Facebook Groupspeak

I use Facebook.  I am actually a fan of Facebook.  And that’s probably not surprising to those that know me well, really well, friends that can see and touch me, as well as fb friends that have ever seen and touched me; enjoyed a sandwich, a beer, a cigar (that one time in Kingston, Ontario), shared a drink with me; TAB, wine, white Russians, maybe a couple of 7&7s, know that I still like chocolate milk and yodels, remember that horror movies make me cry, and some of the hardest moments make me laugh, understand why I am petrified of horses, but won’t kill a bug, (except mosquitos, sorry) heard me laugh from my gut, heard me cry from the middle of some black hole, enjoyed a piece of my pie, Irish Soda Bread, sticky buns, or flourless chocolate cake, shared a joke, got it a ½ hour later, seen me twirl, or trip, been to the ocean with me, or the river, NYC, New Orleans, Myrtle Beach, or shared the top of a high peak with me.  Friends. Facebook. 

The reason my friends would understand how I would like Facebook is because they know I am a bit of an anarchist.   And let’s face it, we are all supposed to be collectively annoyed at Facebook, the posts, the revelations, the quotes, the recipes, the heartbreak and sadness, the in your face love, the causes, the funniest videos, the political sidings, the rage against the machine, whichever machine you care to rage against, or maybe rally for.  It is easy to be a Facebook hater, and so, I am not. 

I am not big on group-speak. I don’t do easy.  Not as a rule. Exactly.  It is more I believe, a genetic disposition or mutated malfunction.  It is one more part of what makes me, me.  My stumbling and perfect humanness, in all of its imperfection.

To me, Facebook is this funny little strange place that I can fully control what I wish to see, share, spend extra time with or shut down.  It is also this incredible place that I can feel this deep strong continuous connection with my extended family, the family that has otherwise grown up, apart, away.  Without Facebook, contact would be lost or certainly strained.  Relegated to Christmas cards and rare phone calls to share news of weddings and funerals.  And it keeps me connected to friends, close by, faraway, present day, and those from my past.  Even some acquaintances that are otherwise interesting, happy, inspiring, thoughtful, and well, just plain, Facebook friendly.

Facebook has also served as a place to post my creative self.  Photographs. Art. Furniture, ok fine, 2 chairs, and a wobbly table...  This creative expression is an extension that I might otherwise just keep to myself.  Facebook has provided this format that I can be a practitioner of art with ease and an instancy not available through the process of submission to art galleries, publications, or juried shows.  It gives me a starting point to present my art.  It has been a supportive place to share my writing and has given me the confidence to submit to those very scary, possibly rejecting publications.  I have been, in my mind, well-received instead. Happily.

Facebook has helped me get through some really challenging and difficult times.  A place to sometimes scream Look! I’m alive.  Look I’m not afraid! As well as Look I am moving forward, surviving, living, succeeding and also struggling.  It is a place for me to trace my own progress.  Knowing others are cheering me on and keeping me in their thoughts helps, abundantly.  Knowing some will misunderstand, or get turned off, or uncomfortable is also ok because I know they can click delete, block, or remove me from their timelines.  Poof! Imagine how easy it could be to apply those thoughts to the real world, Facelook? It’s worth a try.  Visualize delete.  Don’t let discomfort reach your heartdrive or back-up to your memory. Let it go.

Recently I sent a private group message about a deeply personal issue.  I am deeply private, it was difficult to do, but the support was needed and received tenfold.  Reaching out is not something most of us can do.  We are much more equipped to isolate and close ourselves off at those very times we need all the support we can gather.  Communicating need is considered to be a weakness, and something we turn away from.  It is painful to do, and painful to see.  We have all been there.  I have been a recipient of these messages.  I know they can be really annoying.  Everyone responding responds to the group, everyone has to keep seeing and hearing all the responses.  Most of us don’t know each other, and might not even know how we got in the group. 

Delete.  Remove yourself from the group.  Respond privately, or not at all.  Don’t take offense.  Carry on. Complain about Facebook if you wish.  But remember facebook does not control us or harm us.  We get to choose.  I chose to reach out.  Sometimes, here in this strange new cybernetic place, it is easier to communicate, but no less meaningful.  

A few years ago, after traveling through the south I returned with my oldest son to New York City.  We had escaped every storm from New Orleans, Alabama, Tennessee, through the Mid-Atlantic states during the beginning of hurricane season.  When we got to New York, the darkest clouds formed and the skies opened, but we were “home” and felt safe and familiar.  Close to friends, Facebooked or otherwise.  I dropped him off and hugged him tightly and parked in front of an art gallery.  Peter Tunney’s bold, expressive work seemed to be stronger than the storm, or at least invited me in from the storms that had been gathering in my own heart.  Safely. The one piece that has changed much of my perspective and softened the anarchist within read; WE ARE ALL STUMBLING HUMAN BEINGS.  Turning away from this very thing that makes us each individually human does not change our stumbling nature.  Knowing we are all connected through our humanity has given me courage and strength. And, well, maybe Facebook isn’t exactly the kum ba yah of connectivity, it is as real as virtual gets.  Well, you know what I mean….

I have been traveling to New York City a bit more lately and have been overjoyed to see Peter Tunney’s installment as I travel.  It creates this meaning that is unique to me and my experience, but it also transcends me.  It is available to us all.  Gratitude.  And really, what is so different about seeing or hearing messages on Facebook, a billboard, in the news, from a card, or a phonecall, or a visit in person?  It is one way of communicating, sharing, staying connected. 

Thank you friends for much love and support.

Barbed Wire Shawl For Sale

I have been developing or mastering this somewhat new quirk or idiosyncrasy over the past couple of years. I imagine it could be the start of agoraphobia or some other neurosis.  Maybe it’s the fear of not wanting to admit a certain level of defiance or willfulness. The fear of leaving, or the fear of continuing on in a place, or job, or life that no longer quite fits.  And I’m not quite sure if it is too large or too small or if the cut of the cloth is no longer comfortable.  I dawdle.  I dawdle in an effort to not move forward. And maybe it is true that I have always been one who dawdles. And one who does a million things at once.  In the past being "responsible" trumped being a dawdler and having a million things to do kept the dawdling from slowing me down.  I see this slipping of late or loosening perhaps.   And dawdling, seems the least of my troubles...

I discovered this new and not improved feature, or maybe just admitted to it, while attending a writing workshop I signed up for at the local new-age, crunchy feeling camp.   (Those were descriptors overheard, they are not my own, but they fit.)   I was excited about this opportunity. Leading up to it, anyway. And then I went away for the summer and after about 6 weeks, I had just found my groove and fell into a laid back summer mojo of sorts.  I like to believe that of myself, laid back and all mojo like, but I can muster up a great deal of angst and high alertness and a buzzing electricity of attempting to figure just about  everything out.  So getting into that summer groove felt pretty fine and leaving it to go to a writing workshop suddenly felt not even close to fine.  But I had registered.  And paid.  And the new age crunchy camp is a place that I have wanted to go for quite some time, and the authors that were presenting and sharing were of the highest caliber, and I was absolutely charged up about one in particular.  So I made my way back home to attend.  And this is where I noticed that quirk of mine showing itself off.  Waving it’s freak flag quite exuberantly even.

I do stuff.  Any stuff.  Stuff that doesn’t need to be done, while ignoring the stuff that needs to be done just so that I can slow myself down and pretend it’s not related to not wanting to go somewhere or do something else.  I go for a power walk.  An hour long power walk.  An hour and fifteen minutes before I have to go to or do those somewheres and somethings, I do this.  And then, naturally I have to shower before I go.  And then I have to find clothes.  And because I didn’t exactly know what to wear to a somewhere that included a writing workshop at a new-age camp I have to try on a few different bohemian type outfits.  Yes, outfits.  I still use that term even though nothing that I wear is an “outfit”, as much as it is a get up.  As in “are you really going to wear that get-up?”  And then after I find my get-up inspired outfit I have to straighten my hair.  My hair is fairly straight after blow drying it, but there is that one piece that no one in the entire crunchy new age bohemian camp will notice or care about but it is suddenly worth every extra minute I can dedicate to stall my leaving.  I might start researching something at this point.  Like Indian Mounds in Ohio for instance, or maybe even the population of Thermopolis, Wyoming, or maybe I’ll register for my next course at Marist.  At one point I notice I am arranging books on my shelf, because well that was suddenly important, but it breaks my spell and sends me packing, because I can’t even pretend that was important.  And by now I am sent packing 10 or maybe 30 minutes later than I should be heading off to join an unfamiliar pack.  But my hair is straight and my get up is geared up for going on.

I decide as I drive, I’m not going to rush which allows for more time to examine how much it is plain old stupid to be going to this workshop.  And then all the snot-nosed and mighty mouthed repertoire from that inner 9 year old-scrappy-girl-from-Queens self starts flying around my scrappy 51 year old woman self.  Who actually ever gets to be a successful writer from going to a workshop?  It’s going to be such a waste of time!  I can’t believe I left my summer mojo fine feeling of inner calm to come to this idiotic class.  I’m throwing myself into another situation that will make me feel alone. Shy. Awkward. Not fitting in. I will have to count my way into saying hello.  (This is what I do when those feelings overwhelm me, “OK you can do it! On the count of 3 say hello!) 1…2….3….. And right here at this point some inaudible mumble comes from my mouth usually encapsulated in a saliva bubble just for the glory of greater impact and all out pizzazz.  I build up all of this angst into a beehive of fright and weave my invisible, but palpable barbed wire shawl around myself and settle into my hole of funkdom that also doesn’t quite fit.

Taking the back roads to the camp, or the famed holistic learning center, as it were, along the meandering roads of Rhinebeck reminds me how much I love this idyllic landscape in which I call home.  And because it is a single-laned meandering road, I have to attend to the landscape instead of my gurgling angst.   It helps.  By the time I pull in to the parking lot and am directed by the kind faced, amiable parking attendant I have released some of my harrumphing piss-poor nature.  I have to check-in and find out where to begin this new and tentative journey.  The registrar has a knowing smile and goes through the check-in procedures thoroughly, showing me a map and pointing out which buildings house which activities.  Dining Hall.  Café. Lakeside Theater.  Main Hall for Yoga. Movement Studio.  Meditation garden. Sanctuary.   Labyrinth? (Uh oh!) Lake. Beach. Kayaks. My agoraphobic type predisposition is loosening it's grip.  I have fifteen minutes for dinner before my first workshop begins.  (Maybe I am not attempting to stall…..maybe I just love the adrenalin pumped rush of deadlines and demands!)

When I find my seat, not in the front row, too eager, let’s see…here in the second row, two seats in, perfect! I sit.  And loosely drape my invisible barbed wire shawl around me.  I’m not looking to bleed or harm others…but I need a little space between my saliva bubbles and the red hot rash of a social anxiety that separates me from, let’s see… hmmmmmm?  (long pause and affected chin rubbing) JUST ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WHOLE STINKING WORLD!!!  I can feel these feelings creeping up my veins and I have to soothe every one of them back down.  Into place. Only I don’t particularly like that there are places reserved for these feelings.  I would prefer to soothe them out for good.  Evict them from totum meum esse.  Why don’t I have a place for gregarious doyenne?  How ‘bout a slot for oozing with confidence man-magnet? 

I recently tried to sell my soul to the devil in exchange for a man made to order and exclusively for me, but maybe I didn’t make that post public and just shared it with my “friends”, as in Facebook friends.  Surely the devil and Facebook are very close bedfellows? I figure at this point and over the past few years selling my soul to the devil would seem a walk in the park…or maybe I am already making life-time installments on selling my soul the last time around….that would explain a great deal about the past few years and it makes more sense than anything I have been able to come up with.  Life sure is complicated, do I need to make saliva bubbles too?  OK fine I digress….this is not about me and a man.  This is about me and the whole stinking world!  Or me and my summer mojo.  Or me and feeling at ease.  It might even be about me and writing and me amongst writers. 

I ease into my seat.  I breathe.  I let go a little.  I soothe all those places that need soothing.  I loosen up my barbed wired shawl.  I do stuff.  All that stuff that soon won’t need to be done.  Shuffle through papers in my journal.  Begin doodling.  Begin writing, or at least jotting.  Jotting is much more in line with closer to fine, don’t you agree?  The hall fills, the writers on the panel take their places.  Introductions are made.  Discussions emerge.  Questions are asked and answered.  Banter gives rise.  People, like me, reveal themselves.  Just like me?  Close enough to find comfort and ease.  There is in this place an openness, authenticity, a creative force, an energy that smells familiar and new at the same time.  Like a fragrant herb that you can’t quite identify but you know you’ve tasted of it before.  And I did just walk gently through the garden path to get here stimulating the calming properties of passionflower, or lavender, or the minty tinged flavor of lemon balm….I guess hippie, crunchy, new age, love camp does have it's place.  Or maybe I have found another place that might fit me.

The evening workshop ends and I am smiling.  Relaxed, but inspired to go home and write.  To wake early and return promptly to hear more from these great authors, kindred spirits, people like me. Ordinarily Extraordinary.  Sharing a common voice of adversity met, challenges that knock us to our knees, friends and inner strength that restore us, humor that sweetens the bitter edges of our lives, at once universal and entirely unique, us.  

I think I will leave my shawl in the car.  If you happen to see one of my bubbles encapsulating a mumbled hello, smile and recall your youth, when you might have blown bubbles and caught them in a clap of “I got it!”  Twirl around in this magic circle of joy.  The will to live fully in spite of a few hitches and quirks is much more the mojo of me, but please don't clap too hard around my mubbled hello bubble.  

The next morning I walk in with much more ease.  As I am headed to my seat, I am greeted with a smile as wide as the Rock of Cashel.  And It might well be a long way to Tipperary, but there before me as far as the eye can see,  OK fine, I'm all pumped up and trying too hard...Anyway...I walk in and Malachy McCourt says to me, "Good Morning, Ginger"  just like that! Me! That scrappy little piss poor Irish American from Woodside, Queens.  The very same scrapper that said all her Hail Mary's with an Irish Brogue and the devil in her eye in chorus with her classmates (none of which had a brogue) when Father Ryan came into our class and lead us in prayer. (Father Ryan and my grandmother surely had the brogue working overtime and I had the devil in me so what the hell, I figured, I might as well combine the two and so I prayed aloud in class with a brogue of my own and a sparkle in my eye.)

Well, Jesus H Christ, Sweet Mary, Mother of God, and St. Joseph what the hell was I belly-aching about? Later that day, I find myself talking to Alphie McCourt.  He sizes me up a bit. Giving me that look.  (if you are Irish you know that look that I refer to, if you are not, it is that one eye half closed, not pleased, but also uncertain, with a very narrow window of time wanting to get certain look) Maybe wondering what the hell sort of get up am I wearing. Maybe just wondering if that seitan or the quinoa he ate in the veganish dining hall was going to settle into his bowels without discord, or instead rip them wide open.  But I am of the thinking he isn't quite certain what to make of me, and certainly there is room for me to be wrong.  

As much as I am suddenly enjoying this weekend, I am not exactly cured of my quirks and tendencies toward DON'T LOOK AT ME I'M NERVOUS IN THE WORLD with an equal amount of WHY CANT YOU MAKE IT EASIER FOR ME BY SAYING SOMETHING NICE??!! I operate in fits and starts most often.  He asks if I have the Irish in me.  What an exquisite charmer.  Do I have the Irish in me?  Music to my elf-like protruding ears.  And now that other me rises up.  Ready to sing a rebel song and slap him on the back and show him my Irish.  I manage to blurt an eager "Yes!" without showing off the steps I learned from watching my sister receive Irish jig lessons before they were called Irish step dancing lessons.  After asking if I've been there, just to make sure I'm dedicated to the cause and the customs and the commonalities we share he goes on to tell me the meaning of my last name, and tips on finding information about my ancestors.   Turning beat red and growing bashful and donning the barbed wire shawl seem to be among some of those common traits of the Irish and just about anyone else at one time or another.  

After listening to Frances Lefkowitz, Cheryl Strayed, and Marta Szabo, and those charming sweet little sons of Angela, I am enthralled and humbled and overjoyed to be in this place in this time among these crafters of words and speakers of truth, stretched perhaps a tad by some, but shared and spoken so eloquently, raw, and unapologetically by all.  Writers.  We.

I wonder how much I could get for my invisible barbed wire shawl on ebay or Craigs List.....

Taking A Big Healthy Bite Out Of Summer

I am in the mountains this summer.   Well, it is more the Champlain Valley, or the surrounding lakeshore.   OK, fine, so maybe I am more accurately, and geographically precisely enjoying a long stay in my charming lakeview cottage, or sweet little village home within the Adirondack Park which encompasses a great many mountains.   Away.   I am away for the summer.  Enjoying mountains.  Very much. 

The Universe seems to be prodding me along.  It is nourishing my soul and feeding my mind.  And as much as I continue as a reluctant learner and determined, but scrappy full on, life-living participant, to try to rush ahead, I am on a track that is moving slowly and thoughtfully forward. I am in Essex, enjoying farm fresh foods.  I am being nourished and restored by a great many local and seasonal pleasures. 

I have joined the iconic Essex Farm.  A bi-weekly share provides dairy; yogurt, fresh raw milk with cream, that rises to the top, buttermilk, sour cream.  It provides freshly butchered meats; European sausage, fresh ground beef, loins, chicken, fresh.  It provides grains; corn meal, wheat flour, pastry flour, and white.  There are wheat berries too.  It provides vegetables, the first week I chose what’s left of the winter root vegetables; carrots, parsnips, onions, and cabbage,  Adirondack blue potatoes.  There are fresh greens; kale, Swiss chard, arugula, lettuce, mesclun, and scapes.  A variety of herbs; dill, cilantro, lemon balm, sage, basil!

Best of all, I am cooking!  Again!  I have not cooked this way, in such a very long time, at least not since my seemingly epic divorce, which by now is seemingly from lifetimes ago.   I had missed it greatly, but as much as I wanted to, I had found it nearly impossible to spend a moment giving thought to preparing a meal.   In talking with friends and acquaintances, I have learned the kitchen can be one of the hardest places to reenter after a divorce.  The kitchen symbolizes the center of the home and family.  In far too many homes the kitchen also becomes a place of great stress and tension.  It is no wonder we eat toxic colored foods that offer little more than abrupt brightness and temporary distractions followed by noxious and growing consequences. 

Prior to coming up to the Champlain Valley for the summer, I attended an event sponsored by Hudson Valley BRAWL, Broad’s Regional Arm Wrestling League. All money raised went to a culinary program supported by the Washbourne House, a seventeen bed shelter for victims of domestic violence.   Cooking Matters, is a program aimed to educate and provide information to promote the use of natural, organic, healthy foods to families in need.  In addition to enjoying the raucous theatrical entertainment and competitive arm wrestling, the event raised my awareness and awoke in me a restored desire to prepare food with care, to reenter and reclaim my kitchen as a place central to my own sense of being “home”.  Who would have thought?

The kitchen in the homes where conflict and abuse are the norm become pre-satellite weather stations.  Impossible to track whether you are in the center of the storm or it is a bright sunny day, tension wears down and rattles, as well as renders the porcelain dishes useless. It might become impossible to tell when the storm that is heading your way will be a sun shower quickly passing, providing that rainbow of hope to keep you going, or if you are sitting under the eye of a hurricane requiring immediate evacuation.  And so the kitchen stops being a place central to heart and home, and instead becomes a place of foreboding dread. 

There is no place in a home more central to the functioning of family, than the kitchen.  Following a divorce, whether the marriage was abusive or not, there is a sense of failure, and loss. When the family no longer functions as one, the kitchen can be a very challenging place to be. In addition to my divorce, my two older children were in varied stages of college completion and attendance, and living in faraway cities. I felt like each meal I prepared for my youngest son screamed of the new, almost inexplicable dynamics of our suddenly altered, broken and changing family.   Three years passed.  Meals were prepared and shared and became easier.  Although take-out and pizza delivery were much more the norm than they had ever been before.  My son left for school, and I continued my sporadic and sustenance inspired food preparations, seldom cooking or eating at home for or with pleasure.

And then I made the decision to go to the farm.  To get back to the root of myself, and plant myself firmly in a place that I loved deeply.

Essex Farm is an institution.  It has grown in popularity and grown in breadth.  The farmers have become a vibrant and well-liked addition to the very small village of Essex.  I had signed up for a seasonal CSA share at Essex Farm prior to attending the Hudson Valley BRAWL event, and was looking forward to discovering which foods would be offered in this beautiful land several hours from the agriculturally rich Hudson Valley.  For over twenty years I had driven to Essex and thought the sagging roofs of barns and overgrown fields were the sad remains left by unfortunate attempts of would be farmers that had not been aware of the frozen landscape or the brief and mercurial summer season.    Aside from a roadside market selling corn and the occasional cucumber at a local dairy farm, I was not aware of any other operational farms.  This had been the case for many, many years.  And then we began to notice some stirrings at what appeared this big, make-shift farm.  Horses appeared. Young ambitious earthy types showed up and occasionally were spotted riding bikes past my home. The farm was making a rumbling attempt at rebirth, just as a large part of my life was nearing it's inevitable end.  

Last summer my daughter called Essex home, as I traveled the country mending my heart. She met some of the young farmers-in-training and became a part of the bigger very small community.  Although we have come to this area for over 20 years, we had only before "visited", in spite of our small home here.  I wanted to learn more about the farm.  I wanted to become a bit more familiar, a bit more connected to the community.

I picked up my first farm share at the end of June after leaving work and driving north, the first late afternoon I arrived  in the mountains.  The day was sunny and clear.  No threat of rain or storm for days out.   It was reassuring to know the weather was going to be predictable, up in the mountains, and in my kitchen.  I pulled into the long driveway and parked.  When I approached the tables filled with produce, I was quickly acclimated by a young intern who directed me to sign in and gave me a quick tour.  I gathered my bundles, and bushels, and jars.  I wrapped my meats in brown paper.  I measured out grains in careful degrees, cupfuls were emptied into containers with care.  With my greens and fresh strawberries gently bagged, I went home with an abundance of farm fresh foods.  Delighted, but also slightly intimidated by the responsibility before me I unloaded my car and filled my refrigerator.  Now what?  I could no longer avoid or shirk the kitchen.  The growing weight of this task exhausted me.  Dinner would be a salad of greens, and berries, feta cheese and wine.  I fell asleep deeply, before 9:00.

The next morning, rested, I rose at 5 am, ready to meet the eggs and flour, the berries.  I added yogurt and butter and prepared scones.  Baking is my mood barometer.  Sweetness returning like a gentle and familiar scent, it informs me of my happiness, of my gratitude for all that I do have. Happy, cheerful, and humming I gather bowls and measuring cups. I was glad to make a small dent in the milk jug.  My coffee turned a beautiful mocha shade after adding the fresh cream that sat floating on the top of the jug.  I have heard about milk, fresh in this way.  And read about it in books, an antiquated practice from long ago.  I never imagined experiencing this first hand.  Such a remarkable gift, so pure and simple, stripped of packaged promises and toxic treachery. 

Several months ago, while visiting Trader Joe’s, during my annual impromptu pilgrimage,  I overheard a conversation about food consumption and waste in this land once referred to as the place of milk and honey.   As a nation we waste great amounts of perfectly good food.  The clerk and customer were discussing why people in developing nations are much more thoughtful and appreciative of their food.  According to civileats.com, Americans spend about seven percent of their income on food.  In comparison an Indonesian, spends almost 43 percent of his/her income on food.  Those in the Ukraine can expect to spend over 40% as well. The fact that we view food generally as inexpensive and easily accessible creates a strange relationship we seem to have with it.  We will spend great amounts of money in restaurants and varying amounts on food trends and fads.  We don't think much of the dyes and packaging, the sugars and chemicals, or the calories.  Or we overthink these ills and jump on the next food bandwagon with the hopes of curing our overall discontent, culinary or otherwise.   We tend to throw great amounts of food away with little thought, and we continue to suffer from growing levels of obesity. As one American, I have wasted far too much.  I have thrown away meat, and milk and many more products packaged and purchased and then dumped.  All bought with good intentions.  All discarded with a numbing disappointment.  For some time I personally wasn’t in a position to throw away food, nor was I, for far too long, in a frame of mind to prepare it and adequately cook with care for myself and my son.  The truth of this was jarring.  I was glad to be gaining much distance from this reality and closing the gap between myself and my food choices.

I awoke the first morning relishing in knowing the food now filling my refrigerator was all grown from a farm less than a mile from my front door.  The farmers, apprentices, and students all had their hands on it, and their hearts and souls in it.  Grit and sweat and determination, love, hard work, and occasionally, I am sure, resignation toward a crop smaller than expected, helped to form the conical cabbages and coax the blooms of the zucchini now visible in the fields.  You can’t help but see and feel the hard work that was demanded in the production of everything in my share.  I could see the draft horses in the fields and the sun freckled skin of some of those working along the rows and rows of crops as I drove into town.  It was suddenly a responsibility to prepare this food.  It would be an affront to throw away or waste anything. 

And so I cooked, and baked and prepared.  Salads, scones, bread, sausage with mint and feta, roast loin. Cold parsnip soup.  Roast chicken.  I made frozen yogurt, trying different flavors and fruits purchased elsewhere.  Mango and Coconut frozen yogurt became my favorite.  As June lulled its way into July, I enjoyed more farm fresh surprises.  Fennel.  Bok Choy. Chorizo.  The fresh basil granted a few cups of pesto, an old favorite, a summer treat. 

I continued restoring and nourishing my soul.  I hiked, and added 5 more high peaks to my goal of becoming a 46er, I now have 24!  I rode my bike and gardened.  I painted and crafted and wrote occasionally.  I thought frequently of my relationship with food. And family.  And community.  I entertained friends and shared with them my love for this beautiful place.  I thought longingly of my children, who are all right now too far away or too busy trying to find their way in a world that is vastly changed and very much the same.  I cooked for my youngest son in a way I have not, in far too long. And his gratitude filled my kitchen.   I have restored my heart, my soul, my own grit and determination.  My resignation toward understanding that my family has changed greatly, has been softened by knowing change brings opportunity.  Letting go allows room for more. 

I may be found once again humming in my kitchen,  a pie cooling on the sill, bread rising on a counter.   With time and thought I will decide which blends of herbs and oils will compliment my meals.   I will patiently learn how to infuse the seasonings and flavors that bring pleasure and remove the slow boiling of bitterness long before it hardens.  

Thank You Essex Farm for bringing me home and nourishing my soul.