Smell-o-vision
If I could give you guys one thing, it would be the smell of sun-warmed strawberries on a summer day, fresh from the field.
Unfortunately, until technology catches up, you’ll have to use your imagination.
I’m pretty sure I had a clever title earlier
As these things go, however, it has vanished. I’m not even sure what I was going to post about. Seriously, if you people want to get something clever out of me, you should figure a way to get me to write posts while walking home after work. But right now it’s 10 pm, so my brain can only offer up the dregs from a long day of the usual daily fare.
It’s the daily routine that concerns me today. Life amazes me in its infinite variations on the unchanging daily routine. Today I woke, went to work, walked home, cooked and watched TV. Three years ago, when this blog started, I had the same daily pattern. Now I have the same job, same husband, but many things have changed in that unchanging routine, and I have changed along with them. It seems that life is a type of evolution, the constant incorporation of new ideas and knowledge into life, and the constant response to what we encounter.
Now for an apt aphorism: change is the only constant. I have often created change in my life when it was not otherwise forthcoming. I was an impatient young woman, and did not appreciate gradual evolution. When I wanted something to change, I wanted it to happen RIGHT NOW. I still struggle to appreciate/acknowledge incremental patterns of change. I suspect that, when I am older, I will conclude that gradual is a great deal more powerful than sudden change, no matter how dramatic it might be.
An example. Today I cooked zucchini-basil soup: I sauteed a mirepoix base, then stewed it with zucchini and vegetable broth. Finally I pureed it with fresh basil and silken tofu. We ate the soup with spicy kohlrabi and green garlic latkes with mint-yogurt sauce. Except for the tofu and yogurt, it was all vegan and all farm fare, down to fat little carrots from my MIL’s garden. Four years ago? I was likely to be found eating a BLT from a sandwich shop, and didn’t know what a mirepoix was. Why the change? Mostly, because my encounters with my own and others’ illnesses during the past four years inspired me to be conscious of how I treat myself. I know now that my body believes in tit for tat: it treats me as poorly as I treat it. And I figured, while I was at it, I might as well figure out how to make healthy = tasty.
Food is but one example. I still have a cat and dog, but not the same ones. Caring for my sick dog and cat through their long illnesses … I don’t even have words for that experience. I now live in a house half the size of the one I used to, and have about 40% less stuff. I have taken interesting trips and seen new places. Valued colleagues have come and gone. I defied Texas and chose to walk a lot of places now instead of driving. I think much differently about my crafting now and the place that making stuff has in my life. I have new skills, new ideas, and new confidence. I have learned more about myself.
The discipline of staying put is hard for me. I can be mercurial and unpredictable. On the other hand, assuming that life stagnates if you’re not on the move is just dumb. Although I still believe in forcing change to avoid habitual ruts, at nearly 35 I am starting to appreciate how the small things cause transformation as surely as tiny roots break apart huge rocks.
A note on photos: I am starting a small container garden. Plants, I think, are a great metaphor for incremental change. Take the last photo, for example, of roots I’m growing from an ivy I bought nearly 10 years ago. It joins an older sibling I started growing three years ago that is now taking over a windowsill.
Baby fuzzy chicks
3. So I fundraised yesterday. The event was wildly successful, and screamingly well organized, and people seemed to like it and feel warm and fuzzy. We (the we of work) are glad. Glad that it went so well, glad that we encountered no Acts of God, glad that we can now collapse for a few moments into tired but happy heaps. We had an actual performance this year from an out-of-town guest, the inimitable Anna Deavere Smith. I’d watch a video of hers or two if you have a moment.
2. Also. I went to a nearby farm Saturday. There were chicks at the farm. Two hens. A rooster. But like many people, I’m a sucker for the fuzzy baby animals. There were also goats, and the beginnings of beautiful squash. Ah squash season, how I love thee. The farmer promised he is growing an African squash that is similar to, but better than, butternut squash. I do not believe this is possible, but I am intrigued by the possibility.
1. I bought garlic scapes and a kohlrabi at the farm, neither of which I’m entirely sure what to do with. I think the kohlrabi will be turned into cakes with yogurt and mint sauce. I want to turn the scapes into pesto with walnuts. Jeff thinks they should be bread pudding. Perhaps there will need to be more scapes.
0. Surely there’s time for a nap now?
