This is happiness.

Even in the early mornings now I can leave the house in short sleeves and sandals, and it feels great, like being in heaven I think.

Summer has officially arrived in Spain.

It's strange because only a week or so ago I was wearing my coat and boots and worried every day about being cold or getting rained on. Now, I'm contentedly ignoring my sweaters and tights, cheerily embracing the dresses and skirts and t-shirts I can wear without all those stifling cold weather accessories that have accompanied everything I've worn since November. In the mornings I wake up to sunlight, and the sky stays lit up until after 9pm, when it slowly fades into a soft, warm dusk. I've stripped the blankets from my bed and am leaving the windows open now while I sleep, because it's warm enough that you need a bit of breeze, even at night. It's like someone just snapped her fingers and set a great change in motion-- the goddess of all things warm and glorious! And I'm just thrilled. Overjoyed! By the way the sun beats down hard on my skin. By the greenness of the trees. The bright bursts of red and yellow and purple and white that peek out of unsuspected corners where flowers are flourishing, emitting their delicious freshness into the surrounding air, making me stop in my tracks sometimes, just to breathe. Yum!

The world is awake! And everyone knows it. They're emerging from hibernation. Families are out together on walks, in parks, sitting on benches, talking on street corners. Neighbors sit on their front porches in the evenings, just because. From my bedroom window I can hear the screams and laughter of children playing in the streets bellow. People everywhere are running and biking and walking with their sweethearts (or their dogs), taking in every minute of extended sunlight!

Oh glory, how I love it!

Skewed perceptions

Today I somehow found my way to this article/photo essay about celebrity moms feeding their babies in public, in various forms. What was shocking to me was that many people are "offended" by images of breastfeeding women.

What??

To me this is so skewed and twisted it is hardly comprehensible. Today we live in a culture which has turned women's bodies into sexual objects, and then so normalized this objectified, sexualized image that when we see nearly nude women in magazines and movies and television we hardly think twice. Yet, somehow an image of a woman feeding and nourishing her child in the way nature intended is unsettling. Am I the only one who sees a problem with this situation?

Maybe having spent time in cultures where public breast feeding is completely normal and common place, or knowing the some of the benefits mother and child can receive from breastfeeding, or the impact that breastfeeding can have for children and families in developing nations, or knowing women who would love to breastfeed but are unable to has changed my perspective. In our culture I know it isn't common to see a mother openly breastfeeding. What I don't know is why. I am offended, if we want to talk about offensive things, that we as a society hardly say a word when scantily clad women are posted on every magazine cover and make appearances in practically every film and TV series, often in demeaning and horrifyingly objectified ways, and then turn around and act as though we've never been so shocked when a woman happens to expose her breast in order to feed her child. It's beyond me!

Breastfeeding is awesome. And while not all moms can breastfeed and there are also many other good options for feeding babies today, there is no reason for this weird cultural taboo against a beautiful act of motherhood!

The things Alfred Hitchcock has done to me.

In Spain I live in a wonderful room. A loft. At the top of the house with lots of space and light that comes in through the two big windows on either side of the room. Some days, like today, when it is sunny and warm, I like to open one or both windows allowing air and sun and the noise of the outdoors to come in.

Today really was a beautiful day. Warm--27 degrees! (Celcius of course!)-- and bright, with just a touch of a breeze. So of course I couldn't pass up the opportunity to leave my one window wide open all afternoon! Finally, towards evening I was getting ready to go for a run in this lovely weather when, suddenly, there was a sort of banding noise and a little sparrow came flying in. For a second I was delighted. How cute!

But then, I saw the panic in the bird's eyes as it starting flailing about and hurling itself around the room. So, doing what any courageous soul might do, as the poor bird collided with the closed window on the opposite side of the room, I squealed and raced into the bathroom shutting the door quickly behind me and then stared blankly into the darkness.... since I had forgotten to hit the light switch, which is inconviently placed outside of the bathroom. Why? Don't ask why in Spain. These people are just different...*

After standing there in the pitch black room for a minute and hearing no terrifying sounds in the on the other side of the door, I took my chances and peaked out, not sure if I was more frightened to see the bird bomb-driving towards my face or to find it injured (or worse) near the not-so-open window. However, as I carefully scanned the room, all traces of the bird had vanished. . .

. . . unfortunately, with it also went my last shred of dignity.

So I guess, if you're looking for the moral of the story it's basically this: If you need some help in high stress, emergency situations, where calm, collected thinking is a requirement-- I'm your girl! Just think what you could do with this kind of bravery, quick thinking and logic at your disposal!

*Also, Spanish people aren't really different... all the time.

You never know

Of all things I saw in Washington, DC last month, this might have been my favorite.

I went to see the monuments and museums; to partake of the incredible history that has been preserved in my nation's capitol. And I loved it all. But nothing can compare to the convergence of moon, clouds and sunset forming a kind of loveliness that can only be called gift from a loving God.

But the butterflies come in as a close second!

Last week I found heaven

and it was the Butterfly Pavilion in the Museum of Natural History.

One of the many reasons I now love Washington, D.C.!

Be grateful I didn't post all 100+ butterfly pictures from my trip :)

A beautiful land to the North: Logan, Utah

Last weekend I whiled away the hours with my dear friends Sarah and Halley at their home in Logan. They are so much fun and I had a blast exploring Logan and just spending time with these lovely ladies. Here are a few scenes from our adventures:

The Decemberists at the Twilight Concert Series in SLC.
So amazing. (also, free, which is extra amazing in my book.)

Renting a bike from Aggie Blue Bikes
FOR FREE! It's the coolest place ever-- I wish they had them all over. They rent out bikes, teach you how to fix your bike, and advocate for more biking! Awesome!
Hiking to White Pine Lake!
It was GORGEOUS. Perfect. The water is mostly snow melt so it was clear and blue and beautiful. And freezing cold! Halley and Sarah brought their dogs and taught them to swim :) The snow had only melted off the trails a week or two before, so it was still a bit muddy. And in some places even snowy. But so fun!
Bear Lake
We swam. We snacked. We sunbathed. And I ended up with a terrible sunburn. But I got to try a famous Raspberry shake. And Fox wore his life vest (see below). Oh how he loved that.
LOGAN ZOO
Who knew? It's great. There are so many animals of all kinds and their habitats are really nice.
Chillin.
The rest of the time we just hung out, made zucchini brownies (delicious!), watched Downtown Abbey, went to a bar-b-q and a cute cafe and to the dog park, and rode around on my bicycle (my free bicycle that is)!

And now I know, I LOVE LOGAN!

America America

Last weekend I went hiking and camping in Moab, UT with two of my lovely friends, Halley and Sarah. We went to Arches National Park and then did some hiking in other nearby areas (BLM land that Halley taught me about!). It was glorious!

I needed that trip. It is so good for me to get out of Provo. And especially out of my office and into some of the beautiful natural places that are so close to me here in Utah.

While we were in Arches, we stopped into the Visitors Center and came across these awesome posters from the 1930s and 1940s that were promoting travel and tourism in the United States (see examples below). I bought a few postcard versions, because they were gorgeous. And they made me feel really lucky to live so close to some of America's great treasures--her mountains and valleys and canyons.



I have only lived in two states in my life, but within those two beautiful states there are so many incredible gifts of Nature to explore! Arizona, the Grand Canyon State, home to one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World!; and Utah, with Bryce Canyon and Arches National Park and Zion's and Capitol Reef and so much more (that I hope to explore a bit this summer!). I am a lucky woman. And while I love getting to visit other parts of the US and other spectacular places across the world, where there are more incredible marvels to witness, I would be quite ungrateful if I didn't pause to wonder at the beauty of all that I have right here at my finger tips!

I love it!

A delightful encounter on my way to work

iris reticulata

This week my walk to work was brightened by this becoming bed of blue irises! I loved them because they are a stunning surprise of color. And because they are so fresh and perfect, especially in comparison to the other foliage I have walked amidst for the past few months--dead grasses and decaying leaves mostly. These little blossoms are blooming up heartily and healthily even in these inconsistent days, somewhere between winter and spring. It brings me joy to see signs of life. And not just any sign, but beautiful, bright, bold flowers leading the way into a livelier season!

I am so grateful for this hopeful, happy gift of life! And thus, I am taking a cue from these lovely perennials and preparing for life after winter!

Let it come quickly!

And with much more gorgeous flora to make everything seem just a bit
more glorious!

Loveliness

I just don't think you can understand how much

I really LOVE butterflies!

The joy of my day was stumbling upon this lovely collection of butterfly photos on National Geographic! (I also really love NG- you won't find as much awesomeness anywhere else, I'm pretty much positive!)

Butterfly wings are just so utterly incredible and intriguing! They are so delicate and graceful; so breathtaking! And they are patterned in such astonishing ways! How did butterflies get so lucky? How is that their wings were endowed with such vibrant colors and intricate patterns and such an incredible iridescence? Let's face it, the loveliest humans with the clearest, most comely complexions really don't hold a candle to the glorious beauty of a butterfly! I mean, can you imagine having skin like a butterfly's wings--we would all be so exotic and lovely and vibrant! Though, perhaps a bit fragile...

all photos via National Geographic

enfermita

The great thing about a sick day is you don't have to go to work. In fact, you don't really have to do anything.

The bad thing is, you can't do much of anything anyway.

Today I stayed home sick, and I feel like a captive in my own body--there are so many things I would love to do with a day off! I could get errands done. I could clean. I could go hiking or swimming or visit friends or go shopping (although I shouldn't do that anyway...). I could practice the guitar or go for a walk or do yoga. But instead, I am stuck in bed- too antsy to sleep, but too dizzy to get up.

However, there is always a silver lining. The redeeming moment in my day:

This afternoon I went out to the front porch and lay in the sun for a good hour with the birds chirping and sun shimmering in the trees and the cool breeze mixed with the warmth of the sun combining to make the perfect temperature. And I didn't have to think about anything or go anywhere. It was heavenly.

Definitely not something I get to enjoy everyday! And I got a good dose of vitamin d.

Also, I kept thinking of this song, because, for some reason, when I first heard it it reminded me of dappled sunlight through closed eyes while the light glints off of swaying branches- though maybe in fast forward, or the way the light looks when you're sleeping in a moving car- and wind chimes (i know that's random and maybe I'm the only one who gets that image, but oh well). I invite you to listen, close your eyes, and imagine the sunlight through the trees and the beautiful afternoon breeze on your skin. It's lovely, I promise :) Plus, this song is just gorgeous.

favorites

I LOVE butterflies! I always have.

(and I think they love me too--one time i was talking to someone by the HBLL library and a butterfly just came over and landed on my hand. And once in Guatemala about a dozen of them came and landed on me while I was lying in the sun--apparently they thought the flowers on my swimsuit were real. (and also, they really love me.) it was basically the coolest thing that has ever happened to me!)

Butterflies are so delicate and graceful and beautiful and gentle. Perhaps a bit aloof, but they seem generally friendly. They are, I think, a happy insect. And they're pollinators. Since I love flowers too I am extra grateful to butterflies for their elegant usefulness!

So today I'm sharing this article about Vladimir Nabokov's theories on butterflies, which have recently been confirmed. Quite interesting! Also, as a lover of literature, I feel that i have a double connection to Nabokov.

I guess I ought to read Lolita now.

And here are some pretty butterfly pictures from the article.

And here is a Nabokov poem, “On Discovering a Butterfly":

I found it and I named it, being versed

in taxonomic Latin; thus became

godfather to an insect and its first

describer — and I want no other fame.

Have a wonderful day! It should be easy now that you're thinking about butterflies :)

savagery.

today the wind blew up with the sound of a tempest raging over the city, threatening to tear roofs from buildings and uproot trees and as i watched the trees bending and bowing under the ghastly strength of the wind and listened to the storm blast around outside, blowing open the door and seeming strong enough to sweep any unfortunate pedestrian off her destabilized feet, suddenly sirens and horns began to call as ambulances went whirring by and i was filled with a sudden anxiety creeping up to make me imagine scenes of destruction and woe--tornadoes raged across Provo and torrential rains left our city soggy beneath the deep flood waters that would grow higher and higher and i wasn't scared at all, but excited. and of course i never thought we'd have such adventures, but i wished they would come, masochistically or "savagely," perhaps. and i thought maybe my childhood enjoyment of Mary Poppins blowing in on a storm clinging to her ever handy umbrella or Dorothy being whisked away to Oz in a funnel of dust and debris has fostered in me romantic ideas of such natural phenomena. But then, perhaps storms are always romantic. and mysterious. and opptunities for adventure and an almost magical separation from reality. . .

so now, sitting at my desk watching the dark sky cloud with dust and seeing leaves shaking and scattering from the trees, i felt akin to G.K. Chesterton and his optimistic views of such things. if i'm crazy, at least i'm not alone!

"I feel an almost savage envy on hearing that London has been flooded in my absence, while I am in the mere country. My own Battersea has been, I understand, particularly favoured as a meeting of the waters. Battersea was already, as I need hardly say, the most beautiful of human localities. Now that it has the additional splendour of great sheets of water, there must be something quite incomparable in the landscape (or waterscape) of my own romantic town. Battersea must be a vision of Venice. The boat that brought the meat from the butcher’s must have shot along those lanes of rippling silver with the strange smoothness of the gondola. The greengrocer who brought cabbages to the corner of the Latchmere Road must have leant upon the oar with the unearthly grace of the gondolier. There is nothing so perfectly poetical as an island; and when a district is flooded it becomes an archipelago.

"Some consider such romantic views of flood or fire slightly lacking in reality. But really this romantic view of such inconveniences is quite as practical as the other. The true optimist who sees in such things an opportunity for enjoyment is quite as logical and much more sensible than the ordinary “Indignant Ratepayer” who sees in them an opportunity for grumbling."

from On Running After One's Hat by G.K. Chesterton
read this essay on Quotidiana.org

Inside out

Dear Home Intruders,

How strange the difference of a location can make. The difference of a few feet. The difference between the sides of a door. But the difference, my not-quite-friends, is essential.

It's the difference between harmless insect and evil destroyer of my domestic serenity.

You can see the problem here.

Perhaps you are simply confused. Of course, I might be too were I in your position. I confess, it is rather unusual for someone who does not want you to visit to lure you in with tempting treats and alluring dwellings which seem to call for you to occupy their unused space. This is not my doing; and I believe the temptation is less an invitation than an oversight on the part of my roommates, who have left the tantalizing surprises.

Certainly the day old, half eaten pizza hardening on the living room table appears to be begging for a visitation of flies. As does the soggy burrito remains sitting in the kitchen sink, complete with empty plastic containers for salsa, drowning in two inches of cold, murky water. And it has already attracted your more minute, bacterial friends, I can be sure. Perhaps that strange smell I encountered on entering my house at lunch was just the last straw for decay loving grubs, too enticing to pass up. But, while I don't know what it is or where it is coming from, I can tell you with certainty said scent is not meant to draw you in. None of it is, really.

So, with all due respect, I ask you to leave my home and STAY OUT!

I have nothing against you, when you're on the other side of my door, but spiders, flies, mosquitoes (and whatever else might be crawling or flying about, yet unseen), when you cross that threshold, the only word I have for you is

ewwwww!!!!

and maybe pest control.

Sincerely,
ktb

the scent of summer

the sent of the creosote bush always takes me back to the rains that came in on huge black clouds slowly creeping in bringing the most glorious shocks of lightning and thunder rumbling through the hot Arizona air and pouring down thick sheets of warm rain drops that my sister and I would dance in until we were soaked to the bone and yet warm in the soothing heat of summer evenings in Tucson when the scorched sidewalks still sizzled slightly under our feet as the puddles would grow into great warm lakes splashing all around us, surrounding us in water above and below and from every side until finally we would run inside to sit at the window and watch the earth light up with bursts of white light, glaring our eyes and illuminating the trees and bushes outside bowing under powerful gust of warm air and the great bolts began to break and crack so close we could feel it through our bodies and in the shaking glass of the window panes as the earth absorbed the great resounding power of
monsoon

Those are days to remember. And as a soft wind sifts in through my window screen tonight carrying the slightest hint of creosote this evening, I can't help but be glad that despite all the things that are changing around me everyday, the miracle of sweet summer rain can find me even here and now.

My wish today is that everyone might experience a monsoon summer in the desert. There's nothing like it.

And being the Jack Johnson fan that I am, I am thinking of his song Monsoon just now... so enjoy!

lovely . . . dreams

Today was BEAUTIFUL


The sun was shining
The birds were chirping
The flowers were blossoming on the trees
and filling the air with the sweet sent
of SPRING.

It was glorious.

It was also FINALS.

Sometimes I'm not a fan of irony.

photos fromweheartit

the tree with the lights in it

Last winter I went to an Ansel Adams photography exhibit in the Tucson Museum of Art.

This lovely photograph, "Aspens," recalled for me the glory of Annie Dillard's essay "Seeing." I'd like to share the joy with you...

I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance. The flood of fire abated, but I'm still spending the power. Gradually the lights went out in the cedar, the colors died, the cells unflamed and disappeared. I was still ringing. I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck. . . The vision comes and goes, mostly goes, but I live for it, for the moment when the mountains open and a new light roars in spate through the crack, and the mountains slam.

photo complements of AnselAdams.com
For more of Annie Dillard, read her essay 'Seeing' or the book it is also part of, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (among others).

que sera

Right now I want to...

run through the sprinklers with warm grass tickling the soles of my
bare feet
blow bubbles that reflect prisms in the sunlight
dive into a bright blue pool and relish the slight chill of the water
against my skin in contrast to the scalding surrounding air
skip two months ahead and pretend that it will bring me paradise
fall back in time and be five years old in my backyard
and know that everything in the world will be okay

if I can just stay in this moment a little longer.

snowfall

today I stepped outside and it was if by a miracle millions of beautiful white feathers were appearing and disappearing everywhere around me; little-frozen-ice-crystal feathers that somehow magically filled the space around me and above me and yet were invisible in the upper air, through which the mountains were barely visible in their cloak of mist and cloud. It felt like the beginning of a new world where laws like gravity and conservation of matter all faded away and where, in the muted morning light,
anything was possible.

and maybe today I will believe anything is possible.
and I will be happy
because I realized that there is no such thing as perfect
so its ok
cuz I'm not

and

that's what i call beautiful

lovely photo borrowed from http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2007/12/24/seasons-greetings/

Road Tripper

"[W]ords are not fashioned to speak what shapes the wind takes, the motion whereby mists climb after the sun out of ravines, or how the tropic orchids lift at daybreak among their fragrant shadows wings of ivory and fawn drooped against ferny trunks."

Far Altars by Marian Storm

I am muted by the grandeur of nature. . .

by the power of creation. . .

by the immensity of the world
in relation to
my infinite smallness. . .

and I love it

Patron St. Jerome

"The world wants useful inhabitants. True. But the clouds building bridges over the sea, the storms modeling the peaks and flanks of the mountains, are a part of the world; and they want creatures to sit and look at them and learn their life's secrets, and carry them away, conveyed perhaps merely in altered tone of voice, or brightened color of eye, to revive the spiritual and physical hewers of wood and drawers of water. For the poor sons and daughters of men require for sustenance, as well as food and fuel, and intellect and morals, the special mysterious commodity called charm. . . ."

--from "About leisure" by Vernon Lee

You should probably just read the whole thing! http://quotidiana.org