chillin on staten island

tongue-y-faces

bj and i are in staten island, staying at bj's godfather buddy's house, with our friends karin and lisa. we've been having lots of fun getting the tour from karin, who grew up here.

we went to the beach at mount loretto state park, where there are all these amazing rock sculptures or cairns. it was chilly and beautiful.

cairns

bundled

asher has been getting more and more interested in food. mostly he likes to put his hands on different foods, exploring the things he sees us putting in our mouths. sometimes he tries putting things in his mouth, but mostly just feeling. but his interest is definitely increasing, as exemplified below in this encounter with an apple.

apple eater

the asher monster

for all you asher fans out there, here's a quick asher update and some recent pics. he's still growing like it's going out of style. he's recently been focusing particularly on cultivating the most smoochable chubby cheeks. he's a big, healthy, happy babe. and he's really strong. he's now sitting on his own, standing up against objects on his own, rolling himself over and generally getting more and more mobile. and he's *so* close to crawling. he's lifting himself up off the floor and holding all his weight on his hands and feet, like a spider. a baby downward dog. it's really cute. actually, technically, he is crawling... only backwards. he puts his hands on the ground close in front of him and pushes up with his arms straight and then lowers his weight back down, one arm length back, over and over. scootch scootch scootch.

and the really interesting part of it is he seems like he gets the idea that crawling can get you closer to something. and even though it has never worked that way, he thinks it just might work this time. so he'll be lying on his belly, arms outstretched, with a little piece of yarn or other grabbable thingy just at his fingertips, then trying to grasp at it he flicks it away. then he makes an attempt at crawling for it. scootch scootch scootch, backwards he goes. and in between each scootch he sprawls out and reaches for the yarn. nope, still can't reach. scootch. reach. scootch. reach.

he has a favorite song: the itsy bitsy spider, with the hand motions included. sometimes he'll be very upset, we can't discern what he's saying, and the itsy bitsy spider is the only thing that gets his attention away from the upset and brings him back to calm enough to help us start over and figure it out. and he likes singing, especially group singing, in general.

he often treats us to songs of his own, experimenting with the highs and lows, intonations and inflections of his voice.

one of his best friends is 'mister baby', his own reflection, his alter ego dans le miroir. when he's over the sink with a pee or washing his bottom he grins and coos and laughs at mister baby. when we leave the bathroom we always say bye to him before we go.

he still naps regularly 3 times a day and sleep fairly solidly for 9 to 10 hours.

the teething saga continues with no visible results.

we've started baby sign language a while back now; and the signs we're making with him so far are for nursing, peeing or pooping, all done, or for help (usually i use this one for helping him sit or stand up).

he has double-jointed thumbs like his papa and he pushes them into things in a cute funny way. he'll press his thumbtip onto a tabletop and pivot his hand up and over his thumb while he sings.

today he is 6 months, 22 days old.

asher cuteyface

bj and asher

hungry babe

let the drool rain down

here you go

baby eats mama

beenawhile...

...since i've had the clarity of mind to actually sit down and write anything here. sometimes, in the midst of transition, it's really hard for me to contextualize my life. it's even harder to try and make my life make sense to other people. and boy have things been in transition for me lately. change has sort of become normative over the past couple of years. actually, when i reflect on it, my life has been in pretty serious flux for a LONG time. ever since i jumped ship from the "career track" i'd had fixed in my mind in terms of being an architect and going on to become rich and famous and yadda yadda blah blah blah. i slipped out of that fantasy and into the space of exploring life and really trying to discover how to live in a way that truly reflects my values and what i feel in my heart. working in architecture firms made me feel soul sick and depressed, all the ego and money. so i quit my job, twice (it's hard for me to learn my lessons sometimes), and discovered community, anarchy, alternative culture, and various modes and lifestyles that connect more directly to authentic experience and vivid existence. basically, i dropped out of the rat race and opted into a path with heart. but it hasn't been easy for me. making the decisions and changes that i've made have meant leaving a lot behind too. one of the big things that got left behind is any semblance of feeling normal. not that that's all that important to me, i've never really felt normal or like i fit in. but i love people, and it's hard for me to connect sometimes with people who are important to me when i can't express clearly or directly what is going on for me, what i believe, what i think and feel. lately, this dynamic has really come around and bitten me in the ass because so much of what i believe and feel is SO very different from most of the people around me, and from dear friends and family. so, why not just put it out there? why not just speak freely of what is in my heart and my mind and let others take responsibility for their own reactions? easier said than done for the likes of me, but i feel like i should at least give it a try...

so folks, the thing is, i feel in my bones that we're on the very edge of an economic and cultural collapse. i think the u.s. economy is about to tank big time: credit crisis plus real estate bust plus devaluation of the dollar plus snapback from industrial globalization plus the worst disaster of political leadership and policy since god knows when. and oil and fossil fuels are running out in a big way and i think that's going to change EVERYTHING about the way we live our lives: how we eat, how we get around, how we provide for the basics of our survival, how we shelter ourselves, and on and on. now add to this equation climate change and the ever expanding list of weather anomalies, super-storms, mega-droughts and the like. the picture isn't looking very pretty. although, to be truthful, i don't really think the picture is ugly either. i just think that the world is in the midst of a massive change, a shift... a transformation. and i do believe that this change will entail a great deal of suffering and destruction, but that's only half of it. and it's the half that's easiest to see right now. and also the half that's the easiest to become fixated on and paralyzed by. but the other half, the what-we-are-changing-into part is amazing and inspiring and capable of rendering the nasty half of the change well worth the struggle to the other side. to me, it's all about reconnecting. all the underlying dysfunction in the dominant culture on this planet right now has to do with all the ways we are disconnected: from ourselves, from each other, from nature, from our spiritual reality. and i think that as we wake up to all the ways that we've been living on this planet, how destructive it has been, how it isn't the best set of strategies for meeting our needs and fostering our health and happiness, i believe there is boundless potential to learn from all of it and to apply the best of what we are and what we know to creating new modes of existence, new ways to live cooperatively with each other and with the web of life of which we are an integral part. it's time to create new culture, and that's where is see my path, and my life's work: as an agent of cultural transformation and creation.

ok, ok, i imagine that to some of you reading this, it probably sounds either crazy, utopian, or psychotic, like i've lost touch with reality. but maybe the fact that i imagine that is why i've been so reserved and closed off. maybe i need to open up some space to the possibility that what i believe may touch some of you and effect you in a positive way. or maybe i'm not so alone after all in what i believe. maybe there are more people than i realize who are out there who are waking up to (what i believe are) the hard truths of the change that is surrounding us.

and ultimately, i need to admit that i'm really afraid of what's coming down the line. not really for myself so much, i feel confident, hopeful and resilient. but i don't know what the implications of such massive change will be for the people i love who are living their lives as though nothing really significant is going to change and therefore no real preparation or change of behavior is required. it's very hard for me to be at peace with letting everyone just be where they are with their beliefs and their world view if it means, in the context of my beliefs and my world view, that they might be threatened or in danger. this has been my conundrum, because i'm really not about trying to convince others of anything. i have strong values around acceptance and non-judgment. and i want to be supportive and loving to the people in my life no matter where they are at or what they believe. so i feel this big conflict around knowing how to be, how to interact, what to talk about. and i end up just not reaching out for the most part. but i regularly feel this pressure, this desire to reach out. and i usually just stay quiet, stay put, stay safe in my desire to be "normal" and understandable. which, i now see, really isn't serving anyone.

and so, here i am playing my hand for all to see. even though i really don't know who "all" are because i'm not really sure who's still reading this these days, especially since bj and i haven't been putting much energy into it for a while. all the same, i'm feeling a strong need to be more in myself, more honest and at home in my life and my role in whatever it is that's going on in the universe right now. and if nothing else, writing all this down has been useful to me, helping me to sort out some thoughts and see some patterns that i hadn't been completely aware of before. blog as self-help. and maybe, hopefully, some piece of this may give a little help to some of y'all in your own lives.