When anxious, find Wonder

Posted on by taketheadventure

The recipe I knew by heart. The same bowls used every time. Yeast. Water. Honey. Wait till it’s frothing like a rabid horse and dump into flour mixed with salt. No dough hook. No mixer. I even neglected my appointed bread baking wooden spoon. My hands plunged into the dough with all my anxiety. Twisting, turning, kneading, punching.

And it came to me.

Find the wonder.

It’s a sweet word to me like the sweet taste on my tongue when I cracked the bread open, lathered it with butter and put it in my mouth. Wonderful! Like me.

Do you know you are wonderful?

Maybe you need the reminder as much as I do.

Lend a hand, will you?

I’ve got some dough here.

Are you kneading?

I’m needing

to live in Wonder.

A Summer to Remember

Posted on by taketheadventure

Making friends, hosting dinners, coordinating picnics and hikes. Cherished church community camping. McMenamins Theatre movie nights. image6Weekly dates bike riding to the Farmers Market. Baseball playoffs. Baseball food. Capture the Flag. Fresh flowers, fresh produce, summer tomatoes – ’nuff said! Ice cream and brownies and Brownie Ice Cream. Cool evenings with windows open and records playing. Shopping for care packages, assembling them, standing in long post office lines. Gardening – plants dying – six snap peas.

Masses of tadpoles overpopulating pristine lakes. Butterflies thriving among old volcanic obsidian. Sweltering heat of painted hills and the giant sunflowers mocking our thirst.

image3Looking for Venus with our star gazing guide – where is it?. Floating down the river with a built in ice chest. Hot Air Balloons lighted at dusk. Discovering the satisfaction of liver. Fresh watermelon and lime water. Mint Juleps and Spiked Homemade Lavender Lemonade. Grilling burgers and homemade fries. Making pizza. Ordering pizza. Take out pizza.

Remembering the exhilaration of yoga at 114 degrees. Trail runs with my husband. Heart to hearts and only getting through two pages at book club. Amazing visits from far away friends. Shrieking over games of Mah-jonng. Movie marathons. Disney. Marx Brothers. Woody Allen. Laughing Late into the Night – Life’s Best Medicine.

A lil’ part of myself

Posted on by taketheadventure

I love westerns. I love how they make me feel. Like I’m home again. Like I belong.

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I can see my dad and brother staring the TV screen down as if it just challenged them to a duel. Long rifles at their sides, pistols at the ready, drawn with super speed. I always loved the scene with Val Kilmer as Doc Holiday, flippin’ that tiny cup like guns a slingin.’

Though I love westerns, there were some I didn’t enjoy watching. Sitting through Once Upon a Time in the West was like iodine to my veins, sick and uncomfortable. I didn’t get it. It was long. And there didn’t seem to be a point past the blood. But I loved the music. I loved walking past the TV and hearing those ancients sounds that sang of a place I somehow believed my Texas home embodied. When the film wasn’t playing, I’d get the record out and just listen to the score because it soothed me.                                                           Strange what we connect with when we’re young. I remember walking the streets of downtown Portland once as an adult and immediately feeling homesick. I stopped and tried to understand why. The sounds of the city. The people rushing past. And then it hit me. The smell. The smell of downtown trash and filthy sewage. I knew that was the answer. I was immediately reminded of my three year old self walking down the streets of Bilbao, Spain with my mom hurrying us into the grocery store of our local barrio. That was one of my favorite days in Portland. The day that gave back to me a lil’ part of myself which time and loss of language had carried away.