Mexico, Febrero 2016

Inside the aviary

Later we'll swim down there

The happy first 5 minutes

Lupe swimming in an underground river!

Muy merecido tequila

The eggs are hatching!

LAX, waiting so patiently

Primos

Actors in the Xcaret show

Beach at Tulum

Her Mayan God, Itzamna!

Iguanas everywhere

Eating galletas for breakfast in Abuelitas tienda

The Pope's here in Chiapas and he flew over the house in helicopter

"Lupita" restaurant- we went twice

Chichen Itza

Taller de Lenateros

How to make recycled paper

La Catedral de San Cristobal de las Casas

Como moler cacao

Buying cacao at the Museum

Lucia's learning a lot

Greatgrandmother Lupe with bisnietos

Bisabuela Lupe

Summertime, and the living is easy

Summer.
Bare feet and few plans.

foozball!

We have a couple of camps planned for July, but right now?  We wake up relaxed, with nowhere to rush to.  After breakfast we go down and open up the garage.  Usually one of the other three families in our shared driveway already has their garage open.

They scooter right on over with their bare feet.  And all the kids start playing.  The neighborhood kids.   I have been organizing the garage, trying especially to get my art supplies in order.   So while I do that, sorting boxes and such, the kids spend time making "stuff" at the table with string, glue, cardboard. Cutting and hole punching cards and signs for their store.  A big tv out of a box with remote.   They scoot into the box with their dirty feet sticking out, while one changes the "channels", the other intermittently sings and tells the weather.
After a while they go off and bike or scooter around.  Throw balls for the dogs.

Paper, scissors, glue and string

 Back and forth, a mix of ages, playing in the carefree way that summer should be.  I am so happy.

tricycles and popsicles 

And then the other evening was the first fireworks of the season, shot off from the baseball stadium that we can see from our house.  Some neighbors came over, and while we sat on the balcony, sipping our beverages, waiting for the last inning the kids started a band and marched around the house, up and down the stairs.  I dubbed them the Humbert Honeydrops.  And my parents and siblings came over, and the fireworks were superb.  Other neighbors were out, in front of their houses.  The teenagers were filming everything on their cellphones.  A couple of cars were parked down by the tracks, vintage cars, looking like they were about to start a drag race.
Lest I forget, we also spent our first Monday hanging out at a creek.  We picked up a couple of friends and there we went, from kinder to eight grade and a few in between.   Pants rolled up.  Looking for tadpoles.  We took sketchbooks and magnifying glasses.
So there you have it, summer so far.   All good.
(and we're going to Yosemite next week for the first time!)

me myself and i: a list

Sometimes I like to make a list.   To remind myself of something.  So I want to remember, right now, the most amazing and diverse experiences I've had in my 41 years.   How fortunate I am.

I've swam beneath a waterfall in the Mexican jungle.
I've swam near a sea turtle in Hawaii.
With a dolphin in the Carribean.
I've swam naked in the Mediterranean.

I've posed for a photo naked on the Queensborough Bridge, NYC.  And in Chinatown.
I've danced to reggae in Mexico, salsa in Guatemala and swing at jazz clubs in New York.
I've acted on a stage in Scotland.
Exhibited a photo at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I have found jobs in other countries.
I have marched on Washington.

Painted murals with kids in Guatemala, pinhole photography with incarcerated youth in Chiapas, Mexico.
Taught in an inner city junior high.
Painted with the children of migrant farmworkers in California.

I know something about painting, developing film and printing pictures, printmaking, writing and self-publishing.

Gotten lost on a train in Germany.  Touched the Berlin Wall.
Seen Run DMC in Belgium, the Fugees in Ireland.
I have been inside the Sistene Chapel, and marveled at the feet of David.  Painted on the canals of Venice and picked grapes in a village.
I have been atop the Eiffel Tower and the World Trade Center.  Seen the Guatemalan jungle from the top of a Mayan pyramid.

I've married outside my culture, perfected (almost) another language.  I have found love.
I've given birth to two little human beings.
I have learned what it is to advocate for another person.   I have learned about disability.

I have found great satisfaction from counseling others through jobs that support families.

I have attended events and thrown parties but have also done things on my own when I wanted to.  Dancing in NYC or traveling in Mexico.  I am comfortable with others and by myself. I create opportunities.
I create community.
I am living life to the fullest.

Om mane padme home

6:30 am, and it's a Saturday! But Liam woke up and i found him at the foot of his bed near the wall, seemed wide awake but i managed to tuck him back in.   I didn't think I'd really get back to sleep so i came down to make my coffee and write.   Like i was doing for a while in the Tassajara house last spring and summer.  For so long i was imagining this house we're in now, our house.  I was picturing walking down stairs (they're a novelty still!) and wondering which corner would be my space for early morning alone time.
Oh....there goes the train (I still love the sound).
It was a hard week.  Sometimes i feel guilty having a hard week because there is so much good in my life right now, so much to be grateful for.   See? There I go again being hard on myself.
I was frustrated at Liam's downturn in potty training, twas a week of billions of changed pairs of wet underwear.  No smiley faces on his school potty chart.  I was having a week where i was feeling tired of being his mom.   I mean, feeling that being his mom is tiring. A little feeling sorry for myself moment.  And it's true.  The constant advocating, for his education and his health...  My mom suggested i just let the school deal with Liam's education, even stay out of it completely, give myself a little break.  She might be right.   but it's hard to step back when for the four years of his life i have done everything, been on top of it all.
And always researching.  "The role of chromosomes is to code for proteins. Because patients with DS have extra chromosome material, they experience genetic overexpression of specific amino acids and polypeptides. One of the proteins that is overexpressed in DS is copper-zinc superoxide dismutase type 1 (SOD-1).¹¹ The genes coding for this important antioxidant are found on chromosome 21 (21q21-22.3) in an area called the DS critical region. Case reports of partial trisomy 21 support the hypothesis that the genes in this region are involved in the phenotype of DS.^12-14 Moreover, SOD-1 activity has been found to be increased by about 50% in all tissues of patients with DS.^1"
Oh my, i studied art and education, and my brain is most certainly not wired to start learning how to think like a scientific researcher.   But I'm trying.

And FOMO.  Fear of missing out.  I'm not sure if my family invented that one or not.   But I got it.  I have lots of mixed feelings about how much involvement I want to give my kid's school. I applied for a very part time job there.   I didn't get it.  That knocked me down harder than i thought it would.  But I have to keep telling myself it's for a reason.   I have a lot going on.  And I am a creative soul that also needs alone time.   Perhaps I need a bit of help managing my time, but not filling it with more commitments.  My mom reminded me what a big year this last one was, with buying our house among other things.  Sara, allow yourself to keep settling in, enjoy it.  I keep telling myself I want to volunteer more, but something is holding me back and I can't figure out what it is.
Deep breath.
In my neighborhood is a little yoga studio.  I checked the schedule and Friday mornings there is a half priced community class.  This is what I need.   Focus on calming the mind and body.   I need this.   And it helps when I can do it affordably.   So before work I walked the two blocks through my new neighborhood to this sweet little studio.  The streets were wet but it wasn't cold.  There were the clank clank sounds of work happening in the little warehouses that populate my new 'hood.  And inside the studio, I looked out on a little garden, and San Luis mountain behind it.   Ah...

Now I need to make the effort to have this be part of my routine.  It is important.  I am  important.  Let me say that again, so I can hear myself.   So that when I find the ability to take care of myself, I will be a better mother and wife.   I am important. 

Casa, dulce casa

October
The kids are asleep and Pedro is at work.  I am sitting in bed with the computer and trying to get inspired to write by reading other blogs and rereading my own.  Remembering just a few months ago when I started the habit (for a few weeks at least), of getting up early, making my coffee and writing. I haven't felt like writing for a while but I love it when I do, so I'm starting now.....I have so much to share.  So much to process.
We bought a house.  WE ARE HOMEOWNERS!!  I still can't quite believe it.  It almost feels as if we are renting again, trying not to scuff the brand new paint or track rice onto the brand new carpet.  Getting used to the sounds of garage doors opening, a gurgling of pipes somewhere in the shared walls.
And the train.  I had wondered if it would be hard to get used to, like when I lived under the L train in Queens, but no.  It is a lovely rumble that passes right in front of our windows more often than I had thought.   How long will we all still run to the window to see it go by, before it becomes common place?
It is the fulfillment of a dream, one that we never imagined possible in our happy, yet ungodly expensive town.  But here we are, with grateful hearts. For the past couple of years we have been working with a lender, realtor and the Housing Authority to buy into a new planned development called Moylan Terrace.  There have been ups and downs, and delays.  Times where it seemed hard to believe that it was going to happen.  Escrow, 30 days in the contract, ended up being 7 weeks.   And in the middle of that we were notified we no longer qualified.  I.  Broke.  Down.  Sobbing in front of the preschool at drop off.   Only to discover, half an hour later when I had calmed down,  that there had been a mistake.  I rushed to fix it and it all worked out.
We got our keys at 4 pm on a Friday, the kids were sent to the grandparents to stay the night and we went to buy paint.  We HAD to personalize it immediately, to fulfill our dream of living in a casa de colores.  With limited time, we decided to just do a couple of accent walls.  We went out to dinner to celebrate, Pedro and I.  Giddy.
So much waiting, and then it all happened in a rush.  I had imagined a posed photo taken by our realtor of us with the key for the first time, and a bottle of bubbly.  As it turned out, we arrived first and the house was open!
And the next day was insane.  We only had one day off together to make the move happen. Got the U-Haul rented, packed, unpacked and returned in 6 hours.  Damn! Thanks to Bryan, Dad, Pat and Paula who helped make that happen.
Have I mentioned that the house is THREE STORIES?  Those were some sore calf muscles we had the next day.
It was an exciting weekend, with other trucks and other families moving in.   Thrilled to know that my kids will have other kids nearby. I'm imagining movie nights at rotating houses.  But I'm getting ahead of myself a bit.  (I created a Moylan Terrace Facebook page back in June, 3 months before we were even in escrow.  Is that weird?)
I am so eager to invite friends over, but we have no couch, and I want them not just to see our house, but to see our home.  Which is why I want to first get the furniture, the pictures hung on the walls.  For it to burst with Arias McGrath energy.

For now, we are enjoying the feel of new, clean carpet, and a wide open living room with room to leap and crawl.  And the first rain, heard on the windows.  Even as we spend week two in our new house with sick kids.   And the first week we had an L.A. trip and then a two day conference for me.  And then Halloween and Dia de los Muertos.  I managed, miraculously, to find the box with my glue gun (and extra glue sticks!) to make Lupe's costume.  I couldn't imagine disappointing her since i have always made her costume.  Liam's however was borrowed form a friend.   Good lord, I can;t do it all!  It was perfect though, as his pizza costume had similar colors in felt as Lupe's!  And, she won the costume contest at the Mission!
Non- stop.
As much as I want it to be all decorated now, I have to realize that it is going to take a while. And it's going to be fun!

Update December
We got the couch.  I am sitting on it, next to the Christmas tree, and in front of our electric fireplace with mantel.  We still need to put more pictures on the wall, and shelves to house the books which are still in boxes in the garage.  But we are settling in.   We've had family over for dinner, and playdates with kids running up and down the stairs squealing.  We know most of our neighbor's names.  The kids have played ball in the shared driveway with the other kids and Pedro has put up lights.  The first stain on the carpet and scuffs on the wall.  My mom has settled in to her little sleeping nook under the stairs when she comes to spend the night.  Feeling more and more like home.  Hearts bursting.   So much to be thankful for.