30 August 1971

42 years ago today my older brother Michael was born.

He was 8 years older than me and a mischievous little thing. My sister, who is 2 years older than him, and considered the most good-mannered of us three kids, did the typical thing an older sibling does.  She blamed him when she'd done something wrong aaaand she was so good at this, that our parents' believed her.  But, like any younger sibling, he looked up to my sister and when she couldn't zip up her skin-tight jeans on her own, he was always there with the pliers, ready to lend a helping hand.

My brother and sister were so much older than me that I don't have a million memories of our childhood together.  My sister was kind of like a cooler, 2nd mom who taught me how to play 'Go Fish' and introduce me to the Cure and Duran Duran, while my brother was....let's say.....not so much like a 2nd mom.  He was more like a typical older brother, looking to have some control over his life, and so while I don't have many memories of us playing and laughing joyfully together, high-fiving and building igloo's, I do have numerous memories of him sitting on top of me and tickling me (which is just the worst feeling of powerlessness, amiright?), or spinning our poor poor puppy, Lucky, by the tail.  I was only 6, but the look of fear in poor (un)Lucky's eyes will eternally haunt me. Once Michael dared me to steal a $.05 candy from the grocery store one day.  I wasn't much for breaking rules, but I did Looooove candy, so I did it. And then he made me give it to him. :/  That was probably the first lesson of many in "what happens when you work for someone else".

Anyhow - these are the memories I have.  When he was in high school, I was in elementary school and I spent most of my afternoons and weekends at gymnastics.  I'm not sure what he was doing.  He kept to himself a lot.  He enjoyed painting car models.  He had 3 cars during his high school career and I think that he really enjoyed the sense of freedom that having access to a car brings.

My parents and I moved to Texas and my brother was 18, so he chose to stay behind. I'm not sure what he spent his free time doing, but he worked in an electronics shop and became really really great at installing equipment and speaking the tech-speak.

A couple years after that, My parents and I moved to Eugene, Oregon and my brother moved from Vancouver, Washington, down to Eugene, as well.  I was always a little bit scared of him, because I never knew what kind of mood he was going to be in, but at this point in our lives I was 17 and he was 25 and it seemed like there was the balance and kindness and respect in our relationship that I'd always dreamed of.

His sweet girlfriend got pregnant and they got married in a hurry and then my brother's little red-headed daughter was born.  What a gift, a joy, a blessing, a miracle this was for our family.  I had alwaaaaaays wanted a younger sibling, feeling extremely lonely in my childhood, but this was a million times better. I was on the verge of graduating high school when I met my niece and in all my years I had never loved anything more. Loving her was so easy.

Years went by, things were really good between my brother and I.  We started spending more time together (willingly!) and I loved babysitting my little niece.  My brother kept busy with work and seemed to enjoy,  and be very good at, what he did.

One christmas, he bought me a 6-disc cd player for my '95 Ford Explorer (music + teenager = Glory!) and he and my Dad spent about 6 hours trying to install it.  It's a little thing, but I was touched that my brother wanted to make it work for me. and it did. and it brought me so. much. joy.

A few years later I remember my boyfriend at the time and I driving up to Portland to see my brother, his wife, my niece and...my New little niece.  Now there were 2 sweet little freckled redheads.  We had a bbq and had beers and chatted and it felt so good to be friends with my brother, Michael.

Our mother died from a battle with cancer in 2003 and that's when things started to change for my brother. I moved to Canada and he stayed in the Pacific Northwest.  I started getting strange phone calls from him.  I heard weird stories from my sister and Dad about things my brother had told them, and he seemed to be losing balance.

In 2006, he took his own life.  The death of my mother and then my brother are the 2 worst things that have ever happened to me.  Things I would never wish anyone to have to feel.

I believe with all my heart that my brother did the very best he could with the circumstances he was given.  He was a young, fragile child and then a young, fragile man.

I'm celebrating his birthday today with flowers and a nice home-cooked meal, and probably a beer or two, to honor the many ways in which he is still here.  Through the family that loves him and always will.  Happy birthday, Michael!!  Say hi to everyone for me.  xo forever.

Monday afternoon trip to the farmer's market

Do you love to cook? I do. Especially dinner for my husband after a long, hard workday (I swear, we work super-uper hard), or having friends over on Saturday night (ok, actually I prefer to go over to a friend's house for dinner.  what? don't judge!)

Normally summer time is my least favourite time to cook. We don't have air-conditioning and if you mix that with a typical Montreal summer + a hot oven, it means, first of all, that you're cooking in your underwear and bra and second of all, that you're dripping sweat into your bowl of gazpacho.

This summer was no exception. My lack of desire to cook was overwhelming.  The first half of the summer was spent planning our destination wedding and that left me with very little energy for the kitchen.  We got married in Oregon in mid-July and then spent a month on beautiful Vancouver Island with husband's family (where his parents fed us well, thankfully!) and then drove across the entire country back to Montreal (road trip sustenance included pizza, chips and a random combination of 'east meets west' chinese food + submarine sandwich drive-thru in Fargo, North Dakota).

but today in Montreal, it's grey and damp with the faintest note of autumn in the air, So naturally, I started to think about what to make for dinner.

I inherited a whole bunch of tomatoes the other day and I've been craving a blended homemade salsa,  like the kind I used to get for free at El Torito back in the early 2000's, but I didn't have all the ingredients, so I decided to take a trip to the local farmer's market.

It's an incredible, delectable market, with an open-aired concept in the summer and more vendors than the number of texts I can send in a day. (around 30-50.)  A few of the fruit and vegetable stands offer free tastings of peaches, nectarines, lebanese cucumbers, tomatoes with salt, whatever is in season, and so so much of it is local and freakin' fresh and delicious.

Aside from the fresh fruit and vegetable stands, there are vendors selling fresh cut flowers, eggs from local farms, pickled anything and everything,  an organic butcher shop, artisanal popsicles made in Quebec,  handmade soaps and salts, an olive oil and herb megastore, and oyster bar, a cheese shop (a cheeeeese shop!!), the best damn mushroom raviolis (that are amazing in a simple chicken broth with a sprinkle of green onions on top),  and cured sausages.

For my salsa I needed to get some fresh cilantro.  This is one of my favourite stands to get fresh herbs, multi-colored carrots and jalapeños.

Look at all these spicy peppers!

I got 2 jalapeños for $.50.

Last fall I discovered this cute little stand way in the back of the market that had braids of drying garlic.  I adore garlic and it adores me and I hung it on my kitchen wall and it lasted months and months.  It was so satisfying not having to buy icky, overpriced and under-flavoured grocery store garlic that was shipped from China.  Today I bought a $16 wreath that has about 10 heads on it and I'll probably grab another one in Mid-October, because I'm obsessed.

Today I saw that they have pepper versions of this and I got all excited. My local corner grocery store doesn't sell individual peppers, so you have to spend $6.00 on 20 peppers when you only need one.  I think I will pick up one of these to last through the winter and have at my disposal whenever my recipe may so call for it.  Glorious!

After I got all the ingredients for my salsa I wandered around slowly, taking it all in. Fruits and vegetables are so magical to me.  It's like a walk in nature.  All those fresh, local goods give me a happy buzz.

I just had to take a photo of this because It kind of blew my mind / inspired me.  I'd love to get into canning sometime in the near future.  It seems so economical and I'd love to surprise friends and family with little jars of homemade goodness, but until then I just admire the people who do.  People were going nuts at this stand over the tomatoes.

I mean look at them!  You could get like 400 tomatoes for $16.  Incredible.

Well there you have it! My trip to the Jean-Talon Market today.  I hope this inspires you to buy local too, and stay tuned for my Salsa recipe this upcoming week.

all love,
Tasha

 p.s. want to come over for dinner on Saturday? I'm making homemade chicken enchiladas! or if you want to have us over, my husband is super good at dishes! wink wink.

Late summer Sunday in Montreal

It's a sunny, perfectly-temperatured day here in Montreal.  I woke up rested and relaxed to quiet Sunday sounds outside the window and a soft, cool breeze that would occasionally rush up my nose and into my lungs.

My new husband and I normally get up at different times ( I won't tell you who is the early riser and who is the snooze master), but this morning we lazed and set the tone for what would be a relaxing, obligation-free Sunday.

I made eggs, we watched the last half of an episode of 'Orange is the new Black' and then we decided to play noon tennis.  We've been playing a lot this summer and it's very hard to beat this guy in a game.  Hours of tennis lessons, streetwise sensibility and my frightening grimace weren't enough to keep him from destroying me.  It was a struggle hitting that sucker, I kept making silly mistakes and the worse I played the more upset it made me, until I literally wept a little tear (or 5) on the tennis court.

I'm not known for being the best sport and it really sucks losing over and over again to someone that you want to see you as awesome.

But of course this isn't really about tennis is it?

I think as summer comes to a close (and when it closes in Montreal, it does NOT re-open for another 8 months, which comes to think of it is over half of Piper's prison sentence in 'Orange is the New Black'),
I feel restless and thoughtful.  Not in a nice way.  In a sad way.  In a what am I doooooooing way.  In a yes-i-may-be-having-a-pity-party-but-i-can't-help-it-way.  Because nothing is really wrong, but something just feels so shifting.  so uncomfortable.  It makes me want jameson on the rocks.  Maybe for you it's a pint cookies and cream ice cream, or running a half marathon, or ironing all the bed sheets in your linen closet, but for me it is jameson on the rocks and I don't reaaally want that.  Not when I'm trying to heal my persistent throat issued and go off my medication.  Not when I'm preparing my body for a little bundle of husband and wife-ness.

So I've been turning to meditation as much as possible, and just trying to get through this shifting thing as present as possible.  There is a 21-day meditation challenge that begins on September 10th.  Breathing is good. Clearing the mind of clutter is good. For me, I find if I keep my heart open to learning, then meditation always leads to the next bright, peaceful, summery space.

all the love,
Tasha

post-marital time on my hands (and in my mind)

I've been procrastinating blogging since we got home from our amazing cross-country road trip last weekend and guess how I've been procrastinating?  By reading amazing blogs by strangers I've never met but feel ridiculously inspired by.  I find myself buying Hanes sheer black leggings, just because I love the blogger writing about it so much.

I want what my favourite bloggers have.  A daily practice.  A thoughtful journey.  A conscious creation.

Post-wedding, I've found myself with a lot of extra time and I've been spending a lot of it thinking about what I want next.  The short list includes figuring out if my husband and I are going to stay in Montreal and get his business up and running or move to L.A. so that he can further pursue his dream of scriptwriting.

Also on the short list and connected to the previous item is find a comfortable home to live in. We aren't sure whether that means purchasing a house or just renting a really awesome open-concept living space, but we've been definitely outgrown our current plateau apartment.

I also would like to seriously start trying to get pregnant. We've 'toyed around' with the idea over the last year or so, and felt excited thinking about what it would mean for our lives if I actually got pregnant, but nothing has happened yet. This week I am also, by request of my naturopath, going to test for heavy metals in my blood.  Hopefully I'll pass the test and the perhaps in the next few months we can give baby-creating a go?

Lastly and definitely most importantly,  I want to stop drinking.  or at least stop drinking everyday. It's hard to type that in to a public blog, because I spend so much time and energy trying to hide it from everyone I know, but it's time to get authentic.  Even if no one ever reads this.

Maybe I should explain in detail, or maybe I should leave it vague.  I think I'll have to decide that on another day.

so much love,
tasha

Good morning dear friends of planet Internet!

This is my 6th and hopefully final attempt at coming up with a blog name I actually like and want to be associated with.  Yes, I did come up with those previous 5 blog names myself....  

There was the idea of having a music and food blog called 'Beats and Beets'... somehow this one never even saw the light of a first post.  

There was 'the lemon letter'... I don't even know what that means, but it sounds nice right?

Then 'Feel the wood' which was inspired by a quote that I had taped on the neck of my Yamaha acoustic guitar that said "Feel the words" but a friend once looked at the scribbly writing and said "Feel the wood?!?!" 

Then "Coast and Color" which I can only assume came about during an extremely short but intense love affair with the band City and Color.

I digress. I would log in to blogger and see these ^^^ blog names and feel embarrassed about them.  They didn't feel like me and even though I wanted to blog everyday, I couldn't bring myself to do it.  I want my blog to be many things: useful, powerful, inspiring, lovely.  But mostly I want it to be authentic.  

Grace and Janiper is about as close to me as one can get.  This is Grace.  She's 10 years old and has extra toes.  Janiper is a little bit camera shy so I'll have to ask her if I can take her picture for a blog.

Right now I'm writing this post from Ladysmith, Vancouver Island, British Columbia and I've been married for 19 days today.  In 2 days, my new husband and I will be driving our new car (that we just purchased from his Grandma Joan) back to Montreal.   It's a 4,973 km journey and I admit I'm a little antsy about it.  

We'll be driving the majority of the way through the Northern states and then up through Ontario and into Quebec.  We'll try to do this in about 4 days, because we were invited to play a show on Sunday afternoon and we'd really like to be there for it.  

It's a crazy exciting time for my new husband and I and my reasons for the blog are somewhat selfish at this point. If nothing more, it is a nice documentation of where we are at right now, which is a pretty inspiring place to be.  If the people of planet internet want to join me in my journey all the better!   

Have a beautiful summer day,

all love,

tasha