News Trend Another Rainy Day|Actual

This morning, I woke up yet again to the patter of rain falling on the patio beneath my window.

Scratch that verb. Unlike most Pacific Northwest rainy days, I heard not a patter but a drumbeat of steady, hard rain, accompanied by intermittent gusts that sent soggy leaves tumbling across the grass and whipped my wind chimes into a frenzy.

In these parts, we call that a monsoon.

Despite these dark, dreary conditions, a photo shoot sat at the top of my to-do list for the day. Finally, finally! After a solid ten weeks' worth of construction setbacks and snafus, I had put the finishing touches on my brass hanging planter and the little darling was ready to vogue for the camera.

But when I set up the shot in my library, on the north side of the house, the photos were dark and grainy to the point of being unusable.

Sigh.

I reconvened in the south-facing kitchen, brightest room in the house. And while I managed to eek out a few marginal photos, the dismal conditions did nothing to showcase the ridiculous cuteness of my creation.

Brass tubing wired together Himmeli-style makes a clever design for a tiny planter; and I love everything about this delicious morsel, from its wrapped leather lead to the pentagonal pouch that cradles a bitty succulent.

When I couldn't find a small white bowl that suited me, I ended up making my own out of clay. I know. Call me stubborn but I am fiercely committed to the DIY.

Double sigh.

I considered deleting the whole crop of shadowy shots and doing retakes tomorrow. But let's be honest. It's been dumping rain for weeks now, and there's precious little sunshine in Seattle's November forecast. Every day for the foreseeable future promises more of the same murky atmosphere.

Today may be just another rainy day, but I've decided to accept it and make the best of it, gloomy photos and all.

* * * * *

In my opinion, you can never have too many succulents, and you can never have too many stories about succulents. Here are a few to choose from:

Court And Kylee's Succulent Party

Succulent Season

Franklin Park Conservatory

Confessions Of A Crazy Plant Lady

Pallet Possibilities

Another Rainy Day

Growing Things

This Is War

All In A Day's Work

Design Dilemmas

Wait For It

Shopping Spree

Saturday Spring Satisfaction

Sprouts

Tiny Tinsel Tree

Biology 101

Little Things

News Trend Fulfilled|Actual

For the past few nights, I have broken my own rules to stay up late and work on this planter.

First, about the project. Back in the seventies, my little emerging self loved hanging plants. With my hard-earned money and my mom, I marched myself to the Ann Arbor Art Fair each July and picked up a few more hand-made pottery hangers, and within a few years, amassed a sweet collection. My bedroom windows, both at home and at college, hosted seven or eight of these beauties, each with a luxurious kisi-kisi of greenery.

When the eighties came into full swing, I boxed up these bohemian treasures and left them to sit in various attics until a few years back, when the fashion of hippie-dippy hanging plants returned. Sadly, most of my collection crashed and burned soon after excavation. Besides my favorite little teacup of a planter who lives on to this day in my kitchen, only one other survived, albeit with a huge sprawling crack and frayed cords.

After months of eyeballing this poor beaten treasure, I finally decided to show some mercy and fix it up. Over the past few late nights, I Gorilla Glued the cracks and wove new macrame hangers; today I planted her up, and now my eighties princess is all ready to hang.

Second, about the late night. The biologically inarguable fact is that I am a night owl. However, I feel equal parts guilty and socially out of step when I keep late hours, and at predictable intervals, vow to make a change. This fall, I pledged to turn over yet another new early-bird leaf, and for the past few months, I've held myself to a bedtime of midnight. Ish.

And while it's nice to get eight full hours of sleep, I've not been feeling quite right. This may sound strange to anyone who is not a night owl, but trying to get my artistic jam on during the daytime just isn't the same. My creative energies fully unleash themselves only when the rest of my family has gone to bed, the house is clean and I am peacefully, blissfully alone.

This chunky, funky planter has reminded me how good it feels to hit that late-night sweet spot and abandon myself to full creativity. I may drop a few minus signs during my algebra classes in the morning, but working on art projects late at night is what I need to feel fulfilled.

* * * * *

More macrame projects to light your fire:

Fulfilled

Sugar, Sugar

A Macrame Home For My Spider Plant Family

Macrame Magic

Perfect Imperfections

Roses And Ivy

News Trend Normal|Actual

^ Tonight, midnight found me applying Gorilla Glue to the thirty-five year-old-cracks in this groovy seventies hanging planter.

Clearly, this was a job that simply could not wait one more minute.

^ Last night, at roughly the same hour, I was transforming these once-turquoise geometric elephant drawer pulls to gold, and creating three clay pinch pots.

What can I say. As a biologically hard-wired night owl, my creative energy peaks long after most people have tucked themselves into bed for the night, and as much as I try to keep hours that are "normal," these late-night power surges are normal for me.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

News Trend Pray For Paris|Actual

Horrible, terrible, unfathomable news from Paris today.

Gunmen.

Hostages.

Open fire.

Suicide bombers.

Death.

I am making a point to stay away from speculation and rumor-mongering about who did this and why. Until we have solid facts, I prefer not to play the blame game.

But I will say this.

No cause, no motivation, no explanation can justify these actions.

No political stance,

No religious imperative,

No frustration with the way things are will ever make it okay for humans to intentionally kill other human beings.

I still dare to dream that we can do better than this.

I pray for Paris.

I pray for us all.

News Trend Symmetrically Satisfied|Actual

Sometimes I just crave me a little symmetry.

Granted, most of the time, I'm more of a grouping-of-threes type decorator. I like my rooms to feel a bit dynamic, a tad collected, and a lot surprising and unexpected.

But I'll admit, on that late June evening when I decided that my living room was a muddled mess and committed myself to completely rethinking the space, I was ready to try anything.

This inspiration photo soon jumped into my eyeballs and imprinted itself on my brain.

One Kings Lane

I mean, this room is a little over the top for me. It's a bit shimmery and shiny for my organic tastes but that's not the point at all. What I really loved was the calm, controlled balance of that clean, cut-it-down-the-middle-with-a-knife symmetry.

Yum. Slice me up a piece of that pretty pie.

Now it's true that my financial resources are entirely limited, and I'm mostly making do with what I have. Lord knows I'd love to drop a few grand on some new white couches, and my pillows and artwork are definitely works in progress.I wouldn't hate a fresh coat of bright white paint on that woodwork, either.

Still, I happy to report that my living room has slowly but surely evolved into the feng shui-friendly haven that it is today.

And for that, I am symmetrically satisfied.

News Trend "Why Are Muslim Men So Mean?"|Actual

The first few Facebook conversations with my newfound Malaysian friends were light and high-spirited, focused on getting to know each other through fun, easy topics.

But once I sensed that we had navigated ourselves to the calm, still waters of friendship, I dove right into a deep and dangerous topic.

"Why are Muslim men so mean?"

* * * * *

It's only fair to say that my Malaysian friends were not my first Islamic rodeo.

The very first Muslim friend I ever made, back in 2000, was a four-year-old boy named Mehdi. Despite his dark hair and Arab skin, Medhi's piercing blue eyes were the color of the palest spring sky. His smile started at the tips of his toes and spread up, lighting every inch of his tiny frame with joy. His family attended the same school-for-homeschoolers as mine, and he often pulled up next to me in the Interactive Project Collaborative Lab, happily coloring or building LEGOs while chatting a mile a minute with me.

I loved Mehdi, and got a huge kick out of his expansive and gloriously happy little being.

^ No one cares about head scarves when you've got hoodies, a hammock, and unlimited camera space.

We were new at the school in those days, and I soon discovered that many Muslim families studied alongside us. Those kids - mostly American-born of Middle Eastern parents - ran around with the rest of the students, every bit as funny and smart and carefree. True, the Muslim girls wore head scarves and kept their arms and legs covered, but we often saw them in the bathroom with their scarves off and their hair down, and we knew they were just like us.

So I was not entirely surprised when one of my daughters chose a Muslim schoolmate as her boyfriend. He was an enjoyably all-American kid, polite and respectful and funny with his hoodies and checkered Vans and skateboard tucked under his arm; every mother's dream of a first boyfriend for her daughter. Over the months of their relationship, he spent many an afternoon at our house, and I kept my fridge stocked with frozen cheese pizzas to work around his halal dietary needs. Other than that, his Islamic-ness was a complete non-issue.

I loved my daughter's boyfriend and welcomed him - as well as his younger sister who spent lots of time with us too - into our family life.

^ My daughter's boyfriend's sister on the left, my fourth-born on the right, and a third friend with great sideways eyes in the middle.

Through the school grapevine, the story of these kids' family life came to light and it wasn't pretty. Suffice to say that not one but two fathers had failed them; the four oldest children were now in the care of a good woman but had suffered far too much violence, abuse and neglect for their young lives.

My fiercely protective heart burned with rage against the men who had hurt these great kids.

^ Now that's what I call shock and awe.

I also learned that little Mehdi was in fact one of three younger siblings who had been adopted away from the four older children. He was my daughter's boyfriend's younger brother. Though Mehdi was now with a wonderful family, my frustration and anger surged even deeper to know that he also had been wounded by these men.

To be honest, as much as I accepted and loved the Muslim women and children in my life, I began to hate Muslim men. Granted, I was generalizing wildly, but anyone who could inflict such cruelty upon their wives, sons and daughters could not be the men of God that they so boldly claimed to be.

* * * * *

Back on Facebook, my first Malaysian friend - a  Muslim man himself - listened patiently as I shared this story and demanded, once again, an answer to my question:

"Why are Muslim men so mean?"

His first response was to ask me a question: "You said these men are from which countries?

The Middle East.

"Well," he thoughtfully continued, "then they are Arabs. Arabs have their own culture, and the Arab men are very strong. But that is not because they are Muslims; it's because they are Arabs. Muslim men come from many different cultures and each culture influences how they behave. We are not all the same."

Oh.

Well.

That made perfect sense.

Today, I still perceive Arab Muslim men as rough - maybe it's the hot desert winds or the political upheaval or the sand constantly blowing up their thawbs, I don't know for sure. But in my personal experience, Arab Muslim men tend to be a serious, commanding, and hot-tempered lot.

But it's also been proven to me countless times that the Malay Muslim men are a totally different breed. Light-hearted and quick to laugh,, they are patient and easy-going as a rule. Rather than dominating family life, my Malay Muslim men friends put their wives' and children's needs first.

I've watched these men carefully feeding rice to their toddlers, or gently soothing a crying babe,

I've listened from the backseat as many a Malay Muslim wife scolds her husband for a wrong turn, and noticed only restrained silence in return.

I've seen my friends carefully meting out the last bits of a meal, taking care to ensure that everyone at the table gets their fair share.

^ The image is blurry but the sentiment is perfectly clear.

And so, thanks to my wise friend, I have learned my lesson well:

Religion and culture are two different things.

Some cultures are more stern than others.

But Muslim men, as a rule, are most definitely not mean.

News Trend Among Muslims|Actual

My tried-and-trues sending me off at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

Can you guess which one is me?

Seven years ago, an extraordinary thing happened in my life.

I, an American Christian woman, was befriended by a pack of Malay Muslims.

You can read all the details here, but the short story is this:

What started out as a chance meeting on Facebook with a Malaysian Mob Wars buddy grew to ever-expanding circles of friends, now numbered well over one hundred. Right off the bat, we discovered that we all had very much in common.

We listen to the same movies and music.

We laugh at the same jokes.

We love our families and friends with the same commitment and abandon.

We share the same hopes and dreams for our lives.

Exploring ancient Portuguese forts in Melaka, white legs and all.

In the intervening years, especially during the two visits I've paid to their motherland, our relationships have deepened and grown beyond anything I ever could have dreamed. I've been accepted, adopted and very well loved by people who are quite a bit different from me.

And make no mistake, as much as I share in common with my friends on the other side of the world, there are many differences between us too.

Differences in culture and custom,

Differences in dress and social mores.

Differences in religion.

Especially in the early years, those differences frustrated me and confused me.

During my four months in Malaysia, when my dear friends took me into their homes and cared for me like one of their own, those differences sometimes left me feeling overwhelmed and vulnerable and very much alone.

But that is not where our story ends.

Blurry selfies during rush hour.

My friends and I keep talking.

I've asked literally hundreds of questions which my faithful friends have patiently answered. They have asked a fair share of me. We care about one other enough to trustingly work through our differences rather than letting them come between us. Interestingly, as my Malaysian Muslim friends and I open new doors of understanding, I find that our differences actually make us closer.

Girl talk at the beach.

* * * *  *

In a world today that is torn apart with understandable fear about terrorist attacks, jihadist extremists and suicide bombers, differences between Westerners and Muslims have become an ongoing topic of conversation, often invoking confusion and fear.

But I hope that is not where our world's story ends.

Let's keep asking questions.

Let's listen to one another's answers.

Let's see if maybe, just maybe, we can open new doors of understanding between two remarkable but markedly different cultures. And maybe, in the end, those differences may actually make us grow just a little bit closer

My favorite Malaysian playmate and Malay language instructor.