This, too.

For a couple of years now I’ve been much less outward-facing. Still, I’ve always loved sharing and connecting and know - because you tell me so! - how useful it is to step into the contours of another’s life and let it nourish, confront and clarify for you your own life. In that spirit, I want to share some parts of me that don’t often get seen in this space or haven’t been seen in awhile.

Said another way, beyond my embodiment/movement/coaching work, this is me, too.

First, a current photo, in case we haven’t met in awhile. :) This was at my birthday dinner earlier this month:

Nesting

We moved a couple of months ago to Colorado and have been settling in bit by bit. On the advice of my mentor (why this did not stand out as incredibly obvious to me after so many sleep issues, I do not know), I put my attention on the bedroom, making it a space that feels like a retreat. Design is always so personal, but this space feels both restful and sensuous for me. It feels good for sleep, sex, meditation, exercise, wrestling the kids, watching shows, reading, journal and painting small watercolors. Everyone in the family likes being in this space (and I love that both kids now sleep elsewhere in their own space!).

The rest of the room is lovely, too, but here’s the bed. Everything is organic/natural, most notably the rug (they are tricky to find in styles I like). The power in the bedroom is turned off at night, too, to decrease the alterations to the electrical field and improve sleep.

Building Things

I’ve always liked making things. A couple years ago, I made a headboard for our floor bed (you can see it in the image above). Since moving, there have been a few things I’ve wanted that I either couldn’t actually find to buy or didn’t want to buy due to cost.

Those of you that sleep on the floor and prefer more minimal furniture probably know how hard it can be to find the things you really want. So for the bedroom, I made two things: end tables that are eight inches high and a bench that is 14 inches high. The end tables were a matter of finding which pre-made things could be turned into what I wanted (in this case, large round, teak cutting boards and short hairpin legs) and then figuring out assembly. For the bench, I went to a local lumber yard, bought a large plank of Colorado ponderosa pine, cut it to length, sanded it, oiled it and attached some pre-made legs I bought off of Etsy.

For the office/studio, we needed a very large bookshelf. All the fiction and travel mostly fit on the hand-me-down bookcase in the living room, but we have a lot of self-help, healing, religion, literary non-fiction, art and history that needed a place to hang out. I wanted solid wood because I avoid VOCs whenever possible and wanted something sturdy. I dislike the look of many wood bookshelves and didn’t feel excited about dropping a grand or three on something non-custom that I knew could be made simply (on the other hand, I’m very happy to spend lots of money on organic bedding and natural wool rugs!). So I turned to Instructables and put this together in a day for less than $150.

The pictures are a little funky, but it perfectly meets our needs for simplicity and volume. Plus, I made it myself! (Thanks go to my dad, with whom I talked through my plans when he visited in January. He had a few tips to offer that streamlined the process for me and helped me feel more confident.)

Painting

Painting has increasingly become a thing I do, almost entirely for therapuetic reasons. (I might argue that that’s why we do most anything that isn’t a requirement for basic living.) I have some big works that keep coming to me in visions, which I hope to start executing on, but in the midst of all this transition, I’ve been enjoying the travel set I purchased myself and have been making small paintings with the enclosed water brush. It’s easy to do with the kids around or when I take a break while hiking, and it nourishes me in unmatched ways. Here are some I’ve done recently in the 30 minutes I might have here and there.

No, the top left one isn’t vulvas, although I laughed when I’d finished it because it looked like that’s what I was going for. I also loving seeing the little “mistakes,” the ways something happened because my kid bumped into me or because I have very little idea what I’m doing technically. I have a feeling I’ll take a watercolor class someday to learn the skills that can better execute what it is I see in my imagination.

Adventuring

When I’m not meeting one-on-one with clients or hanging with the kids or building something or sorting through yet one more box of crap (why???????) or getting to know our new town, I’ve been doing some adventuring.

We headed south to the Organ Mountains in New Mexico for a camping trip earlier this month in order to find some warmth and I’ve been doing a bit of downhill skiing, too, which has been fun to return to after a nearly 20 year hiatus. Plus, plenty of hiking into the hills and mountains around our new town.

The Inside Stuff

Then there is all that happens for which no pictures can exist. The ways I’ve been meeting myself anew in my inner life. The shifts that keep opening me up to new possibilities and a growing sense of my own wildness. My body is loving doing core workouts and top of the foot stretches and I’ve just signed up for a pole dance class to explore how moving my body in that way supports softness within. I’ve been tapping into unconscious ideas around belonging and growing my awareness of resonance. The interconnectedness of various health/disease patterns is becoming more visible and I’ve been watching some beliefs around struggle dissolve. My clients are exploring themes around relationships, self-agency and sexual desire and I’ve loved supporting their paths. I’ve been watching Derry Girls and The Crown and Extraordinary Attorney Woo. A garden is being planned and long-distance friendships are being nurtured and…

That’s a bit about me and how I’ve been moving about my life for the last few months. I’m happy to be on this journey with you and wishing you lots of joy as the seasons change, trusting you’ll have exactly what you need as you need it.

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