decorate.

Something whimsical and magical about it.
Mixing colors, swirling. All quiet at the table - hard at work.

Summers on the lawn, swings on the porch, iced tea or lemonade.
Hot sun, cool breeze. Colors melting together. Sugar high, scoops of icing straight into the mouth - not even a need for the cookie base to accompany it.
Teeny tiny sprinkles that fall and pitter patter all the way to the wooden floor, only to be found days later by the vacuum or a sniffing dog.
Creamy and smooth.
Eyes so focused it brings you deep, deep into the design.
Brings swirls of thoughts and memories.

simply love.

Today my uncle informed me that he wanted to visit his homeland again. That he wanted to see Iran - a country where he had helped raise his siblings, where he had laid his fathers remains to rest, where he had married and started a life - a country that he had not, since the passing of 32 years, been allowed to return to.

"But I'm scared for you. What if something happens? You can't go back!"

He knows and I know that the political situation in Iran is not one that allows anyone not professing the Islamic faith as their religion to live, or travel for that matter, without harassment.

"I want to see my village. I want to see what it is like, what life is like. It has been so long. I want to see what has changed."

I couldn't imagine. Ripped away from any home he ever knew. Forced to create a new life in a land so foreign. To raise kids somewhere that he, himself, didn't know.

He is a man of faith. You see the faith in his eyes and hear it in the vibrations and intonations of his voice.

"And so what if they take me. They throw me in jail. They kill me. Who cares. So what. Let them." Such tenacity. Such determination. Such love, actually.

He made it seem so simple. And maybe it is. Maybe when it comes down to it, it's about love. About allowing that love to make you fearless. Regardless of what that fear may be.

spark.

A small spark of excitement is ignited. Only 2 weeks left until my feet touch ground on the land of my home away from home. The home that carries within it the growth and development of my soul, at each encounter.

I drove in the rain. Pelting down, hard, wipers trying to do their job, but to no avail. The car worked hard to stay focused. Hands gripping the wheel until the knuckles turned white. Breathing seized until the brain reminded it to exhale.

Somewhere in that overwhelming concentration, the thought drifted to the knowledge of my upcoming sojourn. And my heart lifted. I was incredibly thankful. Thankful that soon I would be able to lay my head down, shed my burdens, and cry my tears.

the little ones.

Today I felt really proud of our school community.

Every month we have something we call an All School Meeting. It is when everyone in the entire school comes together and, led by our Music teacher, lifts their voices in song.

So imagine a room filled with Kindergartners - all the way up to 5th grade (who seem just enormous to me now). A sea of different colors, different backgrounds, different personalities and learning styles. All sitting together - not able to see where one grade ends and the other begins. All a mesh of love and purity, all wanting to belong, and all knowing, somehow, that they belong here.

They sang. Loud and proud they sang. With their teachers and family members standing around them like a wall of love protecting them from the outside world. They ended the Meeting with, "Don't Worry, Be Happy". 300 little voices sang the simple, repetitive words over and over again. Words that I wish we could all, as grown-ups, internalize. Tears just easily rolled down my cheeks watching them. Tiny arms linked around the tiny necks of the person on either side. Swaying and singing.

And our STEP team also performed today for the first time ever. A group of 4th and 5th graders who have been working diligently during their recess time to learn how to sync together in unison. I was so nervous for them. Wanted to them to be proud of everything they had done, of how hard they had worked. And they rocked it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P19NQLR2wo&

And then there is the little group of 4th graders I have been working with. Who have created the group - LSA (Learning through Service and Action), a service learning group who, after talking about what it actually means to be of service in a community and what qualities are necessary when setting out to help, have decided to pursue two avenues of service - health awareness and assistance to the local homeless shelters.

Our health awareness group has created a blog. They are incredible - check them out and be a fan: www.crcslsa.blogspot.com. It is completely student written, student run, and student organized.

The group concerned with the rising number of homeless children in the neighborhood contacted our local shelters and has taken it upon themselves to have a drive to collect items the shelter needs. They went around to every classroom and talked about what they needed and why. So inspiring were this group of 4th graders, that a 2nd grader who heard their presentation, told her mother on their walk home from school that she wanted to, "go buy some baby food and bring it to school to give to the shelters".

At a time when things around us seem to be falling apart, these kids give me the strength and courage I need to know that we are alright. Just fine actually. We are in good hands.

Night.

Sadaf Persian tea, whitened with half and half, organic.
A tad bit of sugar.
A sprinkle of salt.

One square of one bar of organic dark 63% chocolate.

Toasty room. Clean and crisp sheets.

Sipping, enjoying, relaxing.

Blogging.

Maria

Maria comes once every month and a half for a deep, deep cleaning. She is probably one of the sweetest, kindest, most gentle women you'll meet. She is a hard worker and most importantly, a miracle worker.

She works for the "Si Se Peude!" women's cooperative. A group of immigrant women who have come together to create a women-run, women-owned, eco-friendly housecleaning business. The best part is that 100% of the fee goes to the member who does the work.

I wanted to just dedicate one post to her because of the incredible work that they do. It's so nice to see self-initiated and self-run projects and I think we should encourage and support them. This is one of the reasons I just really love NYC.

Mumford & Sons.

My wonderful friend burned me a CD today. Mumford & Sons. And I listened to every single song. It blasted throughout my office as I ran around like a chicken with her head cut off. Ran in and out of my work place, catching part of one song and a line from another. Here and there. There and here. One song stuck out. One lyric of that one song stuck out:

The way you invest your love, you invest your life.
In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die.

I've been, at the same time, reading and reflecting on a book about love and happiness. How to show more love and how to allow love to come to you. I sound like the Barnes and Noble self help section, I'm well aware, but it does strike a chord. If I believe, and I do, that human beings are born with love to give and require love in return, then it becomes helpful, I assume, to reflect on how I am investing my love. For then isn't that my life? Doesn't who I love and what I love and how I love shape my existence and create who I am, what my life actually is? We live and die in these bodies, yes. So I guess it makes me think - how do I want to live?

I love when new music comes into my life. I also love when I read back on an entry and even I don't understand it second time around. Enlightened? Or just garbage?

when it rains...

it full on pours.
so much happened in this one day. news of sicknesses, protests, anger spewed, misinformation spread. watching kids respond to hatred. watching grown ups act like kids. seeing how important it is to be a community, to listen to each other, to be united. to understand and talk to other people. it's the only way that misinterpretation dissipates. knowing where other people come from and being open to hearing all sides.
just one of those days where all things happen at once. and you put all the little things into perspective. and you see how lucky you are for so many things.
it poured today.

being present.

It all happened on a plane ride back from Toronto. Small, commuter plane, lends itself to good self reflection.

My good friend, who will remain unnamed but who most can probably figure out by process of elimination, turned to me and said - I'm gonna work on planning things more, so I can get more things done that I want to get done. I looked at her and said - I need to work on the exact opposite.

Thus started a spiral of events that led to me think about something I usually come to think about twice a year - the pace of my life.

So we made a deal this friend and I. I gave her a task, and she gave me one. Mine was to have 2 days a month where absolutely nothing is planned. Where I wake up and just do "what the spirit moves me to do", as the Navajo would say.
So far I have had two days such as these. It has been - brilliant. Have done things I would have never done had I planned it. And, best of all, I was living in the present. I thought about what I wanted to do and just did it, instead of thinking about how much time I had to get something done before I had to get to my next thing.

Living in the moment. Being present - as the yogi's put it. My friend on a plane - she is on to something. And we have come to see that it's the balance of us both that makes life livable.

Clinton Street Baking Company, Lower East Side

Blueberry pancakes with caramel syrup.
Fried green tomatoes, sour cream optional.
Eggs, over easy.
Candied bacon.
Cheese Grits.
Iced coffee, mostly cream.

Every bite delicious.
It's been a while since I've been this impressed with a place. This impressed with every single bite.

Worth it, trust me.

still.

In the quietest moments you find clarity. When your mind is still, your heart open, your breathing rhythmic. Somehow your understanding becomes sharper in the quietness and you begin to see things in a new light. Life springs forward and from somewhere within you a happiness begins to grow. Things that once occupied you dissipate. You stop looking at every instance as a wrong, but rather as an opportunity. You are kinder to yourself. You remember your higher nature and it makes you smile. It may come late in the night, or at the break of day. But it only does come when all around you is silent and still. When everything sits, waiting for you to approach it. Welcoming new life. Welcoming a new dawn.

Spring has arrived!

Naw Ruz literally translates to - New Day. It's the first day of Spring. It's the last day of the Baha'i Fast. I prepared 19 days for this new day to arrive. I thought long and hard, I abstained from food and drink from sun up to sun down, I prayed, I reflected, I made new choices that give action to my reflections. A new day.


When I was little, this day was filled with gifts. Literally. Days before Naw Ruz, my mom, sister, and I would set the "haft seen" (the decorative symbolic table setting that dates back to ancient Persian tradition). We'd paint eggs and decorate the table with them. We'd buy goldfish, we'd fill the house with flowers. And the dining room table would slowly begin to overflow with gifts from everyone and to everyone. The whole family would gather together and we'd eat the traditional sabzi polo and mahi, and after lunch all the kids would rush towards the gifts and the whole house turned into a wrapping paper wonderland. Close to thirty two family members would gather around as they oohed and aahed at the gifts everyone opened. Then it was time for the money. As is customary, the oldest member of the family (my Grandmother) would pass out crisp bills- $20 for the older grandchildren, $10 for the younger. One by one she'd call us up and we'd rush to get the cash and give the obligatory kisses, one on each cheek.

This was my favorite day. And although now I live strewn far from my family, each celebrating in their own part of the globe, I know that in our own ways we celebrated this day thinking of one another. It truly is a a renewal of spirit. A new day.

Who are we kidding?

I have this friend who, when we share what is new in/with our lives, she always seems to be going through a similar experience. She knows exactly what I'm feeling with little to zero effort on my part to have to explain it, and can often find even better words to place on the experience. One such circumstance was today. I was talking about how I miss life on the West coast. I miss driving my car to the grocery store, in my shorts, tank top, and flip flops, and leisurely walking into the enormous supermarket to get what I need. And then walking slowly and calmly back to my car to drive home. Done - Friday night.

I miss being able to do that. In NYC we are always on someone else's schedule - namely, Mr. and Mrs. MTA. They dictate when we get somewhere, if we are late, how long we'll have to sweat (or freeze, pick your season) before the train comes. So therefore, we rush. If I get there at 2:42 then maybe I'll make the right train, at the right time. Time. Time. Time. Schedule. Schedule. Schedule. We are forcing ourselves to live in this mentality that promotes futurizing and not living in the moment.

So this morning my friend and I shared our love for that slower pace and then she said something that really hit me. "But the crappy thing about this is, that once we have experienced it, it's hard to be content with that other lifestyle."

Is that true? Will I never be able to quite live in another place?

In the movie "Keeping the Faith", which is one of my all time favorites - I mean who doesn't love Edward Norton as a priest - they say that once you have lived in NYC you think that people living anywhere else are kidding themselves.

Really? Or do we have it the other way around? Are we the ones kidding ourselves?

Still trying to figure it out.

ice cream.

Five little first graders sit around the table. They are all eating snack. Goldfish, most probably. Their feet barely reach the floor. They are discussing appearances. "So you are chocolate, you're chocolate too." The whole group nods in agreeance, so she continues..."I'm vanilla, he's vanilla..." They all stop to stare at the last child to be pointed to, wondering what will be said about this one. "...and you're. um. you're tan." A smile of assurance spreads across tan's face and they all again nod to show they wholeheartedly agree.

The teacher, being the good teacher he is, decides this is the perfect opportunity to push these children to think even deeply about an already complex topic. It's what we call a "teachable moment" in the classroom.

He crouches down to be at eye level with them, you know, to really drive the point home. "Why do you think it is that we are all different?"

The conversation stops, all eyes turn to him, and then back to the little girl making the original ice cream flavor distinctions. "We aren't different!" she says, without hesitation and with a little underlying chuckle, "we just have different color skin!"

They all laugh and turn back to their goldfish.

Why are kids so much smarter than the rest of us?

s l o w i n g d o w n

restricted breathing. short. quick. not slowing down but allowing the mind to race and race. feeling overwhelmed and trapped. not sure exactly why yet completely aware that a fundamental shift in thought and function will need to occur for true remedy.

s l o w i n g the pace. one step at a time. mindful that it is more important to just be present. tired of the spinning wheels. tired of the monotony. s l o w e r pace.

needing the type of breath that goes deep. needing clarity of mind. need for oxygen to reach.

trying desperately to keep up. spinning wheels, racing heart (and not just from the caffeine).

appreciation comes from actually being in the moment long enough to recognize what to be grateful for.

rain day.

There are days when, as I strap on my rain boots and open my umbrella, push the door open to the pouring rain, I want nothing more than to curl up on my couch, cup of tea in hand, and watch the weather from inside the comfort of my own home. I picture that image in my mind. "That's what days like this are for," I'll literally say out loud to myself as I trudge through the wetness, umbrella no longer able to protect me from the sharp raindrops now coming in from every direction. "I should be at home".

Today, finally, after years of uttering those words, I got to sit on my couch, still in PJ's, tea cup in hand, watching the rain hit the window panel - creating a blurry facade.

So much better from the inside.

Mile End

Mile End. Mile End. Mile End.

My friend Allison has been telling me about Mile End for about a year now. Raved about the roast beef sandwiches. Said the poutine is to die for.

So it just happened that today, on a day filled with the 101 errands that must get done in lieu of actual vacation, I stumbled upon this quaint little eatery in Boerum Hill off of Hoyt. It just happened to be that at that moment, I looked up. The otherwise unassuming black canvas would have been passed by had I not had Allison's voice in my head.

Mile End. Mile End. Mile End.

It's one of those days when you have a set agenda and then something pops up so ridiculously necessary to partake of, that your plans swerve and alter, actually happy that you decided to cheat on them.

Dough

It happened first last Friday. I walked up to the parent of a 1st grader at our school to ask him about a project we were working on, and as we spoke he pulled out of a white paper bag, a small, donut sphere covered in cinnamon and sugar. "Um, where did you get that?" I asked - completely stopping mid-sentence in whatever point I was trying to make.

Dough. He said. And proceeded to tell me how Choice Market had a shop where they do all their baking and that the storefront is a donut shop - Dough. I was thrilled - a donut shop right here in our own neighborhood? OK, so it borders Clinton Hill and Bed Stuy, but still.

Later that day, I walked into a classroom as my co-worker described a new donut shop in her area. There it was again - Dough.

I spent the last 5 days in Toronto with my donut obsessed friend. Which naturally rubbed off on me and made me crave them, all throughout Canada. Finally back in New York City, I met up with my friend Russ for a quick hello in the Bank of America tower in mid-town. "Guess what?" he says, "There is a new donut shop in our neighborhood!" "DOUGH!" We practically yell the word at the same moment. He showed me the New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/dining/reviews/23unde.html?_r=1) listing it among other such establishments that I know and love - Peter Pan and Doughnut Plant.

So that was that. Mentioned 3 times in the span of a week (with a donut craving brewing all the while) meant that I needed to go find this place. And I did. It was the end of their work day so most options were gone (which of course means another visit is in order), but the donut with chai tea filling was my favorite. Waiting for many, many more visits.

it's receding

I have been trying for weeks to schedule my dentist appointment for a routine cleaning. I had to cancel a few times, finding a day and time that worked for both me and the hygienist seemed impossible. Finally, in my last attempt to make an appointment, the receptionist said...well, we could do Wednesday but your appointment would be with the doctor himself, not the hygienist.

Well that to me sounded like a win-win situation. I get to make an appointment on a day that works for me and I also get a real dentist to do my cleaning? Perfect. Great.

Wednesday rolls around and off I go. Proud of myself for being 15 minutes early for my appointment, I settle into the dentist chair. Who likes a visit to the dentist? No one. They are probably one of the least liked doctors to visit. I mean no one can look good with their mouths pried open and lips stretched so far you fear it'll stay that way. And that suction water vacuum? The worst! Dribble everywhere, hoping there is only good news after this visit, one that sounds like, "Great, I'll see you in another 6 months for your next cleaning."

The doctor finally comes. Puts on his gloves and goes to work, stopping literally every 30 seconds to ask me to close my mouth so that suction vacuum can clear the saliva, telling me to only breath through my nose. And then it hit me. It wasn't a win-win situation to have a doctor do your cleaning. They have the hygienist do it for a reason. And one of the MOST IMPORTANT of those reasons is this: you can at least semi-enjoy your cleaning and get all the bad news at the end when the doctor comes in for a few minutes. But not today. While his hands were wedged DEEP inside my mouth to scrape and pick, he also gave me the diagnosis, every step of the way. "You feel that? That's a cavity." "Yup, there is another one." "How do you brush anyway?" "Do you have soft bristles or hard ones?" And finally, my personal favorite, "Your gums, they are receding".

WHAT?!!?

I had to try HARD to smile when he finished and said, "Don't your teeth feel so smooth now?"

"And you need to make two more appointments in the next months..."

I sprinted out that door.

TV

why do i love TV so much?

there is just something about it that makes all your nerves relax, even after a 12 hour day. and it's the most ridiculous shows that i get addicted to. the ones with a plot that repeats every other month, but by which i am still completely shocked and surprised. worse still are the trash reality shows that are utterly embarrassing to watch with anyone who doesn't share the same hobby.

but curling up on my fluffy white couch, cup of tea in hand, allowing brain to numb over, mesmerized by the colors and the lights, it's a part of the day i look so forward to.

why do i love TV so much?