Category Archives: Food

Seven More to Go (49)

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This is my 49th post since I turned 55. Before I become 56, I have seven more to go. After falling so incredibly behind in my tumultuous year, I didn’t know if I’d be able to catch up. But now I can believe I’ll reach my goal. Forty-nine and seven, all those magical seven numbers. And I’ll become eight sevens soon. I’ve been trying to decide whether or not I want to have a theme for my 56 posts while I’m 56, or if I want to leave it wide open again for a second year in a row. So far I’ve alternated each year, chafing when I “narrow” things to a theme, floundering when I have no theme at all, no scaffolding. I know one year I want to build my year of posts from sleeping dreams, but I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet. I consider returning to my first blog, to nudging myself again to have new experiences and report on them here. Or I could write about the topic that’s grabbing me now, El Camino de Santiago de Compostela. Or pilgrimages as a whole. Or walking and noticing, being present and connected to the world. (These last three are all of a piece in my mind these days.) So I could write this coming year about the walks I take, or the walks I research or the walks I read about. Or maybe I can allow myself to let this next year be one juicy messy mish mash, be all of the above, even flash fiction added to the mix. And mix rhymes with 56, so maybe there’s a fun title alive in there somewhere waiting to emerge. I’m tossing it around now as I write this, cooked dinner in a bowl. No choices made yet, no drizzling of olive oil or sprinkling of cayenne. No nutritional yeast, no curry. Only the bright green of the bell pepper, dark brown of the mushroom, the tofu stark in contrast, resting against the blue sides of the big ceramic bowl.

I Dream Robert Redford (36)

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I dream I am ordering a burrito from Robert Redford. He is behind the cutout window of a little makeshift stand inside a large building, maybe a low-rent lobby but more the feeling of a second floor nonprofit, part workspace and part shelter. There is a handmade note attached to the side of the flimsy stand telling what they serve, and there are three different kinds of pork, so he needs to explain them to me. He is completely warm and kind and gives me his undivided attention. There are other people waiting, but he acts like we have all the time in the world. We talk about all kinds of things. The conversation feels flirty and fun. At one point I look at my feet and tell him I have forgotten what I wanted to say. A Mexican woman arrives to tell me the third pork option has something mixed in with the pork. I understand everything she is saying except the Spanish word for what is mixed in. She goes away and returns with this four foot long bundle of branches with dried leaves. I think it is the leaves she is talking about that must be added to the pork mixture, and then I follow the curve of the branches with my eyes and see they are covered with raisins! (After I wake I wonder if they ever do this, leave the grapes after the harvest, let them dry on the vine and then gather them together like this in the pruning process. I look up the word for raisins. Did she say pasas? Uvas secas? I don’t remember now.) At one point in my infatuation, of being so drawn to Redford, I am leaning in toward him while we talk. “Too close,” he says, and then he goes back to whatever he is telling me. There is no judgment of me in his warning, no recoil in him. I am just reminded in his warm, quiet voice to back off a bit. There is such sweetness in it all. I wake up filled with pleasure (and hungry for a pork burrito).

Write About Home? (27)

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Write about home. That was the writing prompt on April 17th, 2012. Ten minutes. Go.

I think home for me may be anywhere I feel safe and centered and at rest. If I can feel all of these things, I can feel at home in a motel beside of a busy highway. If I’m on edge, off kilter, then I can’t rest in myself, am itchy in my skin, can’t settle. I seem to go for long stretches now where I’m at rest with myself, and then the patio cement wobbles, the windowpanes rattle, and I am on my knees, angry at myself for falling down, for trying to stand up and not being able to. I eat too much, resist the work waiting for me. Essays go ungraded, dishes make a small city in the kitchen sink. When I was much younger, I had a rule about eating for comfort. I would assemble the food beside the television. And then I’d lie on the couch and had to feel whatever it was I was needing to feel. After a good cry, the Cheetos became my reward. I miss Cheetos. Last night I ate savory rice crackers out of the bag and then a small bowl of peanut butter and brown rice syrup and lost myself in a book about Mexico. This morning I lingered in bed and the tears came. They brought me home again.

Tidings of Comfort and Joy (14)

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I’ve felt happy again. Often. Dancing to Louis Armstrong’s “Cool Yule,” even feeling self-conscious wondering if Ted or Frank happened to see me through the kitchen window. Stepping outside the gate to get the Sunday paper, I close the gate behind me and just stand there looking at our mountains. I study the rooflines of the new houses being built on the other side of our little road and think even their looming presence can’t bury the glory of our mountain view. My joy ignites watching the house finches in the tray feeder, quiet, stolen moments while the mourning doves are away. I get happy over small things. Grinning in the bathroom mirror after a shower, wrapped in warm, clean clothes against the cold, patting my fat belly with something akin to affection. I almost giggle with glee when I climb into bed to eat my mushroom, kale, potato soup and watch re-runs of Parenthood, cozy on a winter night. Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.

Crescendos (9)

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YellowKitchenCloth

It’s the small things that stop me, give me breath. The unbelievable yellow of the new kitchen cloth from Trader Joe’s lying in a bright wet clump on the edge of the sink, the fleeting perfection of its spotlessness. The messy lumps of peeled mango piled inside the red glass bowl, waiting for me to finish writing and open a chilled bottle of Topo Chico to go with them. The surprising thunder of the cicadas in the neighbor’s tree, filling our courtyard garden, growing louder and louder as dusk darkens to night, their wild crescendo crashing through the open windows, the abrupt silence at full dark. I still find myself rubbing my fingers against each other sometimes, evidence of my hidden anxiety. But tonight I listen to the now-quiet air and feel the kind of peace I’ve been longing for.

[Editor’s note: This was originally written shortly after “The Thinning Veil.” As I work to return to my blog, there will no doubt be a mix of things past and present, maybe off season–this was in the heart of the summer–and so on. But here I am!]

Saturday (6)

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Saturday I cry washing dishes because I never got to say goodbye to Ken all those years ago when he was dying in an Oakland hospital. Standing at the sink I remember decades before standing beside him in the driveway in Newport Beach, the two of us watching them drive away with my stepfather’s body. I don’t remember if we spoke, only our silent bond, witnesses to that final leave-taking. When we walked back into the kitchen, Judy and Mary Ann were sweeping things off the counters, quick manic movements, black framed glasses and Bic cigarette lighters and all the little bits of him landing in cardboard boxes. I made myself a tomato and red onion sandwich and sat in the midst of the chaos chewing and swallowing. It could have been different, I think now, my hands full of soap and a slippery blue bowl. It could have been different if we’d all sat down. Maybe Ken and I would have talked about what Jarv meant to us. Maybe Mary Ann and Judy would have joined in, stopped hiding the evidence. It could have been a long slow day of shared grief, even a deep peace at the end of it. Instead, I sat on the barstool licking mayonnaise from my thumb and feeling like an alien.

Musings from May 22nd (4)

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I sit and eat panna cotta from the big plastic trough with my tiny red-handled spoon, the Italian gelato rich and creamy, outrageously sweet, swirls of caramel drizzled over it. No surprise, I am greedy. I want more caramel. I imagine the cold chewy rivers of it bending between my teeth, melting in my mouth, if my own more generous hand had held the ladle. (Whose voice is this?) I spoon sweet mounds into my mouth, cold tongue. It is all a part of a piece these days and weeks, this relentless keeping at bay all the things that await doing in my world right now. Cold gelato pushes down the almost unendurable anxiety at the base of my spine. I run my frozen tongue over the spoon and purse my lips, not smiling.