258: of travels, polaroid practice, and poetry

hi out there.

today, i'm afraid, this post is going to be all over this place. imagine yourself crossing a river and each little bit of writing or each topic is like a stone for you to step on. i promise you'll make it to the other side.

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travel is still on my mind.

scott hammond takes lovely photos of his travels.

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hence, polaroids are also on my mind.

thanks to a sweet friend i am the proud owner of a sun 660. here are a few shots i took yesterday.





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i've also had poetry on my mind.

maybe it is because i am eagerly awaiting this book.

it could also be because of this.





last night i dragged tom to see (former poet laureate) billy collins read in raleigh. you may remember that when i began reading a poem each morning, i started with billy collins' picnic, lightning. in person, collins was quite funny, charming even. tom (who avoids poetry as much as possible) was fully engaged and that, my friends, is saying something. mr. collins read many poems about things such as dogs coming back from the dead, jazz, girls wearing lip gloss, moths, forgetfulness. he read haiku and a sonnet in addition to many other poems in free verse. he ended with q & a; he is currently listening to blossom dearie.

many hours later as t and i were just waking up, morning light streaming in, i noticed tom rise slightly, lean over to his bedside table and scribble something quickly on a scrap of paper. i said, "did you just have an epiphany?" he said, "no, i just wrote my first haiku." billy collins would be proud. :)



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i really want to get back in the habit of reading a poem each morning so i bought a new book of poetry in denver.



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and from poetry to lisa and vera.

lisa just posted her favorite raymond carver poem on her blog. read it here.




this vera scarf with cute red and white mushrooms is headed your way lisa. thought i would post a picture since it's taking me so long to mail it.

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and so we've made it to the other side of the river thanks to my trusty scanner.



good day!
shari

257: denver to durham

our old neighborhood, berkeley park:


a trip back to our old neighborhood for green chile and cheese tamales.


the historic oriental theater which was only a few blocks from our old house.


(LoDo) lower downtown, denver:



t and i both have western shirts from rockmount.



outside of my favorite independent bookstore




driving home:


the solomon water tower...for lisa.




this is my favorite landscape shot. the day was fading and we were leaving the sun behind us.

denver is a really fun city. i love all of the old buildings and the unique neighborhoods. when we lived there, i thought it would be amazing to spend a month photographing each neighborhood. maybe i still will one day...

since i've been home, i've been really excited by the book the art of travel. it addresses why we travel, referencing history and art. i'm really enjoying it. it is also proving to be a wonderful tool for reflection as t and i wade through the pros and cons of a move.

see you tomorrow friends!
shari

two: sweet

for week two, lisa chose the word sweet.

lisa's response:





The word sweet came to me as I was pouring honey into my tea one day. I started thinking about how some teas I like sweetened and some I don’t....

What interests me about the word is once again the double meaning that can surround it. Sweets can be a treat or a vice. Something yummy or something forbidden [or you think are bad for you]. People can be sweet in an endearing way. They can also be sickly sweet – fakely sweet – overly sweet.

I am continually fascinated with that kind of line. That never-space where something can flop from one meaning to another with a tone, a wink, a nod or a suggestion. What is it that gives the last shove, or the pull back to one side or the other. How is it that something as innocuous as “sweet” can also be deadly.

And here’s a little story: When I mentioned to my grandmother that she had said something that was so sweet, she groaned. “I don’t want to be sweet. I was always told I was sweet when I was younger. Oh you are so sweet [said semi-sarcastically”. I asked “what’s wrong with being sweet? And if you don’t want to be sweet – what do you want to be?”. She turned to me with a sly grin and said “spicy”.

Btw – if you want to know who those two songs are by :: sugar kisses is echo and the bunneymen. Just like honey is jesus and the marychain :)

shari's response:


click to enlarge

when lisa first told me the word was sweet, i thought sweet tooth. then, i thought it might be fun to record my sweets intake for five days, including two days in which i was on a cross country trip. i had the idea of drawing on a legal pad and making a graph of sorts. what was the sweetest thing i ate? could i even try to rank the sweets from sweet to sweeter to sweetest?

it was interesting to look back over my week in sweets. sometimes, things tasted sweeter than expected such as the fruit leather. i noticed that i had more super sweet treats in denver as we ate out or had dessert with friends. i'd love to see others' sweet tooth charts. do let me know if you create one.

what is my favorite sweet treat? flourless chocolate cake.

i also have a flickr set full of sweet treats if you'd like to be tempted.

see you next week over at lisa's blog for our third installment.

thanks for reading and following along!
cheers,
shari {and lisa}

255: all eyes on the landscape

hi everyone!

i'm finding it hard to corral my thoughts into a neat package. perhaps it's because i have so much to write about from the smell of paperwhites filling our dining room to the current stack of books sitting on my bedside table. i also have received a load of great mail that i'm eager to share with you. ah, but first things first. back to colorado.

our trip was even more special as we decided to drive. (do you all know that i'm a nervous flyer?) to some, sitting in a car for 2 long days might not sound appealing, but t and i enjoy it immensely. for this trip, we packed the car with a bag of snacks (fruit leather, chili lime tortilla chips, trail mix, etc.), carefully chose favorite cds, filled our thermos with hot coffee, and hit the road. i love doing trips in real time, feeling the distance and sensing each place. there is nothing quite like watching the landscape change as the miles go by. the colors, the shapes, the sky.




the sky in north carolina on our way out of town. two days later we hear that durham received an inch of snow and a bit of ice.


in the middle of kansas, noticing the brown of the prairie and the bright sky.


western kansas heading into colorado. we felt as if we were in the arctic. i love the flat land and the 360 view.



sunsets are different in the plains. the landscape just hugs the sun and the colors lasted for over an hour. i was entranced.


once in denver, i still took photos in the car. this one from the backseat as our friends shuttled us to the breakfast king for these.

one more post about colorado on tuesday. tomorrow, stay tuned for the second installment of the lisa and shari project. i am hosting both responses this week so do stop by.

and now, i'm going to listen to the splendid table on npr. i'm looking forward to hearing more about washoku.

hope you are having a great weekend!
xo
s

254: boulder

hi everyone!

back home in nc. :) feels nice. my cold is even disappearing!

i'm writing a bit out of sequence here...but this photo was calling out to me as i browsed through my photo library with a cup of coffee this morning.

it's a photo of where we used to live in boulder...the building on the left with the lovely architectural details. we had a great porch and our apartment was directly across from a new orleans style breakfast joint called lucille's. we woke up every morning to the smell of coffee, biscuits, and beignets. yum. our little place was directly behind the shambhala center, a buddhist meditation center and another building i love in boulder.

it was strange to pay our old place a visit and see that it was turned into office space. isn't that always how it is? change is inevitable. i started questioning whether it was easier to accept change from near or from afar. the jury is still out on that one.

boulder was great. walking down by the snowy, icy boulder creek, getting coffee at a favorite cafe, having lunch complete with my favorite draught root beer, popping into my favorite bookstore, relishing the quiet snowy streets, having tea with a dear dear friend and her young daughter (the very first time i've met her) in an amazingly peaceful and beautiful tea house....what's not to love?

i have so much more to share, including tons of photos. the drive to colorado was so lovely, and i took many photos from the passenger seat. i'm still letting it all sink in so this will have to do for now.

i have so much to catch up on. please bear with me as i slowly return to this space.

happy friday!!
shari

253: w a i t i n g

hello from denver!

friends, i have so much to share with you. however, today is my last day in colorado and i'm just going to enjoy it! quickly, i wanted to let you know that my project with lisa will be back up and running on monday january 29th. i'm waiting to post our second word because i really need my scanner. a photograph just doesn't work, so i do hope you'll check back in then!

denver and boulder have been great fun! we've loved being in the snow and visiting with all of our friends.

hope you all are having a nice start to your week.

see you soon!
shari

252: headed west

tonight i'm listening to the replacements
as i pack,
stopping every so often to stand still and stare
into space.
i'm packing heavy sweaters, knee socks and gloves
even though north carolina was a balmy 76 degrees today.

tonight i've eaten too many peanut butter cookies.
i've printed out emails
from kind friends who wish me well.
i've packed a legal pad, a tiny notebook,
and my small journal.
i have a postcard featuring an upcoming tibetan movie
in my purse. i think of it as a good luck charm.

tonight i'm imagining maps
in my mind,
roads that intersect and weave a pattern
from here to there.
wheels that turn and turn and inch their way
from south to west,
from here to there.

tomorrow we drive
and while i don't know what i'll feel
while i can't say for sure
i do know this.
i am bringing home a heart shaped rock,
a token of the colorado i so dearly love.

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take good care friends! i'll probably check in while i'm in colorado but if not, i'll see you in about 2 weeks!

xo
shari

one: record

the lovely and talented lisa has invited me to be a part of an exciting new project. each week lisa and i will take turns selecting a word, and then on our own, we will think deeply about that word as we search for its meaning in our daily lives. this process may involve collecting, drawing, sculpting, photographing, writing or painting. we are hoping to move beyond mere representation and toward documentation. in addition to diving deeper into ourselves, we are eager to learn more about each other and the creative process.

week one: record

what would happen if all you left behind was the paper you accumulated for one week? what would the paper record reveal, if anything, about your life? how much is known just by looking at the paper and are there any bits of paper that are unclear? where do the bits and pieces of paper come from? how far do they travel?

for one week from january 8th-14th, i collected paper receipts, ticket stubs, lists, etc. at the end of the week, i gathered these bits of paper and examined them, separating them into different categories and looking for bits of meaning. i tried to imagine how historians/anthropologists would look at these papers and what information they would glean from them.





first, i divided the paper by type:

information-4
receipts-2
ticket stubs/programs-3
paper from food/drink consumed-2
handwritten lists-1

then, i looked for specific dates/times:

date/time listed on receipts:
1/09/07 @13:56 in durham
1/11/07 @2:12 PM in cary
1/13/07 @ 8:00PM in raleigh

side note: if i had to do this project over again, i would hopefully find a better way to display the paper. i took photos first and then i decided to cut up the paper to create a paper trail collage. however, i didn't like the end results so i had to go back to using the photos. in retrospect, i would photograph each piece of paper separately and then display them as a whole. all of this to say, i have a hard time making up my mind and this time i blew it when i cut the paper. oops.

as i continued to look over the paper i had accumulated, i found it interesting how much information is revealed....

a record of places i visited, including exact times
a record of money spent
a record of food/drink purchases
a record of food consumed
a record of cities visited
a record of my handwriting
a record of events attended
a record of information i collected

each of these records is a tiny piece of a puzzle that ultimately reveals a bit about my interests, personality, and habits.

have you ever taken a closer look at your paper trail? i encourage you to do so over the next week.

thank you lisa for inviting me to collaborate with you! see you here next monday.

denver is on my mind and another post may be on its way this evening.

have a good monday!
s

250: the international tea party!

hi friends,


for the tea party, i cut a branch of budding camellia. did you know that it is in the tea family? quite appropriate for our little gathering, i think.



would you like to join me and drink from a fancy cup?



i'll be serving a delightful russian tea with hints of lemon, vanilla, orange and grapefruit. the tea bags are muslin and i just love them so.



i also brought a beautiful tea cozy made by the talented and super sweet shash! isn't it lovely? do you need a cozy for your tea?



and...i brought along abigail, all the way from scotland. i'm on the left and abigail is on the right! we are enjoying chatting and sipping the afternoon away!

tom's here too and would like to say hello!




we should do this more often!

have a great weekend and thank you risa for being such a wonderful hostess!
shari
ps: do you want to come to the tea party, too? click here for the instructions.

249

*i'm dreaming of snow.

*how do you like your tweed?
one
two
three
four
five

karin's post yesterday reminded me of this link.

tomorrow the book club reconvenes as we begin to discuss a taxonomy of barnacles.

i'll also be posting here for the international tea party hosted by the oh so lovely risa. do join us!

oh and thank you all for your wonderful ideas and thoughts regarding clearing out. i am in the midst of what has become a paper tornado in my study so must get back to that!

farewell friends...
shari

248: thoughts on clearing out

yesterday, i did not (see above) work on clearing out as i have every day since the dawning of a new year. sitting upstairs in the cafe sipping a vanilla chai with a friend was a welcome respite from all of this sorting and all of these tough decisions i am having to make.

while organizing and paring down is wonderful, this activity brings up many different emotions for me. inevitably, each item i pick up has some memory attached to it. when i'm ready to put the said object into a box to be donated, suddenly an image of the person who gave it to me comes into view or i remember exactly where that object resided in my old college apartment. further, every so often i happen upon a box of mementos that helps me remember specific details about an event in my life. for example, recently i discoverd a shoebox of memories from my europe trip of 2001. while looking through the box, i thought i don't need any of this paper. yet, i soon found myself smiling after happening upon the name of one of my favorite spots, castle wildegg. i remembered walking around this huge beautiful building with my younger brother. i remembered what i was wearing. i remembered the wonderful aviaries. i had all but forgotten these details. had i donated or recycled these mementos, perhaps those memories would have been lost forever. is that okay? are the dull, fuzzy memories enough or do i truly need something tangible?

during this process, i constantly remember how much i love looking through my grandmother's objects and photos and think how sad it would be if she would have decided to give away these things years ago. am i giving away everything that brings my personal history into focus and once again, does it matter?

we change. we are changing everyday. our thoughts, our feelings, our style, our priorities. i guess what i'm saying is that i am having a hard time trusting myself to make decisions that my future self will find acceptable. while my present self may love to rid my home of clutter, will my future self mourn the loss of these objects?

i want to live in the present so what role does the past play in our lives?

247: quiet

good morning friends...

i'm feeling rather quiet today so i thought i would just share a few highlights from my journal of daily lists.

january 4th
the way the sparkling apple cider "skipped" into my glass when poured;its amazing color

january 8th
grapefruit essential oil lingering on my shoulders after savasana

january 9th
reading this poem by raymond carver

tom is making armenian apricot soup today as the weather is much colder and i'm looking forward to going on an adventure with m. we usually end up having dessert for lunch. :)

and i leave you today with a few links:

bird textiles

sweetnellie softies

samantha holmes


more tomorrow...
s

246: random and scattered

hope your weekend was lovely. a few bits and pieces today....


*have you ever had moravian sugar cookies? they are super thin and super delicious. i think they are lovely with tea...pear tea especially.

*thinking forward to spring fashion. it's easy to do so with the spring like temperatures in the south. i really want one nice pair of wide legged cotton pants...in red. these from anthropologie would do nicely.

*lisa and i are joining forces on a new collaborative documentary project. our first post will be a week from today!

*i've been thinking about histories, memories as it relates to my clearing out. will probably revisit this on my blog this week.

*julie's beautiful etsy shop is open today! i love Tree rings.

*i'm so inspired by this photographer.

*has anyone read this book? it looks amazing! be sure to look inside.

chris plumridge's tea pots are so charming.

off to yoga...

enjoy your monday!
shari

245: the eno in black and white

have a great weekend!
shari

244: inspiration to share

*rilke's tail shadow


thank you all for your kind and thoughtful comments yesterday. they mean so much.

is it me or is january moving rather quickly?

i thought i would share with you the lists i have been making each day in my small journal.

january 1, 2007:

baking in the morning
sticky dough
homemade biscuits and apple butter
wearing my new ring from underdog ink
tom's ski socks--gray and red. loving that color combination.
rain
the last of my vosges chocolate truffles (a gift from my brother)
3191
practicing yoga to live music


january 2, 2007

coffee in my white forest pottery mug from mav (i'm giddy over its beauty!)
a fuschia mohawk
lunch at the federal
homemade cola fizzing as it's poured over ice
photographing shadows in the morning*
listening to hello pretty city from 8:30-9 AM

january 3, 2007

my fuzzy lavender bathrobe
a long walk at the eno
taking photographs outside
oatmeal made from steel cut oats
peppermint tea

january 4, 2007 (so far)
being present enough to hear the morning train whistle. gosh, i love it.

other things that are inspiring me:

flickr
blue and white II
then i'll dig a tunnel
untitled
mirrors (thanks ash for pointing me in this direction)
working
polar bears with fairy lights

art
i could not be more in love with the work of robert creamer. wow.


clear outs

tom and i are committing to going through 2 boxes/areas a day in hopes of paring down. so far so good.

books
breakfast, lunch, tea--another one of those books that i am reading
s l o w l y because i just adore it. (thanks jen and mav for the tip)


dessert
last night i decided i wanted a hot chocolaffogato. i don't know what else to call it. we filled mugs with sweet cream ice cream and poured warm hot chocolate over it. delicious. i highly recommend this as a nice winter treat.

hope your days are full of inspiration too.
xo shari

243: push and pull

push and pull.

this is constantly how i'm feeling. being pushed in one direction only to be pulled back in another. two years ago we moved from denver, colorado to durham, north carolina. now, i'm feeling the pull back to denver. in order to explore this possibility, tom and i are making a road trip in about 2 weeks. we're hoping that the decision we need to make will be clear to us, that we will either feel that denver is home or we'll feel that our time has passed.

it's not so simple. before i lived in denver, i lived in north carolina. do you see where i'm going here? push and pull, push and pull. i am feeling ready at age 33 to stand firmly and calmly as if in tadasana (mountain pose), to quit this wavering and to just settle into life.

even in my yoga class, though, i feel the effects of a mind that is driting back and forth between the past and the future. in monday's amazing class, our teacher spoke about balancing the tamas or past self, represented by the back body, with the rajas or future self, represented by the front body. this practice was wonderful, and as we moved our bodies in and out of the asanas, we said goodbye to 2006 and welcomed in 2007. however, i began to notice as the practice sped up and the poses became more intense, that my mind was screaming out "i don't like this. it's hard. i'm tired. i'm hot. when can i rest?" soon, though, it was time for a period of meditation. as i tried to sit calmly with eyes closed, i just had to smile when i noticed my mind whining again, "this is boring. i can't sit here. i want to move now." why are we always wanting the opposite of what we have?

push and pull.

in 2007, i don't want to be pushing or pulling or spending too much time dwelling on things of the past or the future. instead, i want to experience the beauty of each moment as it comes whether it's difficult or easy. i want to breathe deeply and remind myself that the living occurs in the now, in the present and to always bring myself back here.

hope you have a good day friends! don't forget to visit the kim family auction site. it looks amazing and i have my eye on several things...

til tommorow,
shari

242: where i am

as we begin a new year, i feel the need to write down where i am.

i am loving raspberry kefir.

i am planting my practice of yoga.

i am collecting found paper (still).

i am thinking of taking photography classes.

i am planning a trip to denver.

i am loving wearing layers.

i am baking in the morning and evening.

i am feeling so inspired by this project.

i am eager to clear out the unnecessary, to organize, to carefully consider.



i have a fresh stack of january magazines that i haven't even opened...yet. :)

i am planning new year's greetings to send to blog friends.

i am loving citrus fruit.



i am listening to the radio and thinking how delightful that is.

i am making a note that i want our next house to have more natural light.

i am enjoying wearing my hair up.

i am starting 2 new journals: one with daily lists of things that make me smile and one with things that inspire. the latter is mainly images.

i am ready to plant my feet firmly.

where are you as we start this new year?

have a great day!
shari

241: 2007

happy new year friends!

for our first breakfast of 2007, i thought i would make some baking powder biscuits. i was also very eager to try the homemade apple butter that sweet molly sent my way, which was delicious by the way! immediately, i turned into an apple butter scrooge, telling tom that he was using far too much of the precious butter for my liking. :) thank you so much molly!! we are really enjoying this special treat.

here are some new year/january images from days gone by that i like:

one

two

three

it's an overcast rainy kind of day. we are planning to go to a yoga class in the early evening where there will be live drumming. it will be my first yoga class with live music, and i'm looking forward to it despite the fact that i'm feeling a bit stiff and a bit full of holiday treats. :)

here's to 2007! cheers all!
shari