Afternoon Tea in the Garden

A few weeks ago, in a completely serendipitous way, I received a gift. I have always been the recipient of such gifts, by the way. Goodness and kindness and random gifts find their way to me, for no good reason at all, from perfect strangers, distant acquaintances, and of course friends and family...

Anyways, a few weeks ago I was invited to a tea party at an amazing garden no less, organized by a very small group of local women (whom I did not know before this day), to honor a writer, blogger, mother, zen Buddhist monk, and a profound and beautiful woman that I have admired for years, Karen Maezen Miller. To keep the event intimate, the guest list was limited and I have no idea why I was on the list of invited. But as I said, magic finds me, and all I have to do is say "Yes" and receive gratefully.

The short afternoon was packed full with rejuvenation and that light soulful conversation that zen followers are so gifted at (I am not zen FYI). Since it was a small gathering, Karen had a chance to chat privately with each guest. When she and I had our "moment" I told her of my love and gratitude for her and the work she puts out in this world, hoping in the back of my mind that I am not creeping out a perfect stranger.

That afternoon I was fully present in my life and myself, and took in all the joys of this life of mine.

Mr. Urban had taken the girls for the afternoon, and when I suddenly heard their little sounds approaching from somewhere behind the lavender bushes my heart overflowed with love for the three of them.

My girls keep thriving and touching us in amazing ways, every day as they learn or experience something new... each time they smile and choose the road of flexibility... or when they show us their sweet vulnerabilities and fears. But you know, more times than I care to count, I get bogged down with obsessive parental worries... And leave it to the Zen among us to remind me that the essence of parenting and all we need to teach the ones we love (and only through example) is how to breathe, how to sit, how to open our eyes and really look at the garden around us with kindness and without judgement.

* If you are interested in learning more about Karen, you can find her writings at http://karenmaezenmiller.com/, or Huff post, and of course you can find any of her great books on amazon.

Comments

FORTY THREE YEARS, SEVEN MONTHS AND FORTY DAYS

My life and the life of every Iranian I know, is bookended by the Iranian Revolution of 1979. It doesn't matter that I was barely old enough to remember this historic event or that I spent the decades that followed it, far far away from Iran, the Revolution of 1979 is a heavy, tacky, cruel bookend that defines who we used to be, who we are and the recurring nightmares and dreams we’ve had for 43 years. I can pinpoint with certainty the exact month after which a general feeling of displacement settled like sticky dust all over me, my family, my classroom, my teachers, our closest friends, our home, our city… In the years and decades that followed, I never experienced another event that brought such a magnitude of change to the nucleus of life. Not in Iran, and definitely not after a whole life lived outside of Iran. Perhaps only recently, the experience of the Trump years and the Covid-19 pandemic, the significant fear, change and frustration that both events brought to our col

On Donald Trump, Crunchy Bananas and our Children... A "How To" on keeping up Spirits and Sanity

The other morning at breakfast, my four year old looked, yet again somberly, at the breakfast before her. Despite having enthusiastically selected a hodgepodge of liberally salted hard boiled egg whites on the side of toasted hamburger buns, strawberries and vanilla yogurt and a cup of milk, she still could not bring herself to enjoy her breakfast. Her face was wrinkled, as was mine with exasperation from yet another failed attempt at assembling a palatable breakfast for my picky eater. This one, she is quite the philosopher. And before I could ask her why she wasn't eating, she said: "Two Things!" Holding up two tiny fingers. "The smells of these foods I picked, don't go with each other! And I wish Donald Trump would magically become Hillary Clinton, and the word (world) would be GREAT again". Despite our best efforts to protect our children from the anxiety of these times, they are alert and picking up on the mood (and the lingo) in the wor

Safa

I have always loved words. The way some people love shiny new objects. As soon as I heard a new word, a word that captured my imagination, my energy, my hundreds of unnamed inner thoughts and feelings, I would latch on to it with fearceness, joy and curiosity. I have also always been intrigued by how regular old words can be used in an unexpected context and evoke bursts of unexpected feelings in the listener, such as laughter, anticipation or tears. I would search for those words coming out of the mouths of everyone around me, and mentally catalog them like a dutiful librarian, and await the opportunity to say the words with my own mouth out loud to an audience, or better yet use it in an essay where the teacher could grade it, get a kick out of it, or read it to the whole class. As a child I always loved the Persian word Safa . For one thing the word sounds so simple, yet sophisticated and beautiful, and for another, each of my memories of hearing this word is stored in th

An Urban Girl

Search This Blog