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Because you’ll be lounging around the house for days, recovering from New Year’s revelry, right?

Best Christmas present ever here. Now if only this present with this one could be the new uniform for 2007.
Maybe it’s just me, but paper like this, this and this delights me. Someone pass the scissors please.
Lovely sounds here with lovely pictures for these last days of December.
Which is more magical? This or this? I can’t decide.
One more reason never to wash your car here. Oh the possibilities!
Illustrators inspire me. This one for nearly twenty years. This one more recently.
This story completely mirrors the experience of one of my dearest friends. I am not kidding.
Chocolate and kisses arrive in the mail when you order something here.
Just in case you need a little help getting unstuck in the New Year, you might need to reread this from Keri.
With fear of offending you, dear readers, I must confess, I find this empowering.
I want to lie in this field and weep. Then I want to laugh with Shirley.
I firmly believe small is beautiful. Decide for yourself here.
T-shirts you just might drop $40 on here. Especially when proceeds go here.
My soulsisters Kyran and Tracey kindly nominated me for a Perfect Post Award at the end of November for No Love Left in This World. In case you’re new here and missed that one the last time. These two women are so amazing and have been angels to me, so I was duly honored.

And last but not least, I love this song along with Rose and Rose for throwing up a sheet and singing their hearts out on YouTube.

It’s the week between Christmas and New Year’s, a time I generally reserve for art-making and all around brooding about what should be done about the new year. I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions per se, but I am all for wandering around the house trying to listen to what my heart is aching for. Following an ache is key for me. There are things that capture my interest, like so much glitter and paste in the shop window, and then there are the things that make me ache. Following the ache is a way to narrow down my options and to define what’s really alive, what’s truly stirring my soul.

Do you know what I’m talking about?

I’ve been in such a whirlwind these last few months that I almost forgot entirely about this way I have of finding my true North, but then I spent the morning in early December, wandering the streets of the Mission and it started to come back. I wandered into Dog Eared Books where a bin-full of zines was waiting for me. Nothing really spoke to me at first–zines can be so obscure and strange sometimes–but then I discovered, ten years late, a few copies of Ker-bloom, and I fell in love.

It’s hard to describe the kind of affect zines have on me. I discovered them so late in my life, standing at the magazine rack at Powell’s in Portland a few years ago, completely mesmerized. I love the idea of self-publishing. I love the homemade feel of photocopied pages and real live staples and hand-drawn covers. I love how honest and raw the stories can be and the fact that a zine is a present you get in the mail for just a few dollars. Dollars you can send inside an envelope, as if checks and credit cards and paypal does not exist. There’s something sweet and old-fashioned about all that.

I came home from that trip to Portland determined to make a zine. It only took one impassioned phonecall to convince my sister and writing partner Patience that this was our destiny. So we went crazy and made a zine on sugar-free Red Bull that ended up being more like a book and it made us so happy and delirious and proud, we could hardly stand ourselves. Everyday we’d write those pages and talk it over on the phone and ask each other, “What would the zine do?” whenever things got confusing or tough in the process. Then we broke the zine mold and sent that bad girl to the printer, and proceeded to sell a few hundred copies off my old blog. Without trying. It was such an intoxicating experience.

For the last two years we’ve been saying we’ll do another zine, that we’ll do it in the fall, in the spring, after the kids get out of school. But it hasn’t happened. Over Christmas we had a soulsister business meeting and mapped out our writing projects and plans for the spring, and I believe it’s going to happen this time. Maybe it won’t be a zine exactly–but it will honor that raw, creative spirit.

But all that aside, I still can’t get Ker-Bloom out of my head. Just a few pages–all letterpressed. Like the most amazing loveletter. I laid on my sister’s couch on Christmas Day, running my hands over the cover. And then I realized. The Ache. I long for zines the way women ache for their old lovers, the Wild One before you settled down with Mr. Right. It’s irrational. Horrible for business. The worst decision you ever made. But you can’t help yourself. It’s the kind of thing you’re glad you did, even if there will be a few regrets.

I’m not sure what all this means, but I know that the best years are the ones where I listened to my heart and ran headlong after everything I loved the most, throwing caution to the wind. I have to take The Ache seriously. I have to tune into the thing that gives way to a long contented sigh at the mere thought alone.

What are you aching for this year? What foolish dream has your heart in full embrace? I’d love to hear your truest thoughts in the comments below.

There’s the shopping, the madness, and all that last minute rush. But on Christmas morning, these are my two sweetest presents of all.

I have all these dreamy Christmas-y/Solstice half-written posts to craft into little presents for you. But then on Wednesday I lost my cellphone in between errands and my writer’s mind came to a screeching halt.

I suppose for some people this would be no big deal, but for me this was an epic crisis. The phone is a transitional object for me. Just holding a phone in my hand makes me feel like all is safe in the world. I can’t tell you how much I love the telephone. And having a cell phone means I can call any one of my three sisters fifteen thousand times a day to report any kind of trivia that occurs to me. And they can do the same with me. I need this. This is essential. This makes me so happy.

So for the last four days I have been mourning my phone, searching for it like a lost lover, calling the number a jillion times a day, retracing my steps, calling every store, every shop, every friend I’ve seen all week, in hopes of finding it. Nothing. Nada. Zip. I was losing hope.

But then today, Dave found it. In a bag in the refrigerator. Which should tell you volumes about the situation in my frig currently, not to mention my present frame of mind. Evidentally it’s impossible to hear your cell phone ringing if it’s closed up in the frig–even the annoying low battery beep. I had no recall of putting it in there. Just in case this seems like a fluke or some sign that I have early onset Alzheimer’s, there’s a few things I should mention.

Like the time I left my only car key in a book I was reading and promptly forgot my makeshift bookmark, so I could spend the next several hours looking for it. Along with the time I lost one set of a friend’s keys and then locked the other (only remaining) set IN their car. On the SAME day. Or the time I almost stranded myself on the West Coast with Rachelle because I thought I had lost my driver’s license and couldn’t fly without it. Or the fact that even though Dave spent a year training me like a circus monkey to put my keys in the little basket by the door, I still spend at least TEN minutes every morning looking for them frantically before I remember they’re right there where I left them the night before.

In all these instances I have been convinced that thieves were stalking me and there was a vast conspiracy underway to undermine my confidence in St. Anthony who NEVER comes around when I need him.

But still. The frig? That’s pretty impressive even for me.

All this to say, all is right with my world once again. I have my phone, I know where my keys are AND my wallet. Christmas bliss and other lovely sentences sure to follow.

I write a column for a little religious magazine. Just typing that cracks me up, since I am quite possibly the least religious person on the planet and nearly every attempt I have made to become one has ended in unqualified disaster. But I’m happy to write for this particular publication because I really love the woman who runs the magazine and when she talks about God or the Universe, I don’t get scared or feel like running away. All of which is remarkable.

Every so often something I write comes back to visit me at just the right moment, like this month’s issue. I am so crabby and exhausted with all this Christmas business. I swear it’s all bah-humbug over here, and that’s just too bad since I used to be a Christmas fool.

Anyway, I’ll cut and paste for you, just in case you need to think about something lovely, too, instead of your to-do list or why you didn’t have the good sense to have relatives who invite me to come home herefor Christmas like some people. Next year, I swear. Apologies if this feels too god-ish for you, but I think you can handle it. It’s just Beauty after all.

My daughter Madeleine is curled up at bedtime, reading a book about Greek mythology for children. She is not so usually inclined, so I ignore the clock and listen instead to the rain falling lightly on the patio, on the thick green leaves, on our rooftop. The night is still, all except for the tap, tap of raindrops and the occasional car whizzing down our street, hoping for a shortcut somewhere fast.

My dear girl is drifting off now, dreaming no doubt of nymphs and centaurs and Aphrodite. Her chin has a yellow glow from the dusting of too many buttercups. How much longer I wonder, will she hear the call of beauty beckoning her to be barefoot and free, hanging from trees? Will she hold on to the wisdom of her body, roaming wild in fields, or will she, like too many other girls – including me – surrender her senses for the stately logic of her head alone? So far, she is safe with Hera and the companionship of caterpillars. May Beauty save us both, calling us to remember what is holy and good, “announcing [our] place again and again,” as the poet Mary Oliver says, “in the family of things.”

Thank you for wishing with me yesterday and for sending kind thoughts my way. I finally got my Etsy images figured out, thanks to my personal tech wizard and lots of chocolate babka from Meryl. My tiny first offering is here with a few more options going up tomorrow. Your kindness in comments and email over the last few months has given me so much courage for this lovely adventure. Thanks to you, my inner-scaredy cat is purring nicely and not too jumpy at all.

Some complications with our (rented) housing situation have left me unsettled and grief-striken these last few days, but thankfully, a box worth of A Friend Named Peace showed up just in time to remind me that it’s okay to trust and rest in the unknowing. Nothing like a FedEx from the Universe to help you get your bearings. Literally. The little mini-altar pictured above is resting in duplicate on my own. I am always amazed at how rearranging things in that sacred space helps put my soul in order.

Love to you and yours this Monday morning. May you receive everything you need today to put your mind at ease.

It’s the week before Christmas officially (sorry to bring that up) and I am officially ovewhelmed by everything left to do, especially since I have not really been doing any of it, in hopes of opening my stupid Esty store. There’s a lot I could say about that little endeavor, but it might be much faster to ask you to just close your eyes and imagine Charlie Brown’s face the hundredth time he goes to kick the ball and misses thanks to that damn Lucy. If I had any Photoshop skills whatsoever, I’d post a picture of my face with a Charles Schultz cartoon bubble coming out of my mouth saying “AAAAAaauuggh!” You get the picture.

Surveying my self-soothing options this morning, I considered pouring my Self a little tumbler of AfterShock, this yummy cinnamon schnapps drink Dave brought home last night that basically tastes like liquid candy red hots, but it is only 8:30 in the morning, and it would be just my luck that me being passed out drunk on candy redhot liqueur would be the ONLY memory my children would retain from their near idyllic childhoods.

Since I’d rather be spending my old age writing a memoir than attending group therapy sessions or building the JenLemen wing of the Betty Ford clinic, I’m resorting instead to one of those little tricks I use on my kids when they are flipping out and cannot understand why things aren’t going the way they planned. The “I Wish” game. Do you know this one? Instead of trying to show them the illogic of their ways or win them over to some more rational assessment of their options, we dive headlong into the little worlds we have created in our heads and give each other every unreasonable desire in a more fantastical wish. Before long, everyone cheers right up. I swear it works like magic.

Doesn’t that sound so nice? Considering my mental state this morning, I think a little wishing is in order. So here’s my list in all its glory. Bear witness, my friends, to the workings of a troubled mind.

I wish a fat cozy cat would magically appear in my lap and start purring whenever I get stressed.

I wish that breakfast appeared in a delightful basket every morning outside my door, along with a note that I would read to myself in a British accent saying, “Have a lovely day!”

I wish the children could be put in a laundry basket, sent to the basement and reappear shortly with clothes, faces, hands and feet in sparkling order.

I wish Nick would come over every morning (as he sometimes does) and say, “Do you want a sip of my coffee before you leave?”

I wish the dishes would fly in and out of the dishwasher at appropriate times returning to their proper places silently.

I wish someone would show up with my shiny blue bike and say they just knew this bike would not be the same until it was reunited with its owner.

I wish the pictures of the people I love would talk back to me Harry Potter style when I’m at a loss and offer spontaneous comfort, advice or knock-knock jokes as needed.

I wish it was socially acceptable to lie down and be rolled home with a stick if you were simply too tired to walk.

I wish an adorable Heinz 57 mutt would decide I was his new owner and follow me around everywhere like a puppy, only he would be an older wise sagey dog who likes to sleep a lot.

I wish the refrigerator automatically restocked with yummy snacks–the kind of things we see at Whole Foods but feel are too frivolous to purchase.

I wish I could open the mailbox and find direct chocolate instead of direct mail. I wish I had a drinking fountain that dispensed sugar free Redbull on demand. I wish fresh whipped cream were a nutritional requirement for survival.

I wish the owners of houses that are rented forgot that they owned them. I wish that property rights were determined by who looks the cutest standing on the front porch.

I wish Sarah McLachlan or maybe Sufjan Stevens would knock on the door at least once a year, and ask sheepishly if I minded if they just came in for awhile to warm up and play some tunes while I made dinner.

What are you wishing for this Saturday? What would put an auto-matic smile on your face, just thinking about it? Sad wishes welcome, too.

Carter: Mama, why are you painting all the time?

Me: Because I’m an artist! (beaming, proud, like a third grader)

Carter: You’re an artist?? (shocked)

Me: Yes, I’m an artist.

Carter: So you’re all growed up now? So you can be an artist?

Me: Yep, I’m all growed up. (Or well on my way, I should say.)

Carter: Ooooh. (Taking it all in) That’s great! (big *smack*)

Who knew? That being an artist is the equivalent of being a grownup. But it’s probably true. Taking on the title, I have to do my work, be focused (at least some of the time) and quit wandering around the house whining about no one making my dreams come true. This has come to me over many years in between episodes of shock that there is no fairy godmother. Right now I am adding to this grownup repertoire the notion that the Muse I am waiting for is me. That the earth will not stop spinning if I simply stop shuffling around and choose instead to follow the trail unfurling right under my feet.

Tonight I light the Tibetan altar candles that Mark bought for me, and I write kind words of comfort or healing or courage in tiny books. This is my work, too–to try to listen for the rhythms of mystery floating in and out of all this busyness. To try to knit together tiny scraps of trust in something more.

Why is this so hard? Why do we struggle to imagine that we are living breathing treasures, fully able to fan the flames of hope and beauty everywhere we go? You could wait for some sign that now is the time, or you could take that craving you have to dive headlong into kindness, passion and creativity as all the proof anyone could ever ask for.

These are the little speeches I give myself–little pep talks on the way up the mountain before I dive off the cliff. I’ve been circling that mountain for what feels like forever, but I swear I’m going to jump this time. I’m all growed up now. Why not?

Benjamin Hazlitt Passmore, born on Friday morning, December 8th, 2006–thirty minutes before I arrived

Every time I hold a newborn, I try to wrap my mind around the miracle. That each one of us came into the world this precious, this pure. I believe that babies are complete human beings, fully formed in matters of substance and soul. Inside those tiny bodies, real live people wait to grow and emerge with ideas and longings and dreams. Each little life represents a whole where love resides, where the complete knowledge of divine acceptance is a living, real thing. Doubt and despair can creep in, as each one of us can testify, but back there at the beginning, all is well.

Maybe this is why babies scare me so much. When my own were small, I nearly drove myself mad trying to hold back every inevitable storm that might convince them otherwise–that the world is less wild, friendly or free than we had all hoped. I wanted so much to hold my children in the Light, to preserve everything that they already knew about the absolute expanse of kindness, of generousity, of Love. I wanted them to know above all things that they could hold on to the hope that something greater was holding us all together, no matter the storms.

I thought it was all up to me. I worried so much. I doubted I could ever be enough for such dear children. I cried buckets thinking it was just a matter of time before the whole thing fell apart and this sacred moment would be gone forever. Not to mention all the practical concerns of just keeping them alive. It was hard to conceive that anyone in their right mind had given me clearance for such responsibility. On my best days before kids, I misplaced important papers, collected parking tickets like baseball cards and forgot essential daily hygiene like wearing deodorant or brushing my hair. Who was I kidding? I couldn’t imagine that I could be the right person for the job. I had dreams of disappearing so a real mother could show up and give them everything they deserved. The pressure was enormous.

I guess you could say I was a little intense.

“Don’t worry,” a wise friend told me once when I was about to deliver my first. “The baby will teach you how to be a mother.” And in my case, it was true. I watched that tiny face like some people watched TV, and somehow we survived. I learned what it means to trust your instincts, and how to face your fears about not being enough. Little by little I mastered my baby’s own personal definitions of nurture, rest, sustenance and comfort. It was a rocky path with each new step, but every move forward carried with it a seed of hope and healing. Inside every moment of terror was a universe of hope and love, ready and waiting to be poured over my doubting heart.

Holding Ben, I tried to imagine the secrets locked up in his amazing, expansive soul. Only time will reveal his own unique vision of what it means to live life to the full. This alone is certain: To love a newborn baby is to fling yourself headlong into a sea of wild, deep, eternal Hope. What better place can we dare to believe that time unfurls forward into a river of possibility, goodness and love?

along the streets of San Francisco

Home after a lovely weekend, visiting a dear friend. Part of the joy of friendship is spending more time getting to know the ones that matter to them most. I enjoyed good food, nice quiet time and the bliss of inspiration. Plus, there’s always the thrill of being far away, exploring neighborhoods and doing a little bit of necessary introverting. Much more to say about this adventure, but the telling is best left for another time.

Thanks so much for leaving all your kind comments over the weekend. I’ll be sending a book out to weekend winner Amy of Coffee and Sunshine fame via Amazon today, and sending a little check to our friend Kris in Monique’s name.

So much happened in my mind and heart these last few days. I have great stories about cab drivers and immigrant shopkeepers and homeless people and other miracles, but all that will have to wait for now. While I’m sleeping, maybe you could read this amazing story instead. Hat tip to Lisa for sending it my way. Blessings all.