I Am She

I authored four entries in a recently released book entitled “Mixed Blessings: Classically Inspired” (as an honorary thing, no royalties involved). Here’s one of them, a poem written to the topic, “the importance of being earnest.”  

I find my words on these pages to be somehow expected and normal, but also mysterious - as if of course they're there, and yet I'm not quite sure how.

Sa-Zoop!

We consume lots of homemade soup in the winter; every week I fill a stew pot almost to the tippy-top with some sort of soupy creation.  It’s become a tradition to share a serving with each neighbor living on either side - in both cases, single people who don’t cook much.  I look forward to delivering the small warm bowl each time, and visiting for a few minutes.  It’s a good way to stay caught up during the cold months when we’re all inside so much.

The most recent sa-zoop (say it with an Italian chef's accent, please, and flick a wooden spoon in the air for flourish) was a throw-together featuring hearty peas, lentils, and brown and wild rice cooked in chicken stock.  I added carrots, celery, onion, bell pepper, tomatoes, and plenty-plenty (that means lots) of cabbage, and threw in some chunks of chicken just because, well, everyone expects meat.  I honestly think it would have been fine and dandy as a vegetarian sa-zoop, but that’s just me.

Gray Day Quotes

 “Gray day.  Everything is gray.  I watch.  But nothing moves today.” – Dr. Seuss

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” – Albert Einstein

“The enormous lake stretched flat and smooth and white all the way to the edge of the gray sky.  Wagon tracks went away across it, so far that you could not see where they went; they ended in nothing at all.”  -Laura Ingalls Wilder

“This place, with it gray sky and withered garlands, its bared spaces and scattered dead leaves, was like a theater after the performance – all strewn with crumpled playbills.” – Henry James

Worth the Wait

In December of 2014, we were given a small poinsettia plant - a traditional holiday gift from a dear friend. Not long after, its leaves started curling and falling off as they often do at the end of the season.  But unlike my response to similar plants in years past, I didn’t discard this poinsettia.  Instead, I placed it by a sunny window with other houseplants, and watered it. 

All through the spring it held on.  Slowly, new leaves appeared.  In the summer I began to wonder what would happen if I kept it until Christmas of 2015?  A neighbor cared for it while we were gone during the month of October.  Soon after Thanksgiving, I was delighted to discover a few very small red leaves interspersed here and there between green ones.  A small but unmistakable victory!

However, that’s not the end of the story.

I continued to water this now-precious poinsettia, having become somehow attached to it in life-giving ways.  Yes, I gave it minimal care - but it also strangely encouraged me with its perseverance. 

Just this week a full “bloom” appeared unexpectedly as a surprise, reminding me that I can’t predict or coerce beauty, only behold its splendor with awe.  It is small compared with its original “blooms,” and yet I think it especially striking in a unique, unexplainable, and inspiring way.

Warmth

The sun illumines what it will.

In winter months, late-afternoon sunshine streams through lakeside windows, warming more than the interior of our house.  It softens everything, melting human responses to current challenges, affirming greater realities.  This kind of warmth is real and deep.  It is felt and known.

"When you are praying alone, and your spirit is dejected, and you are wearied and oppressed by your loneliness, remember then, as always, that God the Trinity looks upon you with eyes brighter than the sun; also all the angels, your own Guardian Angel, and all the Saints of God. Truly they do; for they are all one in God, and where God is, there are they also. Where the sun is, thither also are directed all its rays. Try to understand what this means." 

–St. John of Kronstadt

Reformed Chocolate Donuts

A friend who happens to be a wellness practitioner will celebrate her 10th year in business the first week in February.  My homemade, bite-sized/baked/frosted chocolate doughnuts will join a variety of other gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free goodies from my kitchen as refreshments for her clients all next week. As a result, I'm baking a batch or two a day and storing them in the freezer.

I had a tiny blob of chocolate doughnut dough leftover from today's efforts, and so baked it in a custard cup, sort of like a cookie.

"What's THAT?" my adorable husband asked.

"It's leftover dough, baked in a blob."

"Can I eat it?"

"Not until I smear it with homemade Nutella...just a minute."

He waited, patiently.  With the first bite he oohed and aahed, moaned and groaned like a delighted child discovering chocolate for the very first time.

"Here's what you need to do," he mumbled with his mouth full.

"What?  And wait until you swallow - I can't understand you."

His recommendation didn't surprise me in the least. "You need to keep all of those for us, and make something else for the project."

"Right.  Sure."

"But I don't want to let them go...I don't want to LET THEM GO!"

Ah, the drama of it all.  

Spectacular!

This evening we accompanied our daughter-in-law and three of our grandkids to the local ski area for a magical snowboarding adventure. Spotlights illumined the snow, casting long, slithery shadows each time a figure glided down the hill. And with each pass I felt the thrill vicariously, the vigorous reality of mastering a frozen mountain.