This summer is way better than last, for so many reasons.  I guess we are totally set up now.  Bella loves camp, Lola is attending a preschool camp 2 days a week and my nephew Tylor has been spending the past 3 weeks with us. I love him being here, not just because he helps so much – my sister has done an amazing job raising this guy – he’s pleasant, kind, patient and incredibly neat – for a 17 year old.

He began spending summers with me when he was 8 years old, living wherever I lived; in Malibu he attended surf camps, at the ranch he played in the river and learned to ride horses.  I have a special relationship with him, really because my sister and I have lived so close in spirit with one another. When she had him I was still young and in school – our mother had died a few years before and I knew I needed to show up, much in the same manner that my aunts, uncles and grandparents did for us – we knew we belonged to a bigger world than just my mother.

Now Tylor is grown and I have little’s, he loves on them like siblings.  Yesterday he taught Isabella to ride a two-wheeler and wow what a fantastic moment this is in our lives.  I remember my learning of this grand memory that never leaves us – after all it’s really about balance, once we find this balance it’s never gone from us.  I told Bella to think of it as riding a horse, you’ve got to sit solid in the center and pay attention to where you are going, you see if you are riding a horse and your mind drifts shifting your level of presence the horse will follow your lead.  I’ve loved this lesson; learning to ride in relationship with the animal is nothing shy than a truly spiritual experience.  Don’t misunderstand me I’m not a great rider, I just like the relationship of it all.

Bella is so much like me in ways, quirky and yet solid.  She got it, she was riding on her own, when she passed me I had to hold back my laugh because she was sitting completely straight, eyes on the prize and saying repeatedly out loud “I’m riding a horse, I’m riding a horse, I’m riding a horse.”

I learned to ride a two-wheeler in Clark Court Apartments; we lived next to Bay and Bukie Marshall.  I jumped on my sisters red kids sized beach cruiser and peddled away, however my know it all self forgot to ask how to stop and I flew over the handle bars!  Bella was lucky, Tylor kept catching the bike, not letting her smash to the ground.

I love this, he’s learned what family is about – we can’t prevent the falls only try to break them, serving as a cushion.

Today Tylor and I are going to visit yet another local Nashville University, Lipscomb.  I really hope that he attends school close to me, I’d hate to miss out on watching him turn from young man to man.

For me it’s really been about being the belle of my own ball, filling my life with my kids, Lee and work.

I’ve been writing like mad, my goal is to finish 3 books by the fall.  I’m just about done with one and wow writing it has been a journey, ‘cause this book is all about food and health.  It’s really taught me much more than when I started it.  I thought Oh, it will be a cookbook – but now I’m siked ‘cause it’s not!  I’m not a chef, I’m not a super hard-core cook in the kitchen, I’m a regular person who has gotten well eating foods in their original form and what I know is how to heal your body and what each food does.  So I’m way siked about this project, cause it’s not a “cook book”, it’s a PKIA Book with recipes.

The other day I sat here typing in the Convent, I looked up and out the window, I felt a sparkle in my eye– I was in the middle of an “Oh yeah I’m really doing it moment”, I love these – ‘cause it’s not about the final product but the good enough feeling of giving it my all.  Luckily I’ve always been able to see when I’ve arrived at a point in my life.  Maybe to the outside viewer these moments seem hardly successful, but to me they are huge.

I write because I don’t wanna miss out, not on a second of it.  Once I’ve written I go back and see the magic of the moment or a clearer view of the situation that I’m in the middle of.  Gotta see those good enough moments, ‘cause that’s the only way our life is good enough.