Cake

Good morning little birds!  It is one of Homer's classic rosy-fingered dawns over here today (except, do not say rosy-fingered anything, am I right?). 

I just wanted to say hello.  I have been on February's sweet roller coaster which passed through and by Valentine's, my 35th birthday, many cakes and flowers and chocolate bon bons, and a surgery and teeth cleaning for my old pup who sadly did not get to share in any of the chocolate treats.  I realized yesterday that it is March and I am still in my February pajamas.  Do you know what I mean?  I don't have pajamas for every month of the year, but I dunno, maybe we all should. 

What I'm trying to say is, I've been sleeping a lot.  And eating cheese and bread, and drinking tea with Tim and going to work and writing letters and listening to the same cd in my car for a week and reading in bed. The stuff of February pajamas.  But now it's March and even though it's supposed to snow up to a foot tonight, I swear I feel Spring in the air.  This week, I opened the back door and found a fat robin pecking the needles under our backyard pine.  The robin looked at me.  I looked at the robin, a quizzical pause for everyone. 

Speaking of birds, I am newly obsessed with geese.  I love their perfect glossed bodies and pitch-black necks, their impending attacks and fearsome size.  I kind of want to throw a net around one and put it in the oven, fairy tale style, you know?  Even though I won't because I think it's illegal to do that.  But when a gaggle of them crosses the gas station parking lot while I pump gas, I can't believe people just go about the business of buying their Twix and cigarettes and Gatorade and Lotto tickets without stopping and watching the waddling parade. 

I was swimming in the Poudre last year, which occurs to me now, after a summer of wildfires and ashy run-off maybe that wasn't such a great idea, and a great blue heron circled the trees above my head, cawing and crackling with such prehistoric awesomeness my teeth might have fallen out of my head for a second.  My jaw certainly dropped to the river rocks below. 

What I'm saying here is, miracles abound, and go about their wild, wind-filled business all around us poor suckers on the ground. 

What I'm saying here is, I like birds.

In other news, I wrote a guest post on the blog of a hero of mine!  It was a total honor to be part of Laura Munson's wintertime project, where she goes into the woods to write and hands over her blog space to guest posts centered around a collective theme.  You can find my post, about my husband's bout with cancer and my long-overdue pact with myself, here. 

Also, do yourself a favor and read Laura's book, This Is Not the Story You Think It Is - A Season of Unlikely Happiness.  It is stunning, and I won't stop talking about it until you read it, okay?

Finally, yesterday I re-watched a Ted Talk by Brene Brown that adrenalized my heart.  You can watch it here, where she says such gems as: 

Connection is why we're here 

What are we doing with vulnerability?  Why do we struggle with it so much?

To feel this vulnerable means I’m alive.

Sending big love from the feet of big mountains

XOXO
Kara