Celebrating a Birthday at the Harvard Square Chocolate Festival

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For years I’ve been telling my mother, “It doesn’t matter when you come to visit, there’s always something going on in Boston. There’s always something to see or do* and, in the summer, a festival every weekend.”

Dancing stars in H Square

Still, it was mighty convenient that the 2013 Harvard Square Chocolate Festival coincided with my mother’s birthday visit. We arrived late on the plaza in front of Crema Café and neighboring shops, so we scored only tiny slices of chocolate cake baked by Legal Seafoods from the actual festival part of the event.

Not too cold for free samples

Naturally, Bertucci's gives out rolls

A rare WHL blog Phoebe-sighting . . .

From there we explored a hat shop and headphone shop, paid an adoring visit to Bob Slate Stationer, where my partner, mother and I had to battle strong urges to over-purchase. (Pens + notebooks + office goods = squee!!) Finally, we joined up with good friends for a chocolate lover’s afternoon tea at Upstairs on the Square. Although we didn’t eat as much as we could have, we did end the day with so. much. chocolate.

You shouldn't have

Too much chocolate

(*Boston’s enormous collection of summer and winter markets explode the possibilities of what a person could get up to any day of the week, all year long.)

What Is It: Bike Lid in Cambridge

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For at least a year, my bike commute route has taken me past a speckled white contraption located outside a brick building in the Cambridgeport neighborhood of Cambridge.

Bike hood 1

At first I thought it might be a type of sculpture (right down the road is a stone sculpture that reminds me of a dragon’s hindquarters.) Then I decided, since it’s vaguely bike-shaped, it must be a hood intended to protect bikes from weather. But that seemed impractical: what institution, business, or city-living individual would go through the trouble of purchasing and mounting such a bulky apparatus for the benefit of just one or two bikes?

Bike hood 2

So I decided, despite my hunches, that I really had no clue what it was. Today, I was getting my hair trimmed in that same neighborhood and grabbed at the opportunity to satisfy my curiosity.

Bike hood instructions

That’s right, folks: a bike lid.

Touching Every Part Of A Thing

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At thirteen, I started my first paid job as a page at my local library. Among many boring and not-so-boring tasks: shelving books and folding letters and flyers for mailing. I remember marveling at how my fingerprints were possibly on every single thing in that children’s room.

At twenty-one, I started my first job out of college as an administrative assistant at a dotcom boom era start-up. I stuffed many thousand envelopes and collated collateral. I felt amazed by how, for pay, I touched things and converted them into other, supposedly more valuable things.

Today I rolled a ball from a skein, the yarn sliding through my fingers, silken yet firm. Touching every part of a thing. The work I’m doing is not for pay, but for learning, for creativity as I excitedly anticipate my first class at Gather Here, a soulful neighborhood knit/crochet/sew/craft shop in Cambridge.

yarn on the yuke

Warm Moments In Winter

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I’ll admit it: warm winter days make me nervous.

Like so many people, I fret about the Earth and our human impact, but I try not to be that person who grumbles global warming when other folk sigh what a beautiful day this is! Because it was a beautiful day when my partner and I joined friends and their young’ins up at Ponkapoag Pond in the Blue Hills for hiking, exploring, and cheese-eating.

Girls watch the water

Ice shard

Tree spirits

The group hikes

Following the board walk

Stolen From My Journal

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An excerpt:

I confess that I think “struggle,” as a word, a verb, should have less negative connotations. Sometimes I get a profound mind-vision (just the feeling, no pictures) of the whole of humanity struggling to take out the wash, drive the kids to school, convince the mugger to do no harm, strike down the enemy, discover the way on the map, run up a hill, determine the most beneficial choice, hide true feelings, breathe, sleep, live, compete, etc.

Then I close my eyes and I feel the planet doing its thing –churning, growing, dying– and I attribute nobility to the whole. I feel compassion for the whole.

green jelly bean, alone

Each One Teach One

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Each one, teach one is a phrase from my childhood. Always, it was in association with the black community; a kind of close-knit striving to bring every person out from the abyss of isolation and fruitless struggle. In this phrase: hope, determination, looking back at a dark history, leaning forward toward success, the idea that each individual has value, despite society’s contrary claim.

I haven’t been that little girl for a long time, eavesdropping on grown-up conversations about the-way-things-are when I should have been sleeping or minding my own. Each one, teach one and it’s cousin, each one, let one (uttered by my mother on the highways of New Jersey when one car refused to let another merge), had virtually disappeared from my lexicon. Lucky for me, other people have better memories.

Snowy branches and leaves

Yes, Chef, the memoir of chef Marcus Samuelsson, born in Ethiopia, raised in Sweden, cooked his way through Europe and landed in America’s famous Harlem, surprised me by cracking open the black experience and laying bare his impressions. Samuelsson’s succinct summary of why so few high-end kitchens employ chefs of color (and women of any color), his brown-outsider’s experience of racism in Sweden, the US and aboard, his desire to contribute, his vulnerabilities, eccentricities, drive and artistry all impressed this reader. Though perhaps I was most moved by his respectful recounting of each one, teach one, pulling it from the past into the future.

No Crystal Stair was another surprise excursion through the heart of black American history. This fictionalized “documentary” by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson shows its effort in the best way; I could feel the hours spent researching -the phone calls, the sudden dead-ends, the victories- in Nelson’s account of her great-uncle, Lewis Micheaux, owner of the famous National Memorial African Bookstore, also of Harlem. Again each one, teach one painted a central theme in the life of Lewis Micheaux, who contributed via his passion for reading, for understanding, for bringing people along.

Snowy boughs in the Arboretum

My mind likes to create connections. Perhaps it’s just human. Unearthing the same theme in two books I chose at random -coincidence?

Rushing Towards Calm

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Do you ever find yourself rushing to be slow? Pretty ironic huh?

Especially when you get to where you’re going and the calm is so absolute, so welcoming, you wonder just why you were banging around earlier.

Welcome

Breakfast on the table - Scandinavian style

The perfect scone with the perfect jam

Annie installs a zipper

A crafternoon with friends is an important place to be. Maybe I can’t stop my frantic rush to arrive, but it’s good to know, at least, that the panacea is available as soon as the door clicks softly shut. And the smiles blossom. And the late-morning light does what it does well.

Houseplants

Angela knits a balaclava

Gone to Winter Market

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This time we were prepared.

Strolling through the market

Because you can’t just walk into such an exciting winter market and expect to leave with your wallet intact. It’s important to have a plan of attack (and a budget.)

David chooses spices

And it’s important to being open to seeing people you know (and like) ’cause at the Cambridge Market the mood is sunny, and the sun is streaming through the tall windows of the Cambridge Community Center gymnasium. There is no ducking behind a tall stack of Oreos!

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Culinary Cruiser team smile for the camera

Coffee kart

Band plays at the market

Solitary metal bird

Whole Heart Resolute 2013

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A great idea

It’s like someone took hold of 2012 and shook it hard. Catapulted right through that year. There were some beautiful moments, and some hard moments.

Looking back at my 2012 Resolutions and Goals

Resolutions

  1. Practice trust (instead of worry) -this mantra helped enormously with my propensity to worry, it was a bit like a prayer -putting trust out into the great unknown
  2. Understand that everyone is doing the best they are able -another good one, ruminating on this aided in forgiving others, forgiving myself, and more desire to understand instead of judge

Goals

  1. Discover timing and space that works for “Confessions,” and the other books to come -still in progress, but I did get that sabbatical to happen :^)
  2. Get some shelves up -kitchen, litter box room, office -completely missed the mark, I’m not the best at manual tasks and should probably hire help for this goal (anyone, anyone? interested?)
  3. Cull my clothing, keeping only what I love, and keep clothes picked up -I’m happy with my results from this
  4. Eat honey early (for allergies) –I was all over that one, natural sweets = heck yeah!
  5. Develop a “family creed” with my partner -there’s a working draft on our kitchen blackboard right now

Goal for this blog

  1. Grow to 10 views per day –close, I think; 2013 will be even better as I’m making new friends in the blogosphere

Secret resolutions

  1. Visit as many new-to-me local libraries as I’m able –well, I did visit a few non-local libraries, and one very local
  2. Attend a writing residencyI’ll be re-applying to the residency I was wait-listed from last summer

Lets go forward.

Three with sparklers
2013 Resolutions

  1. Learn positive intention statement to combat negativity (and keep myself sane)
  2. Discover what it means to “give back” in a way that fits my current station in life

Goals

  1. When I wake up, get up! (Instead of forcing myself to go back to sleep and then emerging groggy/grumpy/exhausted)
  2. Reintroduce long-hand writing (letter! blog? novel?)

Goals for this blog

  1. Post at least twice per week (sights towards 3x)
  2. Get a new set of blog business cards printed

And while we’re on the topic, I’d like to introduce you my friend Josie Bray of Simple Steps to Wellness blog, who shared a terrific idea about feeling our way through a successful year.

So what are you working on?

Wedding sparkler