Three days left of the challenge and two days left in London, um...wow. What a journey this last month has been and what an even bigger one these last 10 months have been. London gave us a beautiful farewell today with the most gorgeous weather I think we've had this entire visit—warm sun with plenty of cool breezes and blue skies all around. We went to Borough Hall, an open air market and food lovers paradise.

I'll let the photos speak for themselves except to note the highlights – a grilled duck sandwich and the most heavenly donuts I've ever had with fresh vanilla cream inside from Neal's Yard Dairy. I've gotten the closest parmesan reggiano to the kind I get in Florence here—instensly nutty and so good its hard not to eat it all on it's own. They've also made a film about how three of their cheeses go from farm to table.

After our sandwiches we walked down to the Thames to say goodbye to the water and writing this now it seems surreal to think in three days time I'll be saying hello again to the Hudson. I've only begun to process what we've all been through and Carrie in her most Carrie-like way has reminded me and my body that even through the coming down of stressers that we face at each stage these next few days-- the “got to the airport” , “got all the bags checked” , “touched down at JFK” , “made it to the rental car place” , “made it to my parent's house” etc. that we have been taking care of our bodies and we can handle this and we will take moments of laying down with Gryffin in the bed to play “baboom, baboom” (which is us catching a rest while she jumps all over us and the bed). And maybe through this challenge and through this level of consciousness, I'm starting to remember even though we haven't felt it in a long while, that we are two highly competent women who can handle just about anything—some days just barely, but others with grace and maybe even a little style.

Well it has truly begun. Today friends came and took 99% of our furniture and I am typing this while sitting on the floor because we now have no chairs in our house. We are at that truly obnoxious state of packing when you have most of it done and what is left is random and problematic and requires mental energy to deal with. The decisions are endless and we are spent. I just want it all to go away and it is taking everything I have to just do a little bit at a time and not crawl in a hole and hide. 

Our friends brought us a lovely dinner from their Cafe (Cafe Natura)..cous cous, a jacket potato loaded with roasted vegetables, delicious potato wedges roasted in olive oil and herbs, a veggie pasta bake with bowtie pasta that Gryffin called butterflies, and a cold cabbage salad.  This is just one of the many meals they've provided for us these past two weeks in exchange for the furniture and bits and bobbles of things we've given them. [Their son Anaua is pictured here in the midst what remains in our living room....tired out from all the heavy lifting.] The remaining food, spices and small items go to another friend of ours here who also has a small child and we feel joy in the release and giving of our things to those we've come to know and care about. We have been very fortunate with gifts of household items from our family in the past and enjoy seeing the circle continue as we pay it forward.

We are nearing the end of our thirty day challenge and we have already begun here and there to talk about how the challenge has changed us.  There is the actual change of improving our eating habits but there is also a slow shift in our perception of the kind of family life that can be possible for us.  The discipline of a challenge gives you the assignment but also the license to value self care above perceived care - that idea that we have too much going on to eat well or care for ourselves.  I know this is the case when I'm eating poorly but knowing intellectually and feeling the truth in practice are two separate things.  Placing a value on making a meal for one another has spilled over into placing value on spending more self care time in our day to day.  Today, even though we have only three packing days left, we took turns having another guided meditation massage with Robert Finlayson.  And although during these last few move days, we haven't been able to keep to cooking one good meal a day, we are still eating well and learning how to come together, care for ourselves and in turn renew some of the energy in our marriage all while remaining to be fully present and engaged mommies to our daughter.  And, as we celebrate our seven years of marriage this July 2nd, I know we've only just begun...

Today Gryffin experienced her first live theater event – In the Night Garden Live. In the Night Garden is a kids show here on Cbeebies (children's BBC) that features Iggle Piggle and Upsy Daisy and a bunch of cuddly creatures who dance and run about and generally do all the things that enthrall 1-2 year-olds. It was worth the expense and the 90 minute commute to see her riveted and so excited that she was beside herself. It was a hoot for us a well and it definitely felt like a rite of passage for all three of us. We went a little nuts on the merchandise because it's all stuff we can't get in the states. So that was our great London experience for the day...fun with Makka Pakka and the Tombliboos. 

On the way there Stacey stopped at the very nice coffehouse at our nearest train station, Browns of Brockley, and had a surprisingly delicious lamb and hummous sandwich. For dinner we had our last meal at our local fish and chips joint, which has excellent fresh fish, perfectly fried, as well as a beautiful whole grilled sea bass covered in tasty herbs. The chips leave a lot to be desired, but what can you do. Their homemade tartar sauce is the best I have ever tasted and the owner is a very nice man who always greets us on the street. So yes, I thought on the walk home, there are quite a few things we will miss even though at that very moment. I was cringing at the noise of the traffic and sirens on our “high street”. So now off to bed, only 5 more days to go.

I/we had another ioL day today which felt very good as a way of saying goodbye to a tough year. We went for a lovely lunch at our friend Lala's place in North London and she cooked us up a kind of pie (she called it) with puff pastry and veggie toppings of asparagus, red pepper, tomatoes and goat cheese. I was so hungry I dove in forgetting to take a picture. It was lovely and turned out a lot better than the pizza I tried. 

She also made a side of green beans, snap peas, and orange pieces with toasted hazelnuts. I did manage to take a photo of the lemon cheesecake. We loved the crust which was almost as thick as the cheesecake part and she told us it was crumbled up digestives (oaty cookies) with butter and some honey—it was divine. 

After a few hours playing with her friends daughter who was Gryffin's age, Carrie took G home and I went to try and weezle my way into see the sold out artist talk at the Hayward Gallery with my favourite author, Jeanette Winterson and contemporary artist Tracey Emin...and I got IN! These two female artists are an amazing gift Britain has given the world. It was so validating and timely for me to hear them both talk about how important the “self” is in their writing/art.  

Then after that---there's MORE—just a ways down the Thames I got to go and experience a contemporary art event—The bombing of London with poems! It's called “Rain of Poems, and is created by the Chilean arts collective Casagrande who fly a helicopter and drop 100,000 poems over cities that have been bombed. According to their statement, “this performance creates an alternative image of the past and is a gesture of rememberance as well as being a metaphor for the survival of the cities and people.” It was amazing to see the hoards of people get so excited to try and catch the poem bookmarks out of the sky.

Walking home along the Thames I was pensive reflecting on how different this “trip” has been from my semester in college. I knew a different London then. It was the fall of 1992 and I was working for a solicitor's (law) firm four days a week as an internship and going to class on Fridays. What I knew of Central London wasn't art galleries but various court houses where I attended as a solicitor's representative in my black Jones of New York business suit and pantyhose! I took notes on the cases for our firm and passed notes between our clients and the barristers who tried the case (with wigs and robes) and the barrister couldn't speak to my client without me present. I even had to bow to the Queen every time I entered and exited the courtroom because I was a “member of the court”. My social life, was well, social past 7pm and involved lots of pub nights and hanging out with college friends. I was, get this, IN the closet with my girlfriend who came with me and we manage to hide our relationship to our other three flatmates. I remember feeling very isolated going to “work” four days a week on the tube where no one made eye contact and I was often on my own during court days. And again I find myself feeling isolated without a community of close friends or family to support us. And yet, I feel glad that I've known London in the ways I've come to know it. It has become in a way a part of me in the same way that living in New York City has. I have come to know these two places from a lived experience and with that feel as if I have this access card to them that I can use whenever I choose. So here's to London...I'm sure I'll be back to see you through another set of new eyes someday, but for now you keep calm but I must carry on.

So today we celebrated Stacey being done with her viva (oral defense of her/our art project) by going to Jamie's Italian restaurant. Jamie Oliver has a bunch of restaurants in London all with locally sourced and sustainable ingredients. We like him because of his passion for food and education and changing the way people eat and his Italian restaurant makes a mean bolognese. Gryffin likes the free-range beef burger and the breadsticks so the whole family is happy. It is likely we will eat out more since cooking becomes a challenge the closer we get to our move date (3 days until the furniture goes and 5 days 'til the airplane leaves) so we will try to make those meals as nourishing as we can.

On another note, Stacey and I had a very interesting discussion today about having a queer marriage. We are very comfortable and confident with our sexual identities and with our relationship and we interact with the world as if it is a place that accepts us and thinks we're normal. I think that's a good thing. I think the more people, both queer and straight that project that confidence and give that energy out, the closer the world will be to that actuality. Also, I have no interest in holding any negativity and homophobia in my being...if my saying the words “my wife” causes a reaction, I really feel that is the other person's problem, not mine. I can still respect them as a human being and I assume they can do the same for me. And as I said, I think this attitude has served us well. (And yes, we are both aware of how privileged we are to live in places where we don't feel our lives are at stake and to have such supportive family and friends – we do not take that for granted.)

That being said, I am wondering, though, if sometimes it isn't a little naïve not to take into account the reality that we may be the first/only lesbian married couple with kid people have met. I wonder if people feel a little shy and as if they don't know how to interact with us and get to know us without using the wrong terms and possibly offending. I was thinking about the many women I see here in full burkas. I feel hesitant to talk to these women because I don't want to cross some cultural boundary and I feel I may already be offending them just with the clothes I wear. And yet I would love to talk to someone of that culture and feel free to ask questions and have a meaningful dialogue and I am sure there are those who would forgive me my ignorance and grant me a little leeway. I wonder how much this issue has affected our difficulties finding community in various places.

I am curious as to what others think of this. I am not sure how to make ourselves more accessible to those who would love to reach out but don't know how. So I am asking our little online community here – any thoughts? Does this resonate with you at all? Have you been dying to connect with us (or someone else) in some way but have been too shy/unsure/whatever to do it? Now's your chance. Be brave. And the next time I see those women on the playground I will go over and say hello.

Today was the art exhibit of our collaborative project at Goldsmiths. See a copy of our artist statement which explains what we “showed” at the exhibit. I realized later that in actuality our work is a site specific installation that takes place in the space of our marriage. It's also an ongoing project that has begun as part of an assignment but continues as we complete the challenge. We also have some ideas about how to continue the work and expand it out to our community, but I'll explain them later. After the show, we treated ourselves to a meal out at a new restaurant in our neighbourhood called The Gantry. 

They've completely renovated the space and the garden was particularly lovely to eat out in. Carrie had the risotto with butternut squash and I had a lovely crab and prawn (shrimp) pasta in a cream sauce. Since we are moving now in a mere six days we are doing our best to still eat well, but cooking will become more of a challenge, so we'll see how things go.

Today was a day of hard work, writing, cleaning, organizing, writing some more and we are both tired from the effort. It is satisfying, though, to look around and see the fruits of our labors, clean kitchen, completed paper, etc. I have been thinking lately that it is rare for me to stop and acknowledge the strength and growth that have come from all this hard work from the past two years. I have noticed that I am a lot stronger since becoming a mother. There is, of course, the ability to do more on less sleep. I used to feel sick if I got less than 6 hours in a row and Stacey would actually get strep if she had less than eight. Then there are small, weird things like the fact that I can deal with a deep tissue massage. Before parenthood I found them traumatic and excrutiating and now I have one every several weeks to help my plantar fasciaitis and I find the amount of digging into my tissue that I can stand and still maintain a level of relaxation is quite impressive. There is the gain of upper body strength. It is always amazing to me to watch mothers sling their kids around and I am definitely one of them, wielding my 25 pound daughter down steep stairs with bags and a stroller.

And on a deeper level, my level of patience has grown immensely. I have bounced and jiggled and sung to my daughter for literally hours on end as she cried. I have read the same book over and over all day until she had it memorized and could do it herself. I have dug deep to find love and enthusiasm when I am so tired I feel I could drop or so bored I just want to scream. I have bravely faced the crawling-out-of-your-skin-feeling of oh my god I just need to make it to bedtime and I have 4 hours and 23.5 minutes to go. I have faced the isolation and loss of identity that comes with being a mother, a stay-at-home mother, and a foreigner in this country and haven't been carted off to the insane asylum. Pretty impressive if I do say so myself.  And the reward, of course, is the amazing, glowing 2-year old who puts her little hands on my face and says Mama in that very special way that is full of love and admiration. It melts me every time. Ahh, the satisfaction of hard work.

We are nearing the exhibit for this project with only two days left before installation and another day before my presentation to finish my essay that reflects on the work and its connection to class. Yesterday I cleared out my school studio and in doing so have begun the process of leaving Goldsmiths. With the stress of these deadlines and our move my body yesterday tried to tell me to 'stop the insanity,' that is the insanity of trying to do all these things perfectly or to a level that does not take into account the fact that we have a two year old to care for. The way my body likes to do this is to give me a panic attack. And often times, like yesterday during class when it started I try not to listen and try to just avoid and get out of the attack (which I did by going outside for a breather). When I do, I rarely stop and say, hmmm so why did that happen and let's depict it and work with it. I just chalk it up to “stress” as if stress is an unavoidable byproduct of a/my situation and I don't have any choice or responsibility for it. And I know better. In fact, this year as part of an art project I did for my art therapy class I made myself a personalized “Panic Attack First Aid Kit” and discovered this idea of my anxiety not being something to avoid and run from but a way, a very loud and obnoxious way, but still the way my body has figured out how to tell me something. So, since I didn't listen too well yesterday, today I woke up with a migraine...and after taking my medication for it and sleeping a few hours I decided okay, I'm listening, I can't read the amount of research I want to and write a perfect essay and put up the show and continue moving our house all in three days and I'm a nutter to try. So, instead I'm listening to something I wrote as a reminder to my perfectionism from my kit: “You are allowed to do only the best you can with what you have right now.”

With that I've been writing here and there today while taking care of myself, Carrie and Gryffin. When we put her down for a nap, we took turns cooking. Carrie made her potato soup with the homemade chicken stock she made the other night and I made us a puff pastry pizza. It didn't turn out as well as I hoped but we ate the outside pieces anyway. As a topping I made my flash carmelized red onions—when I don't have the time to cook them on low heat forever, I start them on high and stir a lot, then when they start to brown I lower the heat and simmer for about five minutes. 

Carrie went to her last Yoga class here and I made Gryffin her favourite “soup with berries” which isn't made with berries but is an organic miso that comes in sort of a paste with barley grains that she calls berries. You add it to hot water or in this case I used our homemade chicken broth. For myself, I looked at the two middle pieces of the pizza and couldn't bare to waste the good sauce, onions and cheese so I decided to make a dish my old roomate Eric and I used to love. 

We call it “Pasta Povertza” (poh-vare-tza) which is pasta with whatver you've got in the house. I had extra sauce but not quite enough so I added some olive oil and cut up the top of the pizza into little chunks of the cheese with the onions stuck to it. It was spicy from the pepperoncinis from Italy I used (hot pepper flakes in their pods) and the sweet bites of onion made a nice contrast. Mr. Cooper would be proud.

Having fallen asleep with our darling daughter, I am now completely out of it and can't think of much to say. We are in the thick of things and trying to stay sane is hard let alone eating well. I made a a wheat-free pasta today using the chicken and veggies from yesterday. Stacey had a chicken tikka subway sandwich at school. I added a new recipe to our site yesterday...spanish rice..so check it out. And with that, since I can barely finish a sentence, I will sign off until tomorrow.