A 4-Euro Breakfast

It was my fourth morning in Berlin, the morning when all the German I studied in high school and college finally started coming back to me. The language of Rilke and Schopenhauer floated to the surface of my brain in soupy chunks that I had to fish for and prod with the help of the Google Translate app. A German alphabet soup. Umlaut, spazieren, zum Geburgstag viel Gluck, displacing the few Danish words I had learned the week before.

Berliner Dom

Berlin was a stop on my journey from Copenhagen to Khmelnytskiy, and a part of me carefully closing chapter after chapter of my life. I needed closure. I pretended like I wasn’t in Berlin for my ex, but I was.

I didn’t like Berlin. Too big, too similar to the Soviet vibe of eastern Ukraine. Too-wide roads with too-fast cars. An odd amalgamation of Soviet concrete and American car-centrism.

I stayed at the hotel recommended by my ex, a nice enough mid-range outfit with a Spanish theme. I suppose all this “ethnic” flavor was a way to differentiate yourself in the big city, but to me, as a tourist, it seemed silly. German was ethnic enough.

From my room on an upper floor, I could see the empty street below. My main memories of that room are associated with dating-app chats, conveniently updated to my new, albeit very temporary, location.

There was a very bearded, very serious guy, very much into Iron & Wine.

There was a guy with a shaved head and a writing style that put me on edge. I did not want him to show me around at all.

There was a guy who volunteered to bring me some drinks from a nearby bodega. I declined, but only after I satisfied my polyglot curiosity about what Berliners call a small convenience store that is open late into the night. Späti. A cute, endearing name pronounced as “sh-patty.”

There was, still, the guy I met in Copenhagen. We kept the casual connection up, I don’t know why. I think I have a hard time letting go.

And in the upside-down world of the U.S., there was, asleep during most of my waking hours in Europe, a good-looking American I knew I’d have to see again at least once.

I found the little breakfast place on Google, a bit of a hike from the hotel, but the glowing reviews of what one could get for €4 made it seem worth it. Besides, did I have anywhere else to be?

I checked out of the hotel, put my backpack on my shoulders, and followed the directions along the wide stretch of the road which made me feel very small. A tiny, insignificant, uprooted divorcee, lightheaded from all of this newfound space.

My route was all but deserted on this weekday April morning. I found the cafe, no longer deserted, and started deciphering the menu board.

Here it was, the 4-Euro breakfast celebrated in the internet reviews. I read it off the board to the woman behind the counter. She asked something to confirm, probably how do I like my eggs, and I said “ja” and smiled. Good enough.

I took the table marker and found a spot at an empty table outside.

I sipped my coffee and surveyed the wide-open street. Maybe it’s the lack of foliage in this early spring period that made it look so big and barren. Maybe it’s the master planning philosophy, visible only in plan, of concentrating the greenery in the shared yards of the apartment buildings, instead of in front of them. The cafe was on the ground floor of such an apartment building.

Anchored behind the bistro table and very quickly full, I didn’t mind this openness. I felt safe, watching people wander in and out of the cafe, talking, shuffling chairs. This was my last morning in Berlin. Today, I planned on boarding the train to my next stop: Prague.

Breakfast in Mitte

An older man came out of the cafe with a coffee in his hands and looked around for a place to sit. He came up to my table and motioned at the seat across from me: “Okay?”

I smiled and nodded. We spent the next few minutes aware of each other’s existence, once in a while manifested in a small smile when our eyes met. If we spoke the same language, this would have been a short but pleasant small talk about where I’m from, where I’m going and what he is up to today. He looked like a man who had a family, probably somewhere up in those apartment buildings. He would have told me he had two children and the younger one was a girl. I would have said I have three back home in California.

It felt like we said all of this, but telepathically. With eye contact and limited range of facial expressions.

He finished his coffee, got up, and with a nod, departed to cross the street.

I went back to looking up information about the museums I was about to visit in Berlin, before my train to Prague. I was going to Museum Island.

I was pulled out of my deep dive into the internet by the same man. He was standing in front of the table with a bundle of pink long-stem roses. He took one of them and offered it to me, saying in English, which he probably practiced all of the time between leaving the cafe and coming back,

“Have a great day!”

Surprised, I said “thank you” and smiled as he walked away.

I watched him cross the street again, the rest of the roses gripped in his right hand. What was the occasion?

Was it a random act of kindness? European hospitality? A flirtation from a middle-aged German? The universe trying to tell me…what?

I finished my breakfast with plenty left on my plate (that 4-Euro breakfast is the bomb). And now, I needed to do something with this long-stemmed rose. Sure, I could trek through Berlin with my backpack, a canvas tote full of books in one hand, and a meter-long rose in the other.

That wouldn’t do.

I opened my translator app and looked up how to say “Can you please make it shorter?” Then, I walked back into the cafe and addressed the woman behind the counter again, with the most German I’ve said thus far the entire trip. Miraculously, she understood, took the rose, and, snip-snip, handed it back to me shorter.

I felt such tremendous success, like I just had a 15-minute conversation with her about politics or contemporary art. All of my years studying German culminated in:

“Können Sie es bitte kürzer machen?”

Elated, I walked out of the cafe, put the rose in my canvas tote, and headed for Museum Island.

Museum Island

What about the ex?

We met up for lunch a few days earlier. It was the first time since I left for the U.S. many years ago, the first time since we’ve “gone our separate ways.”

I’m pretty sure all our ways are separate. But that’s another topic.

We haven’t seen each other for 16 years, the number of years we both were when we met for the first time. Something about the rhyming of history.

I spent a lot of those years thinking about the alternate reality in which we did not break up. They say losing a long-term relationship brings on full-blown grief, and the stages of grief are cyclical. It’s less of an orderly procession from the first stage to the last and more of a chaotic bouncing between all of them. I was forever stuck in the denial gear.

Our Berlin lunch was pleasant. We assessed each other, comparing the real-life people whose lives kept going to the preserved specimens of each other we carried as souvenirs.

Did you get taller?

I guess so.

I also got a whole lot less shy. He wasn’t used to me looking at him with such intense directness, as if he was a sculpture I was examining at a museum.

We spent some time catching up. He had gotten married, I beat him to it, and then also got divorced. I had three kids, he had not had any yet. We were each living strange immigrant lives. He spoke way more German.

And when the lunch was over, so was the angst. Cycle complete.

Chapter closed.

Thanks to the random German man and his pink rose, I did have a good day. At the end of that day, I felt ready to leave Berlin, with its wide boulevards and miniature spatis. It was time to move on, accept untethered gifts from strangers, and go have more adventures.

I held that rose with a smile on my face, and as I boarded the departing train, I felt even taller.

Berlin Central Station panorama

2022

Ever since I started blogging back in 2009 or ‘10, I have enjoyed the annual tallying of life events. And now, my winter doesn’t feel complete without a “year in review” post.

So this is it. Get yourself a cup of coffee, or perhaps a more…reflective…drink ;)

I realize that these types of posts are quite self-indulgent, and that you have a reality completely different from mine - but I hope you will still find some entertainment and insight in what I’m about to write. Sharing our experiences is one of the most human things.

Looking back at this year about to end, two things stand out to me: a tragic one and a happy one. I wrote about both of them at length in my “Love in the Time of War” post. The war in Ukraine and my wedding.

Here is the rest.

January

Sometime in late December ‘21, I get asked if I’d like to teach architecture at the local university. Surprising as this is, I have always wondered what it would be like to teach at the higher education level. It was one of the career choices I considered at some earlier part of my life but never pursued.

So, after some deliberation and check-ins with my business and life partners, I say yes. It helps that the commitment is limited to one class, one semester, very much defined scope. Let’s see what it’s all about.

Due to leftover covid policies, the first two weeks of the class are online. It’s brutal. I spend a full week before the class starts learning the ropes of the university’s remote learning delivery system and preparing my course content.

Thankfully, I’ve had a lot of virtual meeting practice by now. The very first class, although nerve-wracking for me, goes smoothly. I feel like I just finished a marathon.

Sac State card

They call me “Professor Watts.”

There is a sense of…not quite responsibility…maybe debt that I feel when it comes to teaching. Like I am trying to single-handedly undo the trauma of architecture school that I experienced.

Most of my students are women. How many female architecture professors have I had? Maybe one. How many of them were first-generation immigrants? None.

I know that it’s a huge task to represent, be approachable, and instill a sense of “this, too, shall pass” into the very abstract and self-important world that higher architecture education is. But I am proud of myself for moving the needle just a little tiny bit.

All of that being said, I do not re-enlist to teach another semester. My architecture practice needs my undivided attention and the stress of keeping up with both was getting to be too much.

I feel a blog post on the power of saying “no” brewing.

February

February starts with a celebration of sparkSTUDIO’s birthday. My firm turns 2. We light sparklers!

sparkSTUDIO birthday celebration

The rest of the month is taken by preparations for my upcoming wedding (and that of my brother, who decides to schedule his wedding two weeks before mine). Getting ready for two weddings at the same time is exhausting.

On February 24, Russia strikes Ukraine. My heart sinks. I am disoriented and paralyzed for weeks.

March

I used this sketch of Erik and myself on our wedding invitations

The war spills into March, and every month since. As a Ukrainian immigrant, I am struck by the survivor’s guilt, a particularly painful variety of an alternate reality. It could have been me sheltering my children in bathtubs, basements, and subway stations. Those could have been my brothers taking up arms and defending our country. I could have been living in any of the targeted cities - I used to be a regular on the overnight Odesa-Kyiv train.

The guilt makes me freeze up, strapped to the steady drip of news. Most of them bad, with an occasional injection of hope and even humor. Ukrainians have a sense of humor even in the darkest times. I can’t move.

I go through the motions, because the alternative is the depression paralysis. I get up and take the kids to school and I work. But any plans beyond tomorrow seem to be locked up beyond a door I can’t open. Today matters. Next week? Who knows what happens next week.

And yet, the weddings do happen. My brother gets married, and two weeks later, so do I.

My wedding is, of course, way better than his ;)

Tea time sketch at the New York Edition hotel

April

Our New York City honeymoon is beautiful. This is my third time here:

First, just an aerial view of Lady Liberty and an overnight stay at a motel as a refugee on the way to California.

Second, many years later, several days at an architecture conference, my first solo trip after being married for eleven years. The trip when I finally realized I had to get a divorce or else I wouldn’t make it.

And now, the third time, a new beginning. A perfect bookend to a chapter in my life.

We come back home in time to celebrate Katia turning 10. She is such an amazing, beautiful, bright human.

May

Sketching at Bodega Bay

May is busy with work. Seriously, looking at my photos from May, it’s pretty much just snapshots of “existing conditions” (industry term for already-built stuff), basements, attics, measurements, sketches, and pictures of my kids sprinkled throughout. It still blows my mind to see this evidence of a functioning, successful architecture firm that I started from scratch.

June

June brings Father’s Day, Erik’s birthday, and my dad’s birthday. It’s basically a father-figure conspiracy month. Erik and I take a short trip to Bodega Bay, a sleepy coastal town with ties to Hitchcock’s The Birds. (My cinephile husband thinks of all of our destinations in terms of movies).

July

Summer is in full swing when July comes. School is out, summer camp is in. Erik plays a show, and it’s great, despite his protests. We take the kids to a production of Beauty and the Beast, starring Erik’s daughter, who is an amazing singer herself.

August

The main event of August is my son turning 13. He is tall, handsome, and full of mystery. I see him turning into a young man before my eyes. (And all of my kids just luuurve Starbucks. A new one was built from scratch and opened across the street from our house. Highlight of the year ;) ).

September

September, as usual, means my birthday. I give myself the gift of a few days off and an encaustics webinar. I’ve wanted to try encaustics for a long time, but couldn’t swing it when the kids were younger (hot surface, blow torches, fumes…you know). But now, I buy a live course by an encaustic artist I’ve been watching for a while (and I once literally begged her to sell me a small demo piece during her Seattle studio visit).

Encaustics experiments

Encaustics is fun. I learn the basics, and very quickly become frustrated with the slow pace of the course, along with the artist’s unwillingness to share a more “advanced” technique that is her signature style.

Through a little bit of googling and reverse engineering, I learn that technique, too.

I vent to my husband about this artist’s stinginess…Which I’ve encountered before. Artists holding their cards close to the vest for fear of getting copied, or somehow taken advantage of. Trade secrets. Spy games. Scarcity mindset.

I think generosity is a better way to live. Don’t you?

My sketch of Katia at the beach

We return to Bodega Bay, this time with our kids. We stay at a “modern yurt” house, which is made up of two round “yurt” volumes connected by a more conventional rectangular core. It’s a curious place - at night, you can see the stars in the round skylight at the top of the yurt, and when it rains, you hear the rain all around you.

October

In October, we host an epic yard sale (the kids loooove yard sales) and my musician husband plays another show. It’s a blast. I love his voice and the passion he brings into everything he does.

And did I mention he published a book? I watch him work on it, methodically, little by little, on weekends and after work, for almost a year. He reads it to me at night, to iron out the language and get my feedback (though I do tend to sometimes fall asleep when he reads to me ;).

And while the book is not completely autobiographical, a lot of it allows me glimpses into his mind, both when he was growing up and now. It’s a well-told coming-of-age story. The man is a fantastic storyteller, yet another talent in his arsenal.

What else to do during presentations but sketch the beautiful architecture? Julia Morgan would approve.

The last weekend of October is taken by the Monterey Design Conference - a work-related getaway to Asilomar. It’s simultaneously relaxing and intense. I miss my husband and kids within the first two days. I sketch furiously, feeling my tired brain stretch out and enjoy the moment.

November

We celebrate Ella’s birthday in November, just after Halloween, which is also the 19th anniversary of my immigration. I do some mental math and realize that in just a few years, the scales will reach an equilibrium- I will have spent as much of my life in the U.S. as back in Ukraine.

December

Once December hits, I am ready for winter break. I “save up” vacation time throughout the year to take two full uninterrupted weeks off around the holidays. By American standards, this is indulgent. By European ones, it’s laughable.

Whatever it is, I enjoy unplugging from social media and letting my email go unanswered.

We have way too many holiday parties, between various parents and other family members. I feel a meltdown coming: me plus lots of people, plus no me-time, plus stuff I “have to” do, minus a quiet place to do the stuff I want to do - equals low, low, low mood.

Black and red sunflowers, a meditation on the war in Ukraine.

I wish I were a different person, someone who loves being there for others, someone who enjoys spending their “free” time interacting. Instead, I long for solitude. I feel the need to save my energy, whatever little I have left, and burrow into some dark, warm corner. Maybe I’m secretly a small hibernating animal.

And yet, I also love this time of year. I enjoy giving gifts. I crave the labor-intense holiday foods I grew up with: kutya (the cold and sweet Ukrainian “Christmas soup”); kulebyaka (the cabbage-stuffed savory pie); apple strudel with paper-thin crust and powdered sugar; red caviar on everything. It’s a comfort thing for the angry, hurting, homesick Ukrainian in me.

Two colors dominate the Ukrainian culture. No, they are not the blue sky and golden wheat fields of the now-ubiquitous flag, though those are also important. In the long history of Ukraine (longer than that of Russia, if you can believe it), the two colors are red and black.

Black stands for tragedy and sorrow. There has been plenty of that, usually thanks to some king or another, who decides to come, conquer and destroy our land. This war is nothing new.

Red stands for love and happiness. Love of a mother for her child, love of a woman for her man, love of a man for the land he was born in. All these loves are cross-stitched with a red thread into our lives.

And that’s what I think about when I look back at last year: black and red patterns. Love running through all of it, like a river.

What does it cost to be generous?

Q - detail

What does it cost to be generous?

I liked teaching art classes because it allowed me to share the knowledge and skill that I have in abundance with others. It allowed me to be generous.

Generosity comes from a human desire to help. Especially to help those that you can see need your help.

Is it generosity that prompts you to put an extra $10 bill into the collection basket as it passes you? Or the hope of redemption?

Is generosity simply camouflaged selfishness? Do you expect a payoff the next day, week, or years from now?

Do you do it because your cup overflows and you can afford to share? Because the risk is low?

Is generosity altruistic?

Is the warm feeling in your stomach, feeling good about yourself as a human being, is that feeling the payoff you count on? What if your generosity falls on flat barren land and you don’t see any results or hear any “thank you”s? What then?

Lotta’s Fountain - San Francisco

For me, the most precious resources are time and attention, and the ultimate act of generosity is giving my time and undivided attention to another human.

What about you?

In this “season of giving,” what currency do you trade for the warm feeling of having done something generous? Is it money? Time? Kind words? Professional advice?

What does it cost to be generous?

Love in the time of War

“I woke up to the news” is never the beginning of a happy story. On February 24th, I woke up to the news that Russia invaded Ukraine, beyond Crimea and the Donbas region.

Yes, but what does that mean? What it means is reading my high school friend saying that she and her family woke up to explosions heard in their apartment in Kyiv suburbs. Learning that at 5 o’clock in the morning, she had to yank her scared toddlers out of bed and hide them in the bathtub. Seeing the face of her 6-year-old son, old enough to understand that he and his family are under the threat of death, and not wanting to die.

I track the updates from Ukraine, unable to focus on anything else for weeks. I have to explain my state of mind to the kids, who notice that things are not okay. I show them the map of Ukraine, with the latest strikes identified in blood red.

This is Crimea, where my aunt Ella lives. This is Odesa, where I spent countless summers with my family and went to architecture school. This is Kyiv, the capital, where my friend and her two small children are hiding in the bathtub.

It doesn’t take long for my children to grasp the gist of the situation. Katia, my 10-year-old, puts it this way:

“So, if Russia succeeds, your childhood will be destroyed.”

…

It feels like I have been holding my breath since February 24. A behavior that makes sense underwater, but for how long? My wedding is scheduled for the month after, I’d have to come up for air long enough for that. The thought of postponing the wedding floats before my eyes like a dark patch of seaweed. How can I be happy when my people are suffering? I only have anger and sadness, and I can’t breathe.

Daily calls and messenger check-ins. Are you okay? Do you need anything? How can I help?

Helplessness settles in, despite the frenzy to gather humanitarian aid and money.

I feel paralyzed. My psychologist friend later tells me that it’s normal, it’s just my reaction to trauma. Some run away or fight, I freeze up. And I know that all too well, this time reminds me of my previous “defining life events,” the scopes of which were a lot more personal. The familiar dreams of being swallowed by a giant tsunami wave come back.

But what is MY trauma, compared to that of my friends and family going through this nightmare now? I push it aside, and it sinks heavily to the murky bottom. Something to dig up later.

Among the stream of war news, I come across photos of a frontline wedding near Kyiv. Bride and groom, both wearing camo, bow their heads while other soldiers are holding tactical helmets over their heads. The commentary from the western reporters says something about this gesture protecting the newlyweds from the weather, but I know it to be an old Orthodox wedding tradition. In a church, these would have been crowns held over the bride and groom’s heads. They would have been crowned, at least for the day.

And it strikes me how beautiful and life-affirming love in the time of war is. How this private miracle is also an act of resistance.

Russian warship, go f**k yourself.

I am getting married.

I push myself up to the surface, and inhale.

The wedding is beautiful. I’ve never thought I’d say something like this, the non-conformist and skeptic that I am, but I love it. My wedding gown has a train. A train! The only other time I’ve worn a big dress with a train was when I was 6 or 7, dressed up as The Snow Queen.

I choose a small hairpiece with a sunflower in it and buy a bucket of sunflowers the day before the wedding. We hang a Ukrainian flag in the backyard where the wedding takes place. Small gestures, all of these, and my heart hurts with a strange mixture of happiness and sadness.

Photo by Chris Bogard

No one holds tactical helmets above our heads as we say our vows, only close friends and family watching us and late California sun forming halos around us. Time flies by at warp speed, and here we are, married, flying to New York City.

New York is a plan B. Plan A, dreamt up before the war, was London. For a number of reasons, we adjust, shift gears and go to New York.

And the week in NYC is glorious. I feel guilty, again, having only skimmed the bare minimum of main updates from Ukraine, since a few days before the wedding. And yet, I owe it to myself and my husband to be…present. To celebrate love in the time of war. To breathe.

Which is what we do. We enjoy the unbelievable views from our corner room on the 38th floor. We don’t make plans and we do what we feel like at the moment. We eat like there’s no tomorrow. We breathe in the city, where spring is unfolding before our eyes, until we feel intoxicated by it. We breathe in each other, both comforted and thrilled by the intense sense of belonging.

View from the hotel window - The Manhattan Edition. Special thanks to the blue and yellow at top right.

Time stretches and flows, like a thick lazy river, and for a long moment, I bask in this private miracle of love.

People who have lived through tragedies know how to cherish the moments of happiness.

In the quiet alone minutes, of course, I can hear the low electric hum of worry and anxiety. It didn’t go anywhere, and I know I will be back to face it soon.

Our last day in New York brings warm sunny weather, and we watch as everything at once begins to bloom. I can almost hear Vivaldi’s Spring in the background, which, along with the honking of cars and rattling of the subway, forms the soundtrack to the complex mixture of feelings inside me. I’m sad to leave - this always happens after a good trip - and I look forward to hugging my children and watching them unwrap souvenirs. I feel the presence of war and pain, just behind my springtime honeymoon glow. And I am so happy.

Morning sketch of the Flatiron Building

We land back in Sacramento late at night and then wake up to the news that just a few hours later, Sacramento experienced a mass shooting. And…I don’t even blink. My Ukrainian friends call me to ask if I am okay, and it feels wrong. It feels insignificant compared to their reality. This is America, of course there are mass shootings. Just another day. As Erik puts it later, “it’s easier to get a gun than health insurance.” Anything wrong with this picture?

By this time, I feel like I am standing in front of the dam, which barely holds back the volume of information about Ukraine that I stepped out of just a week or two ago. I lean into it, and that’s enough to get swept away with its force. The discoveries of Bucha happen. Civilians, children are killed indiscriminately. Women and girls, raped and murdered. Full-blown genocide of my people is happening at the same time as spring in New York City.

All of this hits me head-on, the injustice and tragedy of it impossible to fully grasp. Lara, my trusty psychologist friend, advises me not to rush getting back up to speed, she tells me to wait and enjoy the honeymoon glow as long as possible… but it’s too late. My survivor’s guilt doesn’t let me last in the information vacuum.

And in a strange way, this time, as opposed to the beginning of the war, I am ready for it. I can handle it. Resilience, the sustained strength to resist and recover, kicks in.

There is still anger, hurt, and worry, but the learned helplessness and shock are gone. It is time to act. And my act right now is sending financial help. My hometown of Khmelnytskyi has become a pit stop on the way from Eastern Ukraine to Poland. A lot of my family over there is involved in providing temporary housing to refugees and transportation to take them to the border and deliver humanitarian aid. So that effort has become the direction to focus on. And you can help, too. 100% of revenue from my art sales is going directly to Ukraine.

Explosions of ammunition and unstoppable blooming of flowers, brutal death and miraculous newborns, families broken apart by the war and brand new weddings in spite of it. All of this, at the same time, this spring. Cue in Vivaldi.

2021 Was Not So Bad

Calendars are convenient. They give us a reference point to anchor to, handy for finding our spot in the spiraling whirlpool of time. Truth is, beyond the repeating patterns of weather and our own seasonal habits, every day, week, and month is different from the one bearing the same name last year.

And by the same logic, it is convenient to label a day, week, or year as “good” or “bad” because of the frequency of negative events and our capacity to handle them. Labeling a year “bad” helps us feel less of a burden of making it better. It takes us closer to the comfort of clearly categorized, black and white lens on reality.

I’m not saying that wanting comfort and clarity is wrong. It’s natural. But it also carries the danger of subjectivity and bias, which may not be ideal when you are trying to be an objective observer of the world around you. And it tends to lean towards negativity.

Memories of Copenhagen, sketching during one of many zoom work meetings

So it’s not surprising to me to see 2021 being labeled as yet another “bad year.” It was probably a little bit of a self-inflicted failure of expectation management - after 2020, we were all hoping for something better. And I think those who expected a “return to normal” were let down the most.

I did not expect a return to normal. It could be that my own life experiences have primed me to have low expectations as a guardrail against disappointment, and then be pleasantly surprised when they are exceeded. There are some questionable mental coping habits there, but we will leave it alone for now. My point is that I don’t think 2021 was a “bad year.” I am quite happy with how it turned out.

And so, here’s 2021.

In January, I pass my seventh and last Architect exam, the California Supplemental Examination (CSE). After a “long and winding road” to this moment, it feels surreal. The night before, the kids, Erik and I agree that if I pass, we will have sushi to celebrate. And if I fail, we will have consolation sushi. Thus the slogan “Do it for the sushi!” Is born.

Earlier in the month, the U.S. experiences a violent attack on the Capitol. It is most definitely the lowest point of this country since I moved here in 2003.

…

February

The main highlight for me is getting my Architect’s license in the mail. So much work, persistence, failure and success is wrapped up in this moment! As it goes with goals that are achieved, I almost instantly begin asking myself the question: “What’s next?”

What’s next is sparkSTUDIO. I hang on to the day job for a few more months of the pandemic but I have already boarded the train to Bosstown.

I immediately begin looking for opportunities to use my shiny new title of Architect on email signatures…and not much else. My answer to “What do you do?” becomes a little easier for me (because the law prohibits using the title of Architect unless you are licensed), and pretty much nobody else gives it a second thought. Wait, you’re doing the same thing you’ve been doing but now you have another paper on the wall? That’s cool.

Nevertheless, I feel like I’ve been knighted. I suspect newly minted Sirs and Ladies add their titles to email signatures at the first opportunity, too.

March

March is rather low key, other than marking the anniversary of the first Covid lockdowns in California. I manage to do some sketching while in Old Sacramento…(need to work on my car and truck drawing skills!).

April

April brings Katia’s birthday, a lovely family trip to the Pacific Ocean and our stay at the whimsical Mushroom House in Bolinas, where we are the first short term rental guests. It’s great to be next to the ocean for a bit, and see it from almost every window of the house. Such a treat! Armed with a recent Ian Stewart workshop experience, I sketch it in water-soluble markers and watercolor and leave the painting as a gift for the hosts. We hope to return next year!

May

I’m not even sure what happens in May. Work, worry, rinse, repeat. That, and planning a trip to Colorado.

…Which happens in June!

Erik and I go to Denver, Colorado, which is only a stopping point on the way to Estes Park in the Rocky Mountains. And Estes Park is where we find The Stanley Hotel (cue in dramatic music and thunder). The Stanley is significant because it’s the inspiration and setting of Stephen King’s The Shining. And that fact is significant, in turn, because my beau is a major horror movie nerd and this trip is a celebration of his birthday. Last year, we visited Ferndale, the filming location for another Stephen King’s creation, Salem’s Lot.

Colorado is beautiful. We take the winding road to the mountains in our white rental Camry, a feat impossible during the winter. As we get closer and closer to our destination, every turn opens a spectacular view of the mountains and forests, layered with fog and clouds, illuminated by patches of sun, dusted with faraway snow. It’s a lot easier for me to get excited by architecture than nature, but I am definitely getting into it!

The white structure of The Stanley Hotel stands out on the rocky hill it sits on, against the backdrop of undeveloped mountainside. We can see it from far away, at the very beginning of our descent in the valley of the small town of Estes Park. The hotel greets us with a wide porch I will later have breakfast on, a grand carpeted stair with gold-framed portraits following us as we walk up the second floor, and a glorious mountain view.

I am disappointed at the absence of a freestanding tub in our room. It was promised to me by the hotel’s website…and they forgot to mention that the hotel’s bathrooms were recently remodeled to replace the tubs with showers. First-world problems, I know, but I was really looking forward to relaxing in a tub filled with hot water….Not warm-ish shower with cold air leaks.

I suppose I will recover. We rest for a bit and then go to explore dinner options in town. The whole town of Estes Park can be seen from our high vantage point of the second floor room at The Stanley. It unfolds for us to go and learn about its streets and old buildings, its tourist attractions and hidden treasures. This is my favorite part of traveling. The unknown, soon to be known and loved.

We head downstairs, past the gold-framed portraits and their watchful eyes, out of the red-carpeted lobby now filling up with loud tourists. Erik says we need to go walk the shrubbery maze in the front of the hotel “real quick.” I’m starving, but I follow him across the muddy puddles through the maze, in the light drizzling rain. He is, of course, recreating The Shining, walking through the maze and then retracing his steps, like a giddy kid.

We walk into a small open space with a pond and sculptural water feature of two faces…possibly kissing. We walk up the platform at the top and look over the grounds.

“This is a cool place!” I say.

“Yes. A perfect place, in fact, to ask you something,” he says, and reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket.

I feel an odd mixture of panic and excitement as I begin to suspect what is about to happen.

“Whaaaat is happening right now?”

And what is happening is him pulling out a small box with a ring in it and asking me to marry him and me being completely unprepared for this and forgetting to breathe for a minute and then saying yes, of course yes, as I put my arms around him and kiss him, right in front of that water feature.

And I kid you not, while all of this is happening, the rain clears up and a double rainbow appears above Estes Park.

July

In July, I and the rest of my coworkers are ordered back to the office - the email from the firm management actually says “back to work,” which strikes me as incredibly tone deaf. Have I been not working the last year and a half, then? It didn’t feel like it. It felt like working double time, all the time.

I am not going back without a fight though. Work from home has become my default method and, while it has its own challenges (I don’t have a separate room to work in - but that’s not any different from working in an open office back at the office), those challenges are eclipsed by the benefits. The commute, generally a complete waste of an hour of my life every day, has become unnecessary, unless I choose to do it. And choice - in time, location, priorities, environment - has become the key word. Why would you give up choice?

In August, sparkSTUDIO wins an award for our housing design - an unexpected but very welcome validation of our work, something we still do after hours and behind the scenes of our day jobs. My son turns 12. Wildfires are back.

September is…eventful. I turn 40, and Erik and I celebrate with a long weekend visit to San Francisco. I geek out on public transportation, architecture and art. We walk the Golden Gate Bridge and that same evening, I have my first ever clam chowder in a bread bowl. San Francisco seems oddly quiet and disheveled …It is still the pandemic. But no matter, I walk around like a wide-eyed child, absorbing the best of the old and the new architecture that the city has to offer.

We spend the whole day at SFMOMA, where I am floored by the exhibit featuring the work of Tatiana Bilbao, a Mexican architect whose focus on affordable housing is both admirable and inspiring. She can’t draw cars either.

Right after my birthday, I sit down with my boss and tell him I am leaving to focus on my own firm. I offer to continue my current projects on a contract basis and we work out an agreement to do so. Two weeks later, I am officially no longer an employee.

And so, in October, after a very short lull, I get to business full throttle. It feels like the the best decision ever, even though I pulled the trigger a few months earlier than I had originally planned. Even though the world is still in the midst of the Covid crisis. I am loving every minute of building sparkSTUDIO and am proud of us.

I give a short talk about our award-winning housing project at a remote award ceremony for the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Erik and I go to an in-person, live music show, first time in forever. It feels incredible.

November brings more birthdays, an actual, in-person Thanksgiving, and finally cooler weather. I settle down with some knitting in the evenings, which has become my favorite winter wind-down activity.

Which brings us to…December. The Christmas tree goes up, the rains come, and we slow down for the winter break. This year, it looks different for me, because I get to say when I need to work and when I can take time away from work. It’s a double-edged sword, of course, as I don’t necessarily get paid vacation time. But I have the choice, which matters so much more.

Re-reading my summary of 2020, I remember the feeling of overwhelm by the barrage of negative events and oversaturation by the dark energy that seemed to fill the very air we breathed. Earlier this year, I caught myself getting sucked into the vortex of this darkness and overwhelm. And when I did, I had to pull the plug and step away.

So this year, the focus has been much closer to home, on the things I can control or at least influence. I have very limited resources to worry about much more than that.

Happy, New.

Well, what do you say after going AWOL for over a year?

Hi! How have you been? Hope all is well.

I’ve been all kinds of good and bad during that year and a half. A lot has happened but the main event has been my divorce…If you’ve been through it, you know it’s something that devours your whole life for a while. The hardest times for me have been those to do with the kids…I have three, and they are now 10, 7 and 6 years old. They have been my lifeline through the difficult marriage, and now in the absence of marriage, it is my turn to be the rock.

They’ve done well, considering. These days, they split their time half and half between mom and dad and a lot of the scary emotional uncertainty brought on by the divorce has died down.

I guess it has died down enough for me that I can talk about it. I went through almost a year of therapy (and could probably do a few years more). I won’t go into detail about why all of this happened here but you are welcome to ask. However dramatic it may sound, I feel like a survivor. There really were times when I felt I would not make it. But I did make it, and I am happy now.

After the divorce was final in February this year, I decided it was also the time to change jobs. Try a different size firm, a different market, see how well I do in a new environment. As a newly single mom, I was also feeling the need for more income.

I timed the beginning date of my new job a month after I quit the last one. That month, I went on my own “eat-pray-love” adventure in Europe. I’ve been saving up for and planning that trip for a while. And it was so worth it! I spent a glorious week in Copenhagen and stopped by Berlin, Prague and a few places in Ukraine. There is enough material there for a whole series of blog posts, but for now, just a few sketches.

Berlin

Lviv, view out of a cafe.

Right before I went on my trip, two things happened: 1) I got into a car accident that totalled my car and 2) I met the man I am dating now. Those were two independent events :). It was easy to pull off a month without a car while in Europe, but after I came back, I scrambled to get another one as soon as possible.

On the other hand, after one date and a month away, I wanted to see the same guy. We’ve been going steady since. If you were about to roll your eyes, now is the time - yes, I am dating a musician. He’s good at it, too.

So yeah. Divorce, new job, epic trip to Europe, new relationship. I’ve been busy. Ah yes, I also passed my last (6 of 6) Architect Registration Examination and now, all that stands between me and an architect license is the CSE (California Supplemental Examination). That’s the goal for 2020.

Often, I get asked if I still paint. I do, though these days, it has taken the back seat to the architect job and the rest of my life. It is harder to make the quiet space for art and to get in the flow. I have to physically take myself into a specific setting: I am either 1) traveling or 2) participating in a life drawing session. Both of those are a break from the daily life, rather than a way of life.

And that’s okay with me. The other repeating question I hear once in a while is “How do you do it all?” That’s just it though, I don’t. I haven’t blogged for a year and half because there was no room for it in my life. And because the heavy topics I wrote about would be out of place here on the website dedicated to my art. I have been occasionally sloppy with my art sales during that time, too. I have not felt on top of my game.

Sometimes, it is time to step away. It’s tempting to beat yourself up for not being everywhere at the same time, for not living up to someone else’s expectations. I do it all the time, and the expectations are usually mine. But if you pause and look at yourself with compassion, as you would at a friend, it becomes obvious how ridiculous those expectations are. You are doing just fine. You got the things that matter covered.

And to others, it probably even looks like you’re “doing it all.”

Tomorrow, a new year starts. It is my annoying habit to question all conventions and I know that there is nothing magical about December ending and January beginning. However, I also know that we have the power to make it magical. So let’s! If 2019 has been good for you like it was for me, 2020 will be even better. And if it wasn’t so great…well, there’s no way but up!

Happy New Year!