Sunday Gratitude

This has been a good week - busy and full, but good. Let me tell you what fills my heart with gratitude.

The best certainly was that Kaefer got more sleep this week and had less homework than usually. This resulted in her being more relaxed and so much nicer and sweeter than she often is when she doesn't get enough sleep and is slammed with homework. It's the only thing about her high school that I truly don't like - that they give way too much homework. IMHO teenagers should also have the opportunity to have a social life and do teenage things like hanging out in the mall or going to the movies together. Kaefer almost never does that. Every now and then she goes shopping with a friend of hers or two, sometimes they make it to the movies together. I wish she had more opportunity for this. Since she is stressed with the amount of work for the school, she often is very short, gets into teenage attitude and we sometimes fight with each other. While I know that all of this is quite normal for a girl her age, I rather have her around when she is more relaxed. So this was a wonderful week when she laughed often and was her funny, chatty self.

I saw two of my good friends that I hadn't seen for quite a while.

K. and I just sat on her deck, enjoying fruit and veggies while talking and catching up on each other's news. Their new dog occupied some of our time as well - you know how much I love dogs and enjoy every opportunity I can spend with them.

Seeing Jo in the spring usually means we visit nurseries together while catching up. We are both passionate gardeners and quite crazy about birds. It's simply beautiful to share this love with someone. We also both enjoy knitting, so after the nursery we also visited a yarn store where we had a lovely chat with the lady who works there. I love this kind of connection.

At the end of the week I got an unexpected custom order from a Girl Scout leader for one of the girls in her troop who is moving away. It reminded me so much of my own years as a troop leader for a Brownie and then Junior group of Girl Scouts. I enjoyed working on this custom order very much and I am thankful to be able to do what I love.

While walking the neighborhood I came across a yard sale held by an man whom I often meet when he is walking his dog. We just sat at the side of the road, chatting for a while. This is what I will always love - connecting with the people in our neighborhood, sitting for a short while and chatting. It's a small thing, but so beautiful. It makes life a little bit brighter. Again, it's the connection.

While Kaefer goes to German School, I often hang out in the public library until she's done. Often I take a few dvd's home with movies that we want to watch. While I usually look for movies that one of us "knows" (= wants to see), every now and then a completely unknown movie (at least to me) grabs my attention and I take it home just out of curiosity. This happened last week when I chose "An Unfinished Life" with Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman, both actors I like a lot. Please don't roll your eyes that I didn't know this movie! I loved it!! This is the kind of film I like to watch, especially when it ends well like this one does. It is satisfying I guess.

A few weeks ago I told you about the Varied Thrush that suddenly appeared in my garden. Well, he has brought his extended family, and they hop around in my garden joyfully. It's a pleasure to watch them, they are such beautiful birds. However, it is almost impossible to capture them on camera. They seem to sense it and fly away - darn!

I hope you had a pleasant week as well with many opportunities to be grateful. Have a wonderful week!

Art and Nature - a Nurturing Weekend

Another week has gone by without me posting anything - so much for doing the August Break. I certainly will come back for some more August Break postings - but not quite yet.

Today I want to tell you about my weekend up in the Sierra.

My friend Wendy Ward, a wonderful artist (you can find more about her here and here), was teaching a painting class there - a mermaid painting class. I like mermaids, and I like Wendy. I hadn't seen her for four years and I missed her. So rather spontaneously I decided to sign up, drive those three hours to the Sierra, take the class and spend the rest of the weekend with Wendy. I was looking forward to this time just for myself very much.

Seeing Wendy again was wonderful! It didn't feel like not seeing each other for four years - it felt more like I had just talked to her the day before. We pretty much took off where we left all those years ago.

She is an exceptional art instructor. We were eight women with different levels of painting experience. It didn't matter - Wendy brought us all together and we painted for six hours and created our mermaids. She taught me a new technique which I loved.

Our table looked quite chaotic during class - we were painting like crazy!

By the end of class, each of us had her very own unique mermaid. It was interesting to see how different each mermaid was.

Wendy and I with my mermaid

After class, two other friends of Wendy - J. and E. - and myself went up into the mountains to stay the night with Wendy in her cabin.

It was a lovely drive up there, mainly through endless forest, along narrow winding, sometimes unpaved, roads with marvelous views over an amazingly blue lake, until we finally arrived at the cabin, deep in the woods. When I got out of the car, the scent of the forest hit me right on - absolutely beautiful. Besides, it was completely quiet. Heaven.

The welcome committee was expecting us!

The cabin was lovely, with a beautiful deck, where the sun spilled his warm evening light over the colorful chairs. I loved the reddish shade of the cabin wood - just look how lovely it glows in the golden light.

The evening turned out the way it should - with wine, good food, and even better conversation. We laughed a lot, but we also had some very serious topics - it was a good mix. It certainly wasn't boring - I felt that time was flying by, and suddenly we realized that it was pretty late and we better went to bed. I slept up in the loft, right at the open window - as I already mentioned, it was completely quiet. Incredible! Listening to the silence eventually lulled me into sleep....

... from which I woke up by the first rays of the sun. I felt completely refreshed.

We had a lovely breakfast after which J. and E. left while I still stayed for a few hours. Wendy and I took a walk in the woods, talking, talking, talking. We never ran out of something to say - there were so many interesting topics. Later, we sat on the deck, still talking. Deep talking, the kind of talk that really touches your soul. The kind of talk during which suddenly things become clear.

Fact is, I had the feeling that I was not living fully (yes, we talked a lot about feeling alive and vital), that there was no real vitality. I was wondering where that had gone. I also realized that I was strong, but that somewhere along the way this strong woman went into hiding. I wondered when this happened. I want to have her back.

I think this weekend was more than just seeing a friend, taking a class and having a great time in good company. It was the beginning of claiming back that strong woman, of letting go of all the guilt I often feel. It is getting my self back. I had felt all this before without being able to name it. When I saw Wendy's class announcement, something was calling me - why else would I drive three hours through the heat of the Central Valley to attend a class? I knew that I could talk to Wendy, that it would never be superficial, that we would go deep - and I knew that I needed it.

Saying good-bye was difficult. I could have stayed so much longer.

But I felt good during my drive home. I had opted not to take the interstate but drive along smaller roads, listening to some DVDs and singing along to the  music as loud as I could. It was liberating.

This weekend will stay with my for a long time and still nourish me for many days.

I found this hard to write - because of the language. These things can be so difficult to write in a foreign language. I wanted to write from the heart, about my feelings, about what was really going on - and I was limited by the words that should come easy.

Kodak Moment

We all know this term, "Kodak moment".

Kodak just recently celebrated their 125th anniversary, and this is reason for Inspiration Avenue to feature the Kodak moment this week. The Urban Dictionary describes a Kodak Moment  as "a rare, one time, moment that is captured by a picture, or should have been captured by a picture."

For me personally, the Kodak moment still goes a little bit deeper. While what is said above is true to me as well, I also feel a Kodak moment touches my heart, creates some kind of connection. It is more than just a picture, a snapshot. It is something that is deeply connected with me, with my deepest inner feelings, perhaps with my soul.

This connection, the touching of what lies within me, makes this photo my all-time favorite.

It was taken in the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum near Tucson a few winters ago. Other than at our first visit, the cougars (or mountain lions) weren't sleeping on their rock, but were quite active that afternoon. Since I have a real weakness for them, I stayed there for a long time, observing them. I eventually figured out that they probably were mother and daughter, but of course I am not sure. I was fascinated by them.

At one time, this cougar went up to her rock and lay down. I thought she was going to sleep, but instead she just watched us. Just staring at us. Many people left by that time (it wasn't interesting enough, I think, no more action), but I stayed, looking back at her. She didn't look away which I had initially thought she would do. We just looked at each other, I was probably muttering something silly like "aren't you a beauty" etc. Anyway, this was the moment when I also started to take pictures of her, and this is the one that shows that moment in the truest way. When I look at it I still feel this, though brief, connection with this wild animal who probably never had seen the wild in her life. I felt my heart going out to her, I imagined to see a tiny sliver of her soul in her eyes.

It was my Kodak moment.