No time to the right time

I miss writing. The words rolling off the tip of my fingers onto the keyboard. The blissful feeling of capturing a whole thought and expanding it, for it to blossom into something meaningful, even if only to me.

But creative expression needs time, not something I have large excesses of these days. Taking a full-time job, indeed, one that requires me to travel as well, means that writing has swiftly arrived at the bottom of my priority list, below rather more important things like spending time with my daughter, eating, and sleeping. Being out of the house 10 hours a day, five days a week has meant that even things like chores and exercise are mighty challenging to pull off.

This is where I make my perfunctory statement of awe and respect to working parents worldwide who manage to have not just one but even more children, hold down full-time jobs, and manage to still do things like throw birthday parties and get up at five in the morning to run or meditate or what have you.

Mind you, I am not complaining. Not even venting. I love my job, and the role I play is something I have been wanting to be able to commit to for quite some time. Circumstances and my daughter's age have led me to finally be able to do so. It's just that it's been a reeeaaally long time since I was in the full-time flow.

When I left the U.S. in 2006 with Margo, my professional trajectory came to a standstill and it has taken me all these years south of the border to re-cultivate it to a level that can not only do justice to my education and experience and support my family. Nothing is forever, everything and anything can change in the blink of an eye, but I am proud of how far we have come as a family—how far I have come personally—and I am so happy that this time in my life is finally here.

The trick is making it, the feeling, the moments, stick. So as to not blow by in the blink of an eye, as often happens in my memory-span of a fly. That is what writing has always done so well for me. From the time I was twelve up until now, taking time to pause, write, and externalize has allowed me to realize, reflect, evolve even.

The outside, professional world, and my movements in concert are working wonders on my self-growth and that of my family's. But those subtler, sweeter sides of life—things like writing, gardening, crafts, spending time with dear, dear friends or just sitting and thinking—are getting shaded out in the meantime.

But the gardener in me knows that seeds, though lying dormant, are faithful to the stirrings of life, and will spring forth at a moment's notice. They just need a little light shone into dark corners and new leaves will emerge when the time is right. It might not be this spring, but a growing season is something we can always count on.

Winds of Change | On the Current CIR Debate | Amor and Exile

**Note: This is probably more subject matter than should have gone in one blog post. Time is more precious than ever, and I've been more exhausted in the last 3 weeks than I can remember being since college over 15 years ago. There's so much to say, too little time, and some trains are fast departing from the stations of my life that I can't afford to miss. But I wanted to simultaneously speak to recent accomplishments with Amor and Exile and going to D.C., the perspective of many years having observed and been a victim of immigration politics, and also acknowledge that my intense involvement in this issue, to the exclusion of other, more earthy parts of my life, has taken a toll, and I'm in the process of achieving a new equilibrium.**

Cycles are being completed and new chapters are opening in my life, and for this I am grateful. But in many ways, some things are as they always were.

I recently traveled to Washington, D.C. to deliver a copy of the book I co-wrote with Nathaniel Hoffman, Amor and Exile: True Stories of Love Across America's Borders. The trip, which in essence launched the publication of our book, was many things to me at once: a dream come true to tell my story to our nation, a collaborative vision seen through to completion, an eye-opening experience about the way politics are done in my country, and a reminder that I must continue to find grounding in my daily life back home.

Nearly 12 years ago, I began dating my husband and discovered what we were up against in terms of immigration laws that effectively shut out a large number of North Americans from access to legal immigration to the United States, even when married to American citizens.

Almost 6 years ago, despite the successful protest of the passage of even harsher immigration laws (HR 4437), which would have made it a felony to merely be in association with my husband, we came to the conclusion that the only way for my husband to obtain legal status was to move abroad to his home country of Mexico. We packed our belongings and moved south, where we've been ever since.

A few years after we moved here, I began seriously contemplating the possibility of writing about my story. Everytime I told our story about why we'd moved here to someone, they'd respond, "But you're married!?" as if it was a no-brainer that my husband should have U.S. papers. It drove me crazy that nobody understood why things just weren't that simple. On one hand, part of me wanted to wash my hands of the issue entirely, just focus on my field (ecology) and pursue my dreams of a green business or non-profit in a country that sorely needs environmental conservation work. I did restore a good part of our land with greywater and organic vegetable production. I did publish a short collection of regional recipes using Mexican native food plants (The Bajio's Bounty). And I remained tangentially involved in the environmental movement here in Querétaro. But the pull of fate in the direction of writing a memoir and adding my voice to the millions of disenfranchised by U.S. immigration law was too strong. I kept adding to my many notebooks of visions I was having about "telling a story about migration."

In winter of 2011, only a few months after my daughter was born, I began writing my part for Amor and Exile. Ever since then, my life as been drawn inexorably deeper into the path of advocacy on behalf of families like mine. Starting with the story that is now part of Chapter 9 of Amor and Exile, entitled "Alienation," in which I tell of our passage south to Mexico, I began the laborious task of encapsulating my most painful struggles and my lofty ideals (of the ones that still remain) into prose, exposing them to my coauthor's critiquing and making them universally understandable, as opposed to making sense only to me. The first years were an internal struggle—overcoming the fears and anxieties with making our story. I first received great support from family, friends, my coauthor Nathaniel, and then from a therapist who helped me creatively work through my trauma and heal many hurt parts of having to leave my country to keep my family together, essentially against my will.

Our manuscript was finally done in December 2012. It represented two and a half years of writing and collaborative editing. In the first few months that we began "shopping around" our manuscript with our agent, was when all the Comprehensive Immigration Reform debate hit Congress. I'd written my story without any specific political language, mainly because it was telling a past story, also because it was anyone's guess as to when actual reform could happen. Moreover, as I tell in the book, part of my personal peacemaking has had to do with separating my political hopes from my own personal goals and motivations—in other words, I can't pin my personal happiness on political outcomes.

That being said, I'm well aware of what the current debate represents and I would be amiss to not be a part of it. It's been satisfying to be able to make contact with many individuals who are advocating on behalf of families like ours. Coming in contact with dozens of families like mine has renewed my resolve to continue speaking out on this subject—even though the "best" reforms available (waiver reform) really would only allow my family to apply for a waiver a couple years earlier. It's too little too late for us—but it could be a lot for some families.

Being in D.C.—getting the community support to go there as a result of our Indiegogo campaign to "Send Amor and Exile to Washington"—was an incredibly uplifting experience. Going from totally disempowered, silenced for so many years due to my family's lack of legal recourse—to dialoguing with Capitol staffers and representatives themselves was to come full circle in terms of where I was and where I now am. We have no guarantee that our efforts will actually make any difference in the long run in terms of policy, but I am convinced that at least in terms of personal views, dozens of individuals have been affected as a result of our work. And I can only pray that it will continue to have an impact in the long term.

Because ultimately, as things are currently being played out in the Senate, it is truly a political game in which our lives hang in the balance. A game whose players have no problem sacrificing billions of taxpayer dollars for even higher and more electrified fences in the name of immigration reform—always with the risk that every compromise will never be enough to satisfy the most extreme negotiators. I'm personally more skeptical about the long-term positive impact of the most recent version of SB 744 (if the Corker-Hoeven amendment to spend $30 billion in additional "border security" is included) compared to the original version. It's the product of compromise that might get some of us home a little sooner, that might prevent some of us from having to go into exile, but my question is, how will it affect generations of migrants, citizens of both countries even, to come?

It's really easy to fall in the trap of thinking about only our own families' problems, I did this for many years as I pitied myself and couldn't imagine how I was going to make my life work in a foreign country. I saw myself as somewhat different than the rest, when in reality, we're all in the same boat. I am so thankful to my fellow friends in exile for opening my eyes about that. What I dread happening is that we, the exiled or separated, forget to think of those who will come after us, as we are thrown a bone, while draconian regulations continue to be passed.

What concerns me about the passage of an SB 744 with extreme border militarization clauses is because of the reasons these regulations are being written in. Does this version of immigration policy engender cross-cultural understanding and reduce the likelihood of attempted illegal immigration to the U.S? Probably not. Would using that money instead on international programs that improve the standard of living in foreign countries, create programs for individuals to more easily access legal immigration channels to the U.S. have more positive effect in the long run? Most likely. But those type of answers aren't as politically sexy as more choppers and barbed wire, when catering to the xenophobic crowd in the U.S.

Much of our populace is still stuck, lamentably, in a culturally insensitive rut that is costing us the ability to move forward as a nation, embrace our immigrant roots, our immigrant present, and our immigrant future. We welcome those who have the financial resources (or luck in the lotteries) to make it across the border "legitimately," but we reject many who are the salt of the earth. Those of us who have acknowledged the migratory and highly adaptable nature of our continent will keep working toward true change, at great personal sacrifice, sorrow, and even joy sometimes, no matter what the outcome on Capitol Hill.

Mamá de dos lugares

Ayer tuve dos momentos de confusión y no fue debido al vértigo que he tenido por las ultimas tres semanas.

El primer momento fue por la mañana cuando unas amigas me invitaron a reunir con ellas y los pequeños este domingo que viene. Dijeron algo como "porque el viernes es día de las madres." Pensé, queeeé? El domingo es día de las madres. Y así es, en los Estados Unidos, el segundo domingo de mayo. Pero yo vivo en México, y rápidamente recordé que el día de las madres es el 10 de mayo, lo cual es hoy este año.
Luego, estuve trabajando mucho mas tarde que debía, cuando dos compañeras mexicanas me mandaron un mensaje por Facebook diciendo "Felicidades en tu día mañana!" Y de nuevo me quedé así como, "mi día? de qué hablan? a poco creen que es mi cumpleaños?" Pero esta vez la sensación de confusión desvaneció mas rápido cuando me di cuenta que estaban hablando de día de las madres. 
Si preguntas porque me cuesta tanto recordar que 10 de mayo es día de las madres aquí, puedo decir que por un lado, aunque he estado en México por casi siete años, solo he pasado dos días de las madres como madre aquí, antes de ayer, porque mi hija aún es chiquita. Así que aún no es un día festivo a que me acostumbro ser celebrada personalmente. Y por el otro lado, mi esposo es una persona muy buena, pero por la manera que sus papás le criaron, no tiende a celebrar mucho los días festivos.
Pero les dije gracias a mis amigas de todas formas, y me quedé impactada que unas mujeres jóvenes, sin hijos propios, tomarían la iniciativa para felicitarme aunque no somos familiares. Incluso observé que las mujeres felicitaron las madres de cada una, en un intercambio mutuo de aprecio para las madres que dieron vida a sus amigas. 
Lo último fue algo que jamás he observado en mi país de nacimiento. En Estados Unidos, en mi experiencia, todos sabemos cuando es Día de las Madres, pero celebramos a nuestras propias madres, tal vez abuelas o una tía. Al recibir los afectuosos saludos de parte de mis amigas por ser madre, me quedé pensando en las diferencias de las dos culturas. Llegué a la conclusión que, como había pensado en tiempos anteriores cuando mi hija era recién nacida, que de ciertas formas, ser padres en un país como México tiene ciertas ventajas.
Claro que aún existe el machismo y la desigualdad. Sin embargo,las mujeres han luchado en todos ámbitos a través de las generaciones y yo he observado a más y más padres ayudando con la crianza de sus peques como nunca antes, y eso ha sido una experiencia satisfactoria. 
Incluso hay un fenómeno que nunca deja de impresionarme cuando lo veo: niños adolescentes caminando por las calles agarrando la mano de su madre, o con su brazo en el de ella, cercanamente a su lado. Yo recuerdo en Estados Unidos, siendo adolescente, lo mas lejos de tus padres que puedes estar, mejor. Al ver los niños teniendo tanto aprecio, tanta ternura para sus madres, me siento un alivio sin explicación, y creo que tiene que ver con la esperanza que, posiblemente, mi hija podría no rechazarme tanto como los adolescentes Estadounidenses tienden a rechazar sus padres cuando lleguen a ese edad. 
No tengo las respuestas para explicar las diferencias, y estoy segura que hay otros factores que afectan el balance entre ventajas y desventajas de ser madre en cada una de las culturas. Pero estoy agradecida que tengo la oportunidad de ver otro modelo que él que siempre viví al otro lado. Y aunque ahora estoy muy lejos de mi propia madre, tendré aún mas aprecio por el rol que tuvo en mi vida y mas aprecio por el ciclo qué decidí seguir al tener mi propia hija hace casi tres años.
Les doy las gracias a las dos, a toda la gente que me han apoyado en ese trayectoria. Siendo una madre no es algo fácil, pero es uno de las mejores decisiones que he tomado en mi vida. Ser madre coincidió con muchas cosas nuevas para mí: llegué a ser coautora de un libro de nuevo, conseguí ciudadanía mexicana, y empezé a trabajar mas, para sacar mi familia adelante. Siendo madre me ha impulsado hacer todo lo que hago con más pasión porque ahora no solo tengo una idea teórico de dejar una huella en este mundo, sé que cada cosa que hago será trasmitida a mi hija y quiero que ella tenga la oportunidad de vivir en un mundo lleno con más paz y belleza que violencia y destrucción. Y por eso agradezco cada día que he tenido la bendición de ser no solamente una hija, pero también una madre—independientemente de si el conjunto de felicitaciones sucede a través de dos dias o sólo uno. 

Wasp stings and Seguro Popular | Mexico vs. U.S. 1-0

Some family of mine visited for the first time this past week. As is apt to happen, when comparing the U.S. and Mexico, we got off on a spirited detour about the direction in which the U.S. government is headed.
I had remarked how ironic it was that the direction of the effect of current U.S. policies (slashing essential public programs, failing to support universal education, lining the pockets of the wealthy, etc.) are sending our country down a similar path as Mexico, where growth is occurring in some sectors, but because of the monopolies and corrupt bureacracies, a lot of the "progress" truly benefits only the rich, leaving the majority of the country stuck about 40 years in the past, maybe more.
My motivation in saying something like that was probably stemming from a sense of helplessness at only being able to watch what goes down in the U.S. from afar, also a fear that things I most cherished about my home country, like great free education, are at risk. 

But then something hit me—part of my imaginary equation was off, and not in the direction I'd anticipated. Just the day prior, I'd visited the Queretaro General Hospital ER for a large wasp sting that had gotten worse and infected. I was seen immediately, administered a shot to reduce the reaction, and sent home with medicine—all in under 1 hour's time, and all free, under the Seguro Popular federal medical care program.

I first enrolled in 2010, before my daughter was born. I'd been able to pay for private doctor's office visits out of pocket up until then, but was worried about potential accidents, my inability to afford private medical insurance, and wanted a sort of catastrophic family medical insurance. So far we've only used it for severe insect bites—Margo also got treated for one, last year, when he was stung by a scorpion. But it's a relief to think it's there when we need it.
Suddenly, on my imaginary scoreboard between the U.S. and Mexico federal benefits to my family, I was left staring at a big fat 1-0, with Mexico on the unexpected left hand side.
Inside, I felt outraged, shocked, even a little dismayed. How could it be that the glorious U.S. of A could be down on the count, and of all rivals, with Mexico? There had to be something I was missing.
I racked my brains for things the U.S. federal government had done for me (a direct benefit, not some sort of trickle-down benefit) and my inner conscience immediately felt lame doing so, especially after hearing the words of JFK, "ask not what your country can do for you," first inside my own head, and then from my uncle sitting next to me as he invoked the time of the Kennedys.
It was as if I had an inner anti-governmental critic meter and some alarm was getting sounded. Over the years my morality meter had driven me to do well in school, honor my family, work, pay taxes, volunteer, sit on boards of directors. It had allowed me to practice freedom of speech by being critical of government policies, an environmental activist, and even challenge the morality of current U.S. immigration policies. But somehow wondering what direct personal benefit I'd gotten with my U.S. membership card felt sacrilegious. What felt especially weird was having spent the last 7 years up in arms about not being able to go back home to the U.S. with my husband and daughter, as a complete family unit. It was a very weird feeling indeed.
But what was worse was not finding any answer to counter my suspicion, that the score was still 1-0. All I could think of was having to pay taxes since I started getting W-2s when I was 16 years old. The next thing I thought of was my $20,000 college scholarship through the National Science Scholars Program that had gotten revoked as a result of Newt Gingrich's contract with America the summer of 1995, leaving me with just under that amount of debt 3.5 years later after graduating.
The response to my question I posed to my family was disturbingly spare. After asking in earnest for the third time if I was being rash, if I was missing something, my uncle said, "Let it go already...you may just have to accept that things aren't really what you thought."
That seems to go without saying—this isn't the first time that the dual allegiance I've been obliged to forge in the throes of forced expatriation has caused me to question everything I've known to be true.
That part of me that still wants to see that scoreboard blowing up on the right hand side is not just juvenile fantasy, but self-preservation, in that restoring something from ruins is usually a lot harder than preventing something from falling apart in the first place. On the other hand, maybe a middle ground would be to allow something to grow and evolve. That's been my wish ever since it became clear to me at 12 years old that our country's oil-dependent economy would need to sprout new wings and let the dinosaurs go the way of oblivion. What saddens me as an adult is that the country I thought the most innovative and capable of progress—my own—still really has so far to go.

I think we already have our Christmas tree

My family and friends know me as someone who isn't inclined to chop down a beautiful, carbon-storing live tree from a field just to haul it inside our living room for a few weeks. But I am drawn to the aesthetic side of Christmas trees...growing up I loved doing the decorations, the lights. And as an adult I love the extra beauty the whole shebang lends to the living space during the holidays. So for the past few years I've tried alternatives to the big chopped tree (which by the way, I've actually never had in my own home). Last year it was a potted tree. 

This year, I got the idea to maybe cut a branch from one of our trees outdoor and spray paint it gold. So I went outside and started scouting the yard for a good candidate. The mesquite needs trimming but doesn't quite have the uniform shape I like. The palo verde, the guava and the pomegranate are leafless right now, but I don't want to cut them too much, because they're of fruit-bearing age.

Then, as I was walking by the grapefruit tree, I noticed something uncanny.

 

I couldn't help but be struck by how much the grapefruits reminded me of Christmas ornaments. Suddenly, the idea of hanging sparkly spheres on a fake stand-in for a tree in our living room seemed a poor substitute for the real thing. Then it dawned on me, this image of a fecund fruit bearing tree quite possibly is one of the original inspirations for an adorned Christmas tree. I don't profess to know how today's commercial and materialistic-heavy traditions evolved from the ancient traditions of the celebration of the rebirth of the solar year. But I do know that in beholding our grapefruit tree, so beautiful and full of life, promise, and delicious fruits, I lost the desire to find a branch and decorate it with plastic balls. I can find another way to put some glitter in the house these holidays. But I think we have our Christmas tree already.

Musings on the Eve of Mexican Independence Day | Binational Family Conversations on Race and Identity

Tonight is the eve of Mexican Independence Day.
According to Wikipedia, "Mexico, in the second article of its Constitution, is defined as a "pluricultural" nation in recognition of the diverse ethnic groups that constitute it, and in which the indigenous peoples are the original foundation." 

So, like its sister country to the north, Mexico is a free state that shook off its European colonial monarchy, that also shares a vast diversity of native North American as well as Old World cultural heritage. But in my opinion, Mexico appear to differ from the U.S. in that a smaller percentage of its people seem to make a point of embracing their racial roots.
My observations are probably skewed by where I've lived previously in the U.S.—mostly in liberal urban areas, and now Mexico—in a region characterized by heavy colonial influence compared to states like Oaxaca or Chiapas where indigenous influence is stronger.
But either way, I’ve always noticed how differently people choose to identify themselves culturally or racially. I know that whole college courses and even degrees are dedicated to this type of topic, and I've had very little formal study of it. But as a dual citizen with two feet planted in both my birth country of the U.S. and my home country of Mexico, with a binational and bilingual daughter and a Mexican husband, these type of questions will never cease to pique my interest. 

A few days ago, my little family and I were listening to music while having lunch. My 2 year old daughter, sitting in her highchair, began bobbing her head to the rhythms of Jay-Z & Alicia Keys' Empire State of Mind.

My husband Margo asked her if she was from New York, and then answered for her "no, you're from Queretaro."

I said, "yeah, well, she's from NY through me—her mama's from NY!" We both laughed. 

As I went over to stir the nopales I was cooking, I thought about how there are millions of people who call themselves African American, even though they themselves aren't from Africa nor do they even have recent relatives from there, although their distant ancestors came from there many generations ago.

"Can you imagine if someone's great-great-great-great-grandparent was from Mexico, do you think they'd call themselves Mexican American?" I asked my husband.

To use myself as an example, my great-grandparents on my father's side are from Mexico, and I even became a naturalized Mexican citizen last year through marriage with my husband. But I haven't yet referred to myself as Mexican American.

Margo is a born and bred Queretano. "Yeah right...they'd probably call themselves something else," he said. 

"Probably white," I replied, "Or Hispanic," I ventured. 

I was thinking of my own "whiteness." After growing up of German and Mexican ancestry in a heavily Italian and Polish neighborhood in Upstate New York, most people assumed Salgado was Italian. On college applications, I checked off "other" and wrote in 3 different races—white/Caucasian, Hispanic, and Native American, to reflect my mixed European ancestry and the mixed mestizo ancestry. Mestizo refers to the indigenous Mexican Indian/Spanish blend that characterizes the great majority of Mexican people, but many people call Mexicans or other Latin Americans "Spanish." In fact, that's the definition of the regularly used term Hispanic. 

Why is that? Why do people choose to identify themselves with one ancestry over another? The answers should be fairly obvious, but there seem to be a lot of exceptions to the rule, depending on where you're from or where you grow up.

"Does that mean that most Mexican Americans have less pride in their heritage than most African Americans?" I asked my husband. I wasn't thinking of the Chicano pride movement back in the 70's, but modern Mexican Americans by definition (such as myself)—I'm not sure if the pride in cultural heritage extends as uniformly to 3rd or 4th generation individuals these days as it does with other minority groups.

"I think so," he said. "I think it's because we have a lot of discrimination in this culture. A lot of Mexicans are embarrassed to say they're indios (Indians or native peoples) because they've been prejudiced against them for so long. So people say they've got a Spanish grandfather, grandmother, etc."
Margo's family didn't exactly raise him to take pride in his Otomi roots, in fact they whipped him to get him to go to Catholic church every Sunday and kiss his godparents' hands. But somehow he saw past the religious zealotry to become more of a free-thinker as a teenager.

"I wonder if because of the civil rights movement in the U.S., people feel safer to show off their heritage," I mused. "If you have an indigenous grandfather or grandmother, you're likely to tell everyone about it, be proud of it."

And yet, in the next song, Lakota singer/songwriter John Trudell laments the isolation of native people of the United States. "Industrial reservations, tyranny stakes its claims. Blue Indians, emotional siege in civilized state....glory and gold lead a desperate chase. Blue Indian, melting pot, ruling classes, haves and have nots." It's from his album Blue Indians, and it's got a lot of good food for thought.

Today for our Independence Eve dinner, my husband made vegetable noodle soup and bean tacos while I worked on finishing a translation for a botanical garden in Sinaloa state. The document I was working on described historical figures in Mexican botany—from Mexican explorers to the Jesuits to Mexican female scientists and even a researcher from Arizona.
When I told my husband about what I was working on, he wondered aloud ¨You mean like conquistadores? The enslavers?"
"No..." I admonished him. "The people were just interested in plants." Safe assumption, right? Being a plant person myself...
Instead of heading out to the festivities downtown, we avoided the crowds and drunk drivers and went for a walk out in his father's cornfield. Back home, I made Mexican chocolate.
I can't claim to truly understand the reasons behind why we choose to embrace some parts of ourselves or why we wish to cast aside the others. But I am glad that I can ask these questions and explore them freely with my partner so we can at least come close to modeling honesty, respect, and pride for our ancestry with our daughter wherever possible—no matter how tangled or frayed our roots end up throughout our lives.

The Real Easter Basket

Two months have passed since I began working part-time at an English school. It's been nice to get out of the house, I enjoy the personal interactions, and I can now breathe a little easier on the economic side of things, but it's had its expected flip-side results as well. I'm quite tired every day, I worry I'm not giving enough undivided attention to my family (some correspondences are suffering), my hip pain has returned, and my amount of free time to dedicate to creative pursuits such as writing, art, and gardening has taken a hit.

But there're also some undeniably wonderful things happening at the same time—the growth of our daughter, the flourishing of our orchard and flock of chickens, even the growth of some friendships and personal strength. I tend to believe as is in nature, also is with people, and vice versa. Even when it seems like I have little extra time for anything, the above things are both a blessing and a natural result of small, diligent, patient efforts toward progress, combined with the wonderfully powerful and cyclic elements of nature.

I'm the kind of person who likes to answer every personal email I receive, but it hasn't always been possible with my new schedule. But one of the side effects of not always being the most responsive, or first to reach out, has been to find out which friendships have perservered despite my low levels of maintenance. It reveals a connection that can stand the test of time.

I never would have guessed that something as simple as, when we built our house, placing a window facing a mesquite tree, would bring so much enjoyment from the center of our home—seeing its vibrant, almost flourescent green leaved branches waving gently in the breeze and filled with songbirds coming to take a drink from a dish of water on the ground below it. It took years of gently inviting wildlife to our yard and runoff from our roof directed to the mesquite's roots for this whole scene to develop.

There's a weedy grass that got out of control in our yard while we were otherwise occupied with parenting duties, and when I finally decided to reclaim my garden and started letting my daughter come outside and explore while we worked, we'd get covered with its sticky seeds. Even the regular feeling of desperation of just walking outside for a few minutes to pick greens or feed the animals, only to spend almost half an hour just picking the spines out of our pantlegs (and weeks afterward trying to eradicate it), managed to turn into a unexpected moment of repose, albeit a month or two later. Just today, my daughter and I were standing in the kitchen after coming in from outside and I noticed she was prostrate on the floor behind me. At first, since she has a frustrating puppy-like characteristic of chewing shoes, I impatiently said, no touch! But when I looked down, I realized she was picking seeds off the bottom of my pantleg and couldn't help but smile. This is a 17-month old, who picks kale leaves and feeds them to our chickens—why had I assumed she was just getting into trouble instead of doing something constructive? I took a deep breath, stooped down, and hugged and thanked her, acknowledging to myself that I'd judged the moment too quickly.

The living things in our garden have been in a relative state of neglect, with the exception of our flock of chickens. They didn't lay a single egg for almost 4 months this past winter, and we were starting to wonder if our efforts to keep them fed and safe were in vain. Our older chickens almost got passed over for new chicks to replace them. But then miraculously, almost a month ago, they began laying again, and right now, not one but two of them are sitting on eggs in the nest, in the hopes that they will become first time moms to some fuzzy little chicks in less than a couple weeks. In checking up on them last night I observed that one of the 7 eggs they'd laid and were brooding was crushed and smeared over the others. I couldn't figure out if it was them or the other chickens coming in and stepping on them. So I decided to try and experiment with a swinging door so they could get out and eat and drink water once or twice a day but that would block the other two hens from coming in, who'd have to lay their eggs in a lower nest box. As I was snipping and collecting grass from around the yard, and placing it in the coop, rearranging the eggs carefully, I couldn't help but think of an Easter basket. Then I thought, duh, these *were* the original Easter egg hunts! Even though I probably won't have time or money to do up a fancy colorful gift basket like the kind we used to get as kids, we'll have the satisfaction of having the real thing.

Not to be trite, but cliches describe these situations well—finding the silver lining of every cloud, or asking yourself what you can learn from a situation. My own personal list goes on, but I hope I've made my point. In these particular moments, I made a mental note that sometimes even the most disdainful situations can have surprisingly sweet results—especially if you take the time to look for them.

One More Step: Healing What Ails Me

This post has absolutely no relation to what I set out to write about this chilly morning, but that's the nature of the artist's pledge to follow their inspiration. It produces things you least expect. In my case, for more than the last month, I was inspired to find out what was causing my back pain.

And now, just like that, it's gone. After plaguing me non-stop for a month, with constant hip pain for almost 7 months before that, my back pain simply disappeared. I don't mean all little aches from overdoing it or sitting in a chair too long, but the inability to carry my baby or bend over and brush my teeth without spasms...no more. Such is the nature of that type of pain. I wrote a few posts about it and what I believe its root to be (unrelieved tension), but I didn't really note what the specific day was that it stopped. Oh well, it's not important—the good thing is it's gone for now.

The funny thing is, I remembered that when I got up early this morning and carried the laundry basket downstairs. While my back was hurting, my husband would have had to do it for me. All I did this time was peek over my shoulder to see if he or the baby had stirred from slumber while I hauled it up and off the floor, reveling in the fact that less than 2 weeks ago that would have been impossible. And how great that felt. It's funny how little you appreciate certain things until you don't have them anymore, like simple physical abilities. Of course I would be amiss if I didn't reflect at least a LITTLE on what I think might have been the key to getting it to hit the road.

A full acknowledgment that it was stress-related tension was the first step—realizing that not just the back, but the hip was involved was also key. That way, when it started to switch back and forth, I didn't get too worried that something was wrong with me, which I think perpetuated it over the last several months.

A sincere effort to get into a regular exercise routine was also important—one that I haven't even started yet, mind you, but plans are laid—I signed up for swim lessons at the local pool that will start next week. And I also got my bike fixed up and out on the road after collecting dust for almost two years. I'd been walking a lot until my hip started hurting, and that really put me out mood-wise. Just knowing that I'm getting back on track with physical activity makes me feel better about myself, which spreads like ripples.

Regular journaling, and reflective time, whether it be in meditation, affirmation, or prayer, seems important also. Writing gives me an opportunity to process and externalize things that well up inside. The reflective time allows me to either "let go" of things out of my control, or recognize things that I can influence.

There were also a couple miscellaneous things I had to deal with internally, like my mindset about some things. The closest I can come to summing this up is along the lines of the "God give me the serenity" adage. Or, something I believe the Dalai Lama said, which to paraphrase, goes like "If something is in your control, why worry about it; and if something is out of your control, why worry about it?" In other words, don't pretend you can't do something about a situation—have the courage to change it if you can. And if you really can't do anything about something, try to let it go. This is really hard because we get into habits of truly believing something is out of our control when in truth it's in our hands. Indeed, we have quite a bit more power than we think we do, and even that acknowledgment can be frightening because it means we have no choice but to act. The converse is also often true—we attempt to change things that are really outside our influence. Perceiving the difference between these two things is truly a life skill honed with time and intention.

For non-believers, this last piece might be the hardest part to embrace, but I also think that a little daily prayer (to whatever spirit you decide on) is wise in order to align your perspective to the greater context of the universe. Tapping into that source of universal power can be of great comfort... it's not just you who's holding the reins of your life in this world, and you can't always know what's waiting for you on the other side of a struggle.