Love thy strangers

The pavement is wet and smells like elementary school heads up seven up at recess, umbrellas dripping in tall vases by bell rigged storefront doors, plump rivulets of water streaming down steamed up attic windows. It smells like concrete and car oil and eucalyptus. It smells like seedlings stretching out their leaves and sighing chlorophyll-ish breath.

It has not rained in a month and tonight the black street glistens with promising dampness. The misty droplets hang in the air and populate the pools of orange beneath the street lights.

I walk out of the house on the corner on the hill, windows lit up with scattered lamps and glowing faces.
It is Sunday and I am happily tired and a little buzzed on good beer and companionship.
It is January and I am in love with San Diego artists, activists, foodies, writers.

I walk out of the house and my mind is buzzing with gatherings and formulating organizations, ideas, and flying to Kenya and delving into storied folds within my own hooded head.

There are some days when you want to hug everyone (and sometimes you do) and proclaim,
You are my people!
and you want to continue to hold space and dance in thoughts and talk in rhythms. You want to fold everyone into you pocket and take the energy, the goodness, the warmth and smiles with you into the night. And you pack up your bag and wrap your coat a little tighter and stride out the door knowing that they'll miss you too.

I drive: wipers flopping to and fro, dotted lines on the road melting into the shiny slick blackness of the asphalt, BBC tones on the radio reminding me of being at sea in the middle of the night in the middle of lots of water and little land.
I am smiling because a jar of honey sits on the seat next to me and words off other writers' pages trip through my head. I helped organize, cook for, make a success this Honeyfest and our goodbyes were full of hope and a sweet sadness. Then up the hill I sat on the floor of a house I'd never seen with dozens of others and listened to stories from trembling hands and open hearts.

I don't know (many) most of them, but these, at least for this night, this moment, are my people. Just as the rain sinks into the soil and nourishes the seedlings, I can feel this community feeding my roots, allowing me to grow stronger and deeper every day.

Kitchen Aid

This is something I never do: stand in the kitchen with a stick of half-melted butter on the counter, loaf of warm bread on the cooling rack with steam above and crumbs accumulating below, knife in hand balancing a big glob of yellowy fat on the tip then jettisoning it onto nearby slice of soft pillowy cooked grain that was a sticky mess an hour ago.
Sticky mess. That is probably my intestines after three rounds of dimly-lit-kitchen butter-spreading.
I never do that. But tonight, I did it. Because I made spelt bread from scratch.
Ground grain, yeast, honey, salt, and water.

This is something I do but don't like to admit to: I turn it on. I go in the other room, go about my business, and I listen to the whir.

I love the sound of a KitchenAid kneading dough.

I know, I know, it is therapeutic to hand knead your dough. Meditative even. It makes you strong. That's how the farmer's wives used to do it. That is the "way it should be done." I am usually all about getting my arms elbow deep into foodstuff, oil or kale or mashed avocados or sticky sweet spelt dough clinging to freckled wrists, but these wrists hurt from actual manual labor that occurs with growing things (aka farming).

So tonight, tonight we pull the shiny KitchenAid out from her corner, nestle the bowl onto metal nubs, gently push the spring loaded kneading attachment into place.
She is ready to make bread.
One by one ingredients slide down the side of the stainless steel and bubble and froth in all sorts of warm yeasty ways. Powder churns into honey colored liquid and a globular form dances with the swirly spinning attachment.
I come in every few minutes to check on her, check to see if more flour is needed or if that whapping sound means Too Fast!
Soon there is a stretchy little ball ready to be sequestered beneath a tea towel in an oily good loaf pan. Rise and rise and rise and into the oven only to be yanked back out (lovingly) 40 minutes later when the smell of fresh baked bread wafts from the kitchen.

This is something I do and wish I didn't: Go back for that fourth slice.

I may not have benefited from the theraputic value of kneading but there is nothing more simple and soothing than buttered bread on a cool winter night.

My kind of therapy: Butter, honey, eat.

Taking my words

Just be.

Those were the words that were mumbled on murmuring lips when my thoughts raced and nothing seemed to make sense or everything was perfect and I wondered when it wouldn't be because it can't always be perfect like this right? That was 32 into 33.

Just be. Or as James said, we're all just beans just being. Because we all have minds that catapult thoughts from cortex to heart to fingertips, that send fragments of past and future reverberating through tense cellular walls. We all have perfect moments and then those moments when you can't even remember what perfect felt, tasted, shimmied like. We all wonder what 90 feels like but can never quite believe it will happen as we rush forward into our late 20s, early 30s, mid 30s. Because sometimes we all need to just float and see where life sends us.

But the words have shifted.

At the farm, Paul surveyed the sparsely onion-ed beds. "Replant." he said decisively. "It's better to take action and maybe be wrong than just to wait and wait and wait and not do anything." We pulled the failing onions, loosened the ground with digging forks, added compost, sprinkled organic fertilizer to nourish the ailing soil. We chose seeds and dropped them into furrows, covered them lightly, showered them in their new nests with water. We squatted on the dirt next to the bed and offered words of love and encouragement (yes, hippie dippie. but oh so effective). A month later a row of leafy chard smiles up from rich earth.

Take action:
My new mantra for this 35th year of life I'm striding into, pitchfork and To Do list in hand. Take action and surround yourself with people who take action. Care about something, get excited, get passionate, get ridiculous about it even. Take action and don't be afraid to take action again if things don't work out with the first decision. Be scared about something and decide to do it because that is what the little spot deep in your gut is radiating, imploring that heart that left brain to listen.

Be Atreyu, not Artax.

Take action. Move forward. Get happy.

And every once in a while on a sunny Sunday laying on the grass in the park watching the planes white against blue sky overhead or an early weekday when the sun shoots ripples of tangerine on the water and you're sipping tea and nibbling on butter cookies, just be. Because we're all just beans doing what we can.

Between the grays

I am sleepy, sipping cinnamon tea, and slipping in and out of downy thoughts on this softly lit afternoon. The lamps in my two rooms take a cue from the sun and are subdued and edged in haze. An occasional thistle-y idea burrs itself into a fold in my brain and I stare out the window and work it free. But all you can see when you look at me looking out is a blank stare or the darting of eyes from internal cloud to sea or a vague smile at the memory of the scent of pine needles at Rock Creek or Mexican coffee brewed on a propane stove in the middle of a stormy afternoon.

The bay and sky are the same color. Only a thin strip of land separates them and reminds one of humanity between the shades of gray. A blue and white striped jib flutters before a sailboat and I imagine the passengers standing at the bow blowing with all their might into the canvas, willing wind to get them back to the dock, back home to a cup of steamy hot chocolate and a snickerdoodle beneath a quilt. They are wearing boxy orange life preservers and wondering why people think this sailing thing is fun. Or they are bundled in wool sweaters and watch caps and drinking Flor de Cana rum and laughing at dirty jokes as the main and jib inch them along back to land lives they are happily neglecting for the afternoon.

I think about getting up, I think about the morning spent stuffing straw and rye seed inoculated with Phoenix spores into thick plastic bags and wonder when the Phoenix will rise out of cellulose and starch, I think about when I last knitted a scarf.
Tufts of words and images tumble through fingers and past tea cups.
Slowly my eyes close and all thoughts melt into the reddish black of my eyelids.

It is December and it is cold and it is going to rain tomorrow and that Beach Boys song about dreaming of this place on a winter's day just doesn't apply when you actually live in California.

It is Sunday and it is the perfect day for sky and sea to merge, for cups of tea, for couches and imaginings, for pulling a blanket out of the dryer and wrapping it around your shoulders, for scented candles with goofy names like Sleigh Ride, for long novels you almost forgot you were reading, for popcorn with butter and salt and pepper.
Always for popcorn.

Shnugalicious Sunday, as they say.

And if they don't say, they should start.

Why they think its funny to call graduation commencement...

This whole semester thing gives me anxiety.

Maybe it's all the stuff that's suddenly due (term papers, projects, presentations, my birthday).
Or maybe it's tension-headache muscle-memory from years of pulling all-nighters for finals. (none of which I have this year)
But most likely it's because come January the playing field is suddenly wide open and I don't know where the hell to throw the goddamn ball. Or what my ball even looks like.

Is it a cabbage? Or a sleeping bag in a stuff sack? Or a monkeys fist?
Where will the object land? Somewhere off the coast of Cuba or in a loamy field in New England or in a sandy patch in San Diego or back to my distant roots in Northern California/Oregon where I've felt the ancestral pull for years?

Or will the cabbage fit in a backpack and wander and WWOOF with me and bury its seeds in far off soil?
Will the monkey's fist stay in San Diego attached to a line attached to one of the many sailboats bobbing in the bay?
Will that sleeping bag keep me warm next to a campfire, next to my new friends sharing songs and stories and gluten-free vegan campfire brownies?

Or will the that ball be a flame and all I need to do is close my eyes and concentrate on the flickering outside my eyelids and breathe and know that wherever I throw my efforts and love, something,
perhaps the whole field,
perhaps the whole field and the surrounding fields and towns,
perhaps the whole field and the surrounding fields and towns and the whole world,

or perhaps just a splinter of myself
(they are all the same)

will be illuminated.


Or I'll light the goddamn park on fire.

Either way I'll learn something, now won't I?

Shanti.

In the Kitchen

I am in my kitchen because at 4:30pm it is nearly dark outside.

I am in my kitchen because my classes have been canceled this week and I have time to tie an apron around my neck, sidle up to the stove, and start chopping.

I am in my kitchen because said chopping involves about a two week back log of CSA vegetables in various states of wiltedness, shrunkeness, flesh hardening ripeness.

I am in my kitchen because I need to work out some matters in my head that driving around San Diego belting out Les Mis or at home blasting music (dancing helps) or even a lovely evening out at a coffeehouse scribbling notes in my 50th or so journal can't seem to break through.

So I head to the kitchen and pick up a knife.
The eggplant makes sense to me. It is globular and wears a little green hat. It is striated purplish and the tiny dark seeds inside refuse to budge even with the nudge of a sharp blade. Into quarters it falls and I scoop up the tidy pieces of perfected life and throw them onto a baking sheet.
I move on to the beets.
The Chioggas surprise me. Halved they are tiny little (flattened) barbershop poles or flashy Christmas tree bulbs. They are pink and white and taste sweet and earthy. I pulled them out of my plot on Thursday and tonight I push them into my oven. The gold beets nestle next to their strip-ped counterparts and I lick my stained fingers of pink and gold goodness.
Purple and orange carrots don't make it to the sheet. A little wash, a little scrub, into my mouth they go as the oven heats.
Tiny onions that don't make me cry, little last-of-the-season zucchini, the ever-present-in-my-life pumpkin, a sprinkling of chopped rosemary, and a touch of Italian tarragon.
At the last moment I find fennel in the depths of the crisper and chop off fronds and outer stems, breathe in licorice and remember how in high school I used to think that anyone I was going to have a serious relationship with must like black licorice, particularly Good N Plentys. I wonder if I would have considered fennel to be in that category? At that point the only fennel I knew about grew on the side of the road and I would pick it on walks during the summer and put a sprig between my teeth.
I smile as I am glad that my priorities have changed but that I still put sprigs of weeds between my teeth on warm summer days. I douse my chopped-up bountifulness with olive oil, toss in the herbs and salt and pepper. I give it a final blessing between slippery hands and slide the concoction into the hot oven.

I am alone in my kitchen and wonder if I should turn the music back on. I wonder if I should cook up the dandelions and lamb's quarters and spinach waiting on the counter. I wonder if I should do a little ballet to rock music or if I should dive into "Gaia's Garden" again. I wonder what I'll be doing in six months. Or six weeks.
I wonder if this living alone thing is so great.
Then I realize I'm not alone.

I wipe down the counters and find a fellow vegetable lover poking about in the remnants. A baby snail. He is in my kitchen and not my garden and I can't seem to bring myself to squish him here in my home. In the garden? Done. No problemo. If I have to choose between him and me eating my veggies, guess who wins? But he looks so cute slithering around on my countertop, nibbling the last of the purslane, chomping (can snails chomp?) on carrot ends.

As I sweep him into my compost along with the rest of the vegetable scraps, along with some of this anxiety, along with a day on the freeway and trying to always "figure things out," I realize that a half hour has just gone by without thinking. Much.
It's just been doing. And loving that doing. And excited for the outcome of that doing. And it makes me want to do more instead of thinking of all the things I should be doing or could be doing or want to be doing and not... doing.

In the kitchen and out.

So for now, until I "figure things out" I plan on doing more cooking. Because I have a feeling that that is exactly what I ought to be doing.

And figuring is not one of the ingredients.

Hello (again) Hankerings

The book is torn, taped, and yellowed.
There are phone numbers for Ally, Dorothy, and Le Blanc scribbled in blue inked cursive on the cover.
A brown water stain occupies all upper corners of the pages within. A coffee mishap? While at a cafe the owner hastily rising and knocking over a cup of coffee onto the book and journal strewn table? Or was the novel shoved into an overstuffed bookbag, a leaky thermos of tea slowly seeping into vulnerable pages in the confines of fabric? Or was it simply time and dampness, a drip from a roof onto the bookshelf, a spray of raindrops from a shaken umbrella?
There are dogeared pages and creases in the spine. Above "Other books by J.D. Salinger" on the first page a faint penciled "1.50" reveals its used-book-store past.

There is a bobbypin holding together pages 169 through 198. I didn't even notice it when I picked the book off the shelf in my old room or as I read the first chapter, "Franny." As I got to "Zooey" my fingers stumbled upon that remnant of my high school self. Had that bobbypin held my hair as I stood under lights ("Romeo, doff thy name; And for that name, which is no part of thee, Take all myself!"), or pirouetted within a knotted bun in a ballet class, or given me that 40s Swing Kids look I so strove for with my knee length wool skirts and cardigans?

On page 198 someone says:
"You can say the Jesus Prayer from now till doomsday, if you don't realize that the only thing that counts in religious life is detachment, I don't see how you'll ever even move an inch. Detachment, buddy, and only detachment. Desirelessness. 'Cessation from all hankering.' It's this business of desiring if you want to know the goddam truth, that makes an actor in the first place. Why're you making me tell you things you already know? Somewhere along the line- in one damn incarnation or another, if you like- you not only had a hankering to be an actor or an actress but to be a good one. You're stuck with it now. You can't just walk out on the results of your own hankerings."

When I was 18 and went off to theater school, I knew my passion, my desire would take me places. I knew I had to go to New York, had to act. When I got there I dove into acting and voice and speech and movement classes and relished rehearsing in basement rooms with radiators like damp train whistles and having friends who got "Fosse Hands!" jokes.
I basked in the drama of it all.

When I dropped out of college with disillusionment and returned a year later with a more humble gratitude, I wasn't sure if theater was my path. I dove back in with an appreciation for the communication skills I was learning. I took as many non-theater and edgy experimental theater courses as I could. I started letting people read my writing.
At the end of college, I wanted to travel again. And I continued to fill journals with scribbled words.

In small painted letters the excerpt remained on the back of my door until my mom remodeled my old room. I considered keeping the door in the shed instead of letting her paint over the dozens of quotes and pictures defining my early adulthood.
I took a picture of flaking acrylic and ripped newspaper clippings and let her repaint.

To me, this whole "business of desiring" that led me into acting in effect led me to traveling, exploring, sailing, writing. Even farming. Desiring to feel the spectrum of emotions, to stave off boredom and stimulate those stagnating braincells, to experience the same adrenaline as walking onto stage but now walking onto a teak deck ready for passage or setting my fingers on the keyboard and wondering what will come out.

This excerpt is lower down on the page but I didn't include it on my door way back then:
"You'd better get busy, though, buddy. The goddam sands run out on you every time you turn around. I know what I'm talking about. You're lucky if you get time to sneeze in the goddam phenomenal world."

I haven't finished the book yet. I have no recollection of how the story transpires. I remember connecting with it in high school as I dreamed about New York. I wonder if my mid-thirties self will have the same reaction. I mean, I still dream about New York but the yearnings are more for the memories than possibilities. The past instead of the future. For my friends who still live there. For the smell of the harbor (I know, gross, but powerfully nostalgic). For the taste of a proper Manhattan or a dumpling or a knish. For the feeling of impending Autumn on a September day. Memories, friends, feelings that I never knew I would make, meet, have when I first turned the yellowing pages of "Franny and Zooey" as a angsty dramatic 17 year old in San Diego.

The hankerings are there and more powerful than ever. To be an actor? No. But to express, feel, be before that sand runs out and I don't get a chance to sneeze- again and again and again!