The small office I work for (which had nothing to do with my layoff and which also will be the most inconvenienced by it) took me out for beers. They presented me with a card and bottle of Glennfiddich 12. I was touched and buzzed just enough to be able to loose my fear of exposure, and just enjoy their company. I tell you, people are never so beautiful as when you never have to see them again. :) (Nah, I really liked these guys).

Joel and I then went off to taste some port at our favorite local wine shop and enjoyed a quiet evening. Despite tears lulling me to sleep (at this point it was the fear of falling into another depression due to loss of structure/routine), I new/know that this change is good. Unfortunately, knowing something is good for you doesn't make it any easier to swallow (think bitter brussel sprouts).
Since then, I have known great affection in those who care for me. Tonight, I am especially moved by one long-lost friend from high school that i recently reconnected with. She sent me such a humbling card with not only Rilke's words (i will cling to), but hers. I am touched that something as minute as this can illicit such compassion from my dears.

so i figured it's probably a good time to pick up the book sitting on my self, checked out from my local library taken on a good faith recommendation from my psychologist AND psychiatrist. it's called transitions. it's been really interesting so far; his main supposition being that Americans are bred and addicted to change; our country was founded on the principal that there is always something bigger and better out there, thus breading a country of those unable, unwilling, and unpracticed in rest and stability. he argues that we are therefore always in transition and a country tortured by discontent.

but what i have found most satisfying to chew on - of all the morsels (sweet and sour) of news and thoughts in my clamoring brain is the truth that i am not hungry, i am not cold, and i am not without love.

support has flooded my inbox and it makes me somewhat regret that i didn't send out an email to all my friends and family before i was laid off with the words, "i am miserable, i need your support." so many words (which is how i most often receive love) would have come flooding my way, but here i was lost in my own self-inflicted autumn of isolation.

it also made me miss my mother.
we don't often talk (maybe once a year).

but when we corresponded about my job and how we were both relieved and shocked, i realized that i would probably die if i didn't get down to mexico (where she lives and where i have never visited her) soon. i am not sure why. i don't care to know why; what i know is that i needed something as familiar as the day i was born and she is the only one who can give it to me. i needed to get out of dodge. i needed to let this sink in before i jumped into something else. i needed to breathe a different culture. so i scrapped together some emergency funds and she helped me find a way to her. i plan to do nothing but rest, write, eat authentic mexican food, and drink tequila.

oh to greet the morning so...)

i asked for this.
remember.
i asked for this.

i did mention that one of my goals this year was to make me dates more frequent, yes? well today all but begged me for some soul time, and i have learned to listen to its needs.

for my monday lunch break, i wandered the two blocks over to westlake center for a polish sausage and some sunshine. i slowed down my walking pace, i took a quantity of concentrated breaths, i made eye contact and smiled, i giggled at the charm of the turkish hot dog vendor, "my dear, your lunch is ready...". i sat and enjoyed my lunch while people-watching - which mainly consisted of ambitious black coats whirling by in a hurry and a group of raucous street kids flipping each other off.

joel and i rode home in silence sunday night, both heavy with want. i can taste the thick precipitation of change in the air these days and though i find it an exhilarating part of life, it's still a bit unsettling, sad, and often too big to swallow.

our lives are on the cusp.
i feel the breeze at our backs; our sails poised to catch it.

and yet we remain.

what i wouldn't give to see joel teaching and fulfilled again.
what i wouldn't give to be out of debt.
what i wouldn't give to go back to school.
what i wouldn't give to have a baby and be able to support her.
what i wouldn't give to keep my family together.
what i wouldn't give to bring grandma back and have grandpa healed.
what i wouldn't give to be better at saving.
what i wouldn't give to quit both our jobs tomorrow.
what i wouldn't give for a room of my own.
what i wouldn't give for booklings.

and all of this sacrifice of desire, all of this want - it hurts in the best way. it wounds my spirit and encourages me to fight harder, to see with more perspective, to hope audaciously.




though it hurts, this wanting, i relish in the tangible good: cashmere pj pants and whiskey, a bowl of rocky road in a scalding bath, a quiet nap by dad's fireplace, an endearing touch by an animal (parents got a new puppy this week), a long voicemail from a friend, a beautiful text from a sister, the solitude of the night sky, a random old chair in my laundry room, a long talk with another sister, the simple pleasure of housework, a decadent brunch with a dear friend. these all amalgamate to bring me solace.



and for you, for this, for the pain and wounds,
i am in awe.

"But your solitude will be a support and a home for you,
even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances,
and from it you will find all your paths."
Rilke

~crm