while my boys were away in early june, my sister visited for a night. we had less than 24 hours to spend together but packed it full of goodness: we went out to dinner [as220 foo(d)] and shared a pot of tea [duck & bunny], then the next morning went swimming [ymca] and window/shopping [farmer's market, oop, craftland].

and she taught me i will follow you into the dark, by death cab for cutie. she showed me the strum pattern, but i find strumming SO HARD so i picked it instead.  i've actually been working on the strumming for weeks now, and there's something really gorgeous about the upbeat up-strumming against the quavering confidence of the lyrics.  it's motivating me to actually care about strumming, which i haven't really ever before.

i just registered for a triathlon! the danskin triathlon in webster MA on sept. 26. it's a sprint-distance, beginner event. from what my friend who's done it before told me, it is unique in having more of a supportive, you-go-girl vibe than a competitive edge. i'll be participating as part of a relay team, responsible for the 1/4 mile swim. however, since nobody calls themselves a unithlete, i'm going to go ahead and call myself a triathlete. i'm a triathlete!

in tandem with my switch to part-time to create space for living well, the triathlon has been a great incentive to get back into the pool. as i've been swimming laps, i've been trying to think about how race day will be different. it will be a lot more crowded and hectic, the water will be colder, it will be a lake (with creatures! kind of a fear i have to work through), i'll have to look around to see where i'm going, and it won't have the metronomic rhythm of my usual volleys from end to end of the lane.

over the next three months i'll likely post some training updates as i work on increasing my fitness, stamina, and preparedness. this week, my goal is to just get to the gym every day for half an hour, for either swim or elliptical. i figure that once i get a baseline level of activity/routine going, i can start to lengthen and structure my workouts more. but at this point, i want to focus on feeling positive about just showing up.

i came across no country for young women on chocolate and zucchini, a food blog that i've been reading for years now. i love how clotilde describes her gradual switch from software engineer to food-writer: beginning with unsustainable twelve hour days, and eventually shifting to part-time work for more balance.

i really think it's important for everyone to know that you don't need to fit inside the mold of a conventional 40+ hour work week. i recently changed my own work situation from full-time-plus to a custom-fitted part-time. it took creativity and courage to suggest something that none of my coworkers do. i was worried about what people would think, and about whether i was damaging my future earning potential or setting myself up to miss important opportunities. i felt a lot of guilt about not having a large enough appetite for the cornucopia of work and family set out in front of me. but i concluded that my well-being is worth some prioritization. and that i can still enjoy a delicious meal, even more so, when i deliberately select what goes onto my plate.

once i made the switch, i was surprised at what happened next. i received such positive responses from coworkers who told me they were impressed at my dedication and professionalism while juggling challenges i'd kept quiet, and that they were excited for me to find what i'm looking for in my new arrangement. i feel very lucky to work in an environment that was receptive to my proposal. it makes me wish every employee in every workplace could feel liberated to design the work life they want.

getting back to the video, we need something like this for engineers. at least in software, women are overwhelmingly outnumbered, and i'd love to see a resource that would inspire and inform girls about the appeal, challenges, and reality of engineering work.

dala onesie by sweetpea and co

my coworker annie recently pointed me to a new york times article about parental leave in sweden, titled in sweden, men can have it all.

there, parents share 13 months of paid baby leave however they'd like to divide it up (with the caveat that two months are reserved specifically for the father), over the child's first eight years. it's really flexible, down to the hour. the article covers the political, economic, societal and personal implications of this policy. read it!

the title interests me too. there's the aging feminist ideal that women can have it all, which i think my generation is finding to be a real challenge. i like the idea that the new feminism is for men to have it all; to reapportion their surplus of career privileges, and pick up corresponding slack at home. women stand to gain so much, from higher salaries to lower stress to a more tightly knit family and (correlated) lower divorce rates.

For many companies, a family-friendly work pattern has simply become a new way of attracting talent.

amen. time to start learning swedish.

i'm about to head out for dinner at a friend's house. she's an amazing, inspiring, ambitious (sometimes over-achieving) mama and i so enjoy our conversations. we've been meaning to get together for a while, but our work and family schedules leave little free time, which seldom overlaps.

but oddly, i feel as if someone has been watching over me and mitigating my loneliness this week while matt and max are away. (aside: i usually attribute such orchestration to the ghost of my great-grandmother, an irishwoman who read tea leaves. i never knew her, but i also believe that she helps me find parking spots.)

this week, many friends have called me out to play, and out i have gone. between wardrobe consultations, tea, swimming, conversation, wine, ice cream, long walks, and home-cooked meals, i've had a wonderful week catching up with friends. and i can't think of a better way to spend the last night before my boys return, than sharing another family meal.

the rest of you can squirrel away the information that when invited to bring a dessert, i take the assignment seriously.

during a massage, the way that my body slips into relaxation is gradual and almost imperceptible... right up until i try to move and find my limbs are much heavier than i remember. perhaps my mind is fooled because it continues to think. but my awareness shifts away from mundane life to the sensation and pressure of each stroke across my skin and into my muscles. it is sleepy, rather than tired.

note to self: touch, candlelight, soft music, and moist heat are accomplices of inner peace.

i had no plan for day 4 of my golden week. i had mapped out each of the previous days, and for the most part followed the plans. but this day i left empty.

so what did i do? watched some tv episodes on hulu, surfed the internet a bit, went out for tempura yam maki, then spackled the holes in our crumbly coursehair plaster walls.

these holes had been eating at me. they chronically reminded me of my failed attempts at affixing artwork and lighting, mocking my desire and inability to personalize our space. well, friends, i showed them. i may still not have art on my walls, but at least there are no longer holes.

by the way, if anyone reading this has conquered similar walls and lives to tell the tale, i would love to hear it.

there were many other chores on my todo list for the week, but i didn't get to any of the others. i think this one had special significance. this week was to be a blank slate, free of outside demands. my goal, in a way, was to patch some of the nagging holes in my wellbeing; and to restore and prime myself to a neutral state. to which i can add the things that bring me joy.

day 3 of my golden week was full of magic.

i had my hair cut.
inches removed. felt instantly lighter.

i baked a pie.
i love preparing ingredients to cook, how they softly call to my senses with a variety of colors, scents and textures. i find that my mind focuses on the ingredients, recipe, tools and tasks involved in a way that transforms repetition into meditation. and at the end, at least most times, there's something delicious to eat.

so on this day, i baked a pie. as i pulled my prep bowls, pie plate, cookie cutters and cooling rack out of the cupboards, i was reminded that these were all gifts from friends and family. i enveloped myself in the newness and strangeness of rhubarb, and the familiarity of a pate brisee crust. in the late afternoon, as i left the house to pick up max from daycare, a soft light graced the kitchen and the smell of warm strawberry and pastry filled the air.

max said "pie".
as soon as i walked back into the apartment, holding max, he pointed to the conspicuous object on the center of our kitchen table. so i pointed to it too, and said that was mama's pie. and he started excitedly asking "biiiiieeeee? biiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeee?" this was the first time (that i'm aware of) of max immediately repeating a new word spoken to him. it filled me with glee.

matt took me on a photo walk
it was a beautiful, unseasonably warm evening and matt proposed a photo walk for our date night. so we took our cameras to a park, and snapped photographs of whatever piqued our interest as we walked toward a downcity restaurant for dinner. looking at the world through the viewport of my camera always makes me aware of light and shadows, motion and stillness, and other details that i don't normally consider. some friendly competition about who could take the more interesting shot of the same scene was had. and i felt a real camaraderie with matt as we reviewed and culled our collections over dinner. here are mine:

at the end of this day, i felt really happy.

on tuesday of my golden week, i used my gocco for the first time in a while. my project was to finish a set of stationery for one of my favorite babies.

in the past couple of years, i've found it hard to set aside time for my own projects. part of it is due to becoming a parent, and part is due to having been in a new job. i have less free time to dream up ideas, and some days it can be hard to cordon off time for even basic tasks like folding laundry or cooking meals, let alone the focus for designing and executing a creative work. we often start the day hurrying to get everyone out of the house on time, and in the evening i fall into bed exhausted not long after max is asleep.

sure, there's a fragmented chunk of time here or there while my boys go out or when we have the help of grandparents or babysitters, but i find it hard to channel my energy during those specific moments. overall there is a bit less of the magic that i used to feel of just getting the desire to do something creative, being able to immediately act on that impulse, and to lose a sense of time and place in doing so.

i can look back and see that in my childless life, i expected a lot of myself, which i capably delivered. getting a lot done and doing it well were part of my identity, and it is taking some work to come to grips with not feeling that way so often anymore.

so this gocco project, the cards for the baby, had begun weeks prior, but stalled. having some relaxed, alone time removed enough obstacles for me to get back to it. and once my hands were dirtied in the project again, i came up with an idea for another screenprint. the challenge now will be to carve out the time for that project. it is clear anyway that part of my happiness requires honoring and prioritizing the joyful meditation that i experience when making things for no other reason but to make them.

for the subject of the print, i chose a classic children's toy - blocks. we've been playing a lot with the modern version lately - duplos - to build tunnels and garages for max's matchbox trucks. the structures are so mutable - you build something up, it tips over, you add another extension, you take it apart and make something else. before my golden week, i felt like my daily structure was more similar to a wall of bricks with hardened mortar. but blocks of time are really more like legos, aren't they? there may be other ways i can fit the same components together. it's time to start getting playful with this.

on the first morning of the first day of my golden week, i went swimming.

i go to the pool every saturday morning, for baby swim class. but this doesn't involve any swimming on my part. it involves a lot of walking around in shallow water while singing and laughing with max, which is good for my soul. but it's not exactly exercise for my body.

i'm not sure how to segue to this topic, but some days, i feel like i'm moving through mud. like there is a lot of invisible but real resistance around me. i believe it will take tremendous effort to reach my goals, and i might not have the energy it takes. this feeling is rooted in both physical tiredness, and a mental fatigue and scatteredness that i can't seem to shake.

for example: on this morning, i packed my swim gear and dropped max off at daycare, with the intention of driving straight to the pool. i was feeling really together and excited. but as neared the YMCA, i realized that i hadn't packed a towel. so i drove back home to retrieve that, and remembered that i would need goggles as well (they weren't on my radar since i don't use them in baby swim). i must have searched the house for 10 minutes, to no avail. i resigned myself to buying a new pair, and drove to the sports store. finally, i set back out to the pool, about an hour later than i had hoped, and beating myself up about my disorganization.

on this day, i overcame the resistance—most likely because i had the entire day to myself. on a normal day, with work or family waiting, i would have just given up.

swimming was blissful. i swam whatever strokes i wanted, at a relaxed pace, back and forth in my lane. input to my "thinking" senses was blurred - without corrected vision, i vaguely watched the light bounce on the ceiling and floor, and the faraway sound of miscellaneous radio drifted in and out of my ears. my mindfulness shifted to my breath and the easy movements of my body through the water. i felt wholly unencumbered, connected with my body and with my past self.

i would like to take this feeling out of the pool, and bring it back with me to my home life. i'm not sure how to do that. but i think the first step is to spend more time in the pool, re-learning that state of being.