word for the year: fleeting so that i remember how each moment is in order not to cling how life is to accept to love to live to let go to remember the big picture how small we are to make it matter to make to revel to sink in to give to risk to try to savor to connect to dance and shout to tend
each year's word is a variation on this theme, really
a couple of weekends ago we drove up the sonoma and mendocino coast. what a dream california is. the sweep of nature. rough and rolling and shining. never ceases to bowl me over. and moving to see all the handwritten signs thanking the firefighters.
we traveled to the much storied topanga canyon this weekend. a friend of m's got hitched in a handfasting ceremony led by a shaman. the loves stood on the edge of the canyon and told each other poems they'd written and sang to each other. we all tied ribbons of different colors around their wrists. all connected. rather lovely.
m and i took a hike. the canyon's flowers are different than the bay's (obviously). somehow that was so refreshing. a new landscape—similar, yet different. blooming and slithering with lizards. hazy with dusk. and then just minutes to the beach, foggy in the morning. grey with bolts of pink shirts and yellow surfboards. sand underfoot and waves eternal.
we visited dog island farm in vallejo to get some heirloom tomato starts. the good folks there sell inexpensive heirloom starts that they've tested in our climate. ran into a neighbor there at dog island. we hauled soil to our house with the help of a new awesome vallejoan friend's truck. same new friend is bringing us bees she'll keep in our yard (a story for another post).
we built four planter boxes with the help of another new vallejoan friend, with tools from two different neighbors.
at mid city nursery where we went to get veggie starts, we met an enthusiastic fruit tree expert who is going to come to our house and assess our yard's fruit tree growing potential.
it takes a village to start a garden! at least when we are doing it. :-) we've met so many friendly people since moving here. it has taken me by surprise, this friendliness, this eagerness to connect, and it has made me happy and grateful to call vallejo home.
everyone should see this photo by emilio morenatti. refugees are fleeing their beloved countries because their lives are threatened. they are in pain and have faced terrifying journeys. we should be embracing them, not shutting them out.
