Re-Entry, and Biscuits

I haven't left the house much in the past two months, except to go to the doctor for my follow up surgery appointments. Oddly enough, as those have become less frequent, the world is simultaneously starting to open back up, and we're being asked what we want to make of it.

The weirdest part of it all is that I feel like there is no road map for this. Some call it a vacuum of leadership. Some call it regional discretion. Despite the ridiculous amount of reading I do, I just feel confused. I have a mask that someone made for me, which doesn't fit me particularly well. I have a few masks I bought, in different shapes and sizes, so I could try to figure out what DOES work, in the case that I have to go back to work with a mask on, which seems both likely and unlikely at the same time.

I've started to walk a little farther each day, most days anyway, just to get some exercise and make my foot remember what it's supposed to do. Generally speaking people seem to give each other a wide berth, which is nice. A lot of people wear masks around their chins, and yesterday I even saw someone wearing one around the back of his neck. I'm really not sure what he was planning to protect with that approach.

Today, S. and I went to get our wills signed. Sort of morbid, but honestly, a lot of the reading makes me worried because it seems like there are quite a lot of people who are healthy and on the cusp of middle age just like me who are fine one day and intubated the next. So I finally got around to making a phone call I'd been putting off, to a former student turned lawyer, someone I've always thought of as a genuinely nice human being.

We had our first appointment via zoom, and that was fine, but there are things like notaries involved in will-signing. So we pocketed our masks, and headed out.

Have you noticed that in a lot of parking lots, even the cars seems socially distanced? Admittedly, I don't get out much, but it's seemed that way to me. So it struck me as strange to see all of the cars huddled together in the parking lot of the law office when we pulled in.

It was probably an omen, though, because we masked up, walked in, and quickly discovered that we were the only people wearing masks in the building. I immediately felt both a little uncomfortable, and a lot conspicuous, but even more determined than before not to remove it. I thought about all of the people whose lives these people touch. I thought about the super-connectedness of the human race that thought of ourselves as individuals. And I confess, I was stunned and a little bit horrified by the dish full of Hershey kisses still out the for the taking.

My former student turned lawyer greeted us, and reassured us that we were welcome to wear masks, but they don't. I wondered what it would take for the office to mask up, like the articles I've been reading by health professionals suggest we should do to slow the spread, not just now, but for a long time.

I still like my former student. He's still a nice guy. I don't regret asking him to prepare our wills. He donated a huge amount of KN95 masks to nursing homes recently, where a lot of his clients and clients' parents live. The visit was friendly, and we made small talk about our favorite restaurants in my town, and agreed that the biscuits at one of them really just don't measure up. But the experience gave me a small taste of what life will be like for a while if it remains the case that there is no universal guidance, like we're all flying blind. And I confess, I was more than a little glad to be back home, with the door shut, and where I didn't have to worry about the choice any more.

How about you? How are you making sense of the choices before us right now, if you happen to have one where you live? How are you coping with the choices that other people get to make?

These biscuits are way better than the biscuits we both agreed were terrible at our local restaurant. I was feeling like we needed bread with soup one night, and it was too late to start something in the breadmaker, so this is what we ended up with. And best of all, we don't need yeast, which you can't find anyway. For best results, chill your butter in the freezer for 10-20 minutes before beginning this recipe. It's ideal that the butter is very cold for light, flaky, buttery biscuits.

Better Biscuits

2 c. flour
1 T. baking powder
1 T. granulated sugar
1 t. salt
6 T. unsalted butter very cold
3/4 c. whole milk

Preheat oven to 425F and line a cookie sheet with nonstick parchment paper.

Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a large bowl and mix well. Set aside.

Remove your butter from the refrigerator and either cut it into your flour mixture using a pastry cutter or use a box grater to shred the butter into small pieces and then add to the flour mixture and stir. Cut the butter or combine the grated butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Add milk, use a wooden spoon or spatula to stir until combined (don't over-work the dough). Transfer your biscuit dough to a well-floured surface and use your hands to gently work the dough together. If the dough is too sticky, add flour until it is manageable.

Once the dough is cohesive, fold in half over itself and use your hands to gently flatten layers together. Rotate the dough 90 degrees and fold in half again, repeating this step 5-6 times but taking care to not overwork the dough. Use your hands (don't use a rolling pin) to flatten the dough to 1" thick and lightly dust a 2 3/4" round biscuit cutter with flour.

Making close cuts, press the biscuit cutter straight down into the dough and drop the biscuit onto your prepared baking sheet. Repeat until you've gotten as many biscuits as possible and place less than 1/2" apart on baking sheet. Once you've gotten as many biscuits as possible out of the dough, gently re-work the dough to get out another biscuit or two until you have at least 6 biscuits.

Bake for 12 minutes or until tops are beginning to just turn lightly golden brown. If desired, brush with melted salted butter immediately after removing from oven. Serve warm.

Abby Normal, and Rustic Cabbage Soup

I don't know about you, but some days I feel like I've become, a Vonnegut puts it, a little "unstuck in time." Other days I get up and think, OK, I can do this. I've been having more of the latter kinds of days recently, and I feel my sense of normal shifting a little bit.

Yesterday, at a meeting with some senior administrators, it became clear that there was a real possibility that we wouldn't be back at my university in the fall. I guess that had always been a possibility, but I guess I've been coping pretty well because I'm living in denial. And suddenly I felt like the ground moved out from under me.

It was a familiar nausea, a small part of something like what I felt when I lost my second pregnancy. I had all of these plans, plans that were made not just with me but with other people -- family, colleagues, friends -- and then the plans suddenly were not-plans. I didn't know how to live in the world any more, when the reality I'd imagined for myself was suddenly no longer even possible. And further, it was never going to be like it was "before."

My yoga teacher wrote something the other day that her teacher taught her about patience, and that really struck a chord for me. She wrote that "patience is not when we're sitting and waiting for something to be over" (that's more like tolerance); rather, patience is "staying present while knowing you don't know when, or how, or even if it (whatever it is) will end. What you do know is that you can't do anything to speed the process along." And what happens in the course of that kind of patience is that we emerge, from whatever it is, changed.

Like many of you, I suspect, I've felt frustrated and sad that the world I'm used to moving through isn't here, and from all indications, it's not likely to be back to that kind of normal any time soon. Or ever. People will die. People will lose jobs. Our whole economy is likely to change. That realization is sort of like being at the top of a roller coaster, and knowing that there is no way out but down; frankly, it makes me a little queasy, as unknowns tend to do. But maybe there's something to be gained from the practice of patience in the way my yoga teacher describes it. Normal wasn't working all that well anyway for a lot of people; if nothing else, COVID has laid bare those failures. Maybe we begin to cobble together something different, and eventually something better, than the normal we had before. Arundhati Roy has written about the how the Pandemic is a Portal: “Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next…We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”  And Ruha Benjamin reminded us in a talk she gave at our local independent bookstore Labyrinth recently, hope isn't something we have, but something we do.

You may not feel like you have the energy for that right now. I don't consistently have the energy for that, either. As a blogging friend said to me: there are "no words of wisdom or inspiration that are going to spiritually bypass us out of this one." But instead of waiting for it all go to back to the way it was, maybe there are small ways in which I can reimagine what's normal. Being present, being patient, showing up for whatever the hell this is, and being willing to be changed.

We've been making a lot of soup around here, because they're filling, comforting, and not too expensive. Good pandemic food, and good for a different kind of normal. This one is easy, uses things you are likely to have in your pantry or can find in a store.

Rustic Cabbage Soup
courtesy of 101 Cookbooks

1 T. extra virgin olive oil
a big pinch of salt
1/2 lb. potatoes, skin on, cut 1/4-inch pieces
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
5 c. stock (I used chicken stock)
1/2 c. soaked dried white beans (you can also just use 1 15 oz. can, see note)
1/2 medium cabbage, cored and sliced into 1/4-inch ribbons

Warm the olive oil in a large thick-bottomed pot over medium-high heat. Stir in the salt and potatoes. Cover and cook until they are a bit tender and starting to brown a bit, about 5 minutes - it's o.k. to uncover to stir a couple times. Remove to a bowl.

Stir in the garlic and onion and cook for another minute or two. Add the stock and the beans and bring the pot to a simmer. Cook for about an hour and a half, and then add the potatoes back in. Cook for another 20 minutes or so or until the beans are soft.

Stir in the cabbage and cook for a couple more minutes, until the cabbage softens up a bit. Adjust the seasoning, adding more salt if needed.

Serve drizzled with a bit of olive oil and a generous dusting of parmesan cheese.

*Note: if you want to use canned beans, just add them into the potatoes along with the stock, and then add the cabbage without the long cooking time in between.

Acknowledgements, and Cinnamon Buns

Every Friday, I write to the senior class, in a series I call my "senior thesis Friday" emails. All of our AB students (about 75% of them) write a senior thesis, and a good chunk of the engineers do, too. It's something between a rite of passage and hazing ritual, I guess, and it's hard enough to do under normal circumstances, never mind during a pandemic when you've been scattered away from your community of friends, and are now REALLY writing this thing alone. I am worried about them.

I always try to offer some practical advice (like break down a larger thing into small manageable uber-specific chunks, or get enough sleep) and encouragement (the equivalent of "you got this"), and I always include an inspirational song (I always wonder if they follow the links and ask each other whether they think I really listen to Lizzo and Andra Day and Gorilla Biscuits).

We're getting closer to the University deadline, and I have no idea how many of them may not make it over the finish line this year. It's right around now when I start to worry about the ones we haven't heard from, and at least when we're on campus I know how to find them. Now, I really don't even know where to begin if they go MIA and stop answering my emails and texts.

Knowing that it's getting both close to the end and also getting more difficult (as people continue to get sick, and the markets tank and job offers are revoked or not extended at all, and as students lose motivation and a sense of purpose), my piece of advice this week was to write the acknowledgements. It seems a little crazy to do that before you finish, but it's better to do it when you're not exhausted anyway, and I tell them that it will make them feel good to remember the people who have been there all along and are still cheering them on, and that it can motivate them to keep going when things feel impossible. It's like gratitude, I guess, right? When we express gratitude, we feel better about the world, we notice positive things, we feel loved and cared for. The acknowledgements, in a weird way, engender hope.

If I had to write the acknowledgements for what was a particularly sucky week, I think I'd have to do something along these lines: 

I want to thank everyone who helped me get to Friday this week. To my orthopedic surgeon, who continues to see me in 3D for follow up care and makes me feel like an important patient, for not laughing at my crazy jury-rigged pink bandanna mask, and for making me feel like I was doing a good job at something (sitting on my butt), at least. To my colleague A, who invited me to zoom happy hour for two in the middle of the week, and reminded me to take care of myself and stay sane. To the amazing chocolatier that I know on a first name basis, who overnighted a SECOND package of Easter bunnies to us after the first package was lost to the UPS black hole (I know that UPS folks are completely overwhelmed and hope someone is enjoying an early Easter present---you seriously need to order yourself some of his macarons). To the people at my car dealership, who, in a turn of insanity that I can't quite wrap my brain around, risked their health to come pick up my car with the perpetually dead battery from my house and drive it to the dealership for repairs so I didn't even need to worry about how I'd get it there with a broken foot and only one other driver in the house. To my long time friend who checked in on me randomly, even though I should be the one checking in on him. To the kind people who welcomed me back so warmly to my little space here, which I hope I can try to inhabit again for a while. To my husband, who has been pretty patient with me, and who has tried to anticipate my needs. To my son, whose dry and flat sense of humor and ability to be amused by pretty much everything continues to me to maintain perspective. To my daughter, who, in needing lots of hugs this week, also gave them to me. This week would not have been survivable without their support.

We are going to have to talk, at some point, about the problematic nature of acknowledgements. The people who are most endangered by this. The people I can thank, but for whom "thanks" is really not cutting it. The people who need better pay for what they do. Health insurance. Better housing. The people who allow me, who has done nothing to deserve it, to stay home.

It's Good Friday, speaking of acknowledgements (because isn't that what Easter really is about? about someone who made the ultimate sacrifice for human beings? to give them hope?), and I probably should be posting a recipe for hot cross buns. But no one except me likes them around here, so I've got the next best thing: cinnamon rolls. Which my daughter made. The one who needs, and gives, hugs.

What do your acknowledgements look like this week?

Cinnamon Buns (from the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook)

Dough

1/4 cup warm water

1 Tbs (1 package) active dry yeast

1 Tbs granulated sugar

2/3 cup whole milk

1/2 stick (4Tbs) butter

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 large eggs

1/3 cup granulated sugar

Cinnamon Filling

1 Tbs butter, melted

1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar

1 Tbs ground cinnamon

Icing

1 cup confectioner's sugar, sifted

4 oz cream cheese, softened

1 Tbs heavy cream

1/2 tsp vanilla

Combine the water, yeast, and 1T sugar in a small mixing bowl and set aside until puffy.  Heat the milk and butter in a small saucepan (or the microwave) until the butter is melted; set aside. Whisk together the flour and salt and set aside. In yet another bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar, then whisk in the milk-butter mixture. Add the yeast and egg mixtures to the flour and stir to combine (it's helpful to whisk 1/2 cup if the flour into the egg mixture first until smooth before combining everything).

Knead the dough until it's smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, turing to coat, and cover. Leave in a warm place until doubled in size, 1.5 to 2 hours.

Grease and flour a 9x13" pan. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and roll (or press) out into a 16x12" rectangle. Brush the melted butter over the dough.

Combine the brown sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle generously over the dough within 1/2" of the edges. Roll up the dough long ways and cut off the messy ends if you want (I didn't). Use dental floss (no, really!) to cut the roll in halves until you have 12 rolls. Lay the rolls in the prepared pan and leave them to rise until the rolls are all touching and reach the rim, about 1.5 to 2 hours (or overnight in the fridge, which is what we did).

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake the rolls for 20 minutes until golden brown. Let the rolls cool for 10 minutes before inverting the rolls out of the pan, and then flipping them again onto a serving dish.

To make the icing, beat the icing ingredients together with a fork (if you don't sift the powdered sugar, the icing will be lumpy). Spread the icing over the warm rolls and eat as soon as possible. They really don't keep well for more than a couple hours!

Notes from a Small House: Pandemic 2020 and Vegetarian Korma

When I broke my foot nearly four weeks ago walking down the stairs, minding my own business, feeling perfectly able-bodied, I could not have known that walking would be my only escape from my house for the next four weeks, and, if we're to believe the models, even longer.

Now I am benched during a pandemic, a kind of ironic twist of fate that is requiring double patience. I have slept and worked and eaten and read on this small corner of the couch, which is sinking from my constant presence, contorting my back into postures that would make the ergonomics people at work quiver. I have just recently graduated to walking with one crutch, and I am finally managing to take some kind of a half-shower every day, which goes a long way towards making me feel like a human being.

We'd never heard the phrases "social distancing" or "flattening the curve" before just a few weeks ago, but now I've not seen other people in 3D -- besides the folks at the doctor's office -- in weeks. When Steve goes to the grocery store at the crack of dawn with a mask on, he comes home, and we wipe down everything with sanitizing wipes. At the beginning, after surgery, I was running a low grade fever, and I took my temperature constantly, sure that I'd contracted COVID-19 and would have to go to the hospital alone with a broken foot and pneumonia. Now, nearly four weeks after the surgery, I'm no longer running a fever, but every once in a while a warmth creeps over me, and my chest tightens, and I clear my throat, and feel dread.

So many people have died. There are refrigerator trucks parked outside of hospitals, makeshift morgues because there is no longer room for the bodies elsewhere.

My students are grieving a loss they can't describe, fearful and anxious for the future. They ask if we will be open in the fall, whether things will be back to normal. I can't tell them, and I tell them that I can't tell them, but that I hope so. They deserve my honesty. Advising conversations often feel a little bit like the advising conversations I had after 9/11, when everyone was raw and vulnerable and hungering for connection but unsure of what fresh hell the next day would bring.

I scroll endlessly through Facebook, trying to stop myself but unable to do so, drawn in both by the bountiful supply of information about COVID-19 and trying not to judge the memes about hunkering down with kids, or oblivious-sounding posts about rainbow painting and baking, and photographic evidence of continued lack of attention to social distancing requirements. What new hobbies are you cultivating, they ask? Old hobbies, I answer, under my breath. Anxiety. Long work days. Ignoring my kids. I feel unreasonably angry at people who are quilting and bread baking and learning to play the ukelele, at the same time as I feel deeply grateful for a job that lets me work remotely, and a job that is unlikely to lay me off any time soon. We are the fortunate ones, and I am fully aware of my privilege.

My kids are on spring break this week, after two weeks of online school, where my son sits in the office and my daughter in the playroom, earbuds in and headphones on, respectively. We are lucky that they're good students, that they're old enough to be mostly self-sufficient, and that this transition has not been as bumpy as it could have been. Still, N's favorite time of the day is her virtual meeting with her class over zoom. I's favorite time of day is when it's all over and he can go read his book on his phone; he prefers to turn off the webcam and his microphone when class is in session, in true introvert fashion. N needs physical contact; she comes over and hugs me randomly throughout the day, and I hug her back. She says this is the worst time of her life. But she doesn't cry. Neither does my son. They are, on the whole, handling this really, really well.

I did, though, this weekend, finally lost my shit, tired of being cooped up, tired of feeling like sickness is just there hovering at the doorstep, tired of convalescing and working in this small space. I had just found out my undergraduate thesis adviser had lost her life. Ironically, my bracelet from the Shiva Lingam Puja in India, over a year ago, had finally just fallen off my wrist. Shiva is known as the destroyer of evil, the light of consciousness, and the bracelet is a symbol, among other things, of protection. I wonder what evil is being destroyed, and whether this destruction we're witnessing now is the beginning of rebirth or the end of something else, whether this is a reminder to look inward. I know that there is less pollution, that the earth is changing, like when the wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone and the course of the rivers changed.  Still, I feel like I've been caught a little unprepared.

Steve has been cooking, just as he's been doing the shopping. Mostly I am putting together menus and a grocery list, a sort of amalgam of comfort food and convenience since neither one of us have time to cook during the day despite the fact that we're all here within 20 feet of the kitchen.

It's been a while since I've shared a recipe, or anything for that matter, and this one can't quite be made from just the items in your pantry because it requires fresh vegetables, but cauliflower doesn't seem to be flying off the shelves like toilet paper and beans are. And somehow there are chickpeas there when there aren't other kinds of beans. It's the first meal I made in a long time, because I managed to stand, one-crutched, in the kitchen for a whole half an hour. It was a small triumph, and it made me think of you.

Here's hoping the quarantine finds you as well as you can be, and knowing that we're all just doing the best we can.

Chickpea and Cauliflower Korma

2 T coconut oil or olive oil or unsalted butter
1 T mild curry powder
2 t garam masala
1 1/2 t salt
1 c roughly chopped carrots
1 onion, peeled and roughly cut
3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 (28 oz) can whole plum tomatoes  (or 2 15 oz cans fire roasted diced)
1/2 c canned coconut milk (or more if you like)
1 15-oz can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 small cauliflower, cut into bite-sized florets
1 T lemon juice
2 T chopped fresh mint or cilantro, to serve (optional)
slivered almonds, toasted, to serve (optional)

In a large pot, heat oil or butter over medium heat; add spices, salt, carrots, onion, and garlic. Sauté for 8 to 10 minutes, until onions are translucent.

Add tomatoes and coconut milk, bring to a boil, reduce to medium, cover, and cook for 10 to 12 minutes, or until vegetables are very tender. Transfer to a blender or food processor or use an immersion/stick blender directly in the pot, and puree until smooth. Add back to pot if necessary along with chickpeas, cauliflower, and lemon juice. Bring to a boil, reduce to medium, cover, and cook until cauliflower is extremely tender, about 15 minutes.

Serve hot with brown rice, basmati rice, or quinoa, and a scattering of mint or cilantro and toasted almonds.

Things I Learned in India

(with thanks to Mel, who listened to my "first draft" of this rapture quite some time ago. By PHONE. As in, I heard her VOICE. Not sure if anyone is out there any more, but what the hell ...)

A year ago, my yoga teacher, the only teacher I have ever stuck with for so long, sent an email to her mailing list. The subject line was "are you coming or what?"

To India, she meant. To a small town called Ganeshpuri, home to her teacher's guru, and his guru before him, and his guru before him: on retreat two hours outside of Mumbai for ten days.

My non-rational self said, "of course I'm coming." My rational self (too expensive, can't get away from work at that time, what about the kids, what if I get really sick or something happens to me there etc. etc.) didn't kick in until I'd asked my husband and my boss, both of whom shrugged as if it were nothing and said I should go. And by then it was too late.

Or not, because I dragged my feet making my final deposit, and dragged them again buying my plane ticket, and yet again applying for my visa. And on the night I arrived, sometime at around 1:30 in the morning India time, after being awake on and off for close to 36 hours, I found myself in tears in my room, wondering what the hell I could possibly have been thinking. I knew it would not be asana classes all day with spa food on the beach ... this was something completely different that what people tend to think of when they imagine "yoga retreat." But something had kept me from bailing.

Of course, it was an amazing trip. I wrote more (in a journal) than I've written in a long, long time. While India, especially rural India, was complicated for all of the reasons you might expect (pollution, poverty, etc.), it was also remarkably beautiful, and I felt my heart crack open. I wept at temples during arati, and during meditation and chanting, and while walking around the garden. I felt immense peace. I ate street food and drank street chai and sugarcane juice and didn't get sick. I mastered the art of using toilet paper the Indian way. I learned how to chant the alphabet in Sanskrit. I drank in the sounds of Bollywood music and mantra over the loudspeaker from the town far away; I ground dirt so deeply into my feet that I thought no amount of scrubbing would ever clean them; I breathed in the smell of earth mixed with fire and jasmine and spice; I made offerings to goddesses during a fire ceremony.

Each morning we woke at 4 am to go to the temple for the morning abishekam and arati. We stopped for chai and then walked back across the river to our retreat center for asana class, and breakfast, and two hours of spiritual studies (mantra, yoga philosophy, rituals, etc.), followed by lunch, and free time, and more spiritual studies. (Lori, I thought often of you.)

(Some) things I learned:

• Chai is better with friends and biscuits. Chai is also better in India than anything you can get in the U.S. It's definitely the milk. Maybe I need a buffalo?
• Namaste? That invocation of the divine in another human being? That's for real. When you pass people on the street, and you say "namaste" to everyone, you see the divine over and over again, and you see people in a way that we never bother to see each other in the U.S. It is a gift to see and to be seen like that; you feel ... connected. Like you are part of something even greater and more than you are.
• On a related note, it is really good to get off my phone. And off social media. In person connection is more important to us than we realize.
• First aid kits do you no good in your suitcase. You need to carry said kit with you at all times, because you'll inevitably get a blister. Fortunately, your fellow travelers together carry all of the elements of a first aid kit, and you are bandaged many times over (and in many ways) by your community.
• I am capable of, and in fact really enjoy, being vegetarian. And though I used to pooh-pooh ayurveda, they are really on to something.
• Kirtan makes me want to dance with abandon. I miss dancing, even though I tapdance.
• Women carry everything. Everywhere. And usually all at once.
• There is an inexplicable energy in the universe that buzzes through your fingertips if you sit still long enough to feel it.
• The world is astonishingly beautiful at 4 a.m., and I am capable of rising at 4 a.m. on a regular basis to go to a temple and meditate.
• I actually sort of like going to a temple to meditate.
• On the flip side, I am very attached to my Self. And in the few moments I can escape it, and become expansive, I can't understand why we don't always make an effort to be this way.
• I love to give. I find it very difficult to receive. In fact, I actively resist the gift.
• I am capable of being where I am, instead of wanting to be somewhere else, looking ahead or behind. It is a feeling of immense contentment. I need to practice it more often.

The most wild thing I realized, as I flew home, was that it was February. And for the first time in many years, I didn't experience that inexplicable but also explicable sensation of not having enough air, or random panic in the grocery store, or the feeling of a large gorilla sitting on my chest.

I've been trying not to fall back into old routines and habits: obsessing over my phone, eating, living always somewhere else besides here and now. I am not proud to say that I haven't figured out how to keep a practice, though I have been doing asana every morning since I got back, and I did buy a mala after much deliberation about whether it was cultural appropriation or weird because it's a lot like a rosary and I left the Catholic church years ago because I felt so constrained by things like that.

Now, paradoxically, I have to decide: what next.

Yoga teacher training has been on my mind for nine years, since I found out I was pregnant with my daughter, and became cautiously optimistic. I can prove this: I found the post.

But there's also a spiritual studies community at my yoga studio that some of the fellow travelers have encouraged me to join.  And another trip to India next year (though that seems less likely, since it is at the same time of year again).

Votes welcome. I miss the bliss that I can see on my own face. I am a work in progress.

Om shanti.

the #womensmarch, the #longermarch, and breakfast cookies.

On Saturday, January 21st, I woke up at 3:50 and donned my four layers of clothing so I could board a bus to Washington, D.C.

(Maybe you don't agree with me for doing so, but I hope you'll stay with me through this story. Because my thoughts on the march is complicated. Maybe yours are, too.)

I'd packed my phone, an extra battery, $100 in cash (in case I got arrested, because that ACLU recommends it), maps, information from the ACLU, some granola bars, tissues, a bandana, and health insurance cards.  I had a lunchbox with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with carrot sticks and chocolate milk for the ride home. I carried a sign to which I'd given a lot of thought.  It didn't say anything about the new administration, because I don't want to stoop to name-calling; it said, simply, "not going back."  Because I refuse to return to a time before VAWA grants, before better women's health care, before civil rights, before Title IX improved the way in which we deal with victims of sexual assault on college campuses.

I'd had some worrisome thoughts the night before, when my daughter, sobbing, told me not to leave. Though I didn't have any plan for civil disobedience, I considered what it might be like to get arrested, or tear gassed, or worse. I worried that I'd be stuck in a crowd, unable to get back to my bus in time.  But I'd kissed my children goodbye that morning as they slept, smelling sweet and drowsy, and decided that it would all be OK, that I'd be in good company, and that if I got left behind, I could figure out how to get home.

Seeing those buses in the loop of my elementary school, almost filled by 4:30, was pretty inspiring. There were kids--some my own kids' age--who were awake and helping to hand out kid-decorated brown paper bags with hand warmers and granola bars and the cookies that I'd baked and dropped off the day before.  There were teenagers at the back of the bus, where teenagers always are. I settled into a seat, made a pillow with my jacket, and closed my eyes, as the bus driver turned out the lights, pulling out of lot and bounced along into the pre-dawn.

Sometime close to 7 am, we passed the first large rest stop, and someone on the bus started cheering. I woke, startled, and looked out at a virtual sea of buses parked at the rest stop. It was, in a word, astonishing; it was the first thing that made me cry that morning.

In Delaware, we got stuck in traffic, one of our buses leaked antifreeze, and we wondered if we'd make it. I started talking to the teenagers.  "Do you think there will be any Trump supporters?" they asked.  "Maybe," I said. "Probably not a lot, but let's think about it this way: maybe someone voted for him for economic reasons, but wants to be heard on an issue related to women's health care.  Or the Violence Against Women Act. I would hope they would be welcome. For me, this event is about reminding our representatives that they work for us." They agreed, nodding thoughtfully.

Finally, at nearly 11 am, we pulled into RFK Stadium. That, too, was a powerful moment, a moment in which I got a sense of collectivity, of coming together: a sea of buses, as far as the eye could see, crossing over the bridges from every direction.  One of the women in a seat in front of me handed around a bag of pink fleece hats (not exactly pussy hats) that a friend had made, because she wanted to come, and couldn't.  I took one, and wore it, not because I wanted a pussy hat -- I'm not certain I feel I can be taken seriously in a pink hat with cat ears, though I do appreciate the humor, which is much needed -- but because I wanted to carry another woman with me. Because that's what I was there for: for women who might not have as much of a voice as I do, who might not be as fortunate as I am.  For my friend who was diagnosed with breast cancer less than a month ago and was able to get treated while it was still Stage 1. For my friend who goes to PP for mammograms because she can't afford them otherwise. For friends who have been survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. For friends who are raising children with a same-sex partner. For colleagues with PhDs who have been stopped and frisked on the commute home because they're Black. For my first generation and low income college students, some of whom come from families who voted for the new administration, and who deserve elementary and high schools that are held accountable for their students, and that support students with learning disabilities.

We decided to walk, instead of taking the metro, and though we dispersed quickly, one of the women on the bus stuck with me; we decided to be "buddies" for the day. Neither one of us seemed to be extroverts, but we managed to make conversation about our workplaces (she implements the ACA), children, college, choices, women's experiences, and commentary on the witty, thoughtful, diverse protest signs. Which was the sort of thing that happened all day: overhearing conversations about people who were from somewhere else, but shared some hope (or fear) for the next four years.

Just past the Capitol, we caught our first glimpse of the crowd, which stretched in every direction as far as we could see. It was hard to get a sense of scale from the middle of it, and wherever we went after a certain point, it was clear we weren't going anywhere.

By 1 p.m., we'd managed to make our way close to the stage and march starting point, and talked with people around us, trying to figure out what was going to happen when. We chatted with a group of grannies from Portland, two Latinx women from New York who hadn't told their mother where they were going (and finally caved while we where there, their mother showering us all in love in Spanish), a woman from New York who pointed out how strange it was that we were all standing so close together and weren't speaking (here we are, she said, all touching each other, and we'll never be that close again, and I don't even know your name).

At some point it became clear that the organizers had been overwhelmed by the size of the crowd and had to rethink their plans for the march because the entire route had been clogged. I was part of this historic moment, I thought.

Finally, close to 2:30, the crowd started to move, in four different directions.  We marched. Back towards the Capitol, turning the corner on to Constitution, past the Newseum, which sported a large sign celebrating First Amendment rights.  We chanted: "Tell me what democracy looks like ... THIS is what democracy looks like!" As it got closer to 3:15, we stopped and watched the march for a while from the sidelines, watched as police vans drove through with lights flashing and sirens wailing, feeling slightly worried when so many of them came by, parting the crowd, but breathing a sigh of relief as they moved on without stopping. By 3:30, we had to turn around, because we had to leave time to get back to the bus, which was leaving at 5.  I was sorry to leave, worried that perhaps too many of us would have to go early, that the numbers would dwindle and the facts about our attendance would be distorted.  As we walked back to the bus, we thanked every police person and marshal and National Guard member, and they waved us on, thanking us for coming, wishing us safe travels home.

As empowering as it was to be there in a sea of people, mostly women but also some men, there were some things that gave -- and still give -- me pause.

I kept my mouth shut, for example, when people started chanting, "Hey hey, ho ho, D-- T-- has got to go." Realistically, that's pretty unlikely, and even if it did happen, we have a Vice President and Speaker of the House that share his politics and ideology, even if they don't (though they probably do) share what I view as his unforgivable misogyny.  t's not as simple as impeachment, even if he didn't get win popular vote. And beyond that, I'm having a hard time getting on board with alienating the people who did vote for him who could work together with us for the things we both care about.  I'm not down for the name-calling that many people on "my side" are engaging in. Madonna, for example, really didn't need to say what she said on stage, even if she was protected from saying it by the First Amendment. One of my acquaintances from a mom's group from years ago--a devout evangelical Christian who was abused by her first husband and a recipient of assistance from the VAWA grants--didn't vote but has been watching the media coverage unfold, and is appalled by what she sees as action before the new administration is "given a chance." When I try to explain to her that his first chance is his cabinet selections, and that alone is worrisome, she pulls away. I feel like I need to focus on the issues (when I mentioned VAWA and Title IX, for example, she got interested and we had a good conversation), instead of starting with demonization. The more we're divided, the easier it will be for them to create a parallel version of reality. From a viral post that's making the rounds:

Increasing the separation between Trump's base (1/3 of the population) from everybody else (the remaining 2/3). By being told something that is obviously wrong—that there is no evidence for and all evidence against, that anybody with eyes can see is wrong—they are forced to pick whether they are going to believe Trump or their lying eyes. The gamble here—likely to pay off—is that they will believe Trump. This means that they will regard media outlets that report the truth as "fake news" (because otherwise they'd be forced to confront their cognitive dissonance.)

Another thing that became pretty obvious during the march was my white woman's privilege. When I bought the pink poster paper for my sign, I said something to the cashier, who was Black, along the lines of "maybe this will get me arrested."  I immediately regretted it as soon as the words were out of my mouth and realized, as she looked at me, that she probably thought I was crazy. White women in LL Bean winter coats with tortoise shell glasses don't get arrested. The march was an unprecedented crowd of people with no arrests, kindness and civility.  It was incredibly diverse, but it was largely white. Imagine what would have happened if that many Black women showed up in one space?  The police would have come in riot gear, not in yellow vests.  Our bags would have been searched. We would have been stopped.  Many of us would have been arrested, jailed, beaten.

The march also left a huge mess. Signs were discarded both at the White House and Washington Monument, and garbage heaped out of the cans and along the streets. I carried everything out that I carried in to DC that day, with the exception of a few small granola bar wrappers that I threw in a trash can that wasn't yet full. A little attentiveness could have made a big difference.

And finally, along those lines, while I'm deeply grateful for all of the women who showed up this weekend, I hope that they realize we all need to keep showing up. And calling. But mostly showing up. And not just where we can wear our pink hats, or talk politely with our senators, but at Black Lives Matter marches, where darker colored bodies are vulnerable, and where the message may not be ours, but where if we are really serious about solidarity, I hope that we can stand in solidarity, putting our bodies on the line, too. And at LGBTQIA events where trans bodies are targets. And in spaces where we can talk with people who voted differently about the things we probably both care about.

Coalition building is slow. If the actions of the past 48 hours are any indication, there is much to do. But I'm glad I went. It was a good first step to remind us all that we live in a democracy, and we have a right to speak. And it was powerful to do so with so many other people, not just in D.C., but all over the country, and all over the world.  Together, may we gather the fuel we need for the longer march towards the future that belongs, in the end, to all of us.

Breakfast Cookies
(adapted from Ellie Krieger's recipe here)

3/4 c. whole-wheat pastry flour
1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 t. baking soda
1 t. ground cinnamon
1/2 t. ground nutmeg
1/4 t. salt
2 T. unsalted butter
1/4 c. canola oil
1/4 c. light brown sugar
3 T. sugar
1 egg
1/4 c. pumpkin
1 t. vanilla extract
1/2 c. rolled oats
1/2 c. Uncle Sam's cereal
1/3 c. raisins
1/3 c. chopped walnuts, lightly toasted

Place rack in center of oven (more or less) and preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Whisk together flours, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a medium-sized bowl. Combine butter, oil and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix on high speed, scraping down sides if necessary, until sugars have dissolved and mixture is light in color, about 1 minute. Add egg, pumpkin puree and vanilla and beat an additional 30 seconds. Add flour mixture and beat an additional 30 seconds. Add oats, flakes, raisins and walnuts and mix over low speed just until incorporated. Dough will be slightly sticky and less cohesive than traditional cookie dough.

Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. Using between 3 to 4 T. of batter, form a ball and place on cookie sheet. Repeat with remaining batter, leaving about 3 inches between cookies. Wet hands and use palm of hand to flatten cookies until about 1/4-inch thick. Bake for 12 minutes, until cookies are fragrant but still soft. Let cookies cool slightly, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

#whyImarch

On Saturday January 21, I will march for women.

I am a white married heterosexual educated woman with a full time job and health insurance who comes from a working class family, and I'm marching because I bear responsibility for protecting our collective rights and looking out for the well-being of my fellow citizens.  Even, believe it or not, for those who disagree with me.

I'm marching to speak up for every woman's right to health care and reproductive support on her own terms, for my friend who without the Affordable Care Act, would have died of ovarian cancer. 

I'm marching because my miscarriages were not a crime. 

I'm marching for my own five year old daughter's ownership of her body, to speak up against the violence women endure every day, which I see embodied as rape culture on our college campuses, and which must end. 

I'm marching in solidarity with my Muslim students, born in the U.S. to American citizen parents, who are afraid to express their deeply misunderstood religion lest they be the victims of violence.

I'm marching for my undocumented students, DREAMers who have gone on to work, to pay taxes, to contribute meaningfully as educators themselves, who have educated and supported people like them but also poor white students who go on to college, because their generosity and compassion isn't bounded by color.

I'm marching because my father was a refugee, and had he waited one more day to leave his country of origin, I would not have been alive, because he was next in line to be killed by a government who didn't like teachers.

I'm marching for my LGBTQ friends who, as loving parents in committed and long-standing relationships, endure the judgment of people who don't know them simply because of the way they love, and fear having their children taken from them.

I'm marching in solidarity with Black and Latinx and Asian and multi-racial women who have to worry every day about being targeted, and their children being targeted, by bullies and the police just because of the color of their skin.

I'm marching because Ana Grace was a beautiful little girl and the goddaughter of a college friend, and she did not deserve to die before her seventh birthday at the hands of a madman with a gun.

I'm marching because our children deserve an earth to live in, woods to go hiking and camping, uncontaminated air to breathe and water to drink.

I'm marching to send a message to the President Elect and to our elected representatives that we are united; they ignore our voices at their peril, and they have a sworn responsibility to work for all of the American people. I am marching because there has never been a more pressing need to demonstrate our unity and solidarity. I am marching because white feminism has lived in its bubble for too long.

None of us know what the future holds, but we know what we want for women, for America, and for humanity. On Saturday January 21, I will march to let the world know in no uncertain terms that I am here, I vote, and I care about women’s rights, and that women's rights are human rights are women's rights. I care about those rights regardless of a woman’s race, ethnicity, religion, immigration status, sexual identity, gender expression, economic status, age, appearance, or disability. And I am proud that many men will march with us, because equal rights benefit everyone.

This march is not a march of sore losers. This is not about who happens to be in office. We're not trying to turn back the clock; in fact, if anything, we are looking ahead to determine the course of history. I hope that you will stand with us, to protect the rights and the freedoms that have defined us as a people.

"The other day I was saying, I always try to do a little converting when I'm in jail. And when we were in jail in Birmingham the other day, the white wardens and all enjoyed coming around the cell to talk about the race problem. And they were showing us where we were so wrong demonstrating. And they were showing us where segregation was so right. And they were showing us where intermarriage was so wrong. So I would get to preaching, and we would get to talking—calmly, because they wanted to talk about it. And then we got down one day to the point—that was the second or third day—to talk about where they lived, and how much they were earning. And when those brothers told me what they were earning, I said, 'Now, you know what? You ought to be marching with us. [laughter] You're just as poor as Negroes.' And I said, 'You are put in the position of supporting your oppressor, because through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people. (Yes) And all you are living on is the satisfaction of your skin being white, and the drum major instinct of thinking that you are somebody big because you are white. And you're so poor you can't send your children to school. You ought to be out here marching with every one of us every time we have a march.' 

                                               -Martin Luther King, "The Drum Major Instinct"