i am an auntie

her name is roselynn sims. middle name still tbd. she scared us all today since meconium made its presence known when my sister's water broken 9 hours into labor. that could always mean bad things and that's when the home birth became a hospital birth. it was after another 4 hours of non-progressing labor that it became an emergency caesarean that ended up being very much needed because the cord was wrapped around her neck. but she's been a good nurser so far and has the biggest, widest eyes you could imagine and is perfectly healthy. i haven't spoken to chris, but bimi was the happiest i have ever heard her.

it's frustrating to be so far away and unable to take her first portraits, but a dear friend and coworker will do the honors sometime tomorrow and i'm sure those will be posted soon after.

stats: 7lbs 4oz - 19in - 1:37pm - july 29th, 2011

here is a sky photo from today. i thought the little rubber
ducky in front of the sun was appropriate.

surf's up

fact: there are certain activities requiring physical prowess or skill that i shy away from because i don't want to be a bad at it {a beginner}. snowboarding is one. bowling another. but today i went surfing for the first time ever and i gave myself full permission to suck. and i did, but somehow it wasn't a problem and still heaps of fun.

the first wave i caught on my own i was sure i hadn't made it, so in the first wash of disappointment, i missed the fact that i was gliding along calmly with the wave carrying me in. by the end, i even nearly stood up a few times. that last step forward of my right foot always somehow an insurmountable feat, my long legs and high center of gravity going against me here. maybe next time. but for today, it was enough to just catch the waves i did, in whatever state i could, laugh giddily {in that big, releasing sort of way} whenever the water surprised me and earn my stripes: a pair of sore arms and matching bruises on my hipbones.

nights 11 to 15

i am here, in hawaii. finally.

something about the timing of this trip has always resonated with me. arriving a week after a stressful move, offering up a time of introspection and reflection and pause {how often do i just stop and have time to just be??} after a big transition such as this...it all felt right beyond the excitement of traveling and getting to do something so fun for work.

all week i have been borrowing from the store of r & r time i anticipated receiving here, and it gracefully carried me through the first week and a half of nomadacy with more groundedness and ease than i could have believed possible that first broken night. so here i am, cashing in and feeling space for and around myself and the vacation portion hasn't even begun.

time to work but also time for a long run a mere hours after i landed. frangipani blowing along side me like some tropical tumbleweed while i stared down the ocean and circled the diamond head crater i've been assigned to hike up. the finale of the outing was a long stretch of tired limbs while my feet were flirted with by the pacific.

day one of hawaii: a success.


writing from the princess kaiulani sheraton, waikiki beach, honolulu

night 10

my sister's house. sharing the bed with my mom and hoping that my short night of sleep before my morning flight will be interrupted by my sister going into labor.

sadly, no such luck.

still a little bummed by the fact that i will miss the birth of my niece, but then you should see the note on where i'm {sleepily} writing from below.

~nomad nate









writing from waikiki beach, honolulu.

nearing hawaii...

a good day.

lots of sun. two great photo shoots. started casting the other roles for "proof". i leave for hawaii on tuesday. a good day.

nights 7 to 9

so the plans changed, as they are wont to do during this time, and night number seven was actually spent here in issaquah in a bed i am familiar with through years of pet sitting for a good friend of mine.

this where i am right now, trying to sift through my possessions and pare down what i am carrying with me from place to place. currently i am a posh version of the little old lady carrying around a million plastic bags tied to her stolen shopping cart. my bags contain a juicer, book binding supplies, a yoga mat and more clothes and cosmetics than i can possibly use but each thing is still trying to insulate against the space surrounding me that cannot be claimed as my own. amanda's house. anita's house. not my own space, but at least these things are mine. necessary. important. but i realize these are mostly lies. time to have a heart to heart and put more things in boxes. until then, much needed sleep. i have been working non-stop and am craving time to slow down and write more about this transition, braid together the different threads coming together to set the stage of my transition into transience and {hopefully} transformation.

writing from sammamish, washington.

nights 1 to 6

this is where i am sleeping for the first seven nights of my new life. one to seven. a full week here in a quiet house while my friend amanda is away with her family. i am getting used to things like children's toys {their presence permeating all the spaces of the house} as well as the child safety locks on all the drawers and doors within reach of her one and a half year old. and despite the fears i had facing my first nights without a home, it's not been a particularly tough transition. i adapt finding solace in cooking my cleanse-friendly foods, cleaning out the fridge, doing dishes, routine sorts of things that ground me in a space that doesn't reflect my spirit back from every surface.

hmm...put that way, living in a home of my own creation almost sounds narcissistic. like i've set up a home of mirrors to remind myself of my own worth and beauty. i did have a moment today on my run {more on that below} where i was thinking ahead to the words i would put to flying back to seattle after my trip to hawaii. is that coming home to seattle if i have no home? do i have to say coming back or simply just returning to?

the words i use have become of vital importance. i cling to the word nomad like a bright orange lifesaver while stranded out at sea. it lets me rest inside the concept of choice in this situation: i am not homeless even though i am without a home. i am choosing this adventure, this local travel, as a way to meander through my life into a place of flexibility, openness and mobility.

i do have to own up to a portion of pride in my donning the title of nomad since i struggle with the fear that people will think i am somehow incapable of taking care of myself {even though there should be no shame for the many who are unable to do so for various reasons}, but for the most part, nomad connects me to the adventure of it all because this is an adventure.

nomad.
adventure.
choice.
freedom.
flexibility.

these are the words i have collected so far.

and things i have enjoyed about this choice:

1. not having to turn around and unpack everything i just put into boxes. that's always a drag.
2. the purging i did with packing was a little more successful since there were many things i would have simply taken to my next apartment but couldn't bother to store. things like my old stereo that needs to be replaced with a nicer sound system, my old comforter that has followed me around since my first boyfriend {time to purge all those stories}, an old pillow from an ex, another pillow i never enjoyed sleeping on. the list continues.
3. running in new neighborhoods and having to sit and map out what might be a nice route of the proper duration {currently in the 6.5-8 mile range}. and today, i had my single most beautiful run that even topped my first run in vancouver around stanley park. discovery park. you took my breath away {and not just because i did my first longer trail run}.

on the topic of my run, as i was thinking back to what i will call the act of coming back to seattle, the image of returning "home" to the garage where all my belongings are stored flitted through my mind. it was a pretty visceral image and it was followed quickly by the sense that i would be returning to a graveyard. a place where all my things have gone to die, resting in peace until i came back to revive them. i quickly replaced that idea with one of hibernating animals simply going to ground for the winter, snuggled up amongst the tightly packed boxes and curling into each other. while the latter is a much softer image, between the two i somehow felt more distinctly the connection between the things and myself. rather than having an inherent value, it's more that their value is something i imbue, their beauty something i invest in my careful consideration of what i acquire and how it's arranged. for the first time, all sweaty running the forest paths of discovery park, it sank into my understanding that the magic they contain and greet me with every time i entered my home actually came from me--a puppeteer animating my things and giving them spirits and life.

and now, hours later, as i think back to this circuit of give and take between objects of resonance and myself, i see how much power i put in the other inherently lessening my own. all along it was only a mirror giving back what i put out.

i make another leap in emotional understanding as i feel for the first time the strength of what thom yorke gives me is merely a reflection of myself {though really, there is no merely where he is concerned}.

on that tangent, one last thought i don't think i ever published here: a moment this spring writing a good friend. i said:

in case it isn't clear, thom is the sun in my artistic universe...though....actually, i would say, that's what it has felt like for the past 13 years since i started listening to them...but my intuition just stepped in this very moment to correct me and say: "thom yorke is the big mirror being held up to the sun that is you, shining in your own creative universe."

still working on that reality, but i think--i hope, as i take away the mirrors that comforted me with my own sense of self, my own connection to beauty that i always managed to believe could never be me but at best could be my things, i will find the more direct connection to these spaces inside me.

okay, off to bed, the one i've been graciously given for this week with children's books, painted murals and tinkerbell decals to keep me company.

~nomad nate.

writing from magnolia, seattle.

nomadacy begins

moving day was harder than usual culminating in a small breakdown in front of the last two remaining of my moving day crew: my mom and older brother. it was the falling apart that had been gaining momentum all day, the grief of giving up the beautiful apartment i loved from the moment i first saw it in june of 2010, the exhaustion of a week's worth of late nights packing and organizing and purging {and yet i still had so much stuff to move....}, the fear of the unknowable. and yet, through it tears and all, i kept repeating i know it's the right thing, but....

and today, tonight, i turned in my keys and closed the door on my apartment one final time. goodbye #44, you were a dear, dear friend and i was so very proud of you.

currently listening to: the butcher -- radiohead

tabula rasa pt. 2

i just put the suitcase on my bed and opened it up. the one i'm supposed to live out of through october.

what. the hell. am i. doing?




this too shall pass. breathe, nathania. you have no idea what is waiting for you on the other side.

tabula rasa

exactly a year ago today i moved into my apartment.
and tonight will be the last night i sleep here, on my bed, and amongst my things all jumbled about halfway into boxes.

happy anniversary, my darling space. a year is all we were given, but the future is calling me forward and i cannot help but listen.

i stand by the certainty that packing up and storing my life for 3 1/2 months is the right thing to do, but it's looking more than a little daunting from where i sit, perched among boxes. my kitchen is mostly gone, closets empty, and i found a little heartbreak that i've been carrying around. it first showed up a week ago as i put my salad tongs into a box, realizing for the first time that i won't see them, or any of my other things for almost a third of a year.

but just as my body is stripping down it's layers under the gentle pressure of my cleanse and the rest of my life is merely following suit.

so here we are today. not sure where we'll be tomorrow*. and that's okay, nathania. that's okay.







*metaphorically. i know physically where i'll be tomorrow night {and for the next week} for all those mothers and mother figures out there.

today

morning: work
afternoon: work out
late afternoon: drive
evening: eugene
tomorrow: family
tomorrow afternoon: ode to joy
tomorrow night: home again

to build a home

this year, i set out to make 2011 about joy. ode to joy. it's how i heralded in the crossing over from 2010 to 2011 with beethoven's symphony carrying me along on the anthem to all things joy related. and yet, this year has been more about a burning away. literally. fever for the first three days of the year, sick for the first three weeks. a month later, the throbbing burn of my lower back.

and i shook my fist at the sky in indignant frustration.

and yet, i have burned away the layers of garbage and muck clinging to my spirit, forcing myself to purge and purge again expediting change. so here i am, half way in, entering what is probably the single most deliberate act of cleansing and changing i have ever committed myself to consciously.

a week into my search for a new apartment, disheartened by the duds i was pulling up yet all the while knowing something wonderful was waiting for me out there, i realized that my fallback plan was the one i actually wanted to do. rather than stressing to make plan a or b work, i willingly picked the path behind door c. what was posted just above c's handle were these instructions for the next three and a half months of my life:

1. pack up your belongings taking only what you love. purge the rest.

2. put them into storage for 3 1/2 months.

3. go nomad.*

*this nomadic period will include house sitting, house surfing {we plan but can't promise zero couches} and otherwise be at the mercy of your friends and family, enjoying the sense of being untied to a physical space and learning from the challenges of having your living space being out of your control.

while you might say here i should beware of the fine print, i have to counter with how, as soon as i made the decision, everything lined up to support it better than i could ever have asked or imagined. one friend offered a truck and his help moving saying "i don't want you to pay for a truck..." and a day or so later, another friend offered her garage for storage, saying "i don't want you to pay for storage..." and above and beyond this all, it feels right. as soon as i made the decision, i felt excited about my life in a way that i haven't felt in a long time. like looking forward to the adventure of travel, except i will be here, in seattle, living and working as i am, just untethered and free. a good reminder to myself that i am not my space. i am not my things. i am not my books. i am not my aesthetically arranged home. they are mine, but they are not me.

i do ask myself what will i do without those mirrors to remind myself who i am? mirrors that reflect back the beauty of my library arranged by color, the mirror of silence echoed back by a quiet home all to myself after a long day of work. the mirror perpetuating an illusion of control but also a place to land. a place to rest.

i return to one of my favorite quotes:

'loneliness isn't about being by yourself. that's fine, right and good, desirable

in many ways. loneliness is about finding a landing-place, or not, and

knowing that, whatever you do, you can go back there. the opposite of loneliness

isn't company, it's a return. a place to return.'

so i need a place to return to throughout this period as i lose the physical and most tangible manifestation of this idea: a home. i need a landing place that i cannot lose and that cannot be taken away from me--the only thing in this world i will always have is the stock standard answer: my own self.

parallel to the above mentioned purge and cleanse of my possessions is a cleanse of my body. the most dedicated thing i have done in honor of it ever. three weeks ago i began an elimination diet {which includes taking out milk, gluten, sugar, honey, maple syrup, dairy, eggs, oats, bananas, strawberries, oranges, the list continues....}. but that was just the first phase. this past monday, the same day i began packing up my life, i began a three week cleanse which follows the elimination diet just removing breakfast and dinner and substituting liquid meals twice a day {smoothies, fresh juice--i have a juicer!--or liquid soups}.

i am into day three, supported by supplements and an all organic diet, but already i can tell my relationship to health and eating had hugely shifted. my food is less processed, whole, healthy in the most simple and delicious sense. as much as i have dedicated myself to cutting back during this time, i am also enjoying the experience of food more than i have in a long time. i am forced to think creatively and try new things, but just as significantly i am already free of side effects i was tolerating on a daily basis for years--my whole life, actually. i don't have cravings. i don't overeat. i listen to my body. and already i feel cleaner and this is just the beginning.

somehow these two journeys are so perfectly timed to coincide. cleanse. purge. home. both of them. the one home my body inhabits and the other my spirit inhabits.

on my run this past sunday, i had this fleeting moment while looking down at my shadow bouncing along in front of me--it was this undeniable feeling of certainty about being in the right place at this moment and how being alone right now is a significant part of that rightness. i am finding myself and what's under the layers of build-up on my body, spirit and home and while i feel very loved and supported heading into this adventure, i am also alone on this journey and that is right in a way i can't quite gather up enough words to explain.

and then, today, this song was delivered to me and all i can think is and now, it's time to leave and turn to dust.

'to build a home' -- cinematic orchestra

there is a house built out of stone

wooden floors, walls and window sills

tables and chairs worn by all of the dust

this is a place where i don't feel alone

this is a place where i feel at home

and i built a home

for you

for me

until it disappeared

from me

from you

and now, it's time to leave and turn to dust

out in the garden where we planted the seeds

there is a tree that's old as me

branches were sewn by the color of green

ground had arose and passed its knees

by the cracks of the skin i climbed to the top

i climbed the tree to see the world

when the gusts came around to blow me down

i held on as tightly as you held onto me

i held on as tightly as you held onto me

and i built a home

for you

for me

until it disappeared

from me

from you

and now, it's time to leave and turn to dust

last gathering

two weeks before my move out date, i hosted the last gathering at my darling apartment. at first i thought it was a women's gathering, but then i realized more specifically it was a mother's gathering. it included my own {just in from austria}, one of my favorite surrogate mothers {her older sister, my aunt kathy}, and my own older sister {she is another mother, but just at the very first stage having yet to still fully meet her daughter}. and then there was me, only mothered as of yet, but looking forward to passing on the maternal love i have been given from my own mother and aunt and sister to this new little being, getting ready to emerge. i am surrounded by newborns every day, and while it never stops being magical, they can't begin to compare to the beauty of welcoming my very own niece into the world. any day now. any day.

we started out as only a slumber party can: sprawled out on my bed catching up between the four of us, stories and chatter stretching out and skipping about with ease. we meandered to my kitchen and brought together a potluck breakfast that scooped up hours into its arms. next we cozied up to the couches {i inherited from said aunt} to wrap up again by the table for an impromptu late lunch. more stories. hysterical laughter {will my mother ever get to the punchline of the story that happened 50 years and will still reduce her to tears?!?!}. generational insight as unaired stories are brought forward. bird watching out my dining room window.

the perfect finale to an incredible year in this apartment.