Piscine Destiny

You’ll never guess what I’m doing. Well, maybe you could get part of it right…I’m involved in some sort of kitchen adventure.  That’s a safe assumption. However, I’m not baking gluten-free delicacies, concocting a weird brew of soup, or tossing an offbeat salad (all safe guesses). 

Rather, I’m right smack dab in the middle of creating Mexican ceviche, pronounced seh-BEE-tcheh if you want to be authentically Spanish, or you can use the Americanized pronunciation, sev-ee-chay, which honestly slides out of my mouth better. The Spanish articulation gets a little thick at the end, breathy and provocative, or else I feeling like I’m trying to blow out a candle but can’t quite get the air out through my teeth. 

Making ceviche involves marinating raw fish in juice extracted from fresh limes.  The flesh breaks down until it flakes, resembling poached fish.  I supposed you could say it is “cooked,” although via acid rather than heat. Trustworthy online sources assure me if you use pre-frozen fish (which mine is), there’s no danger of ingesting tag-along parasites.  I find this comforting. 

When the fish is “done,” I’ll add salsa-like ingredients – onion, tomatoes, cilantro, avocado, jalepenos – and serve the result on garbanzo chips, our next-best option for (currently outlawed) corn chips.  Caramba!  Que delicioso!

The fish du jour (oops, I mean fish del dia, out of respect for Mexico) is local bluegill and perch.  The filets I’m using are from fish caught in our lake on the 14^th and 15^th of July.  Who knows if parasites frequent our summer waters and take residence in our fish, but no te preocupes – or to be colloquial in Australian-gone-American vernacular, no worries mate.  It’s been frozen.

Ah, the intrigue of fate.  What respectable fish would think he might end up swimming in lime juice rather than sizzling crispy-brown in the frying pan? 

Destiny.  It is what it is.

Kathy's Story

For fifteen years I’ve been blessed to be Kathy’s close friend. The longer I know her, the more her unfolding story seems almost mythical. Hers is a story of struggle, but also of waking up to profound potential and fulfillment.  Paying attention.  Living deeply, from the heart.

Her story is about the enabling presence of God in human life, as well as the reality of human grit and the beauty of sheer effort.   It is about the buoyancy and hope inherent to the human soul, perhaps especially in the midst of suffering and expectancy: twins joined at the hip by faith in One who recovers and reshapes loss as a mysterious but authentic form of redemption, one day at a time. 

This is a story of how to live well and love well and be loved well, a story of what life is really about, of how to be changed by reverence, awe, and compassion and discover dignity, courage, and goodness. 

Layers unfold as her compass points the way.  True north, they call it. Integrity.  I watch intuition, confidence, and harmony manifest as she wrestles with the inevitability of fate. Insight and caring develop within the script of a Bigger Story than any she might have written should she not have lost her sight.

Every good story tells the truth.  And yet sometimes our most real stories are stuffed in some dark closet and ignored, and need help to come out of hiding.  Kathy’s story is not gagged and bound, but open and honest in every way.  It is comprised of many chapters, each one with layers: devastating childhood retinal disease, challenging blind school, and rigorous college.  Carrying the torch at the Olympics, teaching public high school, earning a master’s degree.  It tells of layers upon layers of challenges, of achievements and recognitions, and in the years I’ve known her well, always more teaching, more compassion, more hope.  Recently she was awarded State Teacher of the Year.  Now she is one of four contestants nationwide being considered as 2015 National Teacher of the Year.

Naturally Kathy can become overwhelmed. Her work as a blind English teacher in a sighted classroom requires heroic effort and incredible personal investment. And yet certain qualities underwrite her trek through life, characteristics that drive her pursuit of what is good beyond what seems impossible. Fanatical appreciation. Zealous patience.  Gutsy trust. Steely resolve, drive, and commitment.  Willing risk. Persevering hope that triumphs over pain. Faith in God’s mercy while taking every blind-but-inspired step: the hallmark of an ultimate Bigger Story of divine love intersecting with her small story.  

Recognition

bloggerarian – n. an honorary title bestowed upon faithful blog readers

This post is respectfully dedicated to my bloggerarians.  You know who you are out there in cyberspace.  You’re special.

You inspire and motivate me.  I am heartened by your presence here - isn’t presence the most we can ever give each other? By virtue of coming and staying, you convey that a.) my posts aren’t totally pointless, at least not usually, and b.) maybe, just maybe, I’m writing stuff that in some (small or large) way resonates with you personally.  Either way, I’m encouraged.

So what do I have to confer upon you, other than a pea-brained title? You have two choices.  You can come over for an official recognition ceremony: a cup of herbal tea and slice of gluten-free, sugar-free blueberry coffeecake (not recommended today given the current ice-covered state of local roads).  OR you can sit right there in the safety and comfort of your own chair and use your very active, creative mind to pretend you’re here slobbering over the coffeecake with me.  The choice is yours.

Thank you very much, dear bloggerarians.  I love you all. 

Simple Lens

I’m reposting the following quote (with permission) from a friend’s Facebook status today:

My thought this morning....is about how busy the world is all about me....it seems to swirl and twist at a faster pace each year...but through my aged eyes I see my own space in this world slowing down .... simplicity and peace are now a welcomed part of my world.

Swirling and twisting are tornado-like images that remind me of spaghetti in a pot of hard-boiling water!  And yes, I agree with my friend that the world is “busy” in this frantic, churning way, more so with each passing year.

I also identify with her when she refers to her own space in this world.  How that smaller space within the larger, very busy world can become more internally peaceful. How simplicity is welcomed. 

She makes reference to looking through “aged eyes” as if through a different lens.  In doing so, she recognizes the potential for a different pace within her own more-clearly-defined space, and isn’t automatically tossed into the larger cultural pot of boiling spaghetti that is slowly but surely turning into mush.

There is something profound about her witness to change, and her intentionally focused vision.  I felt compelled to pass it along.

Old Things

We like old things, and own plenty of them. Most tell stories of by-gone times - tales of my mother serving Uncle Harry hot cornbread at the mahogany table, of my father-in-law tickling the ivories with Autumn Serenade or April in Paris. These things are historians: masters of simple accounts, epic dramas, and allegories.

Old equals valuable.  Old things connect me with who I have been, and remind me of who I am becoming.