AfricanKelli

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I wandered Baker’s Nursery yesterday with Greg, checking out the squash, herbs, peppers and flowers begging to be taken home and planted before the incredible heat gets even hotter. It was an aesthetic overload — so many bright colors, odd shapes, varying textures to try to capture.

I’ve just joined the board of the Phoenix Permaculture Guild; over lunch yesterday, I told him how I once was chastised in junior high for having created an environmental club — SOAP (Save our Amazing Planet.) We laughed at the stories of holding countless carwashes to raise money to buy portions of the rainforest, which was very en vogue. Using soap for SOAP, we did raise awareness in Mesa; our little club was intrumental in getting curbside recycling implemented city-wide.

I was asked a few weeks ago to speak at my junior high about refugees. I hadn’t been back in more than 15 years and it was an Alice in Wonderland experience with the school seeming very lilliputian. After the presentation, I asked a couple students if SOAP was still around.  I was so happy to hear they were still recycling, getting the kitchen to reduce waste, limiting water use, etc. It was a full-circle moment — so fundamentally satisfying and healing.

Some people know what they want to do with their lives from childhood. I have no idea what I want to do tomorrow. But it does make me happy to think this little club was worth the torment. Hopefully I’ll have something to offer the guild leaders. Perhaps they need a carwash?

~K

25 tote bags completed for Susie

Ribbon tie sundress for Delaney

~K

*

Michelle Obama has very quickly become one of my favorite women in the news. I read an article about her the other day; when they say their dinner prayer she asks each person to mention a “rose and a thorn.” You can skip the thorn part, but the rose is mandatory. I can just imagine them sitting around some fancy table talking about their day. She also said she’s very respectful not to text her husband during the workday, but that she expects him for dinner if he is in town. I’d say that’s fair. She’s also fiercely protective of her girls, which I adore.

My friend Eliza and I were talking the other day (perhaps while getting pedicures and reading trashy magazines with critiques of Michelle’s fashion) when I told her how upsetting it is to me to have someone so bright and living in the White House regularly relegated to the “what to wear” column. She’s a Harvard grad, for Pete’s sake — super successful in her own right and yet we seem to speak more about her love for J.Crew than her ability to gracefully manage a Presidential campaign, with two little girls and her own handbag full of ambition no less.

Eliza pointed out that while it is sad she isn’t being interviewed about her views on issues outside of what’s in vogue, it isn’t her duty. And thanks to her stylish ways, there is less space for the Hollywood tartlets who are much less deserving of the press. I can dig that. If talking about the First Lady’s tennis shoes keeps Paris Hilton farther away from my daily headlines, so be it.

I could also write an essay or two about how amazing I think she is for being so accomplished and seemingly taking this huge change in stride with true grace. Rather than throw herself into the middle of the cabinet, she’s instead invited her mother to live with them and made the White House a home. And my God, if you didn’t feel butterflies during their first dance, something is seriously wrong with you. Of course, this is just what I’m getting from the press, but I’d be happy to report back with a first-hand account if ever given such an opportunity.  I’m hearing her lovely husband speak next week in Tempe — or “date with Barry!!” as it says in my planner — and so I have a few fashion suggestions for Mama Obama if she gets to come along on desert adventure:

This white dress, with these great ballet flats (as a fellow Amazonian, I can relate) and this amazing bag in red. Oh, the bag. Since the speech will be outside, a hat and pair of killer sunglasses will complete the look. Mrs. Obama, it is so nice to have such a lady in the White House. Thank you!

~K

*If ever given the chance, I’d love to cook for the Obamas. Then again, I love to cook for just about everyone. This week’s gifted meals include green chile veggie enchiladas for a coworker and my version of stuffed peppers. The magazine’s photo is much prettier, but these are yummy: quinoa, green chile and pepper jack cheese stuffed peppers with pintos. Ole!

During a morning walk through the garden, watering the plants and thinking of the day ahead, I found myself wrapped in the words of Rumi.

on the spirit that the body could carry easily.

“Wherever you are, whatever you do, be in love.”
Or as my mom would say, “bloom where you are planted.” Today, I choose happiness.

I find it fascinating Rumi was Muslim, but spent much of his poetry discussion Christianity. He was actually from Italy, but once he landed in Turkey was given the name “Rumi” which means “from Rome.”

I am so enjoying the poems you’ve sent. One of my girlfriends is a librarian and she has a mad passion for poetry. She was explaining how she celebrates “poems in your pocket” day at her school. She hands poems out to students in the hopes of spurring their interest. When I found a Pablo Neruda sonnet in my planner as a meeting was drawing to a close yesterday, I read it aloud a colleague. He looked at me as though I’d lost my mind, but I doubt he’ll soon forget it.

~K

Nudu cap custom order, pumpkin seed granola, wrap skirts for Mother’s Day gifts

My sewing machine broke again this weekend. I think the next time my mom offers to buy me a new machine — which she’s been insisting on for years — I’m not letting my stubbornness stand in the way. I’ve spent considerably more in repair in the last year than the machine cost 10 years ago.  Thankfully Rebecca let me borrow hers this weekend so I could get a few projects completed. Her machine is just different enough that it took me several hours to get the tension right and figure out how it likes to work. In the meantime, I broke a needle, which came flying, hitting me in the throat. That’s right — nearly decapitated by a sewing machine. I screamed in fright, more startled than injured, when Matt comes tearing into the kitchen to see what’s wrong. I’m grabbing my throat, pointing at the machine and trying to explain what just happened. Once we both realized there was no blood, he nearly laid down on the floor he was laughing so hard.

“I didn’t realize sewing was a contact sport.”

Thankfully I’ve got my machine back, running happily, and am nearly done with that giant tote bag order. I am making a promise to myself — as I’ve done here before — that the next time I decide to take on such a large project, I’ll stop to think about it before I just agree wholeheartedly. I often get myself into a time crunch because I agree to do too much. While I love sewing for others, I love sleep more. Yesterday afternoon I realized I had to step away from the chaos I’ve created at home and go for a walk. Two hours later, I’d wandered around Tempe Town Lake, through Papago Park and listened to several podcasts.  Hopefully the promise will stick this time. In the meantime, I’ve got several gifts for friends waiting to be sewn. Madison wants a sunhat. I’m considering this pattern. Delaney wants a “blue and yellow flower sundress.” I’m thinking of modifying the pillowcase pattern and adding ribbon to the shoulders and as a tie around the waist. Then there are a couple surprises up my sleeve for the babies to be born later this month.

And so, I ask the domestic gods to keep the flying needles to a minimum and the caffeine flowing.

~K

I read a book the other day that finished with an ee cummings poem. I’ve never read or studied poetry with any great interest, but something about his words grabbed me. Yesterday I picked up several copies of his poetry and spent my lunch break inhaling his descriptions of the emotional waves of life. A few that made me smile and think:

“maggie and milly and molly and may”

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

“If”

If fear was plucky, and globes were square,
And dirt was cleanly and tears were glee
Things would seem fair,–
Yet they’d all despair,
For if here was there
We wouldn’t be we.

“i carry your heart with me”

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)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

“it may not always be so;and i say”

if this should be,i say if this should be–
you of my heart,send me a little word;
that i may go unto him,and take his hands,
saying,Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face,and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands

I listened to another “Speaking of Faith” podcast this weekend — discussing Rumi’s poetry in the 13th Century and how he expressed his faith in ways people had never considered. I’ve always been a bit intimidated by poetry, afraid I was missing the great point. But with words like these, I get the feeling that the meaning changes with each reader. I wish I’d had the chance to hear ee read some of these aloud, to understand what fueled his passion.

~K

The tomatoes have officially arrived! I need to get some more canning jars. I see lots of Finny’s prized tomato sauce being made in the next month.

Once upon a time, when I was spending far too much time reading blogs that made me feel completely inadequate, I dreamed of having a garden, baking bread, learning to knit, sewing gifts for friends and living a life with more meaning and less clutter.  With time, I realized all of those fabulous artsy journals that make motherhood (with five children and an adoring husband, bien sûr), a closet full of homemade clothing that look like Carolina Herrera’s latest collection, a spotless kitchen, a gaggle of well-groomed and trained pets, and an organic garden that could feed an army are a bunch of smoke and mirrors. I’ve yet to meet a woman who felt like she had everything balanced. (And yet, we regularly seem to strive to make each other crazy by suggesting otherwise.)  Even my yoga teacher screams into class late most weeks, with a cell phone to her ear and curly hair springing every which direction from her haphazard ponytail.

And so, I’m growing a garden (that may be able to feed an army of ants). I know how to bake bread. I can knit and sew and even do a cartwheel or two, but more importantly the last few years of stopping to journal has taught me to stop, take a deep breath, try to find the centering balance and appreciate the sweetness of life — however it may arrive. A golden tomato, a handful of spring flowers gathered on an early morning run, clean sheets, an ice cold swimming pool on a hot day, watching a child giggle and spin like a whirling dervish;  I’m pretty sure balance is over-rated. I’m not sure what I’d do if work was caught up, the knitting basket empty, the kitchen table actually used for meals instead of a resting place for the countless sewing projects, the tower of books on my nightstand read, and the fridge full of food for the week.  No chicanery here;  I’m swimming in a sea of chaos, but stopping to for a couple cannon balls along the way.

~K

As planned, we celebrated Matt’s birthday yesterday with much fanfare and made him feel at home. There were a dozen friends here who treated him royally. By the end of the afternoon, we were racing in the pool, reading magazines in the shade and truly enjoying the warm weather and great company. I lost the swimming race — which I’ll happily blame on my bikini — and managed to lose my verve to accomplish anything else.

More than once, I’ve been in a foreign country for a birthday or holiday. The Roca family threw me a quinceanera when I lived in Mexico; I’ll always be thankful for their kindness and how they went so far as to buy me a gold ring — the gift they gave their own daughters on their 15th birthdays. I think I was the only white girl in town to get such a fiesta. It was a particularly hard birthday because I was painfully homesick. I wasn’t supposed to see my family for the year, but thankfully the swim team I was competing with had a meet in El Paso, Texas the week before. My parents went rogue and drove with my brother to the border. We spent the weekend together at the meet, with my team and new high school friends and catching up as quickly as we could.

Sweet memories,

K

Today, Matty turns 25. I have a feeling this is going to be a big year for my Zim/Malawian/Aussie friend. Fingers crossed, he’ll make it through PGA qualifying school and on the tour. He’ll establish himself in America and create a beautiful new life here. I really truly love his friendship. It has been such a blessing having him come to live with me in Tempe and I hope he is here for a long time.

{Meeting a friend this morning for coffee and I needed a container for cupcakes. Why not a Birkenstock box? Pretty sure this is the zenith of hippie domesticity.}

Tomorrow, I’m throwing him a small bbq with all of his favorite foods and new American friends. The menu is ridiculously scattered: meatballs, guacamole, raspberry margaritas, angel foodcake with strawberries and his favorite — “fluffy” chocolate cupcakes. (The secret is sour cream.) I suppose I should find some vegetables to add to the menu too. And maybe beer brats?

Meghann also celebrated a birthday this week. I’m telling you, I could not be more thankful for this woman. Our friendship has remained a constant for 15 years and not only do I consider her as close to a sister as I’ve got, but her family is a second to mine too. Her dad is my financial planner. Her mother is my romance adviser. Her husband is my confidant. Her little boy Roscoe leaves me speechless with his adorable curls and bright blue eyes. Meg and I talk several times a week and have the type of friendship that when one of us is out of balance, we don’t hesitate to speak up. Of all things for her birthday, she wanted a table runner. Dipping into my limited African fabric supply was a pleasure for this project. Apparently she just bought new cushions on a nearby couch that match perfectly, and so the table runner was a success. I’ve got to get out to California to visit this sweet family soon. Her husband — Scottie — is one of my favorite people. He’s super smart, works in a lab, plays the drums like a rockstar and loves Meghann fiercely. What more could you ask for a best friend?

~K