and so it is

some weeks feel like a lot of work. do you know what i mean? some weeks are kind of auto pilot easy, and then some it's as if everything is an unsurmountable challenge. i said to matt the other day, "am i having a mid-life crisis?"

the rundown:
this sweet five year old is having one meltdown after another, and i am in the ring battling it out to be a good mom. running out of tricks, i tell you. 

it feels like the story of my life is cleaning and yet my house is a perpetual mess. this happened, thanks to aforementioned sweet five year old, minutes after cleaning the entire bathroom. seriously?

this one is one meltdown after another, interspersed with the most endearing, funniest moments. she's needing a lot of reassuring, holding, reminders that she's a big girl not a baby (even though she's acting like a baby), and extra attention.

and sometimes, your person has a hard week. and there you are, knee deep in feeling their pain and not really having any brilliant ideas for making it better.

meanwhile, i'm second guessing everything about artmaking. about how much i've accomplished as an artist, where my work is at, what i should be painting or making or doing by this point in my life.

have you ever stumbled upon old pictures of yourself? i did today- from about 15 years ago. i remember feeling so frumpy and ugly not cute and out of shape in a few of the pictures, but with the distance of time and space at work, i think, "wow, i was kind of hard on myself. i don't look so bad, and actually, i look really happy and alive and secure in myself." funny how time works to make you look at things with more accuracy (or grace!)

so i pause, and look at those current pictures from my week one more time- 

i squint at my five year old temper tantrum-er, and i think about the way she still climbs up on my lap and says, "i'm the luckiest girl in the world." and how after a meltdown she reaches to me for a hug because really, truly, she is just trying to figure out how to be five and yet needing me all at the same time. 

i look at the messy house, and i think- yeah, at this very minute it is kind of ground zero, but i'm so much more organized than i give myself credit. it may be messy, but it was clean a few times today and then it got messed up because we were living and playing and learning. so there are books and scraps of paper and little toys all over the place. but as my daughter tells me, " mom, part of being a mommy is learning that if you have kids, your house is going to be messy." dang, as much as she was really just trying to get out of cleaning up her toys, that girl is right.

i look at my little ruby, full of so much energy and spunk and personality, and i think- "she is trying to make her way in the world. she wears her heart on her sleeve and she is all in, no matter what- tears or laughter." how can i teach her to channel those emotions in a healthy way? and boy, i love that girl.

i think about my love, and how grateful i am that he wrestles with the world- for what it is and how he wants it to be, and i know that as i sit with him in the hard days it makes me so glad that he lets me in to know when he is weary or sad or feeling a little broken. that's what marriage is- to carry each other, to walk through the valleys and the heights together, right? after all, he sits down and watches friday night lights episodes with me, even though there are about 689 other things he'd rather be doing to decompress. 

and as i write this from my studio, i look around at all of the work i've made this year, at the floor has toys scattered around, my own drawings tacked up next to my daughters' pieces of art, my desk covered with reminders of my little people. it isn't a gallery, and it isn't a museum, but i know that deep down, i am where i should be, doing what i can, with the time i have. 

so maybe it isn't a crisis after all, but re-evaluating life with a more accurate eye, with a fuller, more gracious vision of what really matters. because as much as the reality is that some weeks are a mess, they are nonetheless littered with so many moments of wonderful that it isn't fair to discount all of that. i want to stumble upon pictures from this season - five, ten, twenty years from now, and know that in the moment, in 2013, i recognized what i gift i had. how much goodness there was in this, my everyday...how much joy i was surrounded by, and how beautiful i was, how beautiful this life, temper tantrums, messes, and all, is - right now.

this week

what, not one, but TWO posts in one day? i'm trying to get back at it, friends. so if a couple of photo heavy posts is what it takes to amp up again to blogging, then so be it!

this week around here:

helper

blanket fort

art

peacemaking

backyard talks

friends

lounging

learning

rest

eggs

injuries

work

therapy

preschool

studio

nephew-sitting

and silly faces for days

(ahem, lest you get the wrong idea- these silly girls have also been giving me a run for my money. every day it's new territory in a lot of ways- learning and embodying what it means to be a good mom to each of them, how to be patient and yet give boundaries and direction, how to love them well when i am out of energy and creativity. not pictured: their many meltdowns and temper tantrums. but rest assured- they happen often! just keeping it honest.)

happy thursday to you~

point and shoot

i miss blogging, and yet i don't always know how to set the restart button.  i love having this space to write, and yet i've only posted 15!!! times this year. wow. so much to say and yet that feels a bit daunting. will you join me again on this journey? you can meet me in the comments section.

i uploaded all of these images last month in an effort to begin blogging again, and lo and behold! i never hit the publish button!

so here you have it, a glimpse at some of last month's beauty and messiness all smashed together, because really, truly, that is how life is.

nice to see you again.

see you again tomorrow?

home & birthdays

(the view of our orange tree in our backyard from an upstairs window)

slowly but surely our backyard is happening

and becoming a place where we can hang out, play, eat, be.

(that makes me happy)

i always hope that our home will be a haven and a place of rest for us and anyone who visits

even though we live in a not-so-peaceful neighborhood in the middle of a gritty city.

so the fact that it is hopefully evolving into that makes my heart full.

this week

m turns five.

what!?!

so yesterday she announced it was her birthday week.

i guess if mommy and daddy get to celebrate birthday week she figures she gets to, too.

any ideas on what fun or mischief we can have before friday to celebrate her birthday?

big or little ideas?

can you believe this little one 

is now not so little?

speaking of birthdays (and of back in the day when m was a baby)

today is the birthday of my dear, but too-far-away, friend daphne.

(here she is holding little m when she was about 6 months old!)

a. grateful to have a friend like her, even though i wish she lived closer
b. her blog is really great if you are looking for new nuggets of wisdom

(friday)

happy friday from our house to yours

(we like to sit on counters around here)

today i am thinking about this

a very good friday to you~

teaching an old dog new tricks

today's lesson: old dog + new tricks.

in this case, the old dog in our scenario would be me.

last month matt and i went away for a couple of nights with two other families from our girls' preschool, and after some very delicious and kind of rich meals, my friend kaite announced, "i think we should do a cleanse when we get home", to which i smiled and didn't say anything because of course, i knew there was no way i was doing a cleanse! first, i kind of feel like our bodies are built to filter and digest so i don't know how much i buy the cleansing the body's toxicity thing (but feel free to refute me in the comments section.) second, i didn't really feel like giving up many of my favorite foods for three weeks. third, and most honestly, i didn't really think i could do it. 

kaite kept talking about "the cleanse", and somehow it became like the amazing power of advertising- you swear something is the ugliest thing you've ever seen until you keep seeing it everywhere and in magazines, billboards, and tv shows, and suddenly you find yourself declaring how you really want to purchase that item. (case in point - my evolution from vowing never to wear horizontal stripes to somehow getting sucked into stripey mania the last couple of years, even if it makes me look even wider. but hey, stripes are cute.)

the cleanse slowly became my striped shirt, 

because lo and behold, 

even though i just outlined my very logical reasons for not doing a cleanse, 

i suddenly decided, "well? why not? i am going to do a cleanse"

so for three weeks i decided to say no to the following things:

gluten & all its friends, dairy, refined sugar, coffee/caffeine, chocolate, alcohol, eggs, red meat, some nuts including peanuts (& then for the last week, i also cut out fruit)

it seemed crazy. it seemed impossible.

people, i do not like green tea. or fish. or tofu.

i mean, wasn't that all i'd be able to eat?

and then i remembered my friend nicole, who did an elimination diet (whole 30) last year, 

and has stuck with it ever since, to amazing health results.

and then i also remembered how stubborn i am. (very.)

and i thought about how much i like sugar and butter and flour and how delicious anything is when it is a combination of those ingredients, and how irresistible said sugarybutteryflouryanything is to me.

so i decided to reboot my body by decreasing my craving for those items by taking them out of my diet for a few weeks.

and to force myself to avoid my default meal choices 

(you know, the ones that are fine, but you just do because that's what you eat for breakfast. 

i'm not talking about donuty levels of unhealthiness, 

but something like my regular english muffin with cream cheese. 

well, no gluten, no dairy, so had to figure out something else!)

so even though i woke every morning dying for my cup of coffee with cream and sugar in it? 

i drank green tea. and i complained and had a splitting headache for a few days, but i survived.

even though i took my regular snack breaks in the middle of the night when working on freelance?

i found something else to eat. like a boring old carrot. but it mostly hit the spot, even though i did miss sugarybutteryflouryanything at 2 am when i was needing a sugar rush.

it's funny-

despite my reticence to make the plunge,

i ended up kind of loving the cleanse.

i ate more intentionally.

i felt strong and healthy and whole.

i recognized that no one else really cared or noticed if i ate a modified diet 

(ahem, kind of big for people-pleasing-tendency-me).

and the biggie for me:

i was really self-controlled. i didn't cheat once. (actually i take that back- one time, but it was a choice and not a "slip-up") i think i've had this misguided self-perception that because i have spent much of my life struggling with my body type and related weight issues, that i must not be very self-disciplined. overweight = i'm obviously a flaky glutton (or something along those lines). these three weeks of changing how i ate reminded me that when i make decisions i am actually very much in control, and don't have an issue with healthy boundaries. oh, and that i make a lot of really healthy choices already with food and exercise. (insert the self-talk that says, "don't be so hard on yourself susannah, especially since you are believing untrue things.") that might not seem like much of a revelation, but it was pretty powerful to me.

so a couple of weeks out i've gone back to eating like "normal" but with some ongoing modifications. 

i eat less a lot less dairy, gluten, and sugar. i haven't had any artificial sweeteners (i do miss you a little, diet coke.) i drink less of my husband's delicious cocktails. and i think a lot more about what food i am putting into my mouth and why.

(p.s. don't get the wrong idea here-for the record yesterday i did eat multiple peanut butter chocolate chip cookies that my friend nancy made. because they were AMAZING. but then i also stopped and did not eat the entire plate. even though i almost should have. they were really that good.)

for a good man.

we've all had teachers who transformed our perspective and challenged us to go further, think harder, attempt new ways of navigating the world. when i was in graduate school for painting, i was able to not only learn from some amazing makers and teachers, but to work with some of them in the classroom. i was the graduate teacher assistant in multiple classes and with some of my favorite professors, all of whom are fixtures in the bay area art world and have been around for a long time, making art and teaching art. 

i found out yesterday that carlos villa, who i worked with in three classes, passed away early that morning. 

tears that keep coming and a sad, sad heart.

he was a man of many awards and recognitions, but most of all, he was a good man.

i can't stop thinking about this man that exemplified the kind of artist i aspire to be: kind, patient, generous, big-hearted, unselfish, funny, teacher and maker, a listener and story-teller, committed to his practice for a lifetime, known for character as much as for artmaking, and making art rooted in justice and community.

at the beginning of a critique carlos would pass out a stack of index cards to all of the students and before anyone could speak, they would have to scrawl a few thoughts down on their cards. and then he'd open up the conversation. a good practice in life in general - to pause and think before speaking, especially in criticism.

he would spend time between classes hanging out at the school cafe, talking art and life with peers and students. he always had a roll of cash in his pocket, and if you were in line with him, or happened to be low on cash he would pull that wad out and cover your coffee or lunch. every day. he bankrolled so many students without pause, and with a kind smile and twinkling eyes. he was an unofficial father-figure to who knows how many students over 43 years, including me.

at first when i was working with him i thought he was mellow to a fault- it kind of felt as if i was running the class. i was the one teaching, making announcements, sending out emails, grading, running critiques, planning logistics. and then i realized it was because he was teaching me how to teach the art of making in a setting where i couldn't fail. why? because he was standing right next to me, guiding me. before class we would take the tiny staff elevator down to his closet of an office and chat through how the students were doing, what needed to happen that day, who could use some extra critique or encouragement. and he would listen to my thoughts and then say, "ok, sounds good susannah." 

the last time i saw carlos was less than a year ago; i ran into him at an opening, which was so like him- always showing up when a student (myself included) had work up in a space, no matter how humble the location. we chatted about how some of "our" old students were doing, many of whom have eclipsed me in career since i finished school and took time off after having my girls. he invited me to give him a call and come by for a visit; it was of no urgency, just to swing by and hang out, and i didn't take him up on it. carlos has always been there; he taught at sfai for 43 years, so even though he was getting older i just assumed he would keep showing up at openings and in classrooms.

carlos taught me about 

making and teaching and living. 

how to take myself seriously and not-so-seriously all at once. 

how to listen to and respect students. 

how to celebrate (his 70th birthday was a massive party that took over the campus with friends new and old).

how to appear low-key while still tracking everything that was going on.

the art of delegating to your teaching assistant.

being in it for the long haul.

i'll leave you with some words from his teaching philosophy, because he says it better than i do: 

"My Class Strategy is always the same: I listen hard. I am aware that whatever I say 

can change a student’s life. Also, if I have 20 students in a class, it means that I have 

20 ‘directed study’ students. 

As an artist/teacher I need to be constantly active in my studio and immersed in my 

work to be able to return to encourage and challenge artist/students at the institution 

as a teacher. I am inspired. For me, “Artist/teacher” is one word. 

My role as a teacher is to identify the doors and windows of engagement, and to 

discuss the ways to go through those openings...to go further, and to further personal 

knowledge and career. 

The basic premise for me is to engage students on a level that they can understand, as well as to establish and foster goals that students (as individuals) can aspire to as artists. Continuing the conversation is what makes them go further. 

Art is sometimes ephemeral; sometimes it is an object. Sometimes art becomes 

teaching and teaching becomes art."

 so much love and gratitude to you, carlos. 

oh, so happy

last sunday we celebrated m's 4th hearing birthday with a big backyard dance party!

our hearts were so full-

70 (!) people eating, drinking, hanging and dancing in our backyard

and 

marking the amazing miracle that our little girl has access to sound.

it's something we never take for granted, but because she is doing so well listening & talking it's easy for people to forget that she is still deaf.

so gathering to mark all the work, time and effort she has put into listening feels like a good reason for a party!

matt's grandma, our girls' great-grandma was one of the first ones on the dance floor!

98 years young, that one!

 

 happy st. patrick's day- we're having carne asada!

 no party is complete without one of matt's concoctions...

this year's cake was topped with a toy cochlear implant

and pink ombre inside, per m's request

 plus we had mexican "ear" cookies

 not everyone was into the dance party...

 m asked matt and i to talk about her implants before the cake.

i told everyone how hard she worked to listen every single day

how special her implants were

how proud we were of her

and how much we loved her.

 

 

 our disco ball:

 

at the end of the night, as everyone had gone home, i soaked up a final dance floor moment with my family, so grateful for this life we have. 

such an unexpected joy to be thankful for something i would probably take for granted otherwise: 

my daughter's hearing. 

so, so, so very thankful.

and for this larger community that makes up our little world- incredibly humbled and so amazed.

so much love in my heart, i'm surprised it hasn't burst wide open.