I am an unreasonable person. I have evidence for this. Yesterday, after a memorable camping/celebration weekend with friends in the Malibu, I emerged from the mountains with a commitment to complete the 16 mile training run I had missed that morning. Adam & I started at 6:30 pm and finished at 10:30. We're slow mother-f****rs. But we did it. No question. We'd had a lot of discussion about commitment this weekend. My friends Jen & Raymond were renewing their wedding vows, after 5 years of marriage. I've never heard anything like it. Two people in ceremony, acknowledging they have broken their promises, and asking for forgiveness. Declaring acceptance of each other. Starting over, a new marriage, now made on a foundation of some experience. Experiences like this weekend don't get summarized easily. I have to sift through the noise of the children being children. Running, playing, yelling, climbing, finding owls and lizards, hungry for experiences, discovery, in-your-face participation, hungry for cookies and treats and sugar cereals, quick, before the other kid chooses the one you want. And I, one of the parents, a voice of reason, the yes or the no of it all, over and over and over again - decide, decide, decide - communicate, communicate, communicate - deliver the reason, deliver the reason, deliver the reason - never-ending. My body and mind believe camping is for retreat, restoration, introspection, peace. The children are unaware of this. They remind me of their ignorance, incessantly. The question is, when did I become such a curmudgeon? Why does it always have to go my way? Why am I so annoyed by these kids who rush from their tents towards the center of the village, eager to run at life and interaction. Why do their high little voices asking me questions grate on my nerves so much? When I look more closely, it's my annoyance that offends me more than they do. The constant negotiations of limits, and my responsibility to be a voice of safety and reason...it offends my desire to be at ease with everything and everyone, to exude unconditional love and experience the wonder of life. I'm meant to be a calm space of creativity and exploration, cozy comfort and satisfaction, happiness, fun, lightness. Instead the grump is hiding out in the tent, doing deep breaths, praying someone else is showing more patience with my kid for the moment than I can stand to do for theirs. Really, after 4 years of it, I expect to be more zen about the whole experience. Truth is, for what truth is about any of it, I just want my kid to show up fun and easy and see things the way I do with peace and acceptance and reason. And then I get to suffer the gap between my wish and what's so. What's so is my radical 4 year old daughter, ruffian princess, raspberry blowing, rock-kicking-punk in a long dress, storming around in defiance, make-wrong, shivering with vulnerable jellyfish emotion, invisibly entering the castle of fantasy, working it all out between the princess dolls and the appropriate prince, shimmering in between the reality and the wishing-it-were-so, with grace, fury, all the range represented. I'm the conservative in it all, expecting the pendulum to stay on the side of peace and happiness, angry at being angry when it doesn't. This is as good as it gets, I remind myself. It only takes18 hours, a moment of absurdity and a huge cup of cowboy coffee to give it up and get happy. We are on our way to the bathroom - running water - what is there to complain about, anyway? I see Maleia's perfect little growing body walking ahead of me along the dirt path scattered with leaves from the sycamores, the sun is glowing and the air smells sweet. All the contemplation and complaint disappears and I'm allowed to be in grace again, only in the moment, only where it always ever is. I surrender. I am the curmudgeon, limit-setting, reason-giving mom creating a world of bliss from the inside out, outside in. For just a moment everything is quiet and all is well. Later in the darkness, having gone mad and metaphorically broken in pieces an hour before, running semi-blindly in a meditative state on mile 14, the inquiry arises: What would it be like to live life without complaint? Just breathing, offering, being present, doing what there is to be done, free at last, free at last...

Hello everyone! I want to share with you the astonishing wonder of having completed my 14 mile training run for the AIDS Marathon last Sunday! 5am wake-up – some Kashi whole grain cereal, pack up the Accelerade & Endurox “moonshine” jars, get on the gear, go, go , go...we’ve got to make it across town by 6am for the start of the run!  It’s dark outside.  Sunday morning dark. 6am we arrive on site.  The course is going to take us 3.5 miles down Forest Lawn Drive, around the corner past some movie studios and then back again.  We’ll cross the starting point again at 7 miles.  My pace group is at 13:30/mile.  I know, it may sound slow, but we make it! And we’re not the slowest!!!  There are people out here walking the whole thing!  We run/walk 3 & 2 minute intervals.  The Accelerade is phenomenal!  By the time we cross 7 miles, I am feeling the sensations I usually feel throughout mile one.  And I’ve already gone SEVEN! The training group has shrunk significantly.  We just passed an initial fundraising deadline & some people gave up the ghost.  I would give you the blow by blow, but I honestly can’t remember most of the run.  Just glimpses of people’s stained glass windows, certain curves in the road, Coach Mike making sure we cross the street to stay on course, a blown out sprinkler around mile 11.  My thinking disappears.  Except for a voice around mile 10, screaming “what are you doing!???!!  STOP!!!!”  I keep going.  4 miles to go.  It’s nothing. We come back around a loop we did earlier in the course, through a little equestrian neighborhood.  Just around the bend, we pass the 13 mile marker.  We all give up a little holler of accomplishment and disbelief!  The 1/2 Marathon measure is 13.1 miles, and we did it!  About 4 minutes later, we are cruising down the home stretch.  I am so happy & exuberant.  It feels amazing.  My body still feels great!  This isn’t meant to be possible for me.  I’m not a runner, after all.  But here I am, crossing the finish line.  I’m so excited I can’t stop the tears from falling out of my eyes!  I’m so moved by being ABLE.  And having completed something totally unpredictable.  8 miles is now a short run...that’s what we’ll do this weekend as a maintenance run...no big deal. The whole park, once ordinary, is now glistening with wonder.  I am reminded of the Moomba Festival I went to when I was a kid in Australia.  It was one of those moments when my visual/visceral memory went on record, a window of enchantment, excitement, fascination.  I remember the green grass, the smell & feel of wet clay being pulled out a huge bin, and making a clay house with a roof and everything.  My memory goes black.  This moment, here in Griffith Park, I touch it again.  This is the wonder of being alive.  This is what I didn’t have access to for all those years I didn’t play sports or run or exercise.  This is what I wanted all my life, or pretended I could do without, or was angry that I didn’t have.  This is what I was looking for.  Blank mind, no thoughts, just energy and the present moment.  Euphoria. Now I know what I signed up for. Thank you to all of you who donated last week to Aids Project LA on behalf of my participation in the Aids Marathon.  You guys got me out of bed and into a rapturous experience I will never forget.  And there’s more to come. I was going for $500 last week, and thanks to you guys, I almost made it!  By September 4, the new game is $1000.  To bring in a little more fun, I’m putting together a raffle, and for every $100 you donate, I’ll give you 5 tickets!  (Yes, if you gave $20, I’ll give you one, too!!!)  My prizes so far are: An in-depth Tarot/Life Reading (can be by phone)(value $150), An Acupuncture Consultation & Treatment (value $150), A 2 week membership to Spectrum Club ($200 value), A Professional Portrait Session with 2 8x10 prints (value $400).  We’ll be coming up with more in the next few weeks!  I’m still getting this raffle event together, so I’ll keep you posted as to when we are pulling for prizes.  If you have something you’d like to contribute as a raffle prize, please let me know...it is VERY much appreciated!!! ALSO, I am an Ebay Queen...if you are low on cash to donate, but you have something valuable hanging around your life that you don’t know what to do with, send it my way, and I’ll sell it on Ebay and donate the $$ to APLA in your name.  (Then YOU can have the tax deduction...give more, pay less!!!) If you DO have CASH, but haven’t donated yet, PLEASE give what you can as soon as you can!  Remember, it’s all TAX DEDUCTIBLE!!  APLA will send you an Official Receipt!  Please don’t wait for the end of the year.  My commitment is to raise at least another $2000 before the 22nd of September, 2006. Please go to http://www.aidsmarathon.com/participant.asp?runner=LA-4644&EventCode=HN06 and click the Donate Now button.  It IS that easy to make a difference in many, many lives, including yours and mine :) Thank you for being who you are in the world. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! With love & gratitude, Meaghan

The Best Part of the Day was watching Adam push Maleia home from Synergy. She was wearing her striped purple stretch pants on her head, the leg was flying out behind her. Adam was running after her, surging her forward in the pink buggy she's almost grown out of. The whole affair is completely disturbing the peace, with shrieking and the sound of those almost split plastic wheels rattling over the sidewalk. It is warm and cool all at once, the day is complete, and it feels like we got to spend it together. She's growing so fast...& I'm growing to catch up with her. Everything is as it should be. And this is training for the Marathon.

Something emerged today ~ a natural enthusiasm born from two days of rest and so many more of purging & organizing the hallway closet. I've been creating an energetic space of integrity, from the chakras out. Along with a finite amount of mixed-up paperwork, I discovered many new items to paste into my autobiography & many young conversations to go with them! One of them being, I can't do something fun until I deal with this...aka, someday I'll have time to be creative again. I picked up Maleia early today, I had told her as soon as I could, so much to her surprise, I showed up at 4:30. Right in time to witness the Soy Decadence faux-ice-cream "snack" being doled out in after-care! Let's hear it for summer! Going home in someone elses underwear because your two pair got wet playing in the octopus sprinkler, and snacking on nutritious vanilla & chocolate soy ice cream, under the shade of the Play Mountain trees. 5 minutes of Monster Game later, we are on our way home. Maleia was tired, we rested a bit watching the remainder of the Little Mermaid, left over true-love-conquers-all from the morning. The afore-mentioned unmentionables of the re-organization project are out of order everywhere, including the poke-your-eye-out shelf I'd removed after witnessing the demise of the fax machine. The poke-your-eye-out shelf was looking like she was longing to be painted up pretty. I went on a little look-about to see what I could find in the arts and crafts zone, and came up with a plenty good fortune. Fat chunky brushes, watercolor pencils, nice liquidy acrylics in pinks, golds & essential sheens, along with some gloss medium and a cupcake palette. Oh, I unconsciously planned very well for today. :) Together we transformed the undecorated pavement slab in my back area into the art studio I dreamed we would have 2 years ago when we moved in. The time has come. The old metal tofu tray distinguishes itself with a palette of home-mixed paint colors on top. We spread out the poke-your-eye-out shelf and 2 12x12 canvases on the ground and went to work collaborating. Maleia had some whining to release. I had some mystery. I also had my little clay balls, tiny little pea-sized hand-rolled unfired clay balls. She's so funny, she saw them and said "can I eat that?" and I said, "only one" :) She ate one. I think she liked it. So we got some pretty colors going and worked out our problems with the sharing of surfaces and some magnificent art has been born ~ I can't wait to see it in the morning. Layers of beautiful colors. Maleia painting her hands blue and then wetting them and squeezing splash-drops onto the canvas. Me pouring strands of glue over the surface and letting the wind blow it around as it twirled down like hostess cupcake decoration over the rose and purple background. Maleia dropping clay balls like hail over the squares and having them roll and drop into the glue to dry overnight into masterpieces. I am so delighted. We finished up. I went in the kitchen door to clean the brushes and Maleia wanted to stay outside and play more. 5 minutes later I heard her screaming in terror from far away~ she's naked outside the front door screaming because she can't get in and I haven't heard her knock or call for me or yell at all until the terror scream. Oh she was so scared. Locked outside all naked little 4 year old girl. The horror. So she cried it out. We agreed next time I'll keep both the doors open, or let her know which one to come in when she is ready. An important negotiation in the next step, letting my daughter play in the outdoor art studio whenever she feels like it, while I play inside as needed. This could work! I also busted out the beautiful fold-up box easel that Larry gave me when Maleia was born. Figured I might as well give it some action. Made in Italy. It's a genius piece of engineering. Painting is alive. My home is perfect. So funny ~ I saw today how I've linked up a bunch of linear things to do, and saw how wondering about one stops the other. It goes like this: I should get a new car. I said I wanted one on the last day of the Wisdom Course, and came home to find it bashed in on the left back quarter panel. Got the dent pulled out with some rough bondo and band-aid-painted by Adam, but it's looking pretty rough all over. The massive tree outside my duplex drops wicked sap and pods and eats up the paint of my car. So I have been saying, I won't repaint the car or buy a new one until I move. This excuse is the death of the new car conversation. It keeps me keeping my nice car as a mismatched paint jalopy. So then I engage in the new home conversation. I'm preparing for it, I'm packing up what I want to take, but don't need urgently in this home. I'm getting ready for the next surge of ebay selling to clear space and supplement the late summer income. I've joined Westside Rentals to try for a $1500 Culver City house that I didn't win. I'm looking at 2 br places. But I wonder, should I move by myself, or should I move in with Adam? This query stymies the moving conversation. No nice car, no new house, no commitment. Yep, it all lines up perfectly. It basically comes back to the hallway closet. My need to create functional systems that allow me to sustain and operate my high life all on my own. As an exercise in being fully responsible, and experiencing what capability feels like. Not requiring boyfriend, partner, husband to provide the structure for my inevitible critique. Short-circuiting the make-wrong machine that I've been revving up and running down for this lifetime. When I take on being 100% responsible, the garbage gets out of the house, both literally and metaphorically. Yesterday I cleaned out the cabinet that stands in my relationship corner and discovered a hundred little izone pictures of me with my ex-husband. yikes. Yep, it's hard to commit when you've got a hundred little izone pictures of your last relationship just hanging around and hiding out in the space of your new one. So those have been re-filed :) Now I'm wondering if I should paint the walls of this place. I live in a beautiful place. But I've been living in it like, I'm not going to be here forever. Well isn't that the truth. I'm only going to be in it, right now. And at no other time. So for now the practice is to make the most of it. In every way. Stay tuned for the miraculous and magical resolve of all my hesitancy and excuses! This will include colored lanterns, beautiful flowers, shiny paint, plenty of space, completing the past, living into the future, in love with the now. And probably selling most of my old furniture. :)

I never knew how excited I could get about having my car cleaned. Today Shannon had me drive her over to the car wash around the corner from the office...she indulged in the $17.99 Executive Special. What a deal! When I took her back a few hours later, I stepped it up a notch and took on the $23.99 Manager's Special, including Armorall inside & out. SO shiny...a little sticky on the handles, but hey, I love a good shine. My good friend art-boy, perhaps better known as Shammy Davis Jr, would be proud. But I also know he could outdo them with his hands tied behind his back. If you're looking for the best car-detailing in Los Angeles, you should be calling on Shammy. Jesica's married to him, she can hook you up. Shammy & Jesica have an awesome idea to manufacture eco-friendly carwashing stuff...let's do it...anyone got the hook-up?

Madame Jesica's blog is just so great, she's such a genius. I used to write, man, before I got knocked up and transformed my life, & became a useful citizen of sorts...meaning I can do what I love and pay the bills too, now that I actually open them, that is...with the new Buddha letter opener I got today at Govinda's. Yes, I do open my bills, folks, I even pay them. I've even been paying them on time lately...word is there's this thing called real estate I've been hearing lots about and as I understand it the banks will loan you lots of money if you have some kind of history of paying people what you owe them in a timely manner. Put the money in, pay the loan, live, love, do some sustainable remodelling...earn what they call the rich man's rate of return. Anyone got a good source of a Green Mortgage Company? Or recommendations of sustainable & lucrative investments? Please let me know :) Adam & I have been driving through the Marina Peninsula and driving up the young conversations that tell us we can't live in a place like that. Willing to give it up and create that anything is possible again. We can have it all, indeed. All the signs & circumstances tell me it actually works...raising your vibration to receive what is already available. Watch me set foot on my own property in the next year...I've got the Husband, Hybrid, Home game in the works, although the Bio-Diesel Mercedes from Lovecraft is sounding mighty fine these days. (check out the good news at www.lovecraftbiofuels.com ) The other day my whole family - Maleia, Cooper, Gemma & Grandfather, Steph, Eric, Adam & I, went out on the beach near our future home and we all flew kites. I had this gigantic rainbow kite I bought for my dad 7 or 8 years ago, and FINALLY gave it to him! It reminded me of this park in Australia we used to drive by on the weekends sometimes...full of hundreds of people, holding tight to hundreds of beautifully colored kites. Adam had bought a bunch of 3buck kites from the Sav-On and they flew HIGH! Highly recommended. For inspiration, watch some Mary Poppins. Don't forget the sunscreen, or the classic song... "...With your fist holding tight, to the string of a kite, oh, oh, oh, let's go fly a kite, up to the highest height, let's go fly a kite and send it soaring, up through the atmosphere, up where the air is clear, oh, let's go-o-o-o-o-o fly a kite!