Flavour

This post is part of Relish 11. I’m so proud to be participating along with other bloggers and friends.

What flavor did you most relish this year? Perhaps it was a whole meal, but what can you say about the flavors of the last eleven months, what do you want to remember?

Before I straight-up answer the question I want to put something out there – mostly for me, as is the norm with this blog. I hope that in the future I will look back on 2011 as the year that I finally changed my relationship with food. That’s a biggie, right? I’ve known for ages that my habits weren’t working for me but I just never had the motivation to change them. The changes seemed hard. And unpleasant. And really freakin’ hard.

Then came the seismic shift in my priorities and all of the sudden Hello motivation. So in the past few months I have radically altered the way that I eat and in the process I have radically altered the way that my body looks and, more importantly, the way it feels. I’ll admit that at times I’ve been a bit of a crazy person (with my self esteem and my mood heavily influenced by numbers on a scale) and I can’t say for certain that those times are over but I think I’m settling into a new normal.

OK, that’s out of the way. I’m sure this won’t be the last time I talk about it but now onto answering the real question at hand…

I’ve written before here about having learned to cook really over the past 2-3 years. I’m all about the fresh ingredients prepared simply and flavourfully (now minus grains and sugar). In terms of stand-out flavours this year I can think of three – two made by me and one made by Arigato Sushi in Santa Barbara, California.

First is my homemade pesto. There’s nothing special about it. I chuck basil, pine nuts, garlic, salt and olive oil into the food processer in eyeballed amounts. But the result? It is the freshest, “greenest” flavour I can imagine. Every time I made it this summer I wondered why I had been buying pesto all my life when this was SO MUCH BETTER!

Next are fish tacos. I made these pretty much every week over the summer. I started with this recipe from Everybody Likes Sandwiches but I have to say that over the summer I started lazying it up, in terms of the toppings (reverting to the cumin yogurt, store-bought salsa and avocado). No matter. I looked forward to taco night all week. Every taco night I would sit at the dining room table and think that it was too bad that there wasn’t someone sitting across from me to say “This is an effing great taco” so I could say “I know! Right?”

And finally (though really writing this post is making me think of a whole bunch of other awesome things I’ve eaten this year, notably everything I purchased at the Ferry Building in San Francisco) we have the scallop hand roll from Arigato Sushi. Holy crap people! I’m a lover of sushi but had somehow never had the scallop and how did I ever live without it? Arigato itself was a delight. It was super-busy on a Sunday night but they wedged me into a table for one and then brought me one fantastic dish after another. But that spicy scallop hand roll? It was transcendent.

Surprise

*This post is part of Relish 11. I’m so proud to be participating along with other bloggers and friends.

We like to think no one knows who we are better than we do. I mean, we’ve lived with ourselves our whole lives, right? (Sometimes we might even like a break, but can’t seem to get one:)) But every once in a while we do something, or say something, or think something that catches us off guard, and we realize we just surprised ourselves. When did you surprise yourself this year? What happened?

How many times had I said that it wasn’t my thing? It was fine. I understood why people suggested it to me but it just wasn’t for me. Theoretically I could do it but I just didn’t WANT to. I was sure of that. Absolutely certain and absolutely comfortable in that certainty. Until suddenly I wasn’t.

Surprise!

This wasn’t a gradual process. It wasn’t a slow burn that turned into a fire that prompted me to change my mind. I’m not sure that I can pinpoint the moment when it turned but I can certainly pinpoint the day. I had brunch with friends, not unlike other days. I found myself trying the idea on for size where did *that* come from?). I couldn’t possibly, right? Then, do you think maybe I could?

And in the space of a day everything had shifted. My plans. My priorities. My lifestyle. My wishes. All altered. Never became possibly became maybe became oh hell yes became gathering all my eggs to put in this basket. I am all in here.

Surprise!

So now I am headed clearly down a path that was once inconceivable to me but now makes more sense to me than anything I’ve ever done in my life. It’s not an easy path. I’m playing with the odds stacked well and truly against me. But I have a lot of skin in this game and while I have one eye on the statistics my heart is fully in the realm of magic.

I’m holding faith in the magic. And I’m hoping for happy surprises to come.

A Moment Captured

*This post is part of Relish 11

Even in this innovative age we live in where we all seem to have our camera phones with us at all times, there are going to be moments that simply don’t get caught on film or pixel. What was one such moment, that you know lasts in your memory right now, but that will fade as time goes on? Describe it here, as if you have the photo right in front of you.

This one is an interesting one because, of course, I am a photographer.  Capturing moments with my camera? It’s what I do. More and more as I go deeper into photography I see the world around me as photo compositions. I think about how I would shoot it and often I do shoot it (which reminds me that I should write a blog post about how much I adore Instagram).

That said, it took me about 30 seconds to come up with an idea for this prompt. Of course there were many moments in 2011 that did not end up being captured in my camera. Some of these moments stand out, while others fade away.

I remember a moment at Camp Shuttersisters in California. We campers were sitting by the campfire, toasting s’mores and drinking wine. We were soaking up the warm fire, the damp air and the overwhelming positive energy of the sisterhood.

Jen Lemen was sitting on a picnic table, her face illuminated by the flames. She was telling her story and ripping her soul bare. For us. For herself. For the dark night. 70-odd chatty women gathered and you could have heard a pin drop.

Jen’s voice is magic. It is truly beautiful and I remember listening to it – so soft and kind but strong as a diamond. I remember being awestruck at how raw and open she was.

At some point I realized that I was crying and I wondered if I was crying for her or for me.

One Year (and one day) Later

So this little blog turned 1 yesterday. That fact didn’t occur to me until last night during a conversation on Facebook about what people were planning to do around a Reverb 11. Any of you who have been around this little blog for the whole year (p.s. I love you, all 4 of you!) may remember that my entrée into the blogesphere was prompted by the Reverb 10 projects. Last December I was greeted each day with an e-mail prompt intended to inspire me to reflect on the year that had been and consider what I wanted to manifest in the year ahead. Unfortunately Reverb isn’t running in the same way this year but a few kind souls have stepped into the breach. One of those kind souls is Rebecca of Relish Life. Rebecca is offering up prompts for Relish 2011 and I will be going along for the ride.  I may also mix it up with my own prompts or one or two from elsewhere around Twitterdom coz that’s how we’re gonna roll this year. 2011 has been another pretty transformative year with lots to reflect on and bringing much goodness to manifest for 2012.

1.  Perfectly Ordinary

Pick a random day, at any point throughout the last eleven months, and close your eyes. Try to imagine one single moment on that otherwise ordinary day. So much beauty and truth can be contained in the routines we create, the schedules we keep, the world we travel through, even when we are hopelessly unaware. Be aware now. See one moment with all your senses and connect to it now. What happened?

I am not the world’s best housekeeper. Sometimes it surprises people when I say this because my house is almost always presentably neat. That’s the key. Neat. I don’t like clutter and try to shuffle it to the areas of the house that I don’t see eliminate it but actual cleaning I prefer to outsource to a lovely woman named Evelyn. In thinking about routines and ordinary moments though, what came to mind is changing the sheets on my bed.

There’s a particular rythm to changing the sheets — bringing the clean sheets in from the spare-room closet and laying them on the floor beside the bed, stripping the bed and wadding the dirty linens into the laundry basket. Usually these tasks are done on auto-pilot and while I’m thinking of other things. Then the re-making begins and I shift to be more in the present and attuned to the task at hand. I have two sets of sheets. The fitted sheet of the grey set is *just* big enough for the mattress so it has to go on just right and requires some tugging and pulling on the 4th corner. The white set is the expensive set. It is generously proportioned and so very smooth. After the fitted sheet comes the top sheet. Borders are arranged and corners are folded (not too tight because my feet need freedom!). Now the duvet. Before laying it back on the bed I shake it to try to redistribute the feathers. This is often followed by sneezing as I breathe in the feathers that have been “redistributed” into the room. I line the duvet up carefully so that the pattern is centred and then turn my attention to the pillows. Stuffed and fluffed I arrange the pillows on top of the duvet and step back to admire my handiwork. There’s always some satisfaction in this job well-done. This restoration of the pretty, perfect state of my bedroom but there’s also a little something else.

At some point near the end of the job my mind flits briefly to settle on a point several hours in the future. I think about the exact moment that I will turn down the covers and slide between those freshly laundered sheets. I smile with anticipation.

I invite you to Relish along with Rebecca (and me!) this month.

How I See It

It’s self portraits week in my Photo Meditations course and when the discussion turned to “showing some skin” I knew that I wanted to photograph my tattoo.  I’ve been meaning to do that for a while now, considering I got it almost two months ago. I made a few attempts to photograph it this morning. I tried at first to capture it right-side up, as you would see it if you were looking at it, but those photos just didn’t grab me. Instead I gravitated to this one, which represents my view of the tattoo. This is how I see it every day. Thinking about that it seems appropriate since I got it just for me.

I’ve wanted a tattoo for ages. I think they’re beautiful. I’m addicted to tattoo reality shows on TV and have said many times that if I worked in a less conservative field I would have a half sleeve flower garden on my arm. That said, I knew that I needed something more subtle. I also wanted something meaningful. And pretty. It had to be pretty.

I’d had ideas swirling around in my head for awhile. I’d decided that I would put it on the inside of my wrist where I could see it every day but where it wouldn’t bee overly conspicuous. I just hadn’t decided what. Or where.

As with a number of the more impulsive decisions I’ve made in the past year or so, my friend Lesley played a role in me getting this tattoo. After brunch on Labour Day she decided that she wanted to get her nose pierced. Right then. So we went to the only place that was open. The place had a great vibe. I was totally at ease. Almost as soon as we walked in the door I had decided that I should definitely get a tattoo that said “create” and that this was the place that I should do it. On October 4th, with Lesley in tow, of course (as our last bonding experience before she headed off to do good in Malawi).

For me this tattoo has layers and layers of meaning. Up front it’s about creating art, especially photography. Getting in touch with my creative side over the past year has brought such a richness to my life that I don’t ever want to lose. It’s also about creating the life I want and creating opportunities and at some level about my big special wish project too.

I couldn’t love it more.

Wishing

This is me making a wish on November 11th. 11.11.11. An auspicious day for wishing. Photographing my wish-making was part of a project called The Beckoning of Lovely. Unfortunately the inspiring film that was the culmination of this project was taken down by its creator.  However, many of us were inspired to document our wish-making. Check out the collage of images collected by Kristin.

I know that I haven’t been writing here much lately and to be honest, the wish you see me making above is a big part of the reason why. I have this wish. This desire. This plan. It’s kind of an all-consuming thing right now but it’s not something that I’m ready to broadcast on this blog. So as much as I don’t want to share it, it’s taking up so much space in my mind right now that there isn’t a lot left for other things.

May all our wishes come true.

 

 

Picturing Myself There

Well, I’ve processed all of the photos from my great California adventure but I’m definitely not really ready for re-entry into my regular life. I’ve found it hard to articulate my Camp Shutter Sisters experience into a post but I will say that it was an amazing few days. I’m really glad that I was able to keep vacationing after Camp as it helped me to keep that experience with me a little longer.

Of course I took a ton of photos while I was on vacation. What’s unique about this trip is the number of self portraits that I took while I was away. By literally putting myself in the picture I’ve added a new dimension to my holiday snaps. Plus, I had a blast taking them.

There was no real sunshine to be had down at the beach in Santa Barbara so I decided to play around under the pier.

Playing with self portraiture in front of graffiti murals is a trick I learned from Viv in You Are Your Own Muse. This is in Santa Barbara.

This one is in an awesome alley of graffiti murals in the Mission in San Francisco. This photo is a bit of an oops. I set the timer and ran over to get in the photo, then once it was taken I realized that my camera had slid off its perch on my bag and was on a ridiculous tilt. In the end though I love the tilt. It kind of looks like I’m holding onto the wall for dear life as the world turns.

This one is from the same alley. These words caught my eye and I just had to capture this. I have to tell you it took many, many tries to get this one!

And this one just encapsulates the vibe of my entire trip. Chillin’ in the sunshine looking at the pretty.

p.s. I fell totally in love with San Francisco. The wannabe bohemian artist in me wants to move there really, really badly.