On Blogging and Abiding (with Strawberry Snacking Cake)

Someone asked me the other day if I've ever written a blog. I confess I usually hesitate when people ask me this, because it was sort of nice to exist in relative anonymity, and I still don't like outing myself to people I have to see on a regular basis, unless I choose to be vulnerable with them. But on the other hand, this space and the community I found through it have been so important to me for over fifteen years that it's hard not to acknowledge; it's also shaped the person I've become far beyond the page.

The fact that there are 5 million paid subscriptions and 35 million active subscriptions on Substack alone, never mind the people who just read occasionally or the other platforms where blogging happens, seems to indicate that there's still something we crave about the connection we can only make with other humans in long form writing. It requires us to slow down, requires attention, in a way that TikTok or doomscrolling on Instagram never did. And I think it's something we really need right now.

Though I don't read nearly as much Substack as I used to read Blogger, one of my colleagues recently shared a post with me from our former Dean of the College -- a professor of English and Theater, and a person who I came to admire in so many ways during her years at the helm. Her stack is about the experience of living with "indolent" stage four endometrial cancer, and while the post is a meditation on where she finds herself right now, she also talks about connection and witness in ways that resonate for me. 

Though there are some notable exceptions, we generally suck at simply being present when we can't fix a difficult situation, and this is particularly true in cases of illness, grief, and loss. Five years ago I wrote this post about sitting with people through grief, in particular, sitting with people through the loss of a child to suicide, and (to take me back to where I started today), that ability to really be with people when you can't do anything continues to be my most meaningful takeaway from blogging.

In the past few months, one of my best friends has been dealing with stage three colon cancer, and is going through chemo, which is nasty no matter how you slice it. My college roommate had brain surgery to remove a large fistula that was trying its best to kill her, and though she is healing now, it's going to be a long road. My high school English teacher had to have a stent put in for NPH. While I brought them or sent them all food, because that's one of the ways I try to see embodied humans, perhaps more valuable was just being there, acknowledging the awfulness, showing up when I could, seeing them, "abiding," as Mel has called it in the ALI blogging community.

At work, we're about to welcome the incoming class, and among the things they have to do over the summer is a reflective self-paced course that tries to get them thinking about their purpose in coming to college. I was going through the course just so I could see what they'd see, and found that one of the assignments asks students "if you could wave a magic wand and change anything in the world, what would it be and why?" As I was writing my answer, I didn't think much about it, but I realize now just how informed it was by this impetus towards presence and connection; I said something about wanting people to see the world through other people's perspectives to the extent possible, and when it isn't possible, to bear witness to their experiences in ways that may require them to be profoundly uncomfortable.

All of that to say: I'm still grateful for this space, fifteen years in, even when I don't write much any more. Thanks for being here, and for teaching me how to be there, too.

It's strawberry season here, so in the spirit of sharing food, here's a cake I made from Yossy Arefi's Snacking Cakes book a while back. She shared the recipe in her substack, here. It's what I might bring to make the first five minutes of sitting together just a little easier.

Adulting

More so than my birthday, February is a month that marks the passage of time, the month of anniversaries of losses and other milestones. While I can feel a little heaviness creeping in, I haven't had time to sit with it -- my daughter had whatever norovirus-like thing is going around, which kept me emotionally occupied for a week, and there’s always work -- but I guess there are still plenty of days left before March for me to start feeling like I'm lying under a two ton gorilla?

My body keeps the February score even if my conscious mind doesn't: after my period hadn't shown up for seven months, it arrived on the day after my daughter's birthday, my reproductive system getting in a meaningful jab (ha! ha!) just as I've started to breathe a sigh of relief that maybe my cycle and I have parted ways, as if to assert that it's still in charge. Not that I'm surprised, mind you. We've been more at odds than usual for a while, my uncooperative body and I: in addition to the fallout from the concussion and mysterious undiagnosable illness, the perfect storm of injury and hormone shifts over the past few years without the ability to run or dance has added twenty pounds to my frame (ha! ha! it says), yet another way in which my physical container is sometimes unrecognizable as my own.

In the fall I tried a tai chi course offered by my public library, and though I was dealing with tendonitis and tennis elbow (even though I don't play tennis - ha! ha!) it felt good to move again, so I signed up for an eight week course offered by the local adult school. The first class in the series was on Monday, and after stumbling around the municipal complex in the dark for a while, I finally found the building, marked by the sign "Center for Modern Aging." I'm pretty sure I laughed out loud. At the very least, I laughed in my head. It sounds sexy or cool, "Modern Aging." Which I definitely am not.

I had worried about finding the room, but shouldn't have, because I could see the converted basketball gym (also not cool or sexy) from the doorway, and since I was a few minutes late, I got a first look at my classmates before they saw me: slender bald guys with glasses and hearing aids, women of many shapes and sizes wearing all manner of clothing that wasn't quite designed for us, and in whom I saw my menopausal self.

I shed my winter layers as quickly and quietly as I could, finding a spot in the back of the class where I hoped I could hide. Is this who I am now? I wondered. Am I the middle-aged woman in tai chi class, hair thinning, eyes not quite focused, trying to keep my balance and finding myself frustratingly unable to get a good view of the teacher?

It was okay, I guess. I will go again next week.

I came home to an empty house; my husband had taken my daughter to dance class, which is two hours long and twenty minutes away (so no sense coming back in between). It--and I--felt abandoned. I puttered around, a little lost, without a plan. There is always plenty to do, but the weight of the silence was distracting, even though it didn't feel right to disrupt it, either. Soon it will be the norm.

This feels like a new chapter in adulting, and it's going to take some time to get used to who I am again.

Pumpkin Brownies
I've been wanting chocolate, and now I think I know why. These are not good for you. But you can pretend they are because there's a vegetable. And I'm using up the pumpkin puree I froze back in November, so that's good, right?

1 1/2 c. chocolate chips + 1/4 c. (divided)
1/3 c. butter
1 shot espresso or dark coffee
1 t. vanilla
1/2 c. white sugar
1/4 c. sugar
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1 1/2 c. pumpkin puree
1 1/4 c. all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, grease an 8" square baking pan.

Melt chocolate chips and butter together slowly in the microwave or over a double boiler, stirring as often as possible.  When they are completely smooth you can turn off the heat and start adding the other "wet" ingredients:
shot of espresso, vanilla, sugars and then finally the pumpkin puree. Stir briskly until smooth.

Fold in the baking powder, salt and flour. Stir to mix completely, but do not overmix.

Pour the batter into your baking dish and top with 1/4 cup chocolate chips.

Bake 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Cool another 10-15 minutes in the pan before cutting. And for the love of all that is holy, eat them with whipped cream or ice cream or something else and try not to feel too bad about your spreading middle or thighs or whatever you've got going on in that uncooperative body of yours.

The Gift Must Move

(cross posted at https://theyakboard.com/)

In 2019, I traveled to India with my yoga teacher and a group of her yoga students. I think I was seeking enlightenment; that’s what so many yoga programs promise middle-aged women like me. While I have positive memories of that trip — walks along a dusty road to town and admiring the warli art on the concrete walls, getting elaichi from the tiny stand close to town, squashing into auto-rickshaws at the crack of dawn to attend aarti at the temple, visiting a workshop where women were sewing — I left India feeling uncomfortably like a consumer of the experience, rather than a participant. I remember coming back thinking maybe I'd do teacher training, but I actually stopped doing yoga, uneasy with my own practice, feeling like I'd appropriated something that wasn't mine, but not wanting it to devolve merely into exercise, which seemed wrong, too. I’d bought a pair of earrings that I loved during the trip, tear-drop shaped tiger eye, and eventually lost one of them. The loss felt symbolic.

Fast forward seven years. 

I am standing on a walkway along Fateh Sagar Lake in Udaipur, at a "Be the Gift" festival sponsored by Shikshantar, a movement founded to re-think education and provide opportunities for people to participate in social regeneration. I have been tasked with holding a sign that says “Free झप्पी” ("Free Jhappi," or "Free hugs"). I awkwardly wave the sign and smile; many teenaged boys cluster across from me, talking to each other and giggling before shoving each other forward to take turns posing next to me for a picture. I am certain that I'm Instagram-famous within minutes. A few people take me up on the offer of the hug (despite the fact that I had worried about gender conventions and the weirdness of inviting that kind of intimacy). I talk with people about the meaning of money, why we worry about it so much, what we can give each other to make it feel less burdensome. At one point I'm invited to play a game I’d never heard of before called "Beauty and the Beast" that feels a lot like tag but it much more confusing.

I'm on a program with students and a few colleagues, facilitated by Where There Be Dragons, that is intended to provide a context for students to broaden their understanding of community activism, education, and leadership. And I find that I'm experiencing India as a learner, with humility, with curiosity. 

During the ten days we were traveling, we visited with leaders and visionaries (not people with big visions but small, one-person-at-a-time kinds of visions) who were helping the community collaborate to leave their world a little better than they’d found it. We were invited into the homes of our students’ homestay families, where they talked with us about their relatives, cricket, and upcoming weddings, and fed us and poured so many cups of chai. We took walking tours of villages like Delwara and Kotri and cities like Udaipur with people who call those places home, who have seen them change, who are thinking about the impact of development and the ways in which history and culture and class (and caste) shape individual and collective identities. 

Each day, I’d listen to my fellow travelers asking questions, recounting their homestay siblings’ funniest remarks, reflecting on their perspectives on India, education, and what it means to be “doing enough” in this difficult world to help create and nurture positive change. I felt deeply fortunate to be in this space, in this moment. I thought a lot about my own communities, and things we build together just by showing up.

On the last night, we walked down a street in Delhi on the way to Hemanji’s favorite tea shop, a pair of earrings in a small jeweler’s window caught my eye. They were tear drop shaped tiger eyes, like the one I’d lost, but the stone was dangling from a tree of life, a symbol I’ve connected with over the past few years as I’ve tried to be more mindful of things like community and rootedness and mutual growth. It was like a visual representation of the ways in which this trip was both similar to but completely different from the one I’d taken seven years ago.

At the airport in the wee hours of the morning, Neeravji, Tserginji, and Hemantji (our Dragons leaders) stood outside to see us safely towards home. I felt sadder than I expected to feel, like I was leaving people who had become friends, but also grateful to be traveling back with people who were going to keep asking questions and challenging me to be more reflective, too.

It's hard to know where to go from here. But that’s the point, right? To be open, to be curious, to be unable to distill complicated places and people down to a single blog post or photo.

I told the group towards the end of our trip that there’s an anthropologist who says one of the essential qualities of a gift is that it must “move,” that if gifts aren’t passed on, that they lose their tranformative abilities and become just things. This journey was a gift, generously given (the “free jhappi” that people offered to me, the beautiful mehndi that I received at the festival, the boost from Hemantji and the extended hand of Neeravji that helped me get up the mountain), and I hope I can do that gift justice for a long time to come.

*photos don’t include other people because I didn’t ask permission to publish them … not because I was alone in India!! 🙂

August is for deadheading (and coconut lentil soup)

Perennials start to feel cold in August, so they begin to draw their energy back down, turning yellow and sprouting roots instead of flowers. Deadheading -- cutting the flowers off -- encourages the plants to be more prolific in blooming because their whole purpose is to reproduce, and without the flower, they think they haven't done the job just yet. 

I deadhead flowers routinely in the fall, but always think about how instinctive it feels as I'm getting my hair cut in August, which seems to be a ritual before school starts: trim off the dead ends, shock the plant, get it healthy, prepare for the shorter days ahead. I guess in some ways it's a little zen; don't get too attached to the flowers, let them go, others will come. 

But it's hard to be so ruthless when it comes to the things you love, isn't it? My daughter refused a back to school haircut this year, not wanting to change anything, despite the fact that the ends were split and dry. I finally made the appointment for her and shamed her into going, because she wouldn't NOT show up. And as for me, my kid left for his sophomore year of college yesterday, and I feel a little unmoored. I don't know if he'll come back, at least not in the way that he was with us. The whole point of leaving is for him to bloom, in a sense, but not here.

Over and over, we learn what Elizabeth Bishop called One Art, the art of losing. Sometimes, when you've lost enough, you start to wonder whether it's wise to love anything at all. You love your job; your job screws you over. You say OK, I'll focus on what's really important: my family. Maybe you are able to have a child, maybe two, after more impossible losses along the way. You cherish them. But then your children grow up and begin to start their own lives, exit your orbit. So maybe you decide to focus on a hobby, but then your body fails you. You can no longer run, or tapdance, or see the tiny stitches to knit (which maybe you didn't do anyway but aspired to learn), or read for long periods of time because your eyes don't focus like they used to. It's all terribly unfair, this pruning process, when we’re so prone to attachment.

My kid sent me a photo today of his breakfast, in his new apartment, and another of his dinner. Maybe the bloom takes another form, after all.

Coconut Lentil Soup
(from 101 Cookbooks)
A warming soup for when you're feeling sorry for yourself and it's just on the edge of cold outside. Easy enough for an apartment dweller.

1 cup / 7 oz / 200g yellow split peas
1 cup / 7 oz / 200g red split lentils (masoor dal)
7 cups / 1.6 liters water
1 medium carrot, cut into 1/2-inch dice
2 tablespoons fresh peeled and minced ginger
2 tablespoons curry powder
2 tablespoons butter, ghee, olive oil or coconut oil
8 green onions or scallions, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons golden raisins (optional)
1/3 cup / 80 ml tomato paste
1 14- ounce can coconut milk (or less)
1 teaspoon fine grain sea salt, plus more to taste
one small handful chopped cilantro (and/or lots of kale chips)

Give the split peas and lentils a good rinse, until they no longer put off murky water. Place them in an extra-large soup pot, cover with the water, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and add the carrot and 1/4 of the ginger. Cover and simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the split peas are soft.

In the meantime, in a small dry skillet or saucepan over low heat, toast the curry powder until it's fragrant. Be careful not to burn it ... you just want to toast it a bit. Set aside. Place the butter in a pan over medium heat, add half of the green onions, the remaining ginger, and raisins (if using). Sauté for two minutes, stirring constantly, then add the tomato paste and sauté for another minute or two more.

Add the toasted curry powder to the tomato paste mixture, mix well, and then add this to the simmering soup along with a splash of coconut milk and salt. Add more coconut milk if you want it creamier.

Simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes or so. The texture should thicken up, but you can play around with the consistency by adding more water (or coconut milk), a bit at a time, if you like. You can keep it more brothy and soup or stew-like, or simmer longer for a thicker consistency. 

Sprinkle each bowl generously with cilantro and the remaining green onion

 

Acceptance of Terms

I shouldn't say something like "I've not been to the emergency room for a long time, which is a win," because that is Universe-baiting.

But in a weird way, a lack of catastrophe can make you wonder if you're imagining what you thought were substandard conditions. Because inevitably, you regard other catastrophic events and circumstances locally and globally, and think, hm, maybe I am totally fine? even when you can swear it wasn't always like this.

I used to write symptoms down in my notes app to reassure myself that I was not making them up, to see if I could connect the dots. Vision overconvergence and tracking abnormalities, check. Tinnitus, check. Insomnia, check. Constantly parched, check. Achy knees, check. Tendonitis, check. Hair loss, check. Brain fog, check. Weight gain, (ha) check check check. Vestibular weirdness, check. Abdominal pain, check. Shooting pain down my left forearm, check. Wrist pain, check. Random bleeding, nope, menopause, maybe check? But that has come to feel like an exercise in futility.

In the interest of controlling the things I can control, I'm finally doing vision therapy this summer (where I get to pick a snack or a toy after every session because most of the people doing vision therapy are under ten) and I finally went to the orthopedist the other day for the wrist and arm pain that is starting to make it hard to do things like lift pots. He was lovely and told me that I definitely have tendonitis and likely tennis elbow. I told him that's impossible because I don't play tennis. He arched his eyebrows and opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, and I preempted him: "oh, it's something that happens to old people."

"No," he responded, "more like a rite of passage for midlife."

And offered me a cortisone shot for the tendonitis.

Midlife can bite me.

Yesterday I had coffee with a friend from an earlier lifetime who was near town because of her kid's college orientation. It was so good to see her after too long, and we talked about all sorts of things, including kids growing up, appropriate developmental milestones for young adults with an underdone prefrontal cortex, and bodies that frustrate us and really do just seem to get in the way. Because the Universe was apparently eavesdropping, after we parted ways she forwarded me the most recent Terms and Conditions piece, just published in McSweeney's. It was so perfect that I texted it to a few friends. And now I'm sharing it with you. Because it will affirm what you're feeling, even if you're looking around you and thinking maybe you are feeling fine because comparatively speaking everything else is really going to shit. Also, because there is something to be said for looking at the breakdown of the fragile human body as acceptance of the terms, even though I've never really liked acceptance as a final stage of anything because it feels like giving up or giving in.

"This body will expire. You do not know when. There is no backup. Please do something tender with the time."

Do something tender with the time.

Not quite acceptance, but more like achievable challenge.

Probably the best advice I've heard in a while.

Cucumber, Corn, Black Bean, Tomato, Avocado, Red Pepper Salad

This is an easy summer salad I made after the CSA box arrived yesterday afternoon and I had to start cooking a week's worth of food on a Tuesday. I can't believe I've never published it before because it's frequently in rotation over the summer, mostly with frozen corn but fresh tomatoes. It hasn't let me down yet, unlike this flesh prison I occupy. Maybe it will make you feel better, too.

1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, chopped
1 c. tomato (cherry, halved or chopped)
1 avocado, chopped
1 red pepper, seeded and chopped
1 1/2 c. corn, frozen or fresh and blanched (about 3 cobs)
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
2-3 T. lime juice
1/3 c. chopped cilantro
salt to taste

Toss it all together, chill, and eat. Or don't bother with the chilling part because your family is hungry and you are moving at the speed of light to make dinner and process all of the produce.

Deconstructed Summer Rolls, and Reconstructing Community

So my kid tells me I don't post much any more. Which is true. But it also means he found my blog and read it, or at least part of it. He also says he doesn't like to read through people's life stories just to get to the recipe.

But for me, life stories and food have always been intertwined. So hey, kid, if you're still reading ... stick with me, OK? And I'm glad you found me here. I wondered if you would, someday.

(My kid is 18 now, and goes to college, and has an apartment for next year, which is both awesome and a little bittersweet for me. Despite what he thinks I think, I know he's adulting, and it's always hard to let go when you like your kids.)

~~~~

This summer I decided to commit to a CSA again. It's been a while since I've done so; it sometimes felt like more trouble than it was worth, it wasn't clear that my family enjoyed it, and honestly, even when it seemed like they were giving us choices, there was just SO. MUCH. FREAKIN. CABBAGE.

But two local brothers who knew nothing about farming started a farm near us a few years ago, and they've been successful enough to move to a larger plot of land in a neighboring town, and they work with other farmers to put a substantive share together that has a lot of variety, and they donate to the food pantry that I work at sometimes ... so I figured it wasn't just about the food, but about putting my money where my mouth (ha, see what I did there) is.

Besides, they deliver. So it's like having a present show up every Tuesday after I get home from work, which can be a very lovely thing when the world feels like a shitty place and people have forgotten how to care for, feed, and nurture each other (quite literally, since our politicians have just voted to make it harder to get SNAP benefits). I may not be able to change what's happening at the national level, but I have some modicum of control over my own little corner of the universe, where I can make a difference, where I can support a local farmer who in turn supports local business and local people, so that we can reconstruct community from the ground up.

Deconstructed Summer Roll Salad

I borrowed the idea for this recipe from the NY Times, and then riffed based on what I had in the CSA box and my garden and my refrigerator. It was a perfect solution for a hot first day of July when I didn't really feel like cooking. Deconstructing in order to reconstruct.

For the Salad

8 ounces rice noodles, cooked
1 handful of fresh cilantro and/or mint leaves, chopped
2/3 c. roasted and salted peanuts, chopped or crushed
2 medium carrots, shredded
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and shredded
1 handful baby lettuce leaves, torn if large
1 lb. cooked protein (tofu, shrimp, chicken, etc.)

For the Dressing

1 Thai chile, thinly sliced (optional for a milder dressing)
1/4 c. lime juice
6 T. smooth peanut butter
2 t. soy sauce
1 t. oyster sauce or hoisin sauce tablespoons
2 cloves garlic, minced/smashed
2 t. freshly grated ginger
1 t. sugar
1 1/2 t. canola or vegetable oil
1 t. fish sauce

Cook the rice noodles according to package directions. Rinse with cold water, and toss with the carrots, cucumber, peanuts, cilantro, and lettuce.

Mix the dressing ingredients together, thinning with 2 T. water and more water or lime juice if necessary.

Let people assemble the salad individually: rice noodle mix first, then cooked protein, then dressing on top. Usually salads like this suggest that you mix the rice noodles and dressing together, but whenever we do that the noodles end up dry, and when we did it this way, the noodles stayed slippery. If you have any leftovers (I know, I know, what's that?!), store the noodles and protein and dressing separately, and run the noodle/veggie mix under some lukewarm water to separate them again if they become stuck together.

in her hands

Every few weeks, I drive 45 minutes into Pennsylvania to see a massage therapist. I've never really liked massages, and I would never have said that I believe in energywork, but of all of the doctors and therapists I see (dry eye opthalmologist, retinal specialist, GP, endocrinologist, social worker, psychiatrist, gynecologial surgeon, physiatrist, oral surgeon, the list goes on and on), she is the most gifted healer.

Her office is a small room in a brick building in the middle of nowhere, with a table, and low lights, relaxing music and a few plants, and a tree of life sculpture hanging on the wall. I arrive, and she lets me in, asks me how I'm doing.

She knows it has been difficult. These days I also have pain. So today, when I arrive I tell her about this, show her where it hurts.

I only ever want her to work on my upper body. This is where I hold everything: the accident, the pain, the frustration, the dread, the hopelessness. It is in my heart, my head, my back, my lungs, my shoulders, my hands.

She begins by touching my feet, my legs, and my back ever so lightly, grounding me under the warm sheet, sensing the tightness, mapping me. As she works her way up my back, she begins to stretch the muscles that have seized into balls, holding gently with her fingertips when she feels the knots, encouraging them patiently to dissolve. She is not in a hurry. She is listening to my body. Sometimes I can let my mind drift. Sometimes I'm preoccupied. Sometimes the worry and fear and deep sadness creep in, even there on the warm table.

Today, I was trying to let go. I was having mixed success, all through my back and shoulders, until she worked her way down my arms and reached my hands. In that moment, it took my breath away and touched a place somewhere deep within me to be present to this connection: one woman acknowledging everything that another woman was holding, holding these things for her just for a little while, offering healing to hands that feel full of burden. It's not uncommon for me to weep as I'm driving home from her office (which I always weirdly appreciate because sometimes my eyes are so dry I can't make tears), but today, lying there on the table, my eyes closed, so deeply grateful for her releasing me from the holding for just a minute, I felt the tears come. As she put my hands back under the sheet, I felt connected, knit together, but also almost as if my body were invisible, like I was just light. For some who feels like her body is betraying her, that feeling was a gift.

Part of the reason I sought out this particular therapist in the first place, driving 45 minutes for something that lots of people promise locally, was because she uses techniques called myofascial release and craniosacral therapy. It's another thing I'd normally think is a crock of horseshit, but I experienced it once two years ago after the accident and while it didn't cure anything, it was the most relaxing 30 minutes I'd ever spent anywhere. CST practitioners study for years before they're certified, but the fundamental belief is that the body heals itself, and that the practitioner is there to hold space for that healing. In CST, the practitioner holds pressure points in the head, creating still points in order to facilitate the flow of energy.

Today, as she cradled my head in her hands, my mind stopped all of its chatter, and settled. As she held me, slowly shifting positions, the words that were left in my conscious thoughts were "love" and "healing." I was overcome with what I can only describe as gratitude.

I've never been good at making female friends (or any friends, for that matter), but I've been so grateful for those moments in the past few years when the nurturers among my friends (who happen to be women) have done this for me, in their own ways. I'm sure it says something about my relationship with my mother, or what I wanted from her and maybe didn't get, but nonetheless, I feel so deeply fortunate to have been held by them.

If you're one of these people, or if you do this for someone, I was thinking about you today, as I lay there, broken open and feeling supported in her hands. Thank you for being the one doing the holding.