1. rockband – DRUMS

2. polyvore

3. stir it up (for summer lovin’)

4. movie theaters

5. this cookbook

1. happy-go-lucky

2. maple candy

3. wild love

4. summertime

5. skip-bo

(photos via visualize/random)

1. barbra streisand movies

2. sweet, juicy mulberries

3. jyoti bihanga

4. lyle lovett

5. cloudy days

1. pink

2. pandora radio

3. earth cafe cheesecake

4. the beach

5. something beautiful by need to breathe

1. martha graham

2. i love you more than blank

3. kissing

4. fruit trees. i want hundreds in my yard.

5. this beautiful soul

i love looking at this face.

the photo and following story glimpse into the life of richard zimmerman, an extraordinary man who chose to live alone in caves that he dug himself with a pick, shovel, and prybar. i am in absolute wonder of this wise, unique, self-sufficient soul who defined true freedom through his courageous choices. he gives a whole new meaning to follow your own way.

Known as the “Salmon River Caveman,” Richard Zimmerman lived an essentially 19th century lifestyle, a digital-age anachronism who never owned a telephone or a television and lived almost entirely off the land.

“He was in his home at the caves at the end, and it was his wish to die there,” said Connie Fitte, who lived across the river. “He was the epitome of the free spirit.”

Richard Zimmerman had been in declining health when he died Wednesday.

Few knew him by his given name. To friends and visitors to his jumble of cave-like homes scrabbled from a rocky shoulder of the Salmon River, he was Dugout Dick.

He was the last of Idaho’s river-canyon loners that date back to Territorial days. They are a unique group that until the 1980s included canyon contemporaries with names like Beaver Dick, Cougar Dave and Wheelbarrow Annie, “Buckskin Bill” (real name Sylvan Hart) and “Free Press Frances” Wisner. Fiercely independent loners, they lived eccentric lives on their own terms and made the state more interesting just by being here.

Most, like Zimmerman, came from someplace else. Drawn by Idaho’s remoteness and wild places removed from social pressures, they came and spent their lives here, leaving only in death.

Some became reluctant celebrities, interviewed about their unusual lifestyles and courted by media heavyweights. Zimmerman was featured in National Geographic magazine and spurned repeated invitations to appear on the “Tonight Show.”

“I ride Greyhounds, not airplanes,” he said in a 1993 Statesman interview. “Besides, the show isn’t in California. The show is here.”

Cort Conley, who included Zimmerman in his 1994 book “Idaho Loners”, said that “like Thoreau, he often must have smiled at how much he didn’t need. É What gave him uncommon grace and dignity for me were his spiritual life, his musical artistry, his unperturbed acceptance of life as it is, and being a WWII veteran who had served his country and harbored no expectations in return.”

His metamorphisis to Dugout Dick began when he crossed a wooden bridge over the Salmon River in 1947 and built a makeshift home on the side of a hill. He spent the rest of his life there, fashioning one cavelike dwelling after another, furnishing them with castoff doors, car windows, old tires and other leavings.

“I have everything here,” he said. “I got lots of rocks and rubber tires. I have plenty of straw and fruit and vegetables, my dog and my cats and my guitars. I make wine to cook with. There’s nothing I really need.”

Some of his caves were 60 feet deep. Though he “never meant to build an apartment house,” he earned spending money by renting them for $2 a night. Some renters spent one night; others chose the $25 monthly rate and stayed for months or years.

He lived in a cave by choice. Moved by a friend to a care center in Salmon at age 93 because he was in failing health, he walked out and hitchhiked home.

Bruce Long, who rented one of his caves and looked after him, said the care center “had bingo and TV, but things like that held no interest for him. He just wanted to live in his cave.

“People said he was the only person they’d ever known who was absolutely self-sufficient. He didn’t work for anybody. He worked for himself.”

Born in Indiana in 1916, Zimmerman grew up on farms in Indiana and Michigan, the son of a moonshiner with a mean streak. He rebelled against his domineering father and ran away at a young age, riding the rails west and learning the hobo songs he later would play on a battered guitar for guests at his caves.

He punched cows and worked as a farmhand, settling in Idaho’s Lemhi Valley in 1937 and making ends meet by cutting firewood and herding sheep. In 1942, he joined the Army and served as a truck driver in the Pacific during World War II. When his service ended, he returned to Idaho and never left.

He raised goats and chickens, tended a bountiful vegetable garden and orchard and stored what he couldn’t eat or sell in a root cellar. A lifelong victim of a quarrelsome stomach, he survived largely on what he could grow or make. Homemade yogurt ranked among his proudest achievements.

He was married once, briefly, to a pen-pal bride from Mexico. The other woman in his life, Bonnie Trositt, tired of life in a cave, left him for a job as a potato sorter and was murdered by her roommate. He claimed to see her spirit in the flickering light of a kerosene lamp on the cave walls.

He rarely went to church, but read and quoted continually from the Bible.

(article and photo found here)

tomorrow is DO SOMETHING SILLY DAY, at least according to my calendar. the moment i became aware of this holiday, i got just a little bit excited by all the possibilities that a day dedicated to ‘being outrageous’ might involve. after all, it is not every day that we are encouraged to be our most authentic selves and break the rules that bind. we are usually being told to fit a particular mold, do what is right, follow directions, obey the rules, keep up appearances. now we are actually being encouraged to unleash our childlike innocence that has been begging to come back out and play. i can not think of a better holiday. actually, i can. i can think of a whole list of holidays i will add to the calendar year shall i ever possess that power. i’ll save that for another blog.

so here is an opportunity to try something new, to walk right through an all-consuming fear, to do something just for the sheer pleasure of doing it. and because i am honoring the big day, i have made a list of things to do, should you decide to be adventurous and splatter a little color across your canvas.

• play dress up.
• sleep outside.
• listen to someone who needs your attention.
• put on your favorite outfit. the one that brings out your beautiful, sensual self.
• take a road trip.
• engage in conversation with a stranger who captivates your interest.
• go for a walk at midnight.
• explore the kiss. try it 100 different ways.
• spend an entire day indoors by yourself. turn off your phone. unplug the computer and television. light some candles. use your imagination.
• spend an entire day outdoors. with nature.
• watch the sunrise.
• take a dance class. ballet. african. ballroom. salsa.
• go to a thrift store and buy something you never imagined wearing.
• smile. it will wake up the joy inside.
• surprise a friend with a homemade meal.
• book that vacation.
• stay in bed all day with a good book.
• take a train.
• make yourself a priority.
• fall in love.
• take off your mask. love who you are.
• break your own rules.
• vacate your comfort zone.
• color outside the lines.
• abandon your idea of perfection.
• flirt.
• spice up your relationship and plan a ‘first date’ with your current lover.
• try a food you have yet to taste.
• take a long, succulent nap.
• laugh out loud.
• practice random acts of compassion.
• dance with wild abandon. all night long.
• write a poem. say just how you feel.
• practice silence for 24 hours (or more). it works wonders.
• go into a wide open field and scream at the top of your lungs.
• write a heartfelt love letter. even if you never send it.
• become your own best friend.

1. thrift stores

2. cherimoya

3. the beautiful amos lee and every song he sings

4. lush, green forests. surrounded by trees.

5. realist painter daniel sprick

there was a time when i considered a personal retreat to be quite a luxury. but i have since discovered a well-kept secret that i can not help but share (and honor on a regular basis): solitude and silence awaken an internal awareness that abolishes external longings. occasionally removing myself from the all-too-familiar territory i call home for a few days does wonders for me on so many levels.

i drove up to santa barbara (a place i fall deeper in love with every time i visit) last week to spend some time in nature and reconnect with the soft-spoken voice inside that so often gets drowned out by all the noise in the world around me. after a few days alone and an abundance of quietude, my senses catapult to new heights, my mind clears, my heart opens, my ego diminishes and my energy awakens. these subtle transformations shift my perspective and encourage a deeper awareness that breathes vitality into my life, where colors appear brighter, faces (both familiar and unfamiliar) become more beautiful, relationships deepen, intentions return to purity and truth rises up out of the darkness.

going away for a few days to sleep outside, under the stars, is something i always long to do this time of year and i am loving these bohemian-style “shelters” that so seductively call my name.

(photos via visualize / sweet home style)

with earth as her canvas and paintbrush in hand, spring has arrived. could she be more lovely? i captured some of her most stunning works of art yesterday on my walk (all in my sweet little neighborhood).

i love the change of season, and spring feels especially exciting this year for some reason. i want to spend my days barefoot in the sun, frequent the farmers market for fresh produce, watch love come about in the form of spring flings, camp out under the stars, gather around the campfire over some music and laughs, road-trip to a beach town i have yet to visit, wear tank tops and flip flops, plan a summer vacation, dance my way into the hot summer nights…

AND climb on the back of a motorcycle on some far away tropical island.

i love those two hour, life-changing naps that slowly remove the foggy spectacles distorting my view, as i drift off to dream of all the magical places my gypsy soul longs to be, while curled up under the many blankets spread across my bed after spontaneously deciding to lie down for just a few minutes to rest my eyes. when i awake, all is right in the world.

i LOVE those kind of naps.

my sweet and lovely friend, sara mednick, who not only gives the best hugs in the world, but also shares my love for this type of slumber, has written a book about the beautiful effects of sleep called take a nap.

you can visit her website here.