Asher is now settling into his new school. By the end of his second week he seemed quite at home and not nearly so clingy and sad at drop-off time in the mornings. Honestly, there’s so much to love at Starbright Garden Waldorf Nursery School. And although we dearly loved our old preschool and teachers with all our hearts and didn’t wish to change, we are now enjoying this new adventure.

The gardens are gorgeous and full of flowers, fruit-bearing trees and vines, and veggies. I noticed grapes, tomatoes, beans, squashes, kale, herbs and more.

Two cats, a tiny dog, and two bunnies are happy companions for the children. This is Matches. She will fling herself down in front of you to get caresses and cuddles.

There are beautiful sights everywhere you look, including bells and a star on the garden gate, and a “bean” house covered in bean vines and morning glories.

This is the rooster. He greets the children each morning with his enthusiastic crowing. (I’m glad he lives at school and not in my backyard!)

The pomegranates are still green right now, but in a couple of months they’ll be ready to eat.

This is where the children eat during good weather. The teacher is very committed to serving Nourishing Traditions foods. Indoors is a beautiful, light-filled playroom that is filled with Waldorf toys and surrounded on three sides by floor-to-ceiling windows.

Besides Mr. Mountain, pictured here, there is also a sandbox and a playhouse. Asher has been reunited with this friend, G, with whom he used to play at Ring-A-Rosies. This boy has featured heavily in Asher’s imagination adventures for more than a year now, despite their separation. Happily, they are fast friends now, too!

Caramel and Charcoal are the two bunnies. They run and chase each other in the rabbit hutch.

So, although change is sometimes difficult, especially when you are happy with the way things are, thankyouverymuch!, change can also bring new friends and experiences that enrich our lives and enliven our minds. It also offers us an opportunity to increase our flexibility—a perfect and timely mental workout for 3-year-olds (and 38-year-olds).

Lucas performed in his second piano recital one evening this week at his music school, Music Bloom, in Fair Oaks. He had been practicing his songs for days, and although he experienced occasional waves of trepidation, he approached the event with gusto.

I’m so proud of him! He played two songs, one called “Sailing Day” from his Michael Aaron piano primer, and the other his own composition, which he calls “The Bugler’s Song.” Here it is:

We were fortunate that grandma and Lucas’s aunt and boyfriend were able to attend! (Poor Ian and Asher had to stay home; it’s just too hard for Asher to sit through an hour + of performances.) The performers were all wonderful, and ranged in age from about 6 to 18. I thought it was lovely to see what other children with varying levels of experience can do, and hope it was inspirational to Lucas.

Lucas doesn’t always want to play piano when it’s time to practice (especially if I suggest that he do so), but sometimes he sits down of his own accord and works on his songs for fun. I think he’s really enjoying learning a new skill, especially one that is so joyful and impressive. His teacher is a good motivator. She supports his desire to play the songs he wants to play, and with her help, he’s learning several melodies from an advanced book of Harry Potter compositions. This is a great source of pride for him. I hope he sticks with it!

Once again, I say to the Weeks family, THANK YOU for giving our children and our home the gift of your beloved piano. It is bringing us great joy. We are grateful!

Another photo collage my friend TC_Photostream made for me! Thank you very much, TC!

A Flickr friend made for me this beautiful collage of some of my photos of Lucas. Thank you, TC_Photostream! I love it!

It has been a kind of surreal week, trying to get back into our normal lives and starting school after Burning Man. We’re kind of discombobulated. We’re not used to the alarm clock or waking in the dark. We don’t know where important stuff is. The mountains of both clean and dirty laundry are huge and taking over our living room, despite the washing, folding, and putting away I’ve been doing. We need groceries. The kids need haircuts and we forgot to take the fingernail polish off them. I guess that’s what the weekend is for.

I’ve been feeling lots of various feelings this week, too: happy to be home, lazy and sleepy, creative and happy, grateful for my work but not wanting to do it. During the day I’m missing my loves and yet glad to be alone. I’ve not quite settled back into real life again; my consciousness is kind of floating on the dusty breezes still, drifting through vast azure skies.

Lucas is very happy to be back at school. I find this quite remarkable, as he didn’t exactly have a sit-around-and-do-nothing summer vacation. He was basically booked solid with fun camps, activities, and play dates almost the entire time. I guess that final week and a half without his friends was tough. So he’s been joyfully bouncing out of the house in the morning (and getting dressed without prodding or argument). When I picked him up from school yesterday afternoon, he looked bushed. “Four classes now, Mom.” That’s because he’s hit the big time: In third grade he now has full days and doesn’t get out until 3:30.

This week hasn’t been quite so easy for Asher, however. He’s adjusting to a new school, new teacher, and new schedule. After something like ten days with all of his family around him, he’s missing us at school. He’s been asking each morning if it’s a family day today. (“Tomorrow, dear one. Two family days in a row.”) We had a few difficult morning drop-offs, during which he was brave but oh so sad to see me go. In another week it will be different, I think. He’ll settle in soon. We are very pleased that his three buddies from his last school all landed at this one. So although there are new children to adjust to, there are old friends as well.

Asher’s school has a waterfall and small raised pond (fenced per state law), a rabbit hutch with two bunnies, chickens, a playhouse, a stage, a sandbox, an outdoor snack area, garden beds and fruit trees, swings, and stepping stones through the lawn. Indoors is a lovely, sunny playroom full of pretty Waldorf toys. There are two big cats (Matches and Barley) and one tiny dog named Poppers. This morning’s good-bye went better. I think it’s going to work out fine.

I’m still not entirely sure what to say about Burning Man, nor what pictures to show here. My heart is full of love and gratitude. We have endured and celebrated nature, the elements, life, humanity, friendship, silliness, joy. My impressions of Burning Man are swirly and colorful.

Nevada desert on the way to the playa

Sunset after a brief rainstorm

I am so glad we went, and especially glad that we camped with so many wonderful friends. Our campmates were super fun and very patient with our small taggers-on. They helped us look out for the boys, entertain them, and graciously shared their “space yogurts” (yogurt in a tube) and other goodies that were novel and exciting. Two friends even volunteered to babysit one night so Ian and I could have a much-needed date!

Our children were brave in the face of not only a hostile environment but also a Saturnalian one, where grown-ups generally don’t behave as usual, where instead they act silly, dye their hair pink, dress in funny clothes (or none at all), and spend their time playing, adventuring, or lazing about. It was a place where you might gleefully talk with strangers and give a made-up playa name just for the fun of playing at being someone else. Best of all, our boys got to see that play is for everyone, that all human beings need long stretches of time to do nothing, or only what we want to do, and that these moments are crystalline and pure. Climbing, running, jumping, dancing, flying kites, making friends, laughing and telling jokes, creating art, falling in love, being—these are the things that make life worth living.

Lucas climbing a pole on top of the Nexus nightclub

Super fun Genesha art car that passed us by one day

A dust-weary Asher, me on the afternoon of the burn, and our dashing Agent Daddy

Lucas fearlessly walking a tightrope about 10 feet off the ground

This tuna art car drove by during one of our family bike outings

Asher’s very first kite-flying experience; hold on tight!

My boys playing boccie ball

Decorating our parasols like jellyfish; Lucas jumping on a trampoline; Asher dancing with the Salmon of Knowledge

Lucas and Asher also got to see, and we ourselves were reminded, that challenges are worth facing because the rewards are often great. Braving our fears or walking out into the unknown is our task, our surest course to learning who we are and what’s important to us. By purposefully venturing into a desert of nothingness, we fill it with our hopes and dreams and remake ourselves. I watched both of my children, in their own individual ways and according to their ages, encounter their limitations and push past them, gaining confidence and respect along the way.

It was a different kind of Burning Man for me and Ian. Having our kids along was a ton of work and we spent much (most?) of our time making sure that their needs were being met. Keeping two sensitive children safe and happy, hydrated and fed, rested and slathered with sunblock in the desert is pretty much a constant effort. Ian worked ceaselessly to take care of all of us. There was a lot less aimless wandering just to see what there was to see. There were moments I felt despair because I thought I was missing all the fun, but mostly I let that fleeting feeling wash over me and away, and we managed to relax into a new kind of Burning Man experience. We got more sleep this year on the playa than ever before, thanks to the boys’ tuckering out and needing to be home and in bed fairly early. We ate like kings, with lots of fresh produce and barbecued tri-tip dinners. We spent more time near and in camp, which meant time together as a family and with our peeps. We let Burning Man come to us much of the time, and the sweetest folks wandered into our communal shade and spent time with us. Our camp gave out water, drinks, food, advice when it was asked for, a place by the fire, and generally enjoyed that special/sacred hospitality relationship. To all the desert beauties that we met, thank you! You’re my little potato.

Lucas is VERY happy to have seen the Man burn this time! Here he is after the burn on Saturday night. I’ve never been in such a whiteout before! For long moments the Burning Man disappeared from view completely, then eerily reappeared through the waves of flying powder.

The truth is we saw a teensy-tiny slice of Burning Man, maybe 1 percent of what was out there. However, what we saw was wonderful. We are tired and a little sad to have to resume normal life now that we are home again. We are loving this breathtaking miracle called running water. My thoughts are dreamy and I feel like I need a rest after my vacation. I feel a creative pulsing in my veins.

All in all, Best Family Burn Ever.

I’m so busy with work I almost didn’t notice, but sometime this week (August 22nd? 23rd?) marks the seventh anniversary (7th!) of my self-employment.

In August 2003, I left the best job I’ve ever had to stay home with my 1-year-old son, Lucas, because frankly I couldn’t hack leaving him with a nanny every day.

I think I made it all the way to the end of that generous, third “reintegration” month, working three days a week at the office and two days at home. That’s when I realized it’s not normal to cry every day you go to work. (During my morning commute, at my desk, in the bathroom, at lunch, on the way home.) Maybe a little at first—but after three months, it was starting to look less like a “difficult transition” and more like depression.

After a lot of soul searching and a hasty look at my bank account, I threw caution to the wind and quit that great job. It was the right decision for me and my son. It was the right decision for my mental health.

I left to go freelance with no freelance experience. No savings. No contacts. No babysitting. Not one tiny clue how to run a business. And it was seven years ago! Did I mention that part already?

I’ve had some really hard years. I’ve had a few spectacular years. I’ve had many, many late nights working and I’ve lost many weekends to my projects. I’ve had seasonal work with ultra-busy months and dreadfully slow months. I’ve had hundreds of days with my kids that I would not otherwise have had. I say yes to stinky projects sometimes. I am occasionally so busy I have to say no to gems.

I’m the boss. My own boss.

And while I may have a tendency to be nostalgic about those old office days, with old office friends and everything else that went with office life, I’m not sorry.

Because, when you factor in all the various pros and cons, tally all the tick marks, and weight it all up, I now have the best job I’ve ever had.

Here is my electroluminescent wire (EL wire) coat for Burning Man. My talented husband made it for me. I asked for flowers and I absolutely love it! Ian is the BEST! (Thanks also go to E for giving me the coat several years ago.) We are going to be the glowingest family of four on the playa this year.

Late summer. Hot days, breezy nights—if we’re lucky. Even as we’re celebrating the fruits of the harvest—our glorious, ripe tomatoes, those massive zucchini squashes—we see signs of withering, of longer nights, of exhausted energy. Everything in my garden looks a little parched, a little fried, a little worn out. I don’t know about you, but for me this season is always one of change and a paradox of celebration and mourning.  It’s easy to see signs of wear and tear, of life well lived.

Striped canna leaves are looking a trifle scorched, even though this plant is largely in the shade and it has been a mild summer.

My day lilies have bloomed their hearts out for three solid months. Now they’re anemic. Their last, valiant effort is to produce seed pods.

The hydrangeas are papery and drying. They make lovely dried flowers, but I usually cannot bear to cut them.

My coral-colored cannas are doing a fine job of producing seed pods …

… from which these shiny, black, pea-sized seeds can be gathered. I’m hoping to propagate some this way. I’ll have to do more research.

At the beginning of July, these seed “lanterns” from my goldenrain tree (Koelreuteria paniculata) were a vivid chartreuse. Now they’re crackly and bronze.

Rose hips are bulging in the sun. Few roses are braving the heat these days.

I’m mourning the loss of three more birch tress that are slowly dying, just as three others did last year. I love these trees. They were a gift from my mother and Ian and I planted them the first year we owned this house. For a long time they were the only landscaping we could afford to do. I’ve watched these trees grow, season after season, through my bedroom window. When Asher was a tiny baby and I was sick and then recovering in bed, I watched the white branches get their leaves, which fluttered in the breeze day after day. I love the way their late-afternoon shadows dance on my window and blinds. For now, the lower branches still have leaves and from my window they’re still beautiful. They are dying from the top down.

These photos aren’t the most beautiful. They don’t show the garden in its best possible light. But I like them anyway. Change happens and the best we can ever do is to embrace it and find the beauty in it.

Inspired by SouleMama {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.