Weekly Words: "What to Remember Upon Waking"

"In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.

What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
for the vitality hidden in your sleep.

To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.

You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
you are not an accident amidst other accidents
you were invited from another and greater night
than the one from which you have just emerged.

Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits in the seed of you
to grow and spread its branches
against a future sky?

Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
In the trees beyond the house?
In the life you can imagine for yourself?
In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk?"

- David Whyte

Smoky Carrot Margaritas

In my home, a margarita is the "house-special cocktail." The recipe actually changes frequently, as we steer clear of any store bought lime mixers and head straight for the fruit and vegetable aisle to stoke our imagination. Passion fruit, prickly pear, and dragon fruit have all been key players along with almost every type of pepper in the books. And so, it's only fitting that I share my new favorite libation in honor of the fifth of May: the smoky carrot margarita.

This margarita has all of the right elements: it's sweet, tangy, and smoky all at once. While the tequila is an expected player, the real star is a classic Mexican ancho chile liquor called Ancho Reyes which adds a spicy kick. It's then blended with a lemon simple syrup, fresh orange juice, carrots and a good rock salt.

Every summer, I name the drink of the sunny season. While we've still got a few weeks left before Memorial Day, it's safe to say that this drink is a frontrunner on the list. In the meantime, whip up a batch, pair with a good savory guacamole, and press play on some classic sexy tunes.

Smoky Carrot Margaritas

(Serves two)

3 ounces Reposado tequila

1.5 ounces Ancho Reyes liquor (if you can't find it, substitute 1/4 teaspoon ancho chile powder)

2 carrots, chopped

1 tablespoon lemon simple syrup (recipe here)

1/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice

1/8 cup lime juice

1/2 teaspoon good rock salt (I use Pink Himalayan Salt)

Combine non-alcoholic ingredients in blender, and mix until combined. Fill glasses with ice, pour in mixture, top each with a shot of tequila and a 1/2 shot of Ancho Reyes, stir and top with a wedge of lime.

Happy weekend...

Happy Friday, and happy May! Apologies for the radio silence, but I think I've just wrapped up one of the most busy weeks in quite a long time. I feel a shift towards newness and light, and I'm excited for what's to come. I'm looking forward to settling into this new space (literally, and physically) and enjoying some warm weather. Here are a few things that kept me grounded this week:

• Revisiting Paul Simon's "Concert in the Park" this time of year feels so fresh and right, and has me yearning for my years of concerts on the Great Lawn, at Rumsey Playfield and along The Mall, as the sun set in New York City's beautiful refuge.
• Bringing all good vibes to our new apartment by burning some Palo Santo incense sticks.
• Loving this travelogue of a drive up the California coastline, and jonesing to get back to that windy and unplugged open water highway soon.
• And finally, a few gorgeous lines by Katrina Kenison that speaks volumes to the type of things I've been meditating on over the course of a few tough months. I highly recommend checking out the rest of the piece, and sitting with it during times of difficulty or unrest:

"When the going gets tough may I resist my first impulse to wade in, fix, explain, resolve, and restore. May I sit down instead.

When the going gets tough may I be quiet. May I steep for a while in stillness.

When the going gets tough may I have faith that things are unfolding as they are meant to. May I remember that my life is what it is, not what I ask for. May I find the strength to bear it, the grace to accept it, the faith to embrace it."

Happy weekend...

Happy Friday! We're in my old beloved city of Philadelphia this weekend, and I'm excited to love up some of my bests and enjoy a gorgeous wedding. I hope you have a nice weekend! Here are a few things that caught my eye this week:

• Spinning Father John Misty's newest album on overdrive. Sure, Josh Tillman was great in Fleet Foxes, and equally as transfixing as J. Tillman, but his new spin has been positively glorious (and he is fantastic live). Check out "True Affection."
• Using my awesome new reusable coffee mug all.the.time, and stepping away from disposable coffee cups when I get my caffeine fix outside the home.
• Thinking harder about fashion and sustainability after learning from Avneet Basi (of the gorgeous jewelry line Krysos + Chandi) that the fashion world is the second biggest polluting industry on the planet, and then reading this related piece in the Times.
• And finally, a gorgeous poem on spring and the renewal that comes again every year:

"Just before the green begins there is the hint of green
a blush of color, and the red buds thicken
the ends of the maple’s branches and everything
is poised before the start of a new world,
which is really the same world
just moving forward from bud
to flower to blossom to fruit
to harvest to sweet sleep, and the roots
await the next signal, every signal
every call a miracle and the switchboard
is lighting up and the operators are
standing by in the pledge drive we’ve
all been listening to: Go make the call."

- Stuart Kestenbaum, "April Prayer"

Happy weekend...

Happy Friday! It might be a day full of April showers, but this week was gorgeous otherwise. My sentiments on spring can be summed up by an elderly woman also waiting to cross at a corner, who proclaimed, to anyone with ears: "Here we are! And none of us ever thought we'd get to be out here again." You are so right, sister.

Wishing you a weekend of sunshine, noticeable newness, and Friluftsliv. Before we get to it, here are a few links that moved my week:

• Vibing the new Jamie xx jam "Loud Places" hard. In the gym, on the streets, in my head.
• Dabbling in watercolor painting, as I dream up some pretty things for our wedding and reduce a little stress by creating with my hands.
• Loving David Brook's Op-Ed "The Moral Bucket List," particularly the bit where he talks about how those who radiate inner light "do not find their vocations by asking, what do I want from life? They ask, what is life asking of me? How can I match my intrinsic talent with one of the world’s deep needs?" Beautiful.
• And finally, a quote from Parker Palmer's essay on the poem "Thanks, Robert Frost":

“The past isn’t fixed and frozen in place. Instead, its meaning changes as life unfolds. I once lost a job. At the time, it felt as if I had come to the end of the road. But after a while, I was able to see how that loss helped guide me toward my true life-work. Losing that job was a blessing, not a curse.

I’ve made many mistakes and often failed to live up to my aspirations, but I don’t need to look back with regret. Instead, I can see all of my mess-ups as humus or compost for the growing I needed to do.

I love the fact that the word “humus” is related to “humility.” The good I do today may well have its roots in something not-so-good I did in the past. Knowing that takes me beyond both the sinkhole of regret and the hot-air balloon of pride.

Regret shuts life down. Humility opens it up.”

— Parker Palmer

Weekly Words: "April"

"I wanted to speak at length about
the happiness of my body and the
delight of my mind for it was
April, night, a
full moon and –

but something in myself or maybe
from somewhere other said: not too
many words, please, in the
muddy shallows the

frogs are singing."

- Mary Oliver

Happy weekend...

It has been a long and busy week here amidst the cold April showers! I'll be back next week with some delicious recipes for both breakfast AND your skin. In the meantime, wishing you a peaceful weekend, and sharing a few things that caught my eyes, ears and heart this week:

• Feeling an instant wash of good vibes come over me whenever I revisit the music of Ghanian musician E.T. Mensah, particularly on "Day by Day."
• Being moved by Toni Morrison as she reads from her new novel.
• Purchasing a re-fill of this gorgeous local facial oil that gives a little extra oomph to my face after a few weeks of harsh airplane air and cold spring breezes.
• And finally, gorgeous words on finding solace in nature through the poem "The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry:

"When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free."

- Wendell Berry

Happy weekend...

Happy holiday weekend! It's a cozy gray morning, and we're on the train headed down the New England coast to Connecticut for a few days. I anticipate that there will be a lot of good eating and time well-spent with family on Easter. Before we head off, here are a few things that have moved me this week:

• Grabbing some new music inspiration from the always excellent playlists pulled together by Sarah Tolzmann of Note to Self. That March-April 15' playlist is really on point.
• Loving this essay on "The Potential in the Pregnant Pause" from On Being about how breaking free from habituation can open the door to transformation.
• Revisiting some classic thoughts on mindfulness from Jon Kabat-Zinn, and gearing up for a sitting at the Cambridge Zen Center later this spring.
• And finally, some words to close the week from Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh on how understanding ourselves better frees up our hearts to love others:

“ The essence of loving kindness is being able to offer happiness. You can be the sunshine for another person. You can’t offer happiness until you have it for yourself. So build a home inside by accepting yourself and learning to love and heal yourself. Learn how to practice mindfulness in such a way that you can create moments of happiness and joy for your own nourishment. Then you have something to offer the other person...

...If you have enough understanding and love, then every moment — whether it’s spent making breakfast, driving the car, watering the garden, or doing anything else in your day — can be a moment of joy.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh