Mark Leary Designs

On blessings

“But I didn’t even sneeze,” said bird.

“Sometimes,” replied bear with a smile, “we don’t a reason to bless one another.”

…
📷: Endless and the White Stork
…

“An asper what?!” I asked, still wiping water out of my eyes.

“An aspergillum,” replied Sister Margaret Mary.

It was a Wednesday. I was 12. And we were leaving church and walking back to school.

Moments before, the priest had gotten up without any warning, stuck what looked like a fancy ice cream scooper with holes in it (an aspergillum) into a bucket of water and started going up and down the aisles, pelting row after row with the cold stuff.

“It’s a way to bless the congregation,” explained Sr. Margaret Mary.

“By drowning us?” I thought to myself. “Some blessing.”

…

“Blessings to you as you create your beautiful mobiles,” she wrote.

I handmake most every mobile to order. And that allows me to think about the person (or people) for whom I'm making each one.

Often I don't know anything more than a name and city. But just as often I'll get backstory on why the mobile is being ordered – childhood memories of seeing their first mobile, hand in hand with a father, a mom who’s always liked mobiles, a newborn, gifts to self after a fire or a move or a loss, and on and on.

I feel blessed to be able to meditate on each person as I create for each of them, with a known story or not.

That said, in all the years I've been selling mobiles (back to 2008), I've never had a customer wish *me* blessings as I create for them.

“Each day,” she said, “I ask my higher power who I will love and bless today, then I listen and respond. Your name came into my mind so that is how the blessing happened.”

I was genuinely touched, and did indeed feel loved and protected.

Higher power or not, who might you love and bless today, giving them a little extra comfort and tenderness as they bump against the world?

The steel I use to make my mobiles comes in large, thin, shiny, galvanized sheets.

Galvanization protects steel from the environment, a metallurgically-bonded zinc-iron alloy layer that sacrifices itself to prevent corrosion.

While galvanization allows me to safely store my metal, paint doesn’t adhere well to smooth, nonporous surfaces. It literally rejects the possibility of paint – peeling, cracking, leaving a mess.

However, when you ‘’rough up’’ that galvanized surface before painting – either through etching, sanding, or even white vinegar – you make it receptive to paint, you allow paint and metal to embrace as one. And the result is magical.

How often do you move through your day with your own shiny, galvanized layers placed between yourself and your environment, protective barriers bonded by personal bias and fear, assumption and past hurt. Walls that guard you from a world that can often seem overwhelming, scary.

While we may think these barriers keep us safe, how often do they keep you from connecting with your closest loves ones, the world around you, and even your own self?

How often do they keep stuff out, but also keep things trapped in by walls that literally reject the possibility of embrace?

Imagine, however, what happens when you are courageous enough to sand away some of those external layers, exposing your bare metal – or mettle – and making yourself porous and open to possibility.

Picture the kind of honest connections you can open up to; genuine feelings without the need to posture, to make up stories, to sacrifice. How magical would that be?

Easier said than done, right?

That said, where’s one place right now that you can put down that barrier to allow for the possibility of a more genuine connection? I’d love to hear…

Mobile: Efflorescence

What do you do in your uncertain moments? How do you react? How do you feel?

Many of the singletrack trails around Bend ride “loose over hard,” where layers of ancient volcanic grit blanket an eons-old underbelly of hardpack earth.

If you’re a mountain biker, you know “loose over hard” means traction is going to be your reluctant dance partner every time you ride.

The trail looks like it should hold you just fine, but grip a little too tightly on those handlebars or push a bit too hard on those pedals and that which appeared solid shows you it is anything but.

Tires slip as you accelerate or brake with too much force, slide as you press too aggressively in and out of corners, and wash out into a jumbled mess if you oversteer.

Think hydroplaning on dirt and you’re getting the idea.

Life, like biking, comes with a lot of loose over hard moments, doesn’t it; times where it feels difficult to get traction, where we hold too tightly or push too hard only to find ourselves slipping, sliding, washing out.

The trick of riding loose over hard is to prepare for uncertainty: stay centered and balanced on the bike, brake mindfully, expect the slides.

And maybe most relevant to life: in those uncertain patches, try to hold everything as loosely as possible.

How can you practice these skills the next time life throws something unexpected at you?

…
I was honored to create this trio of mobiles for Aldea at Glisan Landing, a partnership here in Portland between Related Northwest and to develop 96 units of family-focused affordable housing units for BIPOC, immigrant and refugee households, and intergenerational families.

I imagine many of these folks experiencing those loose over hard moments getting the support needed to find balance – given the space needed to mindfully reset expectations and get the traction needed to thrive.

300 million years. That’s how impossibly far back the Seussian layers of blackened rust red rock in Moab stretch.

I arrived only eight days ago. To put that into perspective, the first hunter-gather groups migrated here 10,000 years ago.

Under a broody sky heavy with cloud, I unloaded my bike and set foot to pedal—an arcing spray of rain-darkened sand spinning up, grain by grain, under tire.

Twisted rocks with their shifting shapes watched stoically as I took my first turns on serpentine trails, one journey ending, another just beginning.

I came out to ride , a 3-day mountain bike race covering 123 km and 2,400 meters of climbing (yes, I’m practicing my Canadian-ing, ).

When my coach suggested riding this race last year, and signed on, I wasn’t sure what to expect. As I rattled over those first few sections of iconic slickrock, I still didn’t.

The crunch of rubber on rock and the wing beats of a single inky raven overhead were welcome sounds against the noisy thoughts filling my head about what was to come.

I’m still processing what I learned, but…

- When we do hard things, we discover a lot about ourselves.

- When we bump up against new challenges, old beliefs often rub off.

- When we *believe* we can do more than we *think* we can, magic sparks.

But, left to our own devices, we can do it all, yet still miss most of it.

And that’s why I’m so grateful to folks like Emma, Tascha, Kiley, Eric, and Mike, Trent and Travis, Heather and Jeff, AJ and Lisa, Ryan, Dillon and Harris (from ), and Erin who reminded me of what a wonder it is simply to be alive; people who celebrated how lucky we are to “play bikes,” especially in these chaotic times.

With their high fives and called-out lines, with their hugs and smiles, with their laughter and bike fixes, it was being present with these people as much as riding the rocks that made these days under sun and snow so exceptional.

What or who are you most grateful for today?

📷: Parts & pieces, of mobiles and Moab

On starting

“But don’t I have to know where I’m going before I begin?” asked fox.

“No,” replied bear, “you only need to know why.”

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📷: The Classic x 2 + The Juggler
…

The first time I read about “catching a wild yeast,” I have to admit I was a little concerned.

“Um, do I need protection?”
“Will I get sick?”
“Is it curable?”

About a month ago, I decided to make a sourdough starter.

Honestly, I have no idea why I landed on bread, but making something at a time when so much is being broken felt right; felt like the right way to calm my nervous system.

I’ve been gluten free since 2008, so – with the exception of the occasional treat – breadmaking is foreign territory. I had everything to learn.

“Water and flour? Is that really all that goes into a starter?” I asked the question out loud.

50 million. That’s how many yeast cells are estimated to be in a single teaspoon of sourdough starter.

Yeast from the flour. Yeast from the air. Yeast from my own hands.

Yeast that gives the flavor. Yeast that gives the rise. Yeast that multiplies.

And the process is simple, and beautiful.

I feed the yeast flour and water, the yeast grows.
I feed the yeast more, the yeast grows even stronger.

Each morning and every night, there’s this unexpected anticipation and joy as I peek into the oven where this colony of life is expanding, a community working together.

I hold the glass jar up to the light and marvel at the network of gas bubbles (yeast byproduct, carbon dioxide) that have giving rise to an ever-changing doughy artwork.

At a time when it’s hard to know what to do, how to stand up, how to fight back, I take heart from a few hundred grams of sourdough starter.

“All you need,” they tell us, “is to feed one another, and you will multiply. You will grow stronger, together.”

That said, I am glad there is you. I am better for you being in the world. Thank you for being in community with me.

Where in your world can you add water to flour today?

On finding beauty

“How can you talk of beauty,” asked bear, “when ugliness abounds?”

“How,” replied bird, “can we afford not to?”

…
📷: Three Risenshine mobiles for a multicultural reading room in a new family-focused Portland development project serving BIPOC, immigrant and refugee households, and intergenerational families.
…

When I look out the kitchen window, I see my neighbor’s roof. And their cars. And power lines. And a tired, mossy fence. And my dirty recycling bins.

The view is, to put it nicely, ugly. and haven’t coming calling.

When I was a kid, we had an apricot tree on the side of our house. My bedroom window looked out on it.

Each spring, that tree would explode in a riot of flowers. Silken white pedals with candy pink centers. Ivory anthers tipped in golden yellows. A universe contained within dark brown buds just waiting to erupt.

Come summer, its branches would be thick with an impossible weight of fruit.

And on those long, slow August days, I’d steal away with as many apricots I could load into my untucked t-shirt; sitting at the edge of the untamed spaces behind our home, hands sticky and sweet, hucking pits into the unknown.

I planted the apricot in front of my kitchen window with the goal of blocking the view of my neighbor’s house.

The tree, however, stands quiet and bare for many months each year, just like it was last week.

But now, its pencil-slim branches are each lined with a parade of blooms, fluttering in the wind like things alive. I can still see my neighbor’s house, but my focus has changed.

It’s a reminder to us, that – even in the ugliest of times, like now – beauty *can* coexist; but it requires, it demands.

Inaction is not a solution for beauty, for fruit, or for democracy. Pests and disease always seek the easiest target.

And so we must plant the seeds; we must feed and nurture the growth; we must protect; we and must fight, especially against those who would rip beauty, and value, and love from our soil.

Where will you find or create – and multiply – beauty today?

When we first met, we sat on the dark green sunny grass in my backyard and talked for hours.

Like old friends. Like dear friends. Like close friends.

ARIEL, Raina, Ara, and me.

The air between us was dense with curiosity, respect, excitement, vulnerability, and laughter.

There was a time when the only thing missing would’ve been alcohol: a cold beer, a glass of wine, or a cocktail. That time has long since passed for Ara and me.

As someone who was terminally shy since I was a kid, I always felt like a drink was just the right lubrication to open me up.

The challenge, however, was one drink usually became many. And while I would’ve been considered a “social drinker,” it often felt like I didn’t come equipped with an off switch. Perhaps you can relate?

Since I stopped drinking alcohol nearly 8 years ago, I’ve never felt more clear, more connected, or more alive.

Although I don’t miss alcohol, I do miss that feeling of being out in a pub where you linger over a pint with friends, talking about old problems, toasting to new ideas, swept up in the low hum of a dozen simultaneous conversations.

While the non-alcoholic (NA) drink space is booming – Athletic Brewing Company is the #1 selling beer at Whole Foods Market – most bars + restaurants, even here in Portland, only have one or two NA drink options.

And that’s why I’m beyond excited about what Ariel is looking to create with , Portland’s first alcohol-free third space.

Yes, with its impressive selection of NA beverages, EverAfter will be an unparalleled bottle shop and tasting bar. But it’ll be so much more.

It’ll be a place where we can come together, gather as one and as many, clinking glasses, laughing, crying, expanding, evolving, a community hub where all – yes, all – are welcome. And that means you.

To make this dream a reality, Ariel just launched a Crowdfunder campaign. And they need your help.

By joining me in donating, you’ll be making the statement that safe, creative, and inclusive spaces are needed and valued now more than ever.

Click on the link to learn more about EverAFter and be a part of the vision: https://crowdfundr.com/everafteralcoholfree