last year, i stumbled across a website for farm to fork, an oregon event company that hosts dinners where you travel to an oregon farm and meet the farmers and winemakers and eat a meal outdoors in community. it sounded so amazing that i immediately added it to my (very long) list of things that i wanted to do someday.

a friend and i, somehow, serendipitously, heard about this year’s dinners at the same time. we both wanted to go so we bought tickets for the dinner in bend the morning they went on sale. the bend dinner was in july, which seemed like light years away at the time.

the dinner was last saturday!

oh my goodness. it was so wonderful.

we toured the farm, heard from the farmers and winemaker, and ate.

the food was delicious. among other things, there was a cold goat cheese tart with blueberry salsa, shrimp in tomato consommé, roast beef, and a creme caramel cake with strawberry-rhubarb compote. (i don’t know why i didn’t take more pictures of the food, except that i was too busy eating it.)

i suspect everyone there was amazing, but we had really fabulous luck in table companions, and we had lots of time to talk to them between courses.

there was something so wonderful about eating good food at long tables outdoors under the sun and moon, with other people who love food, in a very leisurely manner.

i want to go again next year. also the next year. and the next. really, it needs to become an annual tradition.

i have to tell you a story, though. i live in hillsboro, which is about 3.5 hours away from bend. i was at my favorite pet store one day with atlas, talking to the girl who was working, when a couple came in to ask about the orenco station farmers’ market; they were thinking of becoming a vendor. we wound up chatting with them for quite a while. we all introduced ourselves and they said that they were jerre and sean and they owned the dancing cow farm in central oregon. a week or two later, i got an email from farm to fork with updated information about our event. it announced that the protein for the event would be beef from the dancing cow farm. i almost jumped in the air because i was so excited at my luck in meeting the people who were providing the meat for our event! isn’t that fun?! it made the world seem so small and friendly.

it’s hard not to like a grocery store that makes me pull out my camera. is this not gorgeous?!

this is the newport avenue market in bend. if you are in bend, you should stop there. their sushi selection was amazing. also, the sushi chef was the most enthusiastic person ever. i wanted to buy some sushi just to support what was clearly his passion and art.

the other reason i liked it? they had this brownie on a table right by the entrance. it was called the omg brownie. in my opinion, if you are going to name your brownie the omg brownie, it needs to inspire that reaction. guess what happened. when i saw it – before i saw the name – i let out an involuntary and audible omg, which is something i don’t often say.

i had lots of fun taking pictures of graffiti in spain. i have a longstanding but vague dream of some sort of photo display in my house with all my favorite graffiti images, so i like to collect new ones whenever i can.

while we were taking the bus up to the alhambra, we passed through a neighborhood with the most amazing graffiti on the whitewashed walls. i think my jaw might have been on the floor. i decided we just had to walk back down through that neighborhood in order to take pictures of the graffiti. (we didn’t. it was twilight when we left.) however, there were construction fences in front of most of it, in a way that made me think they were going to paint over it and were possibly not as enamored with it as i was. it was such a good reminder that not everyone sees things in the same way, and art can be just as controversial as it is celebrated.

when atlas was one, we spent an april weekend at a cottage in northern california’s wine country. it was part of a very dog-friendly place called sheep dung estates.

we spent all day saturday hiking in the hills above the cottage so, after dinner, i decided to rest my legs and just walk atlas down to the pond for his evening walk.

there was a couple at the pond, throwing a ball into the water for their black lab. the lab would race down the dock, dive into the pond, retrieve the ball, swim to shore, bring the ball to his people, and then excitedly wait for the next round.

atlas watched this for a while. all of a sudden, he ran down the dock and jumped into the water himself.

no one was more astonished than me.

except atlas.

he came up out of the water sputtering and splashing. his eyes were as wide as saucers. you could tell that whatever he expected, it was very much not. that.

his front legs were as stiff as boards and he slapped them in turn on the water, over and over.

he sputtered and splashed and slapped his legs on the water in a wide-eyed panic until he finally grew closer to shore and was able to get his legs on the ground. at that point, he ran out of the water and shook himself off.

atlas has never really gone in the water since that day. he always stops and turns around once the water gets to his knees. if he ever goes in any further than that, it is a rare occurrence and takes a great deal of time and coaxing.

i remember him watching another dog jumping into a pond after a ball years later. the expression on his face said very clearly, “what a silly dog! why on earth would he go to all that trouble for a ball? you’d never catch me doing that. if people want to throw a ball in the water, they can just fetch it themselves.”

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the mezquita in cordoba is a visigothic church that was converted into a mosque that eventually became a roman catholic church, at which point a cathedral was built in the center of the mosque. (the last three photos are of the cathedral’s ceiling.)

oh my goodness. i cannot even tell you how much i loved this building. there is something about moorish architecture that really speaks to me – it is full of simplicity and beauty and symmetry – and this was such a beautiful example of it. i could have taken pictures of those candy cane arches forever.

the floor of the mosque was made up of large stones, each one the size of a prayer rug. i sat on a bench in the middle of the arches for a long time, meditating and soaking in the feeling of centuries of devotion and prayer.

i want to see this again someday. so very much.

{a photo project honoring radiance, one of my words for 2012 :: 52 photos that represent radiance, 52 photos that represent luminosity.}

i read a book a few weeks ago about finding and hiring talent. it was called the rare find. (true, i’m neither a recruiter nor a hiring manager, but i am a sucker for non-fiction that includes case studies.)

i copied this from the book into my journal.

The key question stops being: “Are you good enough?” Instead, it becomes: “Is there a chance you could become spectacular?”

if you want to know what i think – what i really think – i think that there is a chance that i could become a spectacular artist. the form might surprise and delight me – for instance, it could be in the artistry of my business itself – but i do think there is a chance.

it is going to be hard for me to publish this post, but i am going to do so anyway, because it allows me to talk about one of my biggest stumbling blocks with radiance.

the trouble with radiance, at least for me, is that it feels like the act of recognizing or acknowledging or honoring my own light somehow diminishes other people.

it’s as if i believe that there is only so much light to go around so the only way i can shine is by dimming other people’s lights or by comparing myself to someone or someones and saying that i am shining because i am shining brighter than them. it’s as if i believe that we are all in competition with each other.

it seems rather telling that the situations where shining your own light is encouraged and accepted are in situations that do feel like competitions: from job interviews to annual reviews to college applications.

it makes perfect sense that i would want to avoid this. i don’t want to hurt other people or make them feel small. i don’t like competition. i am afraid of rejection and judgment. i don’t want other people to dislike me. i have been taught implicitly and explicitly that saying (thinking, also, but definitely saying) something good about myself makes me a bad person.

at the same time, when i see something good in myself, it has nothing to do with anyone else. i am not comparing or contrasting or in competition.

when i like my own work, for example, i don’t like it because i think it’s better than anyone else’s work. i like it because i like it.

when i have an idea that i think is genius, i don’t think it’s genius because it’s better than someone else’s idea. i think it’s genius because it’s mine and i am really really excited about it.

when i say that there is a chance i could become spectacular, i don’t mean spectacular in comparison to others; i mean spectacular in terms of fulfilling my potential and following my mission and sharing my vision.

i believe that we are all extraordinary – that we can all burn brighter than we can even imagine.

i also know that if i cannot see the good in myself, it doesn’t really matter whether other people can see it.

i want to be my biggest supporter and cheerleader. i want to see my own goodness and potential. i want to show up in the world, to not shrink, to be as fully myself as i can stand to be, and to be a force for beauty and light.

i am not afraid of my shadow. i am willing to go into my darkness and take things out and turn them over and look at them closely under the harsh light of day.

for too long, i have been afraid of my light.

from now on, i very much want to be brave enough to face it.

when we were walking through the summer palace at the alhambra, my sister teased me about my absorption in a patch of yellow flowers in the garden when to my left was a view of the alhambra. it got me thinking about the photos that i like to take.

when i am visiting somewhere new, my favorite photos are often ones that are not necessarily pictorial representations of that particular place. people who are watching me take photos will often comment that i could have taken those photos anywhere. i suppose that’s true, but when i see them, they bring back the place and the moment to me in a way that photos of the place itself often cannot.

really, i want to capture the feeling or the essence of the place. that’s what helps me remember it long after i return. that’s what helps me remember how i felt when i was there.

in the alhambra, those feelings included beauty and inspiration and awe.

when we were in madrid, we went to the prado museum. my favorite paintings were the ones that depicted myths and legends. not because of the paintings themselves, i must confess, but because i was captivated by the stories.

i love myths and legends. i always have. some of them were old favorites, but some were new.

want to hear my absolute favorite story?

hercules was the son of zeus (the king of the gods) and the nymph alcmene. alcmene was mortal, so hercules was mortal when he was born. in order to make his son immortal, zeus held baby hercules to his wife hera’s breast while she was asleep. when she woke up and saw a strange baby at her breast, she pulled away and the spurting breast milk formed the milky way.

isn’t that the best story! as soon as i read it, i ran around the wing looking for helen so i could tell it to her immediately.

i cannot see the milky way now without thinking about that story.

have i mentioned that i love graffiti? i do. i really do.

a friend of mine is living with me for the moment. over the years, i’ve occasionally worried that i was too old and too set in my ways to enjoy living with someone, but it turns out that i worried for nothing. living with a dear friend is really wonderful and i feel so lucky to have the opportunity. also, i am learning to enjoy the smell of coffee in the morning. i have decided that this bodes well for the future.

on a not entirely unrelated note – since you can live with roommates or significant others – if you happen to be single (and looking), i heartily recommend reading getting naked by harlan cohen. i saw it on a table of books at b&n and the title made me smile so i picked it up. the letters and replies he included (he’s an advice columnist) made me laugh so much that i bought the book. it is seriously the funniest and most useful book on relationships i’ve ever read. plus, i have managed to apply it to friendship and work. fair warning, my conversation is now peppered with, “as harlan says ..” or “i suspect harlan would say ..” yes, we are apparently on a first name basis. he is changing my life, one person at a time.

want to know how to make the best green smoothie? you need kale, a banana, and strawberries. first, slice the banana and eat the slices with a nutella-like spread. (the cocoa almond spread from trader joe’s is really good.) second, add the kale to a salad and top it with lots of thousand island dressing. third, eat the berries with sugar and cake and ice cream or whipped cream. de-licious.

how’s your monday so far?

{a photo project honoring radiance, one of my words for 2012 :: 52 photos that represent radiance, 52 photos that represent luminosity.}

radiance & luminosity. while walking back to the hostel from the alhambra.

(i am still without my camera, so i might be drawing from the archives for a while.)