Lala Leaps

Over drinks, I grumped with a friend about a book I was struggling to read from our book group. Ugh was my general feeling a few pages in. The writer is one of those storytellers that engages millions but not me so when my friend concurred, I was relieved and surprised. Turns out that having just gotten through the holidays (ancient alien practices of hometowns and family), we agreed that we prefer avoiding that reality stuff in books and movies. Instead we prefer more upbeat stories which in the moment felt true, though I do love "Silence of the Lambs," "Delicatessen," "Die Hard," and "Pulp Fiction," now that I think about it. The tenor of our conversation led my friend to recommend "Lala Land" and "Whiplash." The next day another friend texted an invite to see "Lala Land." "Sure, I hear it's a positive, upbeat film!"

"Lala Land" is in a genre I rarely watch, a musical. I got dizzy or seasick or something with the camera work zooming around to give the lay of the land in the opening bridge scene. It happens a few more times too- pool party scene, etc., but mostly I liked the fresh twist on  romance until the abrupt halt. The ending gutted me. My friend headed off to the bathroom as I sat watching the credits in some version of stupification.

We reunited in the lobby. "I can't believe that was the ending."
""What did you want, the alternate reality version?"
"No, that's not it. I just didn't like it," I replied defensively.
My friend holds open the glass door and as I cross the threshold and says, "It just shows that one of them would have had to give up their dream if they stayed together."

Bam. That's why I hated the ending- too much like reality.

I want movies for romance, adventure, heroines and heroes. Of course those movies are kinda boring after you've watch a hundred of them. Or not. What the heck is with all the remakes? Safe bets. People watch them. Some don't even get released to theaters, straight to the rental/download market. Anyway, no one in film school aspires to write the formula stuff that we like or at least watch more than we admit. The Hangover 3? Star Wars
75?

There are choices to be made in life as in art, and most of us opt for the safe ones.

The universe is priming me to do something outside my comfort zone, something arty, creative. Uncomfortable. I want to do something that makes me uncomfortable in 2017, a lala leap, a dream.

Get busy

"Do you ever think about dying?" a friend asked today which stands in contrast to recent thanksgiving holiday conversation spent chatting about martinis and dead plants. Yes, I'm aware that we're all going to die sometime sooner than we'd like; however, I'm not as worried about dying as I am about living.

I once had a bucket list in my early twenties. In making it I realized I was better off tossing the list for some deep work on a few things. 

In the movies the villains are identified by their lack of humanity and self-serving ways; they don't need much. Villains roam about alone with every pleasure met and in command, until they are not. Life too tends to celebrates aloofness and the fruits of self-control from graduation to promotion to physical commitments. It's easy to forget that the self-serving ways and lack of humanity toward others is what does in the bad guys. That and stagnation, the refusal to grow or change. 

"Get busy living or get busy dying," said someone, Red I think, in "Shawshank Redemption." The world shakes you up, swishes you around, and spits you out. It should change something in you or at least make you want to hang on to whoever's next to you. If you keep pulling back from others, letting go, you might be busy dying. If your hands are full from encouraging and holding others, well, you might just be busy living. I aim to live like I might die in the sense that I need to be kinder, softer, and more, well, more connected. 

Connection interests me because it's at the heart of community, vitality, and it relies upon openness, trust, and an inner resilience that springs from a faith in fellow beings as helpers, encouragers, and as vectors of good. Connection is hard, it can hurt. It's scary because it makes you vulnerable, but shutting yourself off doesn't work so great either. We don't always get to be givers. Sometimes we have to receive. Ask for help. If this feels hard, then this definitely applies to you. If you're of the opposite camp, always in need of help, go help someone else.

That crack in your heart that we are all so busy protecting, yeah, somebody is going to jump on that, let it be a springboard to something good instead of a pit into a vast darkness. Death isn't exactly waiting for you to eat the salmon mousse. A little sunshine, some patience, some quiet time- ask someone to rub your feet, you'll be just fine and better for asking for it or for giving it, just get busy, living. 

Elections

I have voted absentee ballot most of my life. When I first lived on Capitol Hill in  DC, I was eating dinner at a local pub when the election results started coming in. Young hill staffers were sitting at tables with cups of beer watching the election results. As victories and losses were announced, staffers would groan, knowing they were facing job loss. Eventually shouts and calls ensued, with, “Who’s hiring!?” There are loses in every election.

After this election it occurred to me that for a long time, there has been a portion of our population that has felt left out- left out of jobs, of growth, of opportunity. Look around, you are in Appalachia where a lot of poor white people have felt left out for a long time. I’m starting to think that Trump's appeal is about populism, about standing against a political machine, and, unfortunately, I surmise that the Democrats populist candidate (Bernie) was out maneuvered by the political machine which left only one outsider, Trump.

What if Trump's election is not about his social policy, but about standing up to the political machines that have only paid lip service to those who have been left out?

Licked by a Tiger

The soft probing lips of a camel nuzzles my cheek and sends tingling sensations allover my surprised body, confounded by the sensory overload.  The wet sandpaper lick of a cat offers a sense of intimacy that makes me both pull back and fall into it with giggles and pleasure. The tiger's stealthily approach and giant tongue that goes up one side of my face and down the other, sends neurological synapses firing from my brain to my toes in wave patterns; I brace for the claws. The teeth. They never come. The overwhelming physical and emotional violation of this kind of intense engagement is hard to explain to both the tiger or others, unless they too have been reared or loved by one. My mother-in-law loved in this intense fashion.

The cost of loving like a wild beast is that some will fear you even as you learn to relax and accept it. As I grew more confident as a daughter-in-law and later as a mother, I was able to better appreciate that my mother-in-law loved me in her way. Still, I had to manage the intensity of her love, every time, and I spent a lot of time avoiding the licks of the tiger.

I often wished that she could have adjusted her approach to love to something that wasn't so overwhelming, so daunting. I was certain that she had never been told, but the truth is she could never hear it. No one can tell the tiger anything but perhaps the young, the pure of heart. My daughter once told her grandmother, in her firm child voice, "No. I don't like that Mimi." My husband and I looked up, curious. The look on Mimi's face was priceless, of shock, but then it gave way to a breaking smile. No one but the wee one dared to tell her no.

The child took the licks and earned the right to say no to the requests. Never the licks. Childhood is a time of intense relationship building, of intimate bonding, but as we grow, the need to connect to the wider, broader world, increases.

Those intense, well-meaning, licks, kept us isolated and apart. The tiger never learned and neither did I. Consider this. Anytime your licks create walls or gates to go up, you are making it harder to become one, to bring others together.

An Evolution of Happiness

I just want you to be happy.
Thanks Mom. 

That felt like a ton of bricks when I went off to college. I didn’t know what would make me happy. I thought I was alone in this particular confusion, that I was born this way. There's some truth to this. Researchers at the University of Minnesota studied identical twins separated at birth and found that half of our happiness is hard wired; it’s in our genes. I’m a fairly serious, randomly funny, person that lives a messy life full of distractions, pot holes, and time warps. I would not say that I’m gentically programmed to be extremely happy, but I get that I, and you, are uniquely, genetically endowed- no other snowflake is like me or you. I thought happiness was follow this path to a good job and have a family on this timeline. However, who knew that learning the how and what it is that makes me, specifically me, happy would be so hazy.

Sometime in the mid two thousands with small babies in the house, my husband came in crowing about having heard the secret to happiness on the radio. I cocked my head.

Well?
It’s not what you think. It’s not the lottery, a powerful job, or money.
It’s two children under two?
It’s how close you live to your job!

A study had found that proximity or living close to your job, a short commute, was the key to happiness. At the time, we lived in Washington, DC, where no matter where you live, it takes forever to get where you need to go. A frustrating commute could turn a sane person crazy. From DC we would visit Athens and marvel that we could get anywhere in town in less than fifteen minutes. That moment was the set up for our intention to live some place that we could readily traverse.

My next external happiness clue came from a National Geographic story about the Blue Zones where pockets of longevity were studied that included, Loma Linda, CA, Sardinia, Italy, and Okinawa, Japan. Diets varied from vegan to Mediterranean, required no unusual exercise regimens beyond natural activities like walking but all of them had faith, family, and social networks that supported healthy behaviors. Happiness again seemed to be partly about location, a community having certain things in it.

The Harvard Grant Study which looked at a group of Harvard undergraduates over a seventy-five year period concluded that the best predictor of happiness is not the perfect job, not money, health, nor good looks, it's relationships. All you need is love.

Ok, so love and location.

The thing was, I was married, with kids, but I mostly wished I had some space, another location, from all that relating, love. Space to think in complete sentences. I missed my job where people listened to me, paid me money, and did what I said. I missed that, but not all of it, not the fifteen hour days, not eating takeout most nights, and not the just work, work, work. I wanted a better handle on my commute, my community, but also on my day to day life. I wanted to cook my own dinner. Read more books. There was something else I couldn't quite put my finger on. What else? Some big goal?

Research says one off events like getting a dream job or moving to Athens impact happiness but that these kinds of huge goals dissipate quickly which bring us to the ongoing twelve percent rooted in valuing faith, family, community, and work. 

I attend church regularly, I meditate occasionally, I work in the community frequently, and that family it keeps on loving me whether I’m happy or not, but work? Not eighty hour weeks that give us health problems. It’s co workers those social connections, but it’s also rewarding work. 

Rewarding work?

Rewarding work is about earned success, and you define how you earn this success- sales? Students taught? School lunches changed? Stories written? Films made? If you can discern your own project and discover the currency you value, work will be rewarding.

The pursuit of happiness is about discerning what makes you happy, but that is a kind of slippery thing. You have to notice what excites you. What do you love? What fuels your interest over time? Pay attention to what excites you. Notice your taste. Pay attention to your attention. I'll steal a line from Ira Glass, What make your world seem bigger, like a world you want to live in? A world with surprise? Joy? Then you have to learn to throw up the question, what's amusing to you? You have to figure out how to do this from where you are doing the work you do... so choose wisely. 

It's in your choices that you'll find your happiness, but you'll have to choose what makes you happy again and again and again. Happiness evolves.

Breathing into Being

The second I sense that I need to talk to someone in an open environment, meaning not with a specific platform, pressure enters and I sound ridiculous even to myself, or I clam up and say nothing- particularly in a group setting or party. It's exasperating! A tape plays in my head, "You're terrible at small talk, you can't do this." I get so busy listening to this con that I can't marshall my tongue to move or my brain to come up with a question. Sometimes, I practice a question beforehand, particularly for gatherings or parties, so I have some generic ice breaker at hand like, "What are your plans for the weekend, spring break, the holidays, etc." Sometimes I'm so busy playing that loser tune, even the prep question alludes my holely brain. Sometimes I stumble into meaningful conversation, but at heart I remain unsure of how to easily enter conversation about the ideas that interest me. 

Yesterday, I confessed my discomfort in asking for donations because it feels like sales- I'm terrible at sales, not a salesperson, blah, blah, blah. My friend eyed me over once and then said, "That's not true. Kim, you're very good at selling an idea you're passionate about. You've sold me before!" With that statement  and alternative perspective ringing around in my head, I went to an exhibit today that was in part in existence because I helped championed it.

Truth is I championed something because I couldn't find anyone else to do it. I asked other champions to hang with me and see what they could do with their ideas. Today I saw that the work of other people came out of that breath I was willing to blow months and months ago and realized what can happen when I half heartedly attempt to keep a beautiful thought alive- like at museum exhibit and a card game!

Now for less tape playing and more breathing... keep going!

That cool card game that got made as part of Upgrade Athens Co.

from the Discovery Museum exhibit of the Green Revolution

Poetry on Chocolate Wrappers

My fav chocolate bar, almond and sea salt, gets deployed for a variety of excuses ranging from menstrual cycles, happy days, to today's post recovery from heatstroke/hypoglycemia after bicycling on a hot day without water longer than my usual twenty minute rush uptown. The best part? It was the last piece of chocolate so I got to read the poem inside the wrapper. "I got a golden ticket," knocks about in my head when this happens as does that Harry Potter had to eat chocolate to feel better, I applaud that practice heartily.

Poetry printed on the inside of chocolate wrappers is a marvelous thing. However, I have to admit, sometimes the poems are over my head even though they sound fabulous. Maybe it's language of long ago, some structural thing that I don't comprehend, my thick skull, or general lack of experience with poetry. For me, it's the thrill of finding the poem like getting the toy in a Cracker Jacks box. It adds an extra dose of happiness in the moment of discovery.

Surprisingly, more packaging doesn't contain artistic nips of poetry like bad jokes on Bazooka bubblegum or self-help mantras. It's an opportunity to cheerlead the customer.

Tonight my daughter asked me, "If you could redecorate the world, would you do it?" Thinking of the great undertaking it would be, I turned down the offer. Surprised, my daughter said, "You wouldn't redecorate the world to make it better for poor people, put in nice bathrooms, plant more trees?" I replied, "I didn't know that's what you meant by redecorate."

Now that I think about it, more trees would be a fine an addition to the world and maybe more poems on more packaging to inspire us all, rich or poor.

Granular

My husband told me of a new business term he heard used for getting into the details today, granular.

I know the term granular as it relates to wound care. Granular means that the wound has new tissue filling in at the base. In nursing, you're trained to look for this sign of growth.

Business terms like granular are co-opted into business speak because they have meaning somewhere else. As I thought about the word granular, it came to me that it has life usage too.

When your spirit or life takes a new direction, the earth shattering stuff comes from deep down and is rebuilt, not in one fell swoop and not on the surface, but at the base-- bit by crumb by bit.

The Hero

Dear Uncle N,
Only time will tell if she will ever know the story, but something tells me that she will shrug it off as if she knew all along it would be you.

She's never doubted one of you, ever. She may have admonished any one of you from time to time, but she never doubted the great stuff of which any one of you were made. Not because she made you, but because she watched time and experience mold you into noble and great human beings.

There may be fewer pictures in your baby book, there may be some mixed up memories of your first words, but you got more real estate in her heart, as the baby-- of this there is no doubt. No one even begrudges this, which is why it is so fitting that it was you that saved the day.

Thank you for helping us to see how important it is to do your homework, to look at old images and to compare them with new ones, to ask bold questions, and to pursue experts. Thank you for being wicked smart and leaving no stone unturned. Another day will come, and you may not be able to maneuver the fates, and for that I fear a wearisome struggle for you and for us.

I have no stripe to add to your sleeve, I've no sword to knight you with, but I do really, really get that you were the one who made a difference on this one important day. You are the hero. In the movies, the hero strides in with clanking boot spurs or on a white horse, but in real life, he's wearing khakis and fleece, and he has trained, researched, and consulted to do this one thing that counts in this moment as if his whole life prepared him for the day.

Thank you for being you.

xo

Old Wood and a Long Wait

As I feed the old wood into the fire. My thoughts swirl around a dead tree's new life as dancing flames. Bright orange and yellow lights glow before me as I sit mesmerized by the heat and energy.

My mother-in-law's body struggles onward, its functions met by the administrations of hospital nurses, tubes, and drips, but the brain rallies no longer. I dare to ask, how much longer. "Everyday something different happens, who can know?"

How like life-- we make our plans and then poof, they are gone as if spit in the wind.

According to the doctors, the brain is gone and will not come back. Another pounces for certainty, "Are you sure?" Just a minute ago, uncertainty was waved in my face, now it is thrown again from a different angle. 

Certainty shimmies away.

I press cold fingers into warm skin. A body lies before me, unable to move or speak. Bandaids, tubes, dressings, and machines, cover and whirr. It is a scene out of reality, yet surreal. I'm asked if I want to leave. I'm confused. I want to know, I want to see evidence.

Consultations ensue. Some experts consulted say no recovery is possible. Other experts are found that say the brain must first reabsorb the blown up tumor tissue, but it is possible. 

Possible? How long do we wait? How many before her have recovered? How likely is it that the brain will be uninjured? Will she come back?

The waiting continues. There are no quick or easy answers.

Sewing Patches

Unskilled stitches erratically poke between fabric layers with fatigue. It's late, after midnight, as I finish sewing the corporal stripes onto a World War I doughboy uniform. I think of the small boy who will wear the uniform to go trick-or-treating. I think of his grandmother, Mimi, holding onto life by threads as she breathes through a tube and doctors plan one last attempt to bring her back to us. I will remember these imperfect stitches I did not plan. But then, who plans these things? Ok, if you read the headlines at the checkout, some do. For others, the inevitable comes full bore and without warning, like this thing with Mimi.

I stitch and tell the little boy that we might need to prepare ourselves for something sad as things may not work out for Mimi.  He tells me to be hopeful. I am, but I am also shaken enough to know that she is near a dangerous precipice. I sent her little boy to be at her bedside. 

My little boy and I watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, a TV special I've watched dozens of times, always with a craving for a snack cake. Vince Guaraldi plays the cheery jazz melodies from World War I for Snoopy's flying ace scenes-- It's a Long Way to Tipperary. My doughboy knows that and a few more. Heck, he taught me to sing the words. Although I've been watching that special since at least 1976, I never appreciated those songs until now.

We sing to keep away unpleasant, unproductive thoughts. No wonder the tunes are catchy, they have to be for soldiers. So I stitch for little boys, for the ones who make me feel hopeful, even on a grim night and hear joyful melodies in my head long after the show is over.

That Moment...

"You know that moment before a party when you and your significant other hang back in the car and talk about your party strategy?" asked my classmate. I was tempted to be honest and say no, but instead I nodded assuredly.

I was given a scene in a classmate's film project with the instruction to only say one line while another classmate went off on a Woody Allen-esque tirade. I learned a few things:

1. Doing five takes with four people in a car on a rainy day quickly steams up the windows.

2. When your passenger is an improv actor that says anything and everything, the preparty strategy session can be hilarious.

3. Boys always go for the French girl.

4. I realized, in real life, I rarely drive to parties.

5. Either I live in a small walkable town, or I don't have so many parties to attend.

6. Creating work is fun.

Staying in the Moment

Chaos has fueled the desire for a life so full of routine that boredom ensues. I've always thought it would help to stay in the same place for a very long time, and, though I suspect that someday I'll experience death by routine, it's yet to hit my radar. 

My quest for a life of routine is partly about channeling the fluctuations of emotion and energy that make up daily life. On that front, I aim for a  daily walk along the river. Recouping from a recent injury, grateful for mobility, I ambled off listening to a conversation from On Being about noticing the moment-- an exercise to look for five new things about a person you talk to everyday caught my interest. Since there was no office to duck into after the show, I tried to notice new things around me-- the leaves starting to turn though it's August,  a few of those fluorescent yellow and black birds still fluttering about town, and that some people smile on the bike path, but they usually aren't wearing a headset.  One guy saw me trying to read his shirt. I knew he had put it on mindlessly when he pulled it out in front of himself to read it. His shirt had a Chinese character on it, and I don't think either of us knew the kanji's meaning. 

The discipline of noticing is an effective tool for getting into the moment, but it's hard to stay there. 

Drinking Coffee with Munsters

It's the last day of our trip, 6:30 am. I'm in a coffee shop with two kids so Dada can sleep. They're wearing their pajamas and discovering the thrill of beverages without the need to turn on the stove or a pot.

Uninterrupted thoughts are rare in the life of a parent. I'm thinking Dada needs to wake up soon.

Film Cameo

I auditioned for a film role under duress. Though I did not get the role, I found the experience to be revelatory. I thought acting was about the desire for attention. However, in facing my fear that others would be looking at me,  I, instead, found myself tapping into an inner space that I didn't even know existed. The emotional flow felt amazing as it came out in the scene!

My friend, the film director Pearl Gluck, later came back and told me that she had several people unfamiliar with the players look at the screen tests. She said (flattery to ensue) that several of the unknown people mentioned my screen test. Though it was clear I was not a trained actress (the role went to a trained actress), she wanted me to do a cameo in the film. She then secured the deal by telling me that I could write my own dialogue. That lured me right over the edge of safety.

Last night I went to the film set of The Turn Out at eight in the evening. I left at three thirty in the morning, all for my brief appearance.

Despite having written the lines, though she did change the name of the role, I could barely remember the story I had concocted for myself, despite frequent re-readings, with my internal panic and all of the people looking at me. I can't imagine how the scene will appear on the screen. It was so intimidating to muster that inner emotional flow in front of a group of actors and the film crew. I did what I could do. I'm grateful and happy to have played a part in bringing my friend's story to the screen, but don't expect to see me in another role anytime soon. It's like messing with crazy power, and I'm not sure I want to know what is in the genie's bottle.

Stay tuned, there is a movie coming out of Athens at the end of summer. I keep learning again and again that art is vital to the human experience-- make some, see some, support some. Thank you for the opportunity Pearl!

Rescuing a Drunk

My husband noticed a young woman was dropped off by a car just ahead of us as we walked home from a friend's birthday celebration. Expecting her to faceplant onto the sidewalk with every lurch, I kept up a steady stream of gasps. Finally, at the top of the hill, we overtook her, but I couldn't just pass by her. Instead, I said, "Honey, you're drunk. You need to go home. Do you know where you live?" I took hold of her trying to keep her upright. She seemed to have some sense of direction so we wobbled along, me holding her, her stumbling, and my husband, uncertain, but following.

She walked out of her flipflops; I picked them up. She dropped her phone. I picked it up. I asked her where she lived again. I looked up "home" on her phone, but realized it was probably her mother's number. I asked my husband to take over holding the girl when she sprawled yet again to the ground, apparently ready to snooze. I got a voicemail on the first number on her recent call list. I looked about for inspiration. 

A couple magically appeared walking up the hill. We called out to them and asked if they recognized the young lady. They did not, but they came over for a closer look. The woman took over the cell phone while her boyfriend watched. From another direction, a young man approached. It was about eleven in the evening, but apparently college students keep late hours. "Do you recognize her," we all asked. He said, "No, but just call the last number dialed until you get someone, that's what I do when they're drunk." The woman on phone duty called the next number and the next. Caller number four answered. "Do you have an address?" She gave us the street name and told us it was near a pink and purple house. The woman on phone duty chatted a few minutes with the phone friend, ferreting out if she had roommates. The young man recognized the name of one of the roommates. "I've heard about you!" he said to the drunk young lady. I think we all wondered at that comment. It was only a block away.

Her roommates, a bunch of guys playing video games looked up, briefly." Does this look right," the woman handling the phone asked.  "Yeah," she said as she stumbled in, aiming for the sofa but instead collapsed onto the floor in a pile. No one appeared to be alarmed at how inebriated she was. The young men kept playing their game. I handed over the flip-flops. As we left, the phone lady called out, "Her friend will come by to check on her."   

If you haven't been out with stumbling drunkards in a while, apparently what you do is call the last number dialed until you get someone. Or. How about don't drink alone? Get some new friends?  Better yet, no binge drinking. 

Leaving Campers

My husband and I left our children at summer camp. There were repressed looks of panic if you know their faces. They waved us off anyway.

Later, I asked my husband if he was concerned about the kids looking so stoic. He said, "They're Japanese white people. Of course they aren't going to complain and tell you they're scared." I laughed at the veracity of that statement. 

As we drove off, I spotted our non-sports-interested son standing on a basketball court with his hands in his pockets. When I wondered aloud if we should have perhaps sent him to some kind of Roman history camp, my husband said, "The families dropping kids off at camp looked pretty normal honey. Parents going to a Roman history camp might not be so normal looking." I chuckled, okay, he knows how to reassure me. He also reminded me that our son cracked a smile at his counsellor's joke as we departed.

I thought this week of summer camp would be a slam dunk, but like most things, it's a mixed bag. Nonetheless, note the pool with four slides. The kiddos are in for a treat. 

My husband suggested we watch Meatballs. I countered with American Hustle. We've got a German victory to celebrate-- sauerkraut and pickles to make, and then there's my bit part in the film. However, I turned off the do not disturb setting on my phone, just in case.

Home Cooking for Health

Despite my trail of letters here in the netherworld of the web, I do not see myself as an expert or to that end, using writing as therapy. It's about letting the sand flow through your fingers and occasionally finding a shark's tooth or a sand dollar. However, while I'm fumbling around in the dark and sharing the glimmer of light I've collected, part of me is embarrassed by my meager findings considering the time I've spend searching. Nonetheless, I can't resist so when something sticks or shows up that interests me, I share it.

Though I worked for many years as a registered nurse with patients suffering from cardiac and renal disease, nutrition expert I am not. I also know first hand the pain of weight gain, food prep, and the need to make healthy choices. I have been both plumper and thinner in my life as many have. I'm interested in health and health is partly about choices-- food and activity.

After college when I was at my meatiest, I promised myself to never diet again, but I realized that I had to cook. If I wanted sweets, making them myself slowed me down. I also gave up sweet tea and soda. Though I dislike strenuous exercise, I can usually manage a walk. My early cooking forays were mostly sweets, but slowly I came to cooking everyday foods that were better for me to eat. I'm still trying to get more there. Americans generally need to eat more vegetables, legumes, and fruit. We've got meats and desserts covered. Look for the recipes that encourage you to eat what will make you feel awesome and that means greens, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains for most of us. Knowing that I'm not alone, I share my interest and experiences.

I fell in love with flavor and when I discover a recipe that excites my tastebuds, I share it. My love of beautiful food is in recognition that my brain comes with a stomach, though I appreciate beautiful food, it is more often from the realm of magazines or restaurants than my kitchen table. I do like butter, yogurt, and eggs and shy away from substitutes for these items in particular. In short, I came to home cooking, kicking and screaming and with the hope to NOT have to exercise too hard to keep it all in check which just gets harder with age.

My cooking skills evolve with my tastebuds's desires. I am also warming up to the idea of adding vegetables, beans, and whole grains to the foods I cook because it is a simple way to get more of the healthy stuff into my diet. I don't need labor intensive recipes for every meal, but sometimes I cook for fuel and sometimes I cook for fun. I do work on recipes that I love to eat, and I tweak them over time to get a tad more nutrition added without overwhelming my tastebuds. Some cooks are further along this path than I.

What has worked? Cook what you eat. Exercise. Find ways to add vegetables and legumes into recipes. Use more herbs.

Herbs can be expensive, but oh boy do they add to the tasty factor of a dish. A sprinkle of fresh rosemary or a crush of Greek oregano can move the tastebuds from wanting only heavy salt toward a delightful and fresh herb taste with a pinch of salt. Growing the herbs makes them both handy and more economical. No one wants to dash out at dinner time for three dollar herbs that last a day or two, but if you do, tie them up and dry them that day, otherwise they tend to morph in to science projects in the fridge. Use them fresh or dried.

Recently, I listened to a talk by Michael Pollan, linked below. Some favorite quotes from it that stirred my thoughts because they hit upon things I've learned for myself and maybe you have too:

"The one diet for America. The one diet that would work? Eat anything you want, just cook it yourself." 

Harry Balzar as quoted by Michael Pollan

"Corporations cook very differently than people. They use vast amounts of salt, fat, and sugar, much more than you would ever use in your own cooking, and the reason they do that is that those are three incredibly attractive and incredibly cheap ingredients and when they are layered properly as in a chip or in various pastries and forms of junk food, they're incredibly addictive. In fact, people in the industry, they don't talk about addiction, in the food industry, even though they traffic in addiction, they talk about cravability, it's the same thing, and snackability is another term they use, it's a lovely word. Anyway, so I came to see that cooking has a huge bearing on our health. In fact, there's been a lot of research in America that shows that shows that even poor women who cook have healthier diets than wealthier women who don't." 

Michael Pollan

Fruit & Vegetable Muffins

INGREDIENTS

140 grams (1 1/8 cups) whole-wheat pastry flour

5 grams (1 teaspoon) baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

1/2 cup olive oil

1 tablespoon honey

70 grams (1/3 cup) packed dark brown sugar

1 small apple, grated, and juices reserved (1/2 cup)

1/2 cup grated carrots or butternut squash or parsnips

1/2 cup grated zucchini or beets

55 grams (1/3 cup) raisins

40 grams (1/2 cup) unsweetened shredded coconut

PREPARATION

Heat oven to 350ºF. Grease mini-muffin tins.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.

In a large bowl, combine the eggs, olive oil, honey, brown sugar, grated apple and juices, and grated vegetables.

Using a spatula, fold the dry ingredients into the wet mixture until just combined. Gently fold in the raisins and coconut.

Fill each muffin cup 3/4 of the way up, and bake for about 15 to 18 minutes for mini-muffins and about 20 to 22 minutes for regular muffins. The muffins are finished baking when an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Within and Beyond, Safe Travels

A friend is heading off to the wild blue yonder not for a job, the reason most people I know move, but to see what lies beyond the confines of the hills that surround us— the thrill of adventure calls. 

Once upon a time I was hellbent on departing just as now, I’m hellbent on staying. “There’s no place like home,” has long been my mantra wherever I’ve lived and even when I’ve clearly not been a local— Spain, Bahrain, and Japan. I longed for those adventures and needed them to stretch my tolerance, appreciation, and widen my radar of awareness. Things that are you versus other are more obvious when you are outside of them. There even comes a day when you can’t return to a certain way of living or thinking— the confines of racism or the shackles of sexual repression come to mind-- they are embedded in some places but not in others. 

In some ways living abroad made me hyper aware of how American I was in terms of language, my approach to authority, and in daily rituals like meals. New experiences that touched undeveloped longings in me, were embraced with a sureness that some might have seen as adapting to another culture, but for me it was the centrality of the human experience that helped me to see with new eyes or to embrace something missing in my own cultural experiences, a new way home.

I face the task now of integrating seemingly random experiences from different cultures into one way of being which also changes with circumstance and other experiences like parenting, missteps, and new found joys. I picked a place to do this that has a mix of people rooted in other places and so it is tolerant with the roundabout approach to local ways. It is also a place with traditions and ways that rub and press in upon me both good and bad. However, I don’t have to go to say Italy to find my way to things I love or to let go of things I don't. Finally or at least more often, I can see at home what I once could only notice when I was away. I brought new eyes home.

The food front is an easy obvious place to explore. 

Travel means tasting new foods and combinations, so I did. From dancing shrimp on a table in Japan to grilled sparrow in Lebanon to roast bear in Russia, it’s enough to make a woman go vegetarian even if she doesn’t live in the hills of Ohio dotted with hippies. Sometimes I longed for American breakfasts of hash browned potatoes and omelets or particularly the comfort of milk tea and toast with butter and jam especially when faced with a breakfast of steamed rice and grilled fish or ful medames. Food is a universal and yet a local experience, but don’t mess with breakfast too many days in a row or you’ll find you revert to childhood. Meanwhile, food trends in America follow headlines like a tennis match— gluten free, thwack, low carb, unhh, vegan, sloomph!  You can go anywhere in a kitchen which is probably why I've found myself spending more time in my own kitchen over the years. There are other coves of discovery, but for now food is the easiest to share.

As my friend stretches outward, I seek to stretch inward-- to notice the subtle signs that call me. Adventures beckon us from both within and beyond. Safe travels wherever you are called! 

Branding and Growing

The Sun Rises at East. 

Warm Fuzzy, Best, West.

The elementary school slogans of yore, reflecting the unique personalities of the schools, have fallen out of favor for the more generic term, the Athens Bulldogs, which once was just the high school mascot. For me, the unifying rally that we are all bulldogs reflects a focus on sports and competition that is not inline with elementary school challenges or life.

Once a bulldog, always a bulldog, is a set path that means we miss the chance to be the beginners or relish the warm fuzzies. Branding early limits the potential meaning we could find for ourselves. We give kids a packaged deal laced with a mascot that reflects one value.

Bonding around a sports team is generally overrated in my book. From high school to college to pro teams that represent American cities, we are so much more than a few special athletes and our obsession with sports.

Where is the love of the brilliant, the human interest, the artist, or the different? It's the difference between TV and public radio where instead of a narrow foot trail, the potential to shine is a wide swath.

We need open space and inviting words to grow and discover for ourselves.