growing curious

still, sendak

We're in the middle of a big household re-arrangement as we prepare for my mother-in-law to move in. 

I decided it was time to bring out some precious things again.  E is 7 and knows not to chew on book spines.  I guess I also want a little more of *me* in our living space because everyone else has run amok downstairs.  And how better to "mark territory"  (and, truly, I hope my efforts are not as base as that) than to create a rumpus right inside the front door?

Here are three photos from the Maurice Sendak Celebration in our entry-way:

The lidded vase is a piece that my brother made and decorated with Mt St Helens ash.  Diane Cain may note the significance of the ruler in front of E's happy face print.  (And I wrote about the significance of the ruler here.)

The prints here are from Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present by Charlotte Zolotow, illustrated by Maurice Sendak. I love Sendak 's art from every stage of his career, but I feel special fondness for his earlier art.  The illustrations in Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present are so lush.  He allows the background to be a character, too.

Above the Mr. Rabbit prints is another print, which helps us -- the Smith Family -- proudly proclaim that the wild rumpus is in full motion here:

 

rothko, pickles, new york

The Portland Art Museum will host an exhibit of Mark Rothko's work from February 28th - May 27th.  I'm very excited to take E. to this show.  We love to go to the Museum, and she has a fondness for big color and abstract art.

Thinking about this show reminds me about the Pickle Field Trip I took to NYC in fall of 2010.  I hadn't been back to NYC since I left there in 1993, so the trip was a very "emotionally loaded" business trip. 

The business goals of the trip:  to research different East Coast pickling techniques,  to glean ideas for scaling up my production, to visit new and long-established companies, to learn how those companies marketed their products.  Although the trip was patched together at the last minute when I found a great airline fare, I was able to accomplish all of those business goals and then some.  It was a very productive research trip.

My personal goals for the trip:  to walk around, visit my old neighborhood, to see a dear friend, to feel New York City again, and to visit some museums.  I was thirsty for art.  I needed it like minerals or vitamins. I felt parched and drained of hope and couldn't live another day without drinking up some art.  The Portland Art Museum is wonderful, but I needed to be somewhere absolutely saturated in art.

Even though I expected to be moved at MoMA, I didn't expect that I would burst into tears as soon as I walked off the elevator at the top floor.  I was overwhelmed.  Paintings and sculptures that I knew so well from books were right there.  My knees went weak, and I plopped down on a bench and just bawled.  To be so thirsty and then to be quenched in just the right way...  it was just one of the greatest experiences of my whole life.  And I'm so glad I was there by myself so that I could just feel it all in my own way.

 

 

And I think about this because I was particularly drawn to the Rothko pieces at MoMA that day -- just letting that color wash over me.  I liked getting close to the blocks of color and seeing the textures and looking carefully at where the colors touched each other.  I liked standing back from the paintings and letting my eyes go out of focus a bit, like I do in the forest when I'm hiking and want to see all those different greens at once.

I knew that Rothko had grown up in Portland so I wasn't surprised that I was drawn to his paintings that day at MoMA.  That kind of saturated color and the "line" he used to create shapes comes from someone who knows rain, gray skies, and moss that shimmers softly on top of harder shapes.

And thinking about the Pickle Field Trip makes me happy.  That was a good trip.  I was able to see clearly what I still so love about NYC and to understand in a more compassionate way why I had to leave there. I accomplished so much in that week -- both professionally and personally.  

It is okay not to fit in.  It is okay to be outside.  If you're in a pickle, just start making them.

 

permission to play?

I got my hair cut on Wednesday at a Great Clips on the other side of town.  That's a story to tell maybe later.  But all of a sudden you can see my face, my eyes, and my ears.  You know?

I have made most of the earrings I wear.  In a previous life, I made jewelry and had some of it in a gallery.  That was before I moved to NYC.  So long ago.  Another life ago.  I always look at earrings in stores, but I can't afford to buy what I like for myself.  I have a preference for a certain kind of earthy, dangly earring that swings a bit.

I haven't made new earrings in years, even though I have started wearing different colors and certainly now have hair that is a different color.  Every time I get dressed for the outside world, I say, "You need to make new earrings, Crazy Lady."  I've been saying that a couple of times a week for years -- since before baby E (now 7) yanked my earrings out when we played. 

So today I sat down and made some earrings!  Do you know how hard it was for me to give myself permission to let the chores slide and not make another to-do list for Curious Farm business stuff?

I spread out my work on the dining room table near all the windows so that I could use the natural light.  (Again...  to give myself permission to make a mess on the big table...  things have gotten that bad lately.)    I tried to remember how to work the pliers.  I got to feel and admire Molten Mama's gorgeous lampwork beads again and made a pair of earrings with two of them.  (These earrings are in the center of the photo.  My treat after my first farmers market season was to buy a few of Lisa's beads, and I will make a necklace from the rest.)    I needed a pair of purple-ish earrings so I made them.  I needed another green-ish pair so I made those, too.  Empowering!  The beads and findings cost money, but the result is better than what I can afford right now. 

And I have new ideas for the special necklace I will make from Lisa J Cooley's Molten Mama beads.

How rare and fine to have an afternoon like this!

 

bittersweet update

Maybe you would believe how busy I've been?  It's been just a month since I found out that Curious Farm was accepted into the Beaverton Farmers Market, and one month from today I will have survived my first Saturday there.

Overall, we're ahead of the schedule I mapped out a couple of weeks ago.  Engineer D has been a huge help -- solving all sorts of spatial, storage (at different temperatures), fermenting, business and logistical problems.  There is no way I could do this without him.  And it's not like he doesn't have a hundred other things to do that are important, too.

I was doing pretty okay keeping my nose to the grindstone about it all until I looked online and found out my booth space at the Market.  When I was able to visualize where I'll be, it all became much too real.  As I've said a few times, I wish I had three months to prepare instead of two.

We've been figuring out the booth, getting tables and a canopy, finding eco-friendly containers that won't leak, making signage and other collateral, remodeling our house, figuring out new ways to ferment vegetables in larger quantities, marketing the booth and talking to media folks, mapping out production schedules, building relationships with other farms that can grow vegetables for us, product testing, connecting with new customers, integrating new hens into our flock, and planting up our garden.

I already have begun producing sauerkraut for the Market because it takes two months to ferment.  The pickle lab is working very well, by the way.  Right now more than a hundred pounds   (ahem...  all shredded by hand...  have you ever heard of "cabbage elbow?") of vegetables are fermenting in the pickle lab.  I'm excited by how these long ferments are turning out, and I can't wait until a week or so from now when I can begin working on some spicier products that take less time to ferment.

I've been trying to get nonsense and details done so that I can feel more relaxed as I make the products.  That was my goal with the schedule I hammered out two or three weeks ago, and it seems to be working well.  We've accomplished *so* much, and -- as I turn more to production -- I feel more centered because I know how the product will stay safe and vital all the way from sourcing it from our farm and other farms to handing it to our customers.

But it's been hard, too.  I haven't slept very much.  Neither has D, and that's way worse for everyone.

For me, though, the hardest thing I've had to do in this process is what I did today:  clean out the pickle fridge.  This is where we put most of the jars of pickles that I made last year, organized carefully by batches.  I don't know... it's complicated...  The refrigerator of jars represents failure on some levels.  I didn't sell those pickles last year. 

The refrigerator of pickles represents opportunity, too, because I identified the problem with my business down to the *jar* and found another way to sell my pickles.  I'm proud of that.  It's the right way for curious farm.

However, one of the reasons I lost confidence in selling my pickles in refrigerated glass jars is that twice I found jars with issues.  Other jars in the same batches were fine so I couldn't pin the problems on anything specific, but it made me really worried.  And I knew that the longer I held the pickles locked up in the jars, more textural problems might surface.

Last week I sold my last jar, from a dependable batch.

Today I cleared out the fridge of all jars, from all batches.  I opened up every single jar of pickles, filtered and saved the brine, and then threw away the pickles.

But I tasted a bit of pickle from every jar.  6 - 4 months later, they are amazing pickles.  Only two pickles in all of the jars were structurally unsound, and I understand that now as a problem in the cucumber's development on the vine.

I'm thrilled that my pickles could handle being locked up in glass jars for six months and still taste great.

I'm thrilled that I figured out that I hate having pickles locked up in glass jars so much that I wanted to figure out another way to sell them.

I'm thrilled that my "other way to sell them" turned into this.

But I just put 70 pounds of still-fantastic pickles (all homegrown) in the garbage because it's time to get ready for what's to come.

Bring it on, Universe! 

--cathy, covered in sour-cucumber-fermenty-spicy-summery wonder right now, dreaming about what's to come.

 

 

 

 

 

kid has success with sewing machine

My mom got E a children's sewing machine for Christmas. We used it for the first time today, and she created this.  She did all of the design, all of the sewing, most of the fabric aligning (after much discussion each time about right and wrong sides and about speed bumps/extra layers of fabric), some of the cutting, most of the guiding of the fabric, all of the putting fabric in and pulling it out of the machine.  I did the ironing, needle-threading, and straightening of the edges.

Can you believe it?

Forgive me for indulging my fantasy of making quilts with my daughter someday... or at least of making them side-by-side.

brave john callahan

I just learned that John Callahan died today. I wish him peace.  Deep peace and freedom.

Some years ago, after I returned from NYC, I was hired to help John develop an email newsletter (The Startled Pig Humor Club).  His brilliance pivoted on his visual humor and the scraggy quality of his line.  It was my job to help him develop a voice to use in his newsletter.  He didn't use email then, but I had to make it all seem as true as possible.

He was ornery.  He hated computers then.  He loved some women but didn't have much patience for "women" back then.  He also hated how trendy women in NW Portland took walks with their dogs and picked up baggies of their dogs' poop.  He just couldn't believe that all these beautiful women were walking around NW Portland with bags of shit. 

I was touched by all of the art in his home about Humpty Dumpty.

Working with him, though, was a dream.  I had spent my whole life helping people who were creative-but-wordless find their own words, then worked with children's book illustrators in NYC to help them express their creative processes, and then I met John Callahan.  Every part of our professional relationship was difficult.  He knew why I was there but hated me being there.  He hated that I was an older, round, feminist  woman.  He hated that I challenged him on his declarations and insensitivities.  He hated that I wasn't beautiful, wasn't afraid of him, but still liked him anyway.

I admired him for being a true citizen.  He watched cable news and talk shows.  He developed a personal perspective about the big and small issues in the world.  Even when I didn't agree with him, I admired the chain of his reasoning.  He always made reference to anecdotes and relationships in his own life.  He never shot off opinions that weren't considered somehow in his own body.  In this way, he was vulnerable and powerful.  Honest, always.

I really understood how to make the line quality and angry humor of his cartoons come alive in straight text.  I loved surrendering my own politics to do good work for him.  I loved being in his company because he was honest about himself and what he thought he saw.    He allowed himself to be present in his art.  And many times he could see through the bullshit better than the rest of us.

Carry on, John.

do you want to write a book?

please read this: "how to write (a book). a wee rant." by Patti Digh. 

wendy westerwelle in "Rose"

In today's Oregonian, there's a great review of Wendy Westerwelle's performance in "Rose" (but I can't find the link to the review online yet). 

From triangle productions:

Wendy Westerwelle stars as ROSE

triangle productions! in conjunction with Roscoe Nelson is pleased to present ROSE by Martin Sherman, who also wrote our 1992 hit BENT. Rose is a survivor. Her remarkable life began in a tiny Russian village, took her to the Warsaw ghetto, aboard a ship called The Exodus, and finally to the boardwalks of Atlantic City, the Arizona Canyons and salsa flavored nights in Miami Beach. Rose is a vivid portrait of a feisty Jewish woman and a reminder of events that shaped the 20th century.

The show is at the CoHo theater and runs through April 25th.

Go, Wendy!

the quickening of light

On February 1st and 2nd, many people celebrate St. Brigid's day.  Here is a post I wrote last year about Imbolc, Candlemas, Brigid's Day. 

This is a pagan/Christian time to acknowledge the stirring of seeds in the ground -- real and metaphoric.  It's a time to set intentions and appreciate our creative energies.

For the next three days (today, Monday, and Tuesday), I'm going to work outside as much as possible at the Curious Farm.  Also, if D is able to move some things out of the garage and into the shop, I will continue deep-cleaning the garage so that we can set up our seed-sprouting area.  These seem like natural and appropriate ways to focus my energy and honor the earth's deeper rhythms.

I invite you to think about new projects you're beginning or hopes that you're holding deep in your heart.  I celebrate your light and your creativity.  Blessings!

dogwood fun

It was time to prune the dogwoods.  They leaf-out early, and I wanted to coppice them this year in order to force the plants to grow long, straight branches that I might be able to use in basket-making projects.  When Amy Whitworth and I took that class with Margaret Mathewson last summer, Amy told me that our red osier dogwoods would be good for making more vine cages.

So I hung out outside all day yesterday -- pruning and cutting.  Any gardener will tell you that it's magic when busy schedules and the weather open up a sweet spot for gardening in the middle of January.  It felt heavenly to be out there working, breathing in the cold air.

 
I decided to cut off the side-shoots from the branches and salvage as many long, straight branches as possible from the pruning.  I wasn't sure if they could be worked into a project, but look:

 
I did it!  I made another cage! (The photo is blurry because I worked in the pouring rain.)  It only took an hour, too!  And, yes, I'm going to remove it from that grassy patch as soon as possible so that it doesn't root in place.  Dogwoods want to root almost as much as willows do.  That could be a perk in some instances, I'm sure, but I'm not ready for a permanent, living garden structure in that spot.

Wow.  So fun!  Want to do more!  Won't the sugar snap peas look pretty growing on that?

at the heart of art and creation

I really loved this interview of Dan Wieden (of Wieden and Kennedy) and Tricia Snell (executive director of Caldera) by Janna Mock-Lopez in Portland's Goodness Magazine. 

They discuss the mentoring that happens at  Caldera, a non-profit that mentors youth in Oregon.  Wieden shared a story about how a teacher from Columbia University tried to inspire other teachers to help young people write from their hearts.  At the end of this story, Wieden says,

"Being creative sometimes is not making up some wild thing that never existed before, but having a unique individual understanding of your own world, what matters to you and expressing it clearly, whether it’s in paint or words, or whatever."

bookroom

We have a "book room" now.  It's connected to the "theater room" that we've been using in an unfinished state for the last year or so, but D got a bee in his bonnet to finish these two rooms as best we can before another winter sets it.

D built the shelves this last month.  They look wonderful. I've ordered a custom-made cushion for the window seat from the Whole 9 Yards,  and that should be ready in a week or two.  E's children's books fit nicely underneath the window seat.

It's been incredibly satisfying this weekend to arrange books that have been stored three books deep in other shelves or hidden in the basement storage space.  D and I have a lot of very old books, and I was able to put some of them out. 

Anyone who knows me know how important books are to me.  Many of the books I unpacked this weekend are rich with history because I worked with the people who made the books.  I found it different to arrange books in a tight space for three people (D, E and me), but I still managed to pull off some shelving jokes.  (I create stories and fun by how I shelve books together.  Most librarians, booksellers, and antiquarians do this from time to time.)

That sweet little library table has been sitting downstairs in an unfinished room for the last six years.  Tomorrow I'm going to find some flowers or a plant to sit on top of it to thank the table for its patience.  I found that table for cheap at the corner of 6th Avenue and 15th Street in Brooklyn when I really, really needed it.    I'm happy it's surrounded by good energy again.

I also mowed the grass, took E to a great birthday party at a nature center (we walked right underneath a huge barred owl that was calm and focused on a squirrel nearby), and unpacked a new crock of pickles.

Still pretty sad, but I'm trying to focus on the concrete things that make me happy.  Pickles, books, creating a happy home.

meta -- life and food

Just so that you know...

When it's quiet on the blog, a million things are going on in my mind. 

Aside from my usual family responsibilities, the challenge of starting up a new school year, working in the garden and preserving what needs to be saved...  I am cooking up a new business plan and am actively reaching out for the right support for it.

There isn't time -- chronological or in terms of my family -- for me to make mistakes as I build this new business.  I'd say I'm already aware of 50% of the challenges this business idea faces, and I'm trying to find smart, honest people to help me trouble-shoot the other 50%.

I'll let some steam out of the bag here as I go along, but I'm just sort of thinking so much and so fast right now that it's hard to capture the thoughts here.  I hope to find my rhythm again soon.

right now

Got E set up painting in the creating room so that I can think about cleaning out the art closet.  Big job.  Things have been smashed back there in an unorganized way for awhile.

It's cooler today.  My to-do list is long.

vine cage

Hey look!  I made this vine cage today!  It's a little "rustique" around the edges, but I love it and can't believe I made it.

Amy Whitworth, the wonderful woman who helped us with our front landscaping project, told me about Margaret Mathewson, who teaches ethnobotany, basketry, and other traditional crafts.  I couldn't believe there was someone out there teaching exactly the sort of things I want to learn.  It sounded perfect, and it was hard to wait for today's class.  I kept worrying that someone would die or there would be chicken pox again.

Margaret Mathewson's class was at the glorious Dancing Oaks Nursery in Monmouth.  I've never been to a more enchanted nursery.  Really good energy there, beautiful grounds, and healthy plants.  This photo shows some of the examples Margaret brought with her or that she demonstrated for us today.  Depending on how green the willow canes are, these structures can start to grow and become living fences and cages.  I'm looking forward to trying one of the free-form balls because I'd love to have that to roll around on our grass.

I feel like a whole new world was opened up for me today.  We don't have any willow growing here right now, but next year I can use the dogwood, cherry, and apple prunings I take.  Also, Amy told me how and when to prune the red osier dogwoods to maximize their weavability. (Fun fact for today:  "osier" signifies that the plants were specifically used for weaving and basketry.)

Margaret Mathewson has a couple of other classes scheduled at Dancing Oaks Nursery through the end of the summer, and I'm keeping my eye peeled for more.  It was a magical day.

phew

It's a sign of my life as a household appliance... ooops...  I mean stay-at-home mom... that the big beneft for E's school last night became a bizarre, stressful monster in my life for the last two or three months.

I'm too embarrassed to write it all out in detail, but I signed up to contribute a few creative projects for the event.  I was stressed about finishing them.  I was stressed about sharing them because important parts of me would be exposed to all.  I was stressed about being in a room full of people and was trying to remember how to be friendly.  I was stressed about making sure D's mom was comfortable watching E so long and so late.  I was weirded out by being kid-free in the afternoon and night  for 7 hours.

Over the last month, as I've finished each creative project for the event, I've felt excited and worried.  It took so much effort and angst to sit down with myself long enough to complete them.  Would people like what I contributed?  Would they view me differently?  I felt scared.

Now the event is over.  What I brought was welcomed.  I managed to enjoy myself despite my excruciating shyness.  

Now I am free to resume my regular life so I'm drinking tea and trying to climb back into my skin.

This morning we'll go visit my mom for breakfast and then come home and work in the yard all weekend. 

"bread" by leanne grabel

I just discovered that 2GQ published Leanne Grabel's recent poem about bread.  Now I can share it with you.  I wish you could hear her read it set to jazz music, but there's quite a bit of rhythm just in the words.  Enjoy!

candlemas - imbolc - brigid's day

I realized it's a wonderful "coincidence" that I'm putting creativity and fragile dreams in the forefront this week because Candlemas is right around the corner on February 1st and 2nd.

Waverly Fitzgerald has published a fantastic introduction to Candlemas and its connection with Imbolc and Brigid (a pagan goddess who later became a Christian saint). 

This is my favorite earth-based sacred day because it's all about new life growing -- fragile new life that must be nurtured.  This is the time when ewes begin to lactate because they're soon to give birth to lambs. 

Brigid is the goddess of inspiration, healing, crafting, and poetry. 

There's a wonderful story about how Saint Brigid desperately wanted more land for the nuns in her abbey. (How many times, as women, have we needed more space of our own to live our lives in meaningful ways?)  When she asked the local lord for this land, he scoffed at her and told her he'd give her as much land as she could surround with the edges of her cloak. Inspiration struck Brigid in the night, and she unraveled the threads in her cloak and tied them together with many knots to make one long thread.  Then she walked the land and layed down the thread to mark off enough land for the abbey.  In the morning, the lord realized Brigid's intelligence and commitment and granted her the land she desired. 

The story makes me wonder, How can I use the humble materials in my life in new ways?  What would it be like if I believed in myself enough to do something crazy/radical/unexpected in order to make my dreams come true?  I also think:  Only a smart woman could have come up with a solution like that, and I'll bet Brigid was smirking while she layed down that thread.

It's obvious now that the days are getting longer.  The anticipation for spring is high.  We are so close!  We must get ready to plant our seeds!  This is the time of the year (in the garden, in our spirits) when anything is possible. 

I think I want to spend the entire month of February celebrating creativity and the glowing fire within all life.  I want every day in February to be Brigid's Day.  Would anyone like to join me?   How can we strengthen our trust in our creative selves?  How can we use our ingenuity -- like Brigid did -- to mark off more space for ourselves? What small acts can we do each day to bring ourselves and loved ones healing?  Let's take pleasure in the small signs that spring is around the corner.  Will you light a candle with me at the beginning of February -- whichever day?  What else will you do for yourself?

imagination

E's imaginative life seems to have gone through a growth spurt recently.  Her play is more complex, and she seems to be stringing ideas together in different ways.

Tonight she noticed that only one of the Kim Murton animals in her bathroom has a circle around its eye so she became a detective and found her magnifying glass (which is round and goes over the eye) to look for more eye circles that must be somewhere in the house.

(I really like Kim Murton's work, and we have several of her ceramic pieces in the hallway bathroom -- the one E uses.  We make up stories about the faces, and we especially like to figure out what each of them has had for lunch that day.  Also, Murton's work is perfect for the bathroom because it can't be damaged by steam.  We also have one more small stand-alone sculpture in there, but it's not in the photo.  The collection was a big splurge after we finished remodeling that bathroom.) 

Today we had fun watching the video here of Young Chef Julian, who is five and has his own cooking show called Big Kitchen with Food.  E helps out quite a bit when we bake, but recently her pretend food play has become more interesting.  She has decided that she runs a little cafe called the Boink Pig Cafe, and she serves different populations each day -- her (stuffed) friends who are sick, people who are having birthdays, people who are cold and who need soup to feel warm. An interesting part of all of this is the consistency with the name of the cafe.  I don't know where it came from, and it's unusual for her to retain a concept for so long.  She'll be 4 in a month.

We're snowed in here on this Winter Solstice -- rare for Portland.  I went on a good two mile walk by myself this afternoon and almost got blown off the road by the gusts.  They're more fierce now so I'm not sure what tomorrow will be like for us.  They're warning us about freezing rain.

May hope and light and creativity fill your spirit on this darkest, longest night.  The sun begins its return.

first waldorf doll -- done!

Wow.  I took more than a week off from posting.  I haven't had a lot to say, have been feeling blue, and I'm tired of posting about my woes.  However, I didn't realize I'd been "gone" this long.  No wonder I feel disconnected!

Here's what I've been doing...  This is a picture of my very first Waldorf-ish doll.  (Technically, it isn't a Waldorf doll because the eyes are too big, and the mouth shows too much expression.)  I will enjoy giving her to E this Christmas, even though E isn't very attached to dolls.  I'm very pleased with how this turned out -- for a first try.

I took a class with some other mothers from E's school to learn the techniques for shaping the doll's face.  It has been amazing to watch each person's doll develop -- each has a completely different personality because of how the underlayer was tied with yarn.  I enjoyed the group effort and watching the other mothers build relationships with their dolls.

solstice calendar

Please look at this amazing solstice advent calendar created by Michelle at Green Kitchen:  here and here.

This is so beautiful and meaningful. 

fermenting

There was a moment this morning when I felt the world was holding me together. 

D was playing with E before he left for work.  I had just finished cleaning up from breakfast.  My tea was steeped.  I checked on the bowl of fermenting dough on the counter -- my first try at a slow-rise, no-knead bread.  I loved seeing how active the yeasts are.  I checked on the sauerkraut.  I can't open the crock, but I put my ear next to it and listened to the bubbling for awhile.

I opened the blinds in the living room and looked out at the turning leaves.  I can harvest more yarrow before the weekend.  The rowan tree's branches are heavy with berries.  Those crazy violets are still out there.  Meanwhile, other plants are shrinking back into the ground -- letting go of their urge to grow and moving their energy back down to their roots.

I took my cup of tea into the Creating Room so that I could check in on a few friends.  Crescent Dragonwagon has a very moving post up about appreciating the astonishing wonder in her life -- past and present, old loves and new loves, death and life.  Near the end of the piece -- while still working on her "good think" -- she talks about finding a bounty of wild mushrooms growing near her home.  She harvests some of them and carries them back in her pull-over, wishing her beloved was there to witness the moment.

And I think that there is so much fullness and life right here.  Even in death and in letting go.  There are wild yeasts in the air that are slowly working on the dough in my kitchen.  The cabbage is decaying and may someday turn into kraut.  The leaves are falling and will become moldy food for the very roots that nourished them to sprout.  There are wild mushrooms growing in a secret place, ready to be gathered by a creative spirit with a heart so full that it breaks over and over again from the wonder in her life.

Even the losses in our lives nourish us -- sometimes in ways that take awhile to appreciate.  It all matters.  Even the things we can't see yet.