Hello, lovely people,
I've been thinking of you and planning to sit down and put some thoughts together, and hoping for a little more resolution before doing so. I guess resolution is a moment to moment thing right now. I apologize for the length.
It has been beautiful here. We have no air conditioning because, even though it can (and has occasionally) get into the 90's, it cools off at night. So, we sleep with the windows open and cool the house off at night, then close it up during the day and it stays in the mid 60's to low 70's. Once during a heat spell it got up to 76 inside. Because the windows are open at night, we wake up to the birds and it reminds me of childhood. I drift in and out of dreams during the early morning. Unfortunately, Austin can't sleep once he awakens and has to get up early and go for a walk or bike ride. I'm so lazy, I miss the morning mediation time often, lately. Birds (and light) start around 4:30 here, so he awakens pretty early. It is still twilight at 9:00, so it can be difficult to wind down at the end of the day and I teach until 8:00 on Tues and Thurs (but we do have a hot tub at the club, so I can start to wind down in the tub after class) which means eating a little late. So, we have some sleep issues related to the climate and latitude.
Berries!!! Someone posted a notice on Craig's list that she had a field of ripe strawberries for u-pick at $1.00/lb (she was desperate to get them picked). We ate our way through the ultra-ripe patch for a half hour one morning and got around 10 lbs. Froze some and gave some away. Berries came back to us when our neighbor picked some blueberries at her son's house and gave us some. I've never tasted blueberries like that. They were the best blueberries I've ever eaten! I guess because I've never lived anywhere blueberries are grown. (Update: I went blueberry picking Friday $1.25/lb you-pick!) And raspberries! I feel like a millionaire when I eat fresh raspberries. And they are fairly inexpensive here. (I hope to pick some tomorrow.) Soon, the blackberries will come into season, and they are everywhere for free! They are an invasive species, uncontrollable. In the parks where we walk, they are all along the paths. When we were here last summer, we pigged out on blackberries. I need to locate a u-pick cherry orchard.
Oregon Country Fair: Disneyland for hippies. Amazing. We were completely blown away before we ever got in the gate. There were all these wildly costumed people on stilts in the ticket area, in really wild character, exclaiming, "Welcome to the fair! You're at the fair!" First of all, it is HUGE, covers a massive amount of land, mostly wooded and shady. Lots of music, vendors, food, frequent parades, comedy and acrobatic shows, an alternative energy pavilion, a huge drum circle, kids stuff, some classes. It was so overwhelming that we didn't make it to most of the shows we were interested in. We did see Swami Beyondananda and the Bobs. Ran into someone we know peripherally from Austin, TX. He comes up every year for the fair. To see videos of the Oregon Country Fair, look on youtube. But they don't feature the incredible stilt people. You really have to be there, so it is an amazing time to visit Oregon.
DaVinci Days here in Corvallis last weekend, a big festival featuring music, but mainly a kinetic sculpture race. The sculptures have to be able to traverse a sand dune, a mud bog, the river, and roads. They are all pedal powered. Austin will probably send out pictures of the sculptures. The mud bog was right near our home, so I stayed for almost 2 hours (they were not even halfway through). Because everyone got stuck, it was slow going. Fortunately, they had a funny MC, and the teams for the kinetic sculptures were also entertaining. Each team had to sing a song, so we got a feel for their personalities, which makes cheering them on more fun. They also clowned around in the mud (along with a lot of kids from the audience). Da Vinci days also features a public art event, where the public makes the art. Very few vendors for some reason. They also had a Geekapalooza (this event occurs at the university), and green village.
I started teaching a new class a month or so ago. It is a body/mind/spirit water class, and the person who encouraged me to take it on thought I could integrate Nia into it. Cindy, who designed the class, teaches a class called Better Bones and Balance. I subbed for her last spring, and my daytime Nia class was a result. Some of her students fell in love and requested a day time Nia class. It has been slowly growing (6 to 9 people the last two weeks). Cindy is an amazing teacher, a lot of what she does aligns with Nia. She talks a lot more science in class, and I love it - I learn a lot from her classes. So, she designed the water class for people who cannot move so well on land. Lots of seniors with hip replacements who really need to work the hip joints, arthritis, fibromyalgia. A lot of the movements are things we do in Nia, but she repeats them many times to new age or classical music. I do see a lot of similarity to Nia, but in Nia the patterns of movement are more complicated. WELL, I was so nervous the first class I taught (and I knew I would be, they told me it was difficult to teach from the deck to students in the water) that all that stress, combined with attempting to lift something heavy that evening and I injured my back/psoas/other hip flexors. It just seems to be taking a while to resolve completely. I only missed one day of teaching and I have been teaching 7 classes a week during my healing. So, I'm actually doing quite well, just not as fluid as I usually am. And, I must say, I learn more from injuries than anything else. My classes are getting quite an education about the psoas right now.
My Zumba classes took off with a bang, but I found during learning to teach zumba, that all the fast lateral movement made my knees hurt and I have had a lot more crepitus than I had before (those popping sounds that indicate loose cartilage). So, after learning a couple of new songs and dealing once again with the pain, I decided to quit teaching zumba and told my supervisor. Another instructor got trained and is taking over one of my classes as of this past week. She really loves it, and apparently has not had the knee problem (but she does have a hip replacement). However, with my back/hip flexor stuff, I've had to take it easier and practice zumba a lot less, and I'm no longer having the problem with the knees and enjoying zumba more (one of the gifts of my injury). So, I plan to keep one class a week for the time being. The music and the movements are a lot of fun. The other instructor, Angie is quite the flirt and I need to flex my flirt muscles more - can learn a lot from her. Flirting is a big part of Latin dance and Angie is a stimulus for getting a good flirt on. She is also a very knowledgeable pilates instructor, so I feel I can learn a lot from her in that area, as well.
So, I've been in an intensive learning mode, lately. Waiting for the perfect career opportunity to open up. Lots of great teachers at the fitness center, and I also got to go to Portland recently to audit a day of White belt. To my GREAT surprise, Alisha was there. So, I spent a lot of the day with her, catching up when not in the training. We went back to Portland yesterday for the Day out of Time/25 years celebration. I need to figure out how to take the commuter train, that would make the trip more fun. It is an intense drive.
We are still looking for ways to store our stuff. Lots of boxes everywhere, and we have a storage unit, as well. So we have not yet cleaned up our space. Community life is pretty good. We like our neighbors, they are all nice people who want to know their neighbors. Love the kid energy. Spent part of the morning making bubbles with some of the kids. Some frustration with not being able to get everyone to take on some of the work load at Coho. Some frustration with how long it is taking to get plants growing in the densely compacted soil around our buildings, just takes time and energy. We did have an explosion of color that we did not anticipate. The seed mix that was distributed around the property had clarkia in it, a beautiful flower that someone was calling primrose (does have some similarity to the pink primroses in Texas, but way more colorful). So this one swale that could not get mown was loaded with it. The swale went to seed and now the shady area behind our building is full of blooming clarkia. We have a coho doe who has been eating all the trees in our newly planted orchard. (Just saw a doe with a fawn on the other side of the parking lot this afternoon.) She is so beautiful. Not grey like Texas deer, but the richest, warmest shade of tan, with white underneath. She is not at all worried about us and it takes some yelling and running at her to make her leave (for a little while, at least). So, we can see that this will continue to be a problem, but no one is worrying all that much right now. A fence is slowly materializing around the orchard.
Love to you all,
Leela
