Treelife Coaching

Hello blogreaders!  Just checking in to say hi as the waiting game ensues.  Two months ago I was stomping my feet around the apartment calmly saying yelling, “I’ve had about enough of this waiting!  I can’t take another day!  Let’s move already!”  And here we are, still in Brooklyn, and it’s January 19th.  Touche.  (Modeling Supreme Patience and Perfect Anger Management — two easy checkmarks in my parenting manual.  Ha ha.  But stomping around the apartment really is SO therapeutic.)

So, thumb-twiddlers we have become.  What does one do when the proverbial waiting game seems to mimic all-too-closely the reality of a NYC doctor’s office waiting room?   One bakes cookies and makes quilts, of course.

Orlis and I have decided to take our favorite Brooklyn bakery with us to the West Coast, by mastering the art of the Monster Cookie, along with several of their other unbeatable recipes.  (I noticed in the recipe in this link that she uses chunky peanut butter, which is an adaptation of the original recipe.  I used creamy, but chunky probably makes them even more monstrous.)  This everything-but-the-kitchen-sink cookie has so many delicious things in it, you practically have a cookie identity crisis while eating one (or 7).  Is it a peanut butter cookie?  Oatmeal?  Chocolate chip?  Wait, are those M&Ms?!!   We have continued our fall tradition of a weekly soup drop-off, and have added some of these bad-boys to the delivery basket.

And, with so many loved ones getting pregnant these days (or trying trying trying), I have realized it is going to be a year of making baby quilts like never before.  With anxiety in my belly and a bit of time on my hands with which I can not yet do any real packing, I figured I’d better start stockpiling baby quilts for all the little babes coming soon.  The way I see it, the best help I can be to those who are having a little more trouble getting pregnant than expected is to go ahead and put my energy into making a warm welcome gift.

I found this dreamy woman online, Oh Fransson, and immediately purchased a few of her fun, modern quilt patterns.  Guess where she lives?   That’s right — Portlandia.  (Maybe we’ll be friends.)  In the meanwhile, I plan on totally indulging in her terrific patterns in the makings of some very special little quilts.  I started with one called Frames.  Here’s a sneak peak:

Isn’t it cute??  All those oranges, greens, and yellows — how can that not make you smile?

And in this process of waiting and thumb-twiddling and making cookies and quilts to assuage my nervous energy, and snapping a few photos to pop online for you all to see, I am once again reminded of the metaphors surrounding me.  The monster that is this transition and move.  The torturous not-knowing if or when you will ever get pregnant and how to plan your life in the meantime (and how closely that feeling now resembles our current waiting game).  And, what this picture of the quilt-in-process above that I unwittingly titled “half-laid” depicts so perfectly: that so many of our plans are just that.  Half laid.  Sometimes for longer than we may like…bringing out the foot-stomping monster in all of us, and pushing past our limits for not knowing what will happen next.  And there’s not much we can do but throw some more colors on the floor and sugars in a bowl and twiddle our thumbs the best way we know how.

Our little family doesn’t have any New Year’s traditions.  Eve or Day.  (gasp!)  That’s right — every year we just wing it.  I think we have some fun, but I’ll be honest, I can’t remember.  It occurred to me this year that I can’t remember a single New Year’s Eve or Day in the last, hmmm, 10?  (and that’s not because we teetotal over here.)  I wouldn’t call that “broken” necessarily…but I do think it needs some fixing.

It’s a funny thing to be thinking about creating rituals and starting traditions when our lives are in such a state of flux — the very landscape of our daily life is going to change so drastically with our impending move, and much of our day-to-day right now involves a whole lot of waiting to jump.   The inevitable stress of being in a seemingly endless holding pattern, as we are with this move, is enough to make me want to throw all traditions to the wind and just order take-out.  When I stop to truly consider it, though, it occurs to me that rhythms and rituals — even those so simple as homemade oatmeal in the morning — are perhaps more important now than ever.  Now is when our wayward emotions could use some anchoring.  Now, with so much up in the air, is when the grounding phrase, “on New Year’s we always ________” sounds most appealing.

So, as the New Year weekend rolled ever closer last week, I had some fun pondering a simple New Year’s tradition we could start and take with us — something we could do no matter where we were, and no matter how many of our toys (re: musical instruments and kitchen equipment) were packed up in a box.  After some careful thought, I decided…we’ll begin the year outside.

And unto us, a tradition is born.  Off we went in the cold, windy chill, bundled head to toe, to the beach.  And I tell you, it being a cold cold winter day and the 3 of us nearly the only people out there, and the winds strong enough to almost blow over this little 1-year-old — it was wonderful. 

It was chilly, indeed.  We were silly enough to bring sand toys, but all Orlis wanted to do was charge towards those birds with a tenderness that matched their own trembling and charge towards the sea, with a ferociousness that matched the enormity of the waves.  And all we could do was stand and follow and marvel at this young child, impenetrable to cold, as he grew about a year in that one hour.  We marveled as he ushered in the new year as naturally as the wind and the waves and the birds did — welcoming the wildness of the elements; letting the wind whip all around him; falling as many times as he took a step.  Awestruck, we could do nothing but follow suit.

So there we were, welcoming the New Year like three clumsy, sacred fools, toting sand toys and talking to birds and filling our shoes with sand.  And at one moment, I caught this glimpse of Orlis with his own long shadow — a shadow 4 times his height — like a flash-forward of his inevitable growth into manhood to come, and I remembered how very short life is.  That image of his shadow ….of who we all grow into without even noticing it …has stayed with me for days now, lulling me to sleep at night and visiting me as I sweep the floor.

The elements are fierce on a cold, winter New Year’s Day.  Thin-skinned and coddled-by-creature-comforts as we are these days, like any other modern human being, I welcome it.  My New Year’s intentions could use a dose of reality.

Spending some of New Year’s Day outside — someplace wild?  That’s a doable tradition, I’d say.  Some hot chocolate to follow?  Yes, that too.

Happy almost-New Year, dear readers.  And isn’t it always the case that we pile too many projects into this little month of December and tire ourselves out completely?  Of course, dreams always loom large in my mind of a totally handmade Christmas.  I see visions of myself with constant and various sheets of cookies in the oven, a dozen different decorative projects ongoing, and everyone’s gifts made specifically with that person in mind.  Oh, and all of it beautifully photographed too.  As if this little month had more hours in it, and less of the day-to-day to do…and do.  ha!

So, it’s true, we buckled and went the more convenient route with some things this year — a cash donation to a group gift, a bite-size boost to the economy in a few different stores, and one lonely set of lights amidst our half-packed apartment to mark it holiday time.  Not exactly the quaint and homey set of DIY holi-days that I envision when I think about setting the scene for some really poignant and special memories for my little one during celebration seasons.

And yet, you know what?  A little really does go a long way.  I did get some making and baking done this year.

Baskets of blueberry muffins were a simple new tradition for the classic pastry-lovers among us this year, and a welcomed treat for our special young visitors on Christmas Eve.  After a few failed attempts, I mastered the chocoloate-dipped macaroon which my own brother, a fabulous chef, dubbed, “some of my very best work.”   I don’t take these compliments lightly.  (Bake them for 17 minutes, not 25!)   And these little dried fruit/nut balls made a fun gift (and a great snack.)

Most fun of all was the set of juggling balls with a matching tote from Oliver + S patterns that I made for Orlis.  What started as this:

quickly and easily became this:

and with a little last-minute help from my hand-sewing-extraordinaire-for-a-mother who also happened to have a lot of stuffing rice on hand at her house, became this:

…and then this on Christmas morning — in the hands of this little rascal who didn’t want to put any clothes on:

And seeing him paw those juggling balls and turn them over and study them in that adorable way that babies do with every foreign object, and dump them out of the bag and them stuff them all back in again 20 times in a row.  But not once did he attempt to juggle them. And as I watched this (blueberry muffin-in-mouth), and relished the experience of making and baking…and giving, and realized that just because it’s December, we don’t have to juggle a million things.  We could just do one or two.  And cherish the experience.

There’s crafting…and then there’s actual art-making.  Those who know me, and know this blog, will attest that my creative output always encompasses the former.  What’s the difference?  Crafting, by my definition, is a process towards making something that involves rules, instructions, templates, patterns, and recipes. In other words, someone else tells you the basics of what to do, and your creativity comes into play in choosing the particulars.

Don’t get me wrong — I LOVE crafting of all kinds and consider it a fabulous vehicle for creativity.  There are millions of things to craft, and I want to do almost all of them.

But….then there is art.   Art-making is rule-less, or perhaps we could say, unruly.  Making art is making something — a painting, a quiche, a bowl, a collage, a page for a special someone’s 40th-birthday book — with no template.  The materials are yours to manifest.  You don’t know how it will turn out.  You don’t have anything or anyone to tell you when you are “done.”

At any given moment, I’m knee-deep in at least 4 halfway-done crafting projects…and that feels just right to me.  No reason to finish one before starting another.  The sense of satisfaction when I finally finish something is fabulous — it often feels like I’ve been working on it for years even if I haven’t touched it for months!  Then along came an invitation a few weeks ago to participate in a time-treasured ritual: The Birthday Book.   Perhaps you have been involved in such a thing in the past?  An album of “pages” created for someone for their birthday — often a milestone birthday — that gives participants the chance to show their love “creatively.”  This, as I saw it, was an opportunity to make some Art.

Instructions were loose.  Deadlines were even looser.  The only requirement was to love up this special woman turning 40.  Consider it done, I remember thinking.  And then ….time passed.  Craft projects were started and some were finished.  I couldn’t think of an idea.  No pages coming out of this house.  And then, 2 days before the final final, last-extension deadline, I declared it an evening for art-making and pulled out everything colorful and supply-like that’s not already packed up in a box.  And without a plan in place, away we went.

And, in the unencumbered, unruly process of making something that I didn’t have a recipe or instructions for, I relaxed and let it come to me.   And I realized something important — making art is not easy, and moreover, it’s a muscle, like anything else.  To let my mind go free and allow the page to come together and tell me when it was finished felt novel, curious, and exciting.  We finished our pages, and set them on the counter to dry.  And as I lied in bed that night, allowing myself to become sleepy, I felt truly, wonderful — a different wonderful than after I’ve finished a craft project.  I felt like I had expressed something — something about myself — that I didn’t know was there.  And I remember thinking, “wow.  I never do that.”  Not only did I get to fully celebrate this beloved 40-year-old woman who I hold dear, I got to enjoy the rare experience of free art.  My brain loved it.  My heart loved it.  I slept well.   A new family ritual, indeed.

Thank goodness for kids.  No matter how entrenched we are in the quagmire of life’s inevitable To-Do lists, kids really do force us to get outside and explore.

Our little family is in the middle of one of the most traumatic of transitions — a cross-country move.  Suffice it to say, things around here are particularly busy (re: stressful) this month as we inch closer to an enormous life change for the whole family.  That is, I think we are inching closer — we are experiencing a couple of sizable snags with our apartment sale that are leaving us completely in limbo.  Do you know how that is when you are in the midst of making a very important change in your life, and then it seems like the rug is pulled out from under you?  Like every aspect of your life seems to fall apart a little bit — making that big change even more challenging than it already was?

I see this [annoying but fairly predictable] phenomenon all the time with my coaching clients.  They make a big, important decision and gear themselves up to act on it.  And then, the world seems to conspire against them for a few weeks — causing all kinds of additional problems and testing their resolve, I think.  When I see this happen to these wonderful, inspiring clients, I always share the metaphor of cleaning out the attic:  you go up there with big intentions, lots of energy, and the possibility of finding some great treasures.  You begin.  And…before the attic gets anymore organized and before you unearth anything really good, you and the attic get a whole lot dirtier before you get cleaner.  Imagine all that dust flying.  I think that’s just how it is when we do something important for ourselves.  Messy, but ultimately worth it.

Still, few of the items on my To-Do list are very enticing right now (pack boxes, hire movers, research Oregon health insurance…. yuck.)  So, instead of doing those things, Orlis and I decided to head to our favorite Botanical Gardens and do a little garden research.  (those other things will get themselves done, right??)

Besides it being gorgeous, autumn, play-outside, East Coast weather (throw salt in my moving wounds, why don’t you!), a little time exploring someone else’s thriving garden helps me focus more on the glorious (and wholly ignorant) plans I have for my first home garden and less on how sad I am to leave my New York friends.

We had a great time studying up.  Apparently, Orlis has his sights set on growing some Nasturtium because he wouldn’t take his hands off that sign for about 10 minutes.  My fantasies include the old, sacred standards: rainbow chard, brussels sprouts, strawberries, and tomatoes, and maybe a pumpkin or two.  Orlis did his part by scrupulously checking soil texture.  We learned that a soil that sticks in the ears is great for growing kale!  I took notes on the organized landscaping and labeling techniques and fantasized about crisp summer salads and fresh flowers on the table.

During our garden studies, out in the clean, crisp air, I took a few moments to gain a clearer perspective on this strange time our family is in.  On the one hand, with the details of our move teetering on collapse, and therefore, our foreseeable whereabouts unknown, it’s difficult to know what one should do with his/her time.  Pack?  Unpack?  Blog?  Everything seems completely frustrating and lacks context.  On the other hand, I look as this little 14-month-old guy of mine digs his hands into the dirt and piles leaves into a bucket and kisses big rocks with a fervor reserved for only those things in life you love most, and I’m reminded instantly of the truth about life in transition: we are always moving, we are always changing, things are always up in the air. And, we are always rooted in this deep, dark soil and the turning of the seasons that will take us where we need to go.

Ah, thank goodness for these insatiably curious, nature-hungry, tireless little teachers.

If we are talking rituals (and we are) — weekly, yearly, or once-in-a-lifetime rituals — I think we’d be remiss in glossing over the most popular ritual of all: Potty Time.  This is one that actually applies to all of us, every single day of our lives.

1-year-old sometimes needs a little bathroom reading and some toys to keep him occupied on the potty

Several parents have asked me recently to describe our practice of Elimination Communication, aka “EC,” so I thought I’d take this opportunity to lay it down here on the Treelife Blog.  I’ll be honest, I was appalled and a little grossed out the first time I heard about EC.  You do what???  I remember thinking.  Now it is, hands down, the parenting practice I most want to shout from the mountain tops.  So, from a former-naysayer-turned-diehard, here it is.

The link above connects to a pretty good textbook definition, and I read a great book about it.   (sadly, now out of print, but used copies are still floating around.)  Admittedly, it was the aesthetically-pleasing posts about EC in one of my favorite blogs, Sew Liberated, that really sold me.

In my own words, Elimination Communication is a very gentle way to complete the responsiveness cycle.  Basically, we try to respond to Orlis’ needs as compassionately as we can, as they come up, day and night and EC allows us to do that in regard to his need to use the potty.

6 months old; still needs to be held on the potty.

It’s actually quite simple, once you stop and think/learn about it. Basically, infants have awareness about their needs to “eliminate.”  When we diaper them conventionally (re: all the time with ever-increasingly absorbent diapers) we teach them to lose this awareness and then a few years later, we try to re-teach it to them: modern, incentive-based potty training.  Once I understood that the awareness to eliminate is there from the beginning (day 1!), I came to see how silly this is: teaching someone to eliminate in a diaper only to try to unteach them later.  No single species would voluntarily sit in his/her own pee or poop and humans are no different: we like to be clean.  By responding to our babies elimination needs, we are responding to a very basic human need.

diaper-free outdoors -- what fun!

How does it work?  Whole books have been written on EC about the myriad hows and whys.  Here’s our experience:  there are many levels of commitment with which to practice EC and, at our house, we actually consider ourselves “part-timers.”  We often don’t bother with it when we are out and about (we just change diapers) and we certainly don’t bother with it at night.  Basically, we give Orlis some diaper free time, especially when we are outside and we just give him several chances a day to use the potty.

signaling him by using the ASL sign for "toilet"

We sit him on there.  We ask him if he needs to go.  We tell him what we are doing.  And, we use the American Sign Language sign for toilet and make a Pssss sound  (and sometime a grunt if we suspect #2).   And guess what?  Often, he goes.  It’s pretty amazing, really, considering how casual we are about it.  I’ve changed only a handful of poopy diapers since he was 6 months old, and fewer and fewer wet ones these days.

Early potty training is not actually the point of EC (though it does allow some fun bragging rights).  Communication is the point, hence the name.  It’s just responding, really.  We have hits and misses and some good laughs.  My biggest surprise about it is that doing EC is actually not that big of a deal, despite how counter-cultural it still seems, and it is a lot cleaner.  Moreover, it is so cool to witness this little guy have an awareness of his own body and to communicate about it.  So there you have it — a little window into our sacred baby bathroom ritual.  Pssss…..

I’ve never met a bowl of soup I didn’t like.  In fact, I’d go so far to say that soup, homemade cookies, good coffee, and good books constitute a large portion of my personal religion.  I’d go even further and say that there are few ailments a bowl of soup can’t cure.  Busyness, illness, loneliness: homemade soup is the panacea.

Orlis and I have created a weekly ritual for ourselves this fall — to deliver a quart of homemade soup once a week to someone who could use it.  Now, so far, I’m not talking about deep charity here — we aren’t lugging our quarts of soup into the streets and offering them to the homeless..though it’s only October, who knows?  We are simply delivering to friends.  Friends who could use a dinner delivery for one reason or another — a sick neighbor, a buried law school student, a beloved friend who has a bit too much in her proverbial soup bowl this fall — that kind of thing.

Having grown up in a smaller town, I retain the quaint memories of neighborliness that imbued my childhood with a sense of community and ease.  I don’t mean idyllic Norman Rockefeller scenes — but rather borrowing an egg here, a cup of sugar there, and the general sense that a little help is just around the corner if you need it.  At this time, last year, when Orlis was just a few weeks old, we received 27, count them, 27!, meal deliveries at our tucked-away Brooklyn neighborhood, and each and every one of them completely saved our lives, not to mention trumped any other kind of baby gift we received.  A little community-mindedness goes such a long way.

What has struck me about our soup delivery ritual these last few weeks is how darn easy it is.  Soup is magical.  We plan for a big pot of something on Monday nights and guess what we do?  We double it.  That’s it.  A few extra carrots, one more onion, and another cup of beans, and a few hours later we not only have dinner for ourselves for the night (and a few lunches to follow) but one or two extra quarts to give away.  We pack it up and make our delivery on Tuesday, in some cases getting the containers from last week’s delivery back again with an effusive thank-you note.  And that’s it.  We’ve saved someone’s evening and all it took was a few extra cups of water. (Okay, sometimes we make cookies too.)

Mathematically, it hardly works out — a little effort on our part (Orlis’ curiosity about tupperware being central to the delivery fun) and so much gratitude in return.  But isn’t that just the way of giving?  So much more in it for the giver, right?  So, it’s small town NYC for the coming weeks, and aren’t we lucky.  Soup Tuesday, thank you.

This was easy enough — a nature table!  I got the idea from a good friend, and went to work immediately — and by work, I mean I gathered a few gourds at the farmer’s market and brought them home.  Lo and behold, they are among the most favorite toys — fun to hold and that pimply flesh!  Such a delicious texture, indeed.

I love the idea of a nature table and will definitely continue it going forward — gathering a little of the outdoors to bring indoors symbolizing the season, and adding to it some other symbolic objects that also bring a bit of seasonal flair.  Fall is easy enough — a few gourds and pumpkins, and later this week I think Orlis and I will do some leaf gathering, as they are just beginning to turn.  I’m already turning my thoughts to winter…pinecones and needles?  A few bare branches?  A stuffed polar bear?

Still being a relatively new mom, I am both delighted and astounded at how the natural world, or the elements, if you will — water, sand, mud, wind, anything-that-grows, and anything-that-breathes — so easily trumps every other kind of plaything.  My child is endlessly interested in the variant textures nature offers; the smells, the movement of the ants and each and every leaf.  Ok, let’s be fair — I probably should put the word “Elements” in quotes — as we are talking New York City here.  So, it’s not beach, it’s sandbox.  It’s not wild nature, it’s the Botanic Gardens….but still.  Our days here are numbered and we are soaking it in, urban jungle that it is, and finding those little spots where the earth still shows herself, ready to be explored with all five senses.  

We are loving it, this most tactile world of discovery.  And, at the end of the day, a little bit of nature indoors, cozy and well-lit with a cup of tea, a cookie, and a tame kitty is really nice too.   Indeed.

I do love late summer and early fall and will ALWAYS enter September in best-month-of-the-year contests, my birthday and baby boy’s birthday notwithstanding.  It’s also a fabulous time of year to have a wedding, and the wedding that I officiated last weekend was no exception.

A few highlights, with commentary:

Who: two self-described and most endearing “geeks” who love fantasy, science and reason, Dragon Con, gaming, taekwondo, their cat kids, their friends, and each other

C and M were most wonderful to work with — organized to the minute, and articulate and easy to be with.  They brought their full selves and their love for each other to the center of every conversation we had, making it easy to filter out their values and create a ceremony that reflected their unique and most athiestic beliefs (or what they might describe as “non-beliefs”), the details of their journey together thus far,  as well as their fascination with fantasy world.

Where: semi-rural Connecticut at a lovely all-inclusive banquet house

I’m crazy about late summer-to-fall landscaping and the way it graces gardens with a cacophony of colors…some final, farewell glimpses of pinks and yellows and an ushering in of fall’s richer palette.  C and M adorned the space and their color-coded party with the same summer-to-fall juxtaposition and were, themselves, radiant in their excitement about the day, each other, and their posse of spirited folks there in support of a special day.

Setting the scene for party time: Before the ceremony, I noticed elements for the reception-to-follow come together that spoke to their personal and shared lives, such as Battleship-themed centerpieces.  Wouldn’t you be delighted to sit at Table Galactica?

Or the Millennium Falcon?

A unique ritual: Our intimate work together brought about a ceremony rich in details about the rhythms of their lives, accentuated by a sci-fi soundtrack, a bit of Shakespeare, and symbols of independence, trust, and a shared journey.

Feeling good: Moments before the ceremony, C enjoyed a coke with ice and some trail mix among her ladies-in-waiting, and reported to me she felt, “fabulous.”  I took this (a relaxed bride!) as a sign to loosen my grip on my prepared comments and let a few jokes fly.

And indeed…: as a group of witnesses and participants in this special ceremony, we laughed.  We smiled.  We processed in order.  It was a beautiful day and an honor to play a part.  And indeed, they did.

One of the things I appreciate about having grown up in a [loose, sometimes hodge-podge] religious tradition is it gives me fodder for re-claiming, re-arranging, and altogether re-doing things.  That is,  a stepping-off place.  My Jewish partner’s similarly loose, sometimes hodge-podge religious upbringing adds even more holidays to re-consider.

Since having some Jewish influence in my life, I’ve been particularly attracted to the holiday Rosh Hashanah, both for its somewhat universal applications (it being the Jewish New Year — I mean, who doesn’t like an excuse to make a couple of resolutions?) and for its general positive attitude:  a bit of a feast, few rules, some wine, apples, honey, wishing others a sweet new year — what’s not to like?

So, during this week every year I like to buy a box of matzo-meal.  Clearly this company has not changed it’s logo in at least 1000 years and I consider that the means for some good cooking.

Now, let’s be frank.  With all due respect, the mazto-ball soup that one might purchase in a deli is often, well, pretty bland.  Maybe its supposed to be that way for some biblical reason or another, but in our house, we like to give it a little pizzazz.

I start with Mark Bittman’s recipe from How to Cook Everything, but do a little adding.  Mostly in the way of salt and pepper, my friends — how much more kosher can you get than adding a little extra salt?  Some extra salt and pepper and onion to the matzomeal, a bit more to the broth, and I really chunk it up with lots of carrots and celery.  Plus, I cook 5 chicken legs in my broth, and when they are cooked through, I pull them out and cut the meat off the bone and into little pieces, and put it back in.  It gives the soup a lot more flavor.

I’m telling you, there are few things more delicious than a bowl of this soup.  Just like [someone's] Grandma used to make….sort of.   And when you are 1, you get to eat it deconstructed.  So, Happy New Year.   My Jewish New Year’s resolution is going to be to make this soup more than once a year!  What’s yours?