sweet bread of autumn

I love sweet bread - banana or zuchinni or pumpkin - with lots of little add ins like walnuts, chocolate chips and raisins. The bread itself is warm and flavorful but my favorite part is when I get a surprise bite of the add ins. Those are what totally make the bread more than just bread. Those add ins are what make me stop mid step (eating while cleaning house) and chew more slowly, maybe even sit down, my eyes might close and I might make that "mmmmmm" sound.

My autumn is a big ol' batch of sweet bread right now. Generally sweet and flavorful with little add ins of awesome that make it all that much sweeter. In spite of my daily miniature wrestling matches with my shadow self, I am turning cartwheels with gratitude for all that is good and right and sweet in my life. My shadow is the worst part of it and even that has strength and beauty and power in it if I don't buy into the idea that shadow equals something that needs fixing.

We had out of town company this weekend and like a good host and hostess, we took them camping to our redwoods and our ocean. We share it with the rest of the world when we're not using it. If you ever come this way I'll take you from our front step, down Redwood Highway, through the Kalmiopsis Wilderness area, down Smith River Canyon where the water is deep emerald greenblue all year long. The air and sky bottle neck right into the dense canopy of Jedediah Smith State Park where my favorite sweet scented Redwood campground is. You have to stop there and catch your breath. You have to breath in for at least a whole night to store up enough to last you the winter. You have to let the Redwoods' citrusy sugar smell coat the inside of your lungs and then stitch it down real snug-like with ribbons of campfire smoke. It's pretty much heaven. Thank goodness sleep comes or you might sew yourself to the spongy hollow sounding earth to become a root that never leaves.

Then morning comes and you get in the car and you drive up out of the ribs of God and you're pressed out into the never ending mightiness of all of the sky in the world. The ocean flaps her skirt hem at you over and over and you lie at her feet and doze in the autumn sun and the line between dream and real time ripples like the reflection of the water.

So, yeah.

{{Bottom left picture of the man and me...can someone please explain the kid in the background?!?!}}

There are more nuts and raisins and chocolate chips in my bread these days. I'm in love with...

*my Handbook of Elements class (going on right now...just a couple of days until it's over and I'm having an awesome time)

*that I don't have a 9-5 job. This is fabulous for the fickle tendencies of an artist but totally sucks for school fundraisers where they are relying on parents to sell cwrapping paper to their co-workers.

*the October sun and our lettuce patch

*that I have my first adult official guitar lesson tomorrow. I took when I was a half-pint and then transitioned to piano which carried me through to my adulthood. Not that I was amazing at it or anything even close. I just loved it and worked hard at it more than anything for a lot of years there. I've been missing making music and when theman brought home a stand for my beautiful guitar a year ago or so, I knew I wasn't going to get any better with it living in it's case all the time.

*the three books i'm reading. Well, one of them I'm listening to on my iPhone:

    The Shadow Effect. Wow. Just wow. I think in a past life I was an archeologist because I crave digging to the deepest of the deep of myself with the goal of being as whole and authentic as possible. Usually that means just laughing when I feel like laughing and telling a truth when it's scary and listening to someone's hashed-to-death excuses because they think they need someone to listen and making soup for the people I love. Little things. But every once in a while I feel like there's something a bit more hidden that I need to examine and when I do I cry because something makes sense that I didn't know wasn't making sense before and I feel even more free.

    Escaping Into the Open. It's been sitting on my shelf for months..years? I'm finally reading it and I can barely put it down. It made me scribble a short story about a girl and a garden fenced in with dead joshua tree trunks in the Mexican desert. She has just a slingshot to keep the goats out, the hawks away and the dirty old men from the neighboring ranch at bay. It's partly true. I might share it here one of these days.

    Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I just started it and love it so far. I think it's right up my alley. I'll tell you more when I know more.

 

 

 

 

Comments

[dorylyn]

I am so grateful I stumbled into your blog that one day. "drive up the ribs of God"...what a beautiful description! How do you do it?? Best of all, I am grateful you have a kid that's in the background pictures too! So funny!!!!

[judy wise]

Stephanie, this is all because of you. Sometimes I just walk outside and breathe in the crisp air and love that smell and feeling. Outside! Your post today reminded me of the smell of the forest and how I miss that. MISS CAMPING. I know. Banana bread with walnuts and raisins. The good good good things in life. And the photo of youse with the kid in the background? Hilarious!!

Love and miss you.

[Jennifer Valentine]

just love all of your beautiful images, as always...stopping by for a visit to your blog never disappoints, and just what i need at 4:30 a.m. when sleep is just not an option. thank you for reminding me, i need to make some banana bread with those lovely dark bananas on the kitchen counter. : )

[Sandra]

Stephanie, Your writing is like a breath of fresh air today! I, too, love Elizabeth Berg...thanks for the breather, now, for me, back to creating!

[Patsy Zoline]

Hi Stephanie,
I love your wonderful blog. Is there any possibility you might be selling this current class as a DVD, sometime later? I'm still very slooooowly making my way through Katie's class, and would love to take yours too, later, if you might be sending out a DVD of it. In any case, happy sweet autumn to you, Patsy

[stephani gorman]

Stephanie , Your beautiful discriptions takes me there! As a child I used to visit my dad in Oregon every summer, he no longer lives there. My husband just got back from a week near the Salem area on a business trip. I asked him to bring a little bit of Oregon back for me. He came home with a little bag of pinecones and a stick from the Rouge River. I used to picnic there as a child too. I plan to use these pieces of Oregon nature in my art somehow.

[Cynthia]

Stephanie, as usual, your writing blows me away with its ability to take the reader exactly where you lead them. I read your words and it's as if I am standing right there under those redwoods with you. But mostly, I love things like that picture of you and The Man with that kid behind you - hilarious!! P.S. Missed you at Journalfest this year. xo