Category: Summer

Seeing Tres

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Early summer’s rendition of 3 leches:

Lemon-poppy seed cake with buttermilk added to the traditional three milk soak, rhubarb preserves, fresh market strawberries, confit lemon, strawberry chantilly, violet meringue.

Light and bright like spring’s glorious rays warming up our frosty skin, delicate like those first flowers brave enough to poke out of the hard ground, melts in your mouth like fresh spun cotton candy.

Flavors mimic a sweet tart candy, just sour enough to make you crave another subtly sweet bite.  A disappearing crunch, a creamy cloud texture, a cartwheel of flavors to carry you home.

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Burning Magic and Love

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Last year it was all about magic.  The trip down the rabbit’s hole, as I like to describe it, has been anticipated every day since I discovered the burner community.  Last year was without a doubt magical.  The lesson learned was finding belief in myself, in the powers that lies within and all around.  I felt that magic comes from a special feeling, but its has to be brought out.  Magic exists intrinsically, but it has to be manifested, it has to be sought out and forced out into a constructed being.

Last year was a very exquisite introduction to an alternative lifestyle, one that puts moral values over monetary ones, one that puts imagination before practicality, that puts friendships before convenience.

This year, it was all about love.  You go into it having some set of expectations, but also knowing that you have no idea what to expect.  It’s never the same, something (actually everything) always changes.  This burner concept is a very fluid environment, so preparation only takes you so far.

I thought that this year would reestablish that magical feeling of rediscovering imagination, but it that was not lesson that I learned this merry-go-around time.  This year, I felt the love of the temporary community and spaces that we made.  I soaked up every second of the town, of the merriment, of the place and space that we created.  I felt special to bond with people through a shared effort, through tribulation, struggle, problems, shared adventures, true connection.

This year helped me reestablished that I absolutely love feeding people, and when it comes down to it, that is really the one thing that gives me the greatest joy, sharing food.  Eating is the backbone of everything we do.  Nothing can be created or enjoyed without the energy to do it.

It made me realize how important it is to have special connection with a person, how much you can learn from a community, how everyone adds values to your life, how relying on people around you is not a weakness, it makes you stronger.

This year, it was all about love.  My heart feels shiny, in fact I think it’s glowing

Intent

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I am looking forward to a break in the action, to geting away from this crazy life for a few glorious, stolen days-  but mostly I am looking forward to a new wave of inspiration and gaining a different angle of perception.

I am looking forward to escaping the alarm clock- but mostly I am looking forward to perceiving time as a feeling instead of as a rigid measurement.

I am looking forward to summer dresses- but mostly I am looking forward to wearing clothes for the purpose of fun over the purpose of business casual.

The Tomato’s Last Stand

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I sort through the ruby red jewels, the tiny gems left from the great last garden heist.   The wonderland of tomatoes is just about depleted, just about wrinkled up, ready to wink out of existence.  There are still a few more catches to be had, then back to the grocery store to get tomatoes from Mexico, tomatoes in a can, tomato paste in a tube.

 

Autumn’s Magical Tug

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There’s something about September, something special in those precious final moments that desperately cling to the lure of summer’s dream.  The last night-cap after an adventure filled night, the last bite of gooey dessert, one more tight hug goodbye, a stolen kiss in the moonlight, the smell of the sunset, that last glance over your shoulder as you leave the room sending sparks in your eyes.  It’s a sense of longing, but having just one more second to enjoy the sense of serenity. Of fulfillment. Of peace.

There is a magical something about that late September feeling.  That anticipation of change, yet the reluctance to let go of summer’s charm.

This change in balance is about losing the force of the summer sun but gaining the crisp of fall.  It’s like the cracking of the delicate crème brulee, biting into a crisp wafer, snapping open that perfect apple.  The last puff of summer’s flame is the satisfaction of breaking something perfectly layered,  like crushing the layers in a buttery croissant, biting into a nutty baklava, breaking open a flaky turnover, crumbling a cookie, breaking a brittle.

These last few days are that particularly perfect standstill in the tug between the changing seasons.  Only rarely do we have this troubled serenity, like that moment of twilight when the sun has subsided, but Mr. Moon is still missing.

Insomia Inspirations

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The cicadas are singing although the summer’s sizzle remains silent.

The wind’s whistle has wound down to whispers of forgotten wonders.

The clamorous children have chilled down to cool calm, keeping clandestine clues of their company.

The people parade past peacefully, particularly predisposed to participating in practical partying.

Sleep should be sound, but my psyche is still spinning swiftly, severely sidetracked from the summertime slumber.

Twilight’s Magic & Me

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I love writing in the twilight.  It’s more than inspiring, I find it calming.  The hot sun has subsided for the day, the moon is still missing.  When the guardians of the sky are not looking, possibilities pop up and over.  The extremes are forgotten.  There is no black or white, or even gray, those do not exist here.  It’s basically a rainbow moment, a snap in time when magic is material.   It is an enchanted part of the day that I love to spend in my enchanted garden.

Twilight is both abstract and concrete, a concept and a visual.  It is a feeling, a perception, an event, and a color. This confusion of perception and the physical is an inspiring place and time.  A tranquil transition that produces an event with a certain calm, a subtle change in the color scheme in the kaleidoscope of our vision, creating a feeling of openness and vulnerability. Without the extremes of the day light and the dark night, perceptions change and awareness wanders.

Twilight can be described as an elusive mood, not settled on one particular identity.  Here, in this refracting confusion, I find certainty and rediscover what it means to wonder.

Oh Those Summer Nights

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The Summer Night is not hot enough anymore.  It chilled down enough that I need a scarf wrapped around my arms and neck to accompany the midnight moon.

For two short weeks the hot summer night was so inviting with its hot hug.  The dark heat was heavy with its continuous embrace.  The cling of sassy summer was humid and relentless, like a middle school crush.

This all-encompassing heat is a consistent reminder that winter’s minty demeanor is far, far away.  This is why I like to be hot when I sleep, to toss aside even the lightest of sheets, and sail away to kingdom of dreams uncomfortable in the comforting heat.

My Favorite Colors

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I love color.

Particularly natural color, as created by mother nature. I love naturally neon colors, such as the gifted brightness found in ripe produce, in fields cascading wild flowers, in the spectacle of dawn and dusk, in the rainbow prism of the ocean’s sparkle, in the spell of moonbeam’s night.

I love how color can augment the day. How color interacts with other colors to create a mood.  How color demonstrates feelings even if unconsciously.  I love the colors found in the daily life.  Colors harmonizing to express feelings, impressions, moods, dynamics.

Recently I have been asking people their favorite color as a means to get to know a person.  I think it is very interesting as a means of data collection and as a descriptive of their personality.

Ok so since you asked, I will go first.  And of course I do not have a favorite color, I have three.

Teal is first.  I love teal.  Teal is the perfect blend of blue and green.  Teal is a very excited blue.  It is such an electric blue that it has chameleoned to a new spectrum in the color wheel, neoned into the kingdom of grass/greendom.  Teal is a watery green.  Teal takes the hyper out of green, toning down that deafening yellow to a more serene canary.  Teal is the expressive sky meeting the grassy ground.  Crimson evening kissing the verdant hills.

Teal is the color of paradise.  Of that perfectly clear and deeply tropical ocean water view etching along pearly sanded shores.  This bluish greenish wonderland of suspended gravity is held down by round, multi-earth colored rocks piles mountainously onto of each other.  Teal makes blue more exciting and green more level headed.  To me, teal is the color of eager happiness.

Magenta is second.  It is so lively. Verbacious. Pungent.  Demanding.  It is a color that shouts.  Magenta cannot be made pastel.  Magenta is royalty.  It is so bright that it vibrates.  Magenta is an interactive color in that regard.  Magenta is so naturally magnificent that it is surreal with its natural glow.  Magenta flowers looks like they are garden flowers on acid, they have become wildly extraordinary. To me, magenta is the color of love.

Periwinkle is third.  Periwinkle is my pastel color of choice.  After such a loud start to the show with teal and magenta as the opening act, periwinkle is the soothing cream for all that burn.  It is vibrant with its ultra violet gaze, and it is subtle with its sublime mystery.

Periwinkle is a multidimensional color. It changes color around with its ultraviolet gaze. More than any other color, periwinkle is alive.  It creates action in the changing from day to night. It cannot be faked or recreated, periwinkle is a moment, periwinkle is a transition.  It is a magical color because of how other colors behave in its presence.  It is the ghostwriter of sunsets brilliance, its the conductor to the symphony of the suns departure, it is the baseline to the symphony of Mr. moon’s grand entrance.  You can try to mimic periwinkle with dyes and pixels, but it cannot be replicated.  To me, periwinkle is the color of deep serenity, introspection, and simple peace.

I like undecided colors.  I like colors that represents a complicated set of hues.  I can never answer a simple question.

So what’s your favorite color?