26 Monday Aug 2013
Posted in Bloggin Noggin
A big, cheerful THANKS to all who participated in the Whole Heart 200th Post Celebration Giveaway. Chosen by random, Jasmine Laietmark is the lucky winner! She will receive tea from Lala Earth and a little somethin’ extra from Jamaica Plain’s popular KitchenWitch.
21 Wednesday Aug 2013
Posted in Bike Life
Tags
Riding in a city can be tricky stuff. First there’s the cars and how to behave around them. Then there’s the potholes and how not to tumble into them. Finally, and perhaps most challenging, your own naughty self to contend with.
Helmets. Bike lights. One-way streets. Stop signs. Night riding. Relating to fellow commuters who may or may not be running said stop signs as they shoot down one-way streets, sans helmet, in the middle of the night. It’s complicated.
Although I wore a helmet from the start, I admit it took me about two years to complete a contract with myself to stop at every red (it’s so easy to just fly through.) Stop signs are fuzzier: I slow significantly but rarely stop (unless it’s a four-way) because of the effort it takes to get started again from a dead halt. Several years and some nasty verbal clashes have convinced me to self-ban screaming at drivers who pull rude or unaware moves (like the dreaded right-hook.)
I do harbor a few guilty cheats. For one, my apartment sits at the bottom of a steep hill, so I ride the wrong way every evening to get home. My other guilty cheat, discovered when I observed another rider take the easy way into Brookline after crossing the BU Bridge and Commonwealth Ave., was recently resolved, much to my delight!
A peaceful side-street ride just got more legit.
14 Wednesday Aug 2013
Posted in Bloggin Noggin, Writing Life
My internal writing critic, like most, is full of doom and gloom. It declares things like: you’ll never be a prodigious writer. Authors don’t make enough cash to live on. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
This kind of inner talk has a dangerous dampening effect on, say, novels, poems, plays. But blogs, and more specifically Whole Heart Local? Meh.
When my critic says scornfully, with unsurprising frequency: nobody reads your blog. They don’t care what you have to say.
I reply, currently: beh.
I read WHL. And love it! And so appreciate the opportunity to plan for, dream about, and write it, still, 200 posts later. And to celebrate, we’re hosting a giveaway, WHL and me.
Lauren Murphy, herbalist, strong-lady (rumor has it she can lift 600 lbs with her LEGS,) master cheese-maker (no kidding), and good friend, will be debuting her new herbal line Lala Earth this September. Through her enormous generosity, WHL is giving away loose-leaf tea with the theme of love. And if THAT weren’t enough, I plan to pair it with a small treat from one of JP’s wonderful, local businesses.
Lala Earth herbal tea: evidence of tastiness. Add sun and water. Kapow!
On to the giveaway. All you gotta do is leave a comment. That’s it! One comment, about any such subject as your heart desires. Or “hi!” That’s nice, too. The winner will be chosen by random on Wednesday, August 21.
Luck, friends.
05 Monday Aug 2013
Posted in Green Life, With Friends
I can’t say exactly how a “staycation” differs from a normal weekend, local-wander, or just hanging out. It’s got something to do with intention, I think.
With the rare fortune of getting to see friends for more than just a few hours. Sharing home-prepared meals and more than one occasion of frozen treats.
Sharing stories, dreams, challenges, and silly moments.
What’s a catbeard you ask?
A staycation most definitely includes local treasures: in our case, a short drive to Broadmore Wildlife Sanctuary in Natick. Peaceful exploring and spying on turtles; less-peaceful attempts at dodging mosquitos.
There’s something about a continuation of effort, but without the burden of expectation.
Appreciating what we have, in the moment that we have it.
Can you spot the twigs and leaves in Lauren’s hair?
Can you spot the gummy candy?
01 Thursday Aug 2013
Posted in Librarytour
From time to time, I become aware of a place and think wow! I’d really like to go there. My assumption is that I never will, but more often than not it happens that I find myself walking through the door . . .
A trip to DC for work prompted me to ask friends where I should visit, even as a little voice in my head whispered: the ultimate librarytour: Library of Congress. I engaged in the bare minimum of research, glancing over the options for the Library of Congress. Three whole buildings (Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison Memorial) dedicated to research, and at least one holding American folklife history as well as tweets.
Similar to visits to the New York Public Library, I opted to go for the iconic, even though I knew these beautiful spaces don’t actually house books (at least not books intended to be held, sniffed for their gorgeous and memorable library-smell, checked out.)
Of course, even in the halls of softly glowing marble, security guards, brightly restored murals, treasured collections (ensconced in glass), interpreters/tour guides, long, empty passageways, and tourists, I often find a haven for young people.
Locating books to touch and exclaim at and pour over, I soak them in.
Err . . . a different sort of soaking at the Court of Neptune Fountain in front of the library
25 Thursday Jul 2013
Posted in Community, Writing Life
I feel grateful for another round of retreating at Earthdance, a community and dance-space for artists and community-builders of many stripes, nestled on a hillside in Western Mass.
Trying to bring love to the manuscript
That familiar, welcoming wood-smell of the Gratitude dorm, new and same heartful, generous people, same novel manuscript for me to wrestle.
The young Rumi was a guest for a few days at Earthdance
17 Wednesday Jul 2013
Posted in Green Life
Once upon a time, I learned a fine method for departing with items once cared for, but currently out-of-use: take a picture.
1st Boston Knit-out Festival I attended
After stockpiling a selection of T-shirts that I wore pretty much to-death, I decided to enlist some assistance and employ this method. The result? A virtual, visual library of memories spun from cotton and dye. I’m still the person I was, who purchased or received these shirts as gags or gifts or glimmers of who I was leaning towards being.
Worn during march on Washington for women’s reproductive rights
Job of old
I miss the opportunity to wear them, now that (most of) these old Ts have been converted to dust cloths and hankerchiefs. I don’t miss the burden of owning more than I can appreciate wearing.
Never wore this shirt because it bothered my eyes
In my experience, hemp doesn’t get as soft as proported
Designed by my gent, and then washed to death
15 Monday Jul 2013
Posted in Boston Moments, Green Life
Tags
On a bike ride home from Dorchester, I got lost.
One confused turn led to another, to another. Traveling down a road lined with brick homes that reminded me of the old military base I once lived near in New Jersey, I stopped in front of a welcoming yellow building. And then I was found.
The best thing about getting lost in Boston is that it’s a fail-proof method for learning what is where and how the neighborhoods connect.
The Boston Nature Center is an urban wildlife sanctuary located on the grounds of the former Boston State Hospital. It offers programming for elementary school age children as well as miles of trails and many bushes under which rabbits graze to their heart’s content.
Lots and lots of rabbits . . .
Look closely for two sets of ears!
Right nearby to the Nature Center are the Clark Cooper Community Gardens. Described as some of Boston’s oldest, this impressively large collection of community gardens probably does not welcome rabbits. In the past, friends and I once spotted some wild turkeys loitering around the edges.
So what have you found when you were lost?
10 Wednesday Jul 2013
This is what I looked like the first time I wandered Washington, DC as a tourist.
With few visits in between, one where I marched in support of women’s reproductive rights, another devoted to the company of friends, I have had little opportunity to explore the city on my lonesome. DC’s charms have remained -for me- long forgotten, under-appreciated, or elusive.
Exhibit in the National Museum of the American Indian
I was fairly sure I didn’t much appreciate the culture of our nation’s capital.
Say DC and I’ll free-associate: khaki, suit jackets, ladder climbing, poverty, gentrification, and blindingly white, granite-smooth buildings. Hot hot heat. Free museums.
However, a whirl around the city astride a shiny Capital Bikeshare rental spun my opinion.
Obligatory White House photo
I had arrived in DC a day ahead of the conference I was to attend on behalf of my “place-based” community agency. Figured to take in a few museums, eat some local fare, visit with my partner’s cousin, and maybe locate an outdoor market. I accomplished some of those, but it was the bike ride that finally won me over.
Coasting down Pennsylvania Avenue in the impressive protected cycle track located smack in the middle of the street, I toured the neighborhoods.
Today, you say DC, I free-associate: charmingly colorful row houses with all manor of quirky embellishments, the sky a blush pink and cottony blue, mural of some of the U.S’s most popular brown faces –Bill Cosby and Barack Obama.
So . . . this is what I looked like on the most recent occurrence of my wandering DC as a tourist. Notice any differences? :^)
05 Friday Jul 2013
Posted in Home, With Friends
It’s a pivotal age, I think, 35. For one, I can no longer click the radio buttons for 30-34 on demographic questionnaires. I’ve been bumped to 35-40. That’s kind of sad.
On the plus side, I’ve enjoyed my thirties -the feeling settled in my skin as my own quirky self, the way others appear to listen more closely when I speak from that space of knowledge which comes with experience- so more thirty, more delight, right?
I rarely engage in big shindigs just for myself, so this year, having friends over for a light brunch, strolling through one of Boston’s grand community gardens, dining at the funky-fine establishment of my favorite Boston-area baking/restaurant mavens, and catching sight of the Boston Fireworks in an unexpected local, felt perfect.
Phoebe Sinclair Writes 