Zucchini?  You Must Be Joking

There’s a joke going around whose entire premise is that there’s just too much zucchini in the world.  It assumes zucchini’s usefulness and abundance are disproportionate.

I don’t buy into that premise, recognizing meanwhile that my more moderate–ok enthusiastic– stand on zucchini is peculiar, unpopular… maybe even unprincipled.

Taking Counsel Of Your Fears (Today is Not That Day)

I love zucchini.  It is a kind, gentle vegetable… or fruit, depending on who your horticultural heroes are.  Easy and soothing on anxious stomachs, ambidextrous and adaptable in recipes.  During my last month of pregnancy with Ezra, zucchini was almost all I wanted.  And I didn’t know yet then how delicious it is in cake, nor did I have Steph & Seb’s revolutionary zucchini salad recipe.

While I’m well aware that one healthy zucchini plant is probably all my family needs, this spring I planted four.  Just in case one or two succumbed to any kind of insect mayhem, like the tent revival/bra and book burning party the squash bugs threw amongst the Hubbards last year.  For goodness sake.

I’m married to a man who plays with enterprise networks; I totally get the benefits of backup and redundancy.

Therefore, four zucchini plants.

Tangent…

They did show up again this year, by the way, the squash bugs— despite my scattering diced citrus peels like confetti in the borders as an organic deterrent.  This time they appeared on a volunteer pumpkin vine in the middle of the garden. 

One clambered out of the shadows and up on top of a ripening pumpkin as I was watering the garden the other day.  It rubbed its eyes in the bright sunlight and asked me querulously for an aspirin, still shaky from all its rioting and carousing down below.  In answer, I hit it with water from the hose.  Drenched, it rushed back into the pumpkin’s shadow, sounding the alarm for family and friends to take cover.  

I felt absolutely no remorse, and wished the bug and his family bad health to the end of their days.

The thing about this year’s squash bugs is that they don’t seem to be packing their usual viral punch, the infected kiss-of-death vampire bite that topples the entire plant into utter meltdown, leaving unlucky gardeners with a yellow brown mass of wilt within days of the bugs sucking juice from even just a couple of the leaves.  No, this year, thankfully, while the bugs are present and partying in my garden, the virus they often carry with them isn’t.  Some leaves show signs of decline as the bugs suck the life out of them, but the vine itself keeps the faith, sprouting new leaves and new fruit, exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations, boldly going where no pumpkin has gone before. 

Of Mice And Men and Rabbit-Whales

But the zucchini… I weeded one hill out  because I’d planted it too close to a tall Ravenna grass and it wasn’t getting enough water.  This weeding was a preventative measure:  I didn’t want the languishing plant to be that one wounded gazelle at the back of the herd, the one that lures the predators in.  The one that ultimately, after being half-devoured, gets left to molder on the savannah while its murderers pursue the cute baby gazelles that have strayed too far from their mamas.

I apologized to the runt zucchini as I pulled it.  It was cruel, this culling of a plant whose intentions were all about fruitfulness and abundance and exploration of the universe, simply because it was on the puny side… but I had to believe it was for the best.

The three remaining zucchini plants became as substantial as shrubs, which was nice, and prolific as rabbit-whales, which was… I feel conflicted about this.  It was amazing (as any rabbit-whale would be).  So amazing… I can see how garden profusion leads naturally to fairy tales about beanstalks and pumpkin carriages/townhouses/dormitories.

This summer’s zucchini abundance was also sobering.  I felt great responsibility for the use and care and dispersement of my miracle produce.

Finally, the abundance was perhaps even a little embarrassing, given the local culture… the jibes and jokes and cliches.

Speaking of…

Here’s the joke, shared by a good neighbor (hi, Mike) who called us (ironically) to share his own zucchini.  A man (let’s say he’s from New Hampshire) visits his friend in Utah.  The Utahan takes the man grocery shopping (it sometimes happens; men do go grocery shopping together).  When they leave the car in the parking lot, the host doesn’t lock his car.  The New Hampshire tenderfoot wonders why his friend doesn’t lock up, and the Utahan replies, Well son, this is Utah.  No need to lock up.  Later the Utahan takes his friend to church.  They’re heading inside, leaving the car in the parking lot, and the Utahan clicks his key to lock the car, and his friend says, wait, I thought we were in Utah?  And his host tells the New Hampshirian that yes, we are in Utah.  If we don’t lock the car at church, it will be full of zucchini when we get back.

Only imagine what might happen at funerals here.

Zucchini Incident Management

My parents visited during the zenith of my zucchini melee, and I shamelessly begged/coerced them to carry some off with them as they meandered south to see more family (my dad looked both perplexed and alarmed when I loaded him up with three- four-five large zucchini).  Once zucchini reaches a certain size, the only thing anyone can think to do with it is make zucchini bread.  One big zucchini can make four-five-six loaves—and not everyone likes zucchini bread.  Literally or metaphorically.

My friend Steph tells me I should pick my zucchini very young, when it’s barely an inch in diameter, tender and succulent and small, and then it won’t get away from me.  Like Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout’s garbage did to her.

I tried this.  All summer, I was pre-emptive in my zucchini picking.  I peered and squinted into the zucchini shrub shadows and picked handfuls of tender succulent squashes still cradled in their infancy, and ate them all mostly by myself (steamed, with olive oil salt and pepper yum).  I did feel a little guilty that at least one of my motives was about zucchini population control, and that I seemed to be on the big bad giant end of a folk story.

Also I felt selfish– my squash feasts are usually solitary affairs.  But there were always the zucchinis that I missed, ones that hid beneath leaves or camouflaged themselves in the tangle of stems.  Ones that within just a few days of my missing them had grown gargantuan and were bulging out beyond the reach of their parent shrub.  Ones that were probably making up their own jokes as they basked in the sun.

Wheat Germ Woman Rides Again

And so this summer I lived the zucchini cliche.  No, I didn’t leave them in people’s cars at church (tempted, though. I did ask Frank to leave some in the nearest foyer for people to take while I was safely off visiting my sister in Montana.  He didn’t.).   I texted a couple of people to offer zucchini, and their responses were kind, but no thank you I have my own to worry about.

So I used it in every way I could think of.

Here is the list:

In salad (thanks again, Seb & Steph).  Paper thin zucchini, lemon, salt, olive oil, cracked pepper.  Probably best with a little fresh grated parmesan too.

As Zoodles (zucchini noodles).  Delicious when they’re mixed 1:1 with normal noodles (rice noodles, even better), and white sauce… or red.  Adaptable to both vegans (hello, Mary) and carnivores (that means you, Frank).

In Tacos.  Shredded or chopped and added to the meat, zucchini absorbs the flavor and extends it further.  So you use less meat, a compromise between the vegans and carnivores.  Delicious regardless.

As the base for curry, pureed in coconut milk.  Zucchini is a natural in green curry, because it’s green.  I recommend making the curry spice blend from scratch with the freshest possible spices and ginger, and using lemon grass.  Also fresh basil.

In morning oatmeal.  Finely minced (the least egregious texture), with cinnamon, raisins, nuts, and honey— it is the breakfast approximation of zucchini bread.  I had it a bit too often; thinking about it now, I feel slightly nauseous.

In chocolate chip cookies.  Not bad.  Not great either… I have a memory of chocolate chip zucchini cookies, made by a roommate in college (hello Jody).  She shared them with the rest of us and we all loved them and bonded over them and honestly couldn’t get enough, but this was not how this summer’s batch turned out for me.  Probably one of those things that memory enhances.  Love the memory, anyway.

In lemon zucchini bread.  Much better last year… how did that happen?  Oh I know, I am a haphazard recipe follower.  So lovely lemon zucchini bread two years in a row is the equivalent of being struck by lightning twice inside a dentist’s office in Boise.  Wednesday, Tuesday.

And then… thinking healthy natural thoughts as we prepared for a camping trip, I made energy balls with zucchini bits in them (never ever again… it’s been over a month and there’s still some left).

Zucchini energy balls? Yes, please!

Finally, I dried zucchini, thin sliced with chives and a sort of salty tomatoey garlicky vinegar painted on, hoping for a veggie chip approximation.  After sampling a handful, I had to wonder… who in their right mind would want to eat them?  (I might eat them, and probably will…but not in my right mind).

Meisha Takes Some Off My Hands

Meisha made zucchini chocolate cake for her own birthday… a big enough batch to produce both a cake (with a Gravity Falls motif, thank you very much Merrin) and a plate of cake pops.  (She had a fan-girl theme going; the pops were meant to be hogwarty/quittitch golden snitches).

Given space in the kitchen, Meisha  turned out to be an over-achiever… well, except for maybe with the snitch frosting.  What the heck, Meish!

And That Chocolate Cake Again

A few days ago, I followed Meisha’s example and made some seriously delicious chocolate zucchini cake.  It has three cups of pureed zucchini in it.  Roughly half a rabbit-whale!  That’s much more than the typical recipe for zucchini bread.  I subbed in coconut oil and butter for the vegetable oil, and forgot the eggs, which turned out to be serendipitous.  The cake was fudgy, almost brownie-like… and with ganache?  Irresistible, intoxicating, addictive.

(It is highly unlikely that I will ever be able to make it exactly the same again, which I think only adds to its charm).

There was no time to take pictures of this marvelous confection/mistake.  No other thoughts besides eating it right away occurred to any of us when we looked at it.  I know that sounds all spooky and mysterious, but actually it’s great news.

Because it is The Answer!  To The Zucchini Question!  Yes, you can use those billions and billions of zucchini!  Make Chocolate Zucchini Ghost Cake with it!  Right now today! Seven-eight-nine-ten dozen batches of it!

billions and billions and billions

The Way We Were—Or, And Then, They Died

It’s September now, and the zucchini shrubs have contracted mildew.  Situated along our back border, their water was supplemented all summer by the neighbor’s sprinklers, which kept them lively and statuesque through July and August’s rising heat.  It appears now that this water gift will be their undoing.  Their decline became noticeable earlier last week, as temps dropped and the first gray-white leaves (which, if you don’t know why they’re white, are actually kind of pretty in a dusty miller/artemisia sort of way) multiplied from a couple to many.  I may have a few rabbit-whales out there yet, but I imagine this week may be my last for baby zucchini feasts.

I’ll miss them, and the crazy way we were together, but I won’t complain.

Next year, I will probably plant four zucchini hills again.

Another Retrospective

A River Runs Through It… Well, Actually A Canal Runs Through It (study #2) by Lynaea Brand
5″ X 7″ Oil on panel

I wrote this piece way back in January.  Feeling mildly disillusioned and angsty, I was sure that I’d never post it.   Rambling, fretful monologue— why would I.  But I rediscovered it just a couple days ago, and remembered how I was feeling in the winter when I wrote it, and though the struggle to find time (and courage) for making art (or writing) still vexes me, my outlook has promising shifts sometimes, and I’m once again grateful for the journey.  In general, anyway.  Which journey is worth recording (I believe this fervently, dearly beloveds– but it isn’t always easy to live what we believe, is it).

I realize I’m developing a tic here:  pieces written in the cold grey dead of winter, published at last in summer’s verdant warmth.  It’s probably a metaphor for something– but we’ll let it live on undisturbed.

Making Art, Winter Blues Notwithstanding

Winter Paperwhites in Her Summer Sky by Lynaea Brand
oil on linen on panel (5″-ish X 12″-ish)

This was in January:

So, I’m making art again.  I wish I could say that it’s going great, that I remembered where I left off and have only improved from there.    But I haven’t.  I’ve given up finding my place and am resolved to learn stuff all over again through trial and error and Google.  Resolved to keep painting,  investing in the theory that tenacity (aka enduring failure) will inevitably lead me to brilliance and marvelousness.  Or something like that.

Afraid to disappoint myself with clumsy renderings of people (my favorite subject), I’ve been painting landscapes.  Little barns and houses and trees.  And pears.  Also a cemetery, which I guess counts as a landscape.  To my chagrin, it wound up looking less Sargent-Monet-Pissarro and more like an unsuccessful Thomas Kinkade knock off.   I found the irony  almost comforting.

Grave Matters, study #1 by Lynaea Brand
oil on board, 5″ X 7″

My daughter Maurya looked at my cemetery and said, “Why don’t you actually on purpose paint it like a Kinkade?  That would be so funny.”  We laughed together, which eased my cemetery sadness for whole minutes.  Later, I found it on Pinterest, a painting done in Kinkade’s idyllic style: sweet cottage in the background,  Darth Vader fishing irrelevantly in the fore (Google “unwanted paintings by David Irvine” to see it– I don’t want to infringe on anyone’s copyright) .

I thought of Margaret Mitchell, perpetually convinced (in her scrupulous avoidance of typewriters and pencils) that someone else was writing her book.  It happens, I guess… especially if we’re not writing (or painting or whatever) anything ourselves.

Smoke Signals From the Far Side

little girl sketch by Lynaea Brand

Today, (still January) I clicked on a drawing tutorial for beginners.  An articulate You-Tuber half my age invited me to draw circles and ellipses for thirty minutes every day to improve my sketching fluency.  He even shared a link to free printouts of circles and ellipses.  To trace, over and over and over again.   Hand-eye coordination, cell memory.   Wax on, wax off.

I sense that there’s practicality and possibly even wisdom in this bright young man’s method (yo-ho-ho, sensei).  Value in repetition, glory in practicing.  But frankly… thirty minutes a day? of circles and ellipses? seems sketchy (pun intended).  Like trusting in a rabbit’s foot, a lucky feather, freckle juice (Porcelana Fade Cream, remember that?  Did it work?  Where has it gotten to, now that it’s relevant?).

Lean on Me (another pear study) by Lynaea Brand
5″X 7″ oil on canvas

Still, I think I’ll try it (drawing circles and ellipses).  Why not.  Then maybe branch out, draw circles and ellipses in the form of fruit.  Using real subjects: Citrus, apples, pears.  Also eggs.  Then I’ll paint representations of fruit and eggs on an archival ground, applying modern color theory, sophisticated lighting, lab-tested oil paint.  Maybe after a while I’ll change it up, dressing my egg and fruit models with little roundish bits of gumdrop for facial features, and then, I’ll draw and paint egg fruit gumdrop people, jewels glowing against Rembrandt-dark backgrounds.  So that by the end of this trial of faith (in what, ten or twelve years?), I will be an adept sculptor/sketcher/painter of anthropomorphized fruit.  The egg head artist.

P.S. (Somewhere, Beyond The Blue)

Shady Spot by Lynaea Brand
8″ X 11″ mixed media/oil on canvas

Post Script today in July:  While I painted more or less doggedly through winter, I didn’t practice circles and ellipses.  I did sometimes sketch people, with hit and miss results.  My discouragement, combined with an avalanche of household distractions, led to a gradual dwindling of focused effort by mid-spring, when I once or thrice played with cold wax, encaustic, and collage.  I’ll be honest– this spattered dabbling was mostly further dithering.  Avoiding the awful but necessary moments (moment after moment after moment) of facing my ineptitude and soldiering through it.  I tell my kids all the time that we can’t learn without trying and failing at least a little (usually a lot)… but in fact, it is so wrenching!   I’m tempted to throw a tantrum.  Middle aged and menopausal and averse to entitlement as I am.

And yet.  Not having painted for weeks now, I looked through my stack of attempts the other day, and was surprised.  Both at the volume– they’d added up to quite a few, and at the quality– I like some, actually.  Inoffensive, companionable, quirky little things.  It made me think… Maybe I never really lost my place.  Maybe I’m just traveling so slow, my progress is imperceptible in the moment, noticeable only from a great, blue distance.

A Small White House Again, study #4-ish by Lynaea Brand
8″ X 11″ oil/mixed media on panel

Dreaming of… a White Christmas?

There’s a local radio station that starts playing Christmas music before Thanksgiving, and after Thanksgiving plays nothing but.  This extravagance used to irritate me.  I suspected commercialism and avoided the station through the holidays like the flu.  But this year, “White Christmas” in Sinatra’s voice made me nostalgic, full of uncommercial cravings.  Perhaps something about having grown children and faraway siblings evoked a hunger for figments of my own childhood– I don’t know.  Whatever it was, I opted in on the holiday station as often as I had access to a radio, hoping for more of the soothing sounds of Christmas Past.

May Your Days Be Merry & Bright…

Merry & Bright Days… what are those?  Some of us occasionally wonder— I know a few people who are weathering dark days, crisis and cataclysm and heartbreak all.   Still… I think, at last, that I’m learning to recognize the merry and bright ones when they come.  I actually get them a lot.  It used to be that I didn’t notice their arrival, as overshadowed as they were by my Great Expectations.   But years of experience (and the need to survive them) are teaching me to see almost blinding brightness in the ordinary, to accept what is, love what I’ve got, and be merry in the hazardous (and exhilarating) process of working dreams into reality.   These aren’t easy lessons— but their cost enhances their worth.

I see evidence of these lessons in the merriness and brightness of the lives around me, people choosing to celebrate despite stacked odds– illness, loss, estrangement, homesickness, poverty.  Some of you reading this should know that… your hopeful weathering brings us all joy.   More proof, another gift making our days merrier and brighter.

And May All Your Christmases Be White, at Least Metaphorically

I’ll share a few lines that my dad (who historically is a reluctant correspondent) wrote in a little newsletter insert for my parents’ outgoing Christmas cards.  The newsletter alone is miraculous, considering my father’s epistolary taciturnity (whew!).  Furthermore, this dad, who ordinarily would be tramping through the snow on his little farm (stalking wildlife, inspecting berry canes), and indulging in the culinary delights of the season, can’t have any of it.  A perplexing illness has plagued him all fall and winter, sapping his strength and pitching his already conservative celiac diet into food oblivion.  He can’t tramp, nor can he hold down much– not even beta-carotene-rich mangoes.  Which mangoes my mother esteems greatly for their nutrition.  (She’s feeling a little betrayed by the super-food angels right now).

Anyway, here are those lines:

“Life is just good… We will likely be here for another year or two, so please, understand this.  You have an open invitation to come, especially in August, and pick a berry or two, and stay in a free bed and breakfast.  Don’t wait too long, there are no guarantees beyond these: we love you, God loves you and us, and life is good.”

(photo courtesy of my father in law, aka Santa Claus)

Kittens, Crabapple Jelly, and “Nearly Dead”

(Or Writer’s Block)

I’m not the first person to wrestle with writer’s block, or to complain about the wrestle.  And I’m not the first to realize that the best way past it is simply through.  Just getting it done. Which is pretty much all I learned from my petty research on the subject (my sources include Google and a biography on Margaret Mitchell).

Studying writer’s block did little to help me overcome it.  But it was a fascinating diversion.

My sister, who I think is a very good writer, recently shared that while she is wistfully aware that writing is one of the major reasons for her mortal existence, the thought of actually doing it makes her nauseous.  I get it.  Hungry to create, but so afraid of failing that I sabotage the joy of creating.  Or avoid it altogether.

My sister and I are not the only ones who psyche ourselves out.  Knowing that I’m in good company does comfort me a bit.

I’ve been writing this particular post for weeks– no, months– coming up with four or five wordy, complicated, entirely confusing drafts.  I moved the most finished ones from WordPress to my notepad because it hurt my soul to think of deleting them, after all my labor.  But I’ll probably never use them— drafts filled with ruminations about Beautiful Feet on the Mountains, Paint Night, Open Boats, and the mysterious differences between   artists and “makers”.

Right now?*  All I really want to write about is crabapple jelly, my kitten, and how fainting should qualify as a near death experience.

But You Don’t Say It (or Crabapple Jelly)

There’s not much left to say about writer’s block.  But crabapple jelly?  Mmm.  I could almost wax lyrical.  Crabapple jelly is a lovely, mystical outgrowth of the ancient, somewhat controversial Apple tradition, whose roots reach back into history, beyond Johnny Appleseed and the English midwife’s cottage garden, through Newton, Ivanhoe, the Norse gods…  and at last to the Trojan War— possibly into Helen’s own back yard.  Crabapples are the Apple Original, the mother Pomme.  Beyond Trojan heroes and villains, the Apple’s role in the Garden, if it had any beyond nouragement**, was blessed.   But that’s a tangent.

Also, I understand that besides being a sweet-tart preserve, “Crab Apple Jelly” is an anthology of sweet-tart short stories by Frank O’ Connor.   What a lovely concept… sweet-tart short stories.  I think I’ll make crabapple jelly, and then savor short stories and toast in front of the fire some cold November morning when the girls are at school.   Read some, write some.   A way past writer’s block!  Via crabapple jelly.

Cat Gotcha Tongue

What would I say about my kitten?  Well, I love that she purrs.  Purring is magical, like crabapple jelly– just one more proof of God’s hand in the creature.

I also love that she wends.  Between my feet while I’m doing dishes, between blankets and pillows when I’m making the bed, between the banister rails when I go up and down stairs (she’s stalking me, thinking she’s a leopard).  I love that she is especially clownish and wild-eyed lemur-like when she wants to be picked up, and that of all things, she loves to have her tummy rubbed (more magic: possibly she’s not a leopard or a lemur, she’s a Labrador).  I love that I cannot pin down what she is after all– milkweed stardust fluff eider-thistledown, leopard lemur Labrador– and that there is no possible way to discern her thoughts, though clearly, she has them (she is a regular schemer).

I don’t love that in a wild, leopard-lemur-Labrador-like move, she knocked down one of my blue sparkly glass things and broke the lid (her concern was not entirely believable).  But I’ve forgiven her, and will continue to put my hope in more magic.  Apples in a basket.

Not Dead Yet

And what have I to do with near death experiences, or even fainting for that matter?  Not much, besides the fact that I’m wriggling past writer’s block (with cat-like tread, she said), and fainting and death are something to talk about.  Last July some dearly beloveds and I nearly went down in a vintage boat (circa 1970’s) on Flathead Lake in Montana.  It was a sobering moment (though not too awful; we had on life jackets and could still see the shoreline).  But fainting in September– months later and for other reasons– was a lot scarier and significantly more uncomfortable than facing the possibility of going down in a boat in July.  Partly because the boat in July didn’t completely sink, so… drowning remained theoretical, while the fainting was for real.

Still.  Fainting bypasses theoretical drowning and ranks second after choking in all of my near-death experiences so far (I almost died by carrot twice).  I’m not a fainter by custom, trade, or penchant—I object to pretty much anything along the whole Fainting-as-conspiracy spectrum, from the breeding of the ultimate scapegoat (***), to the cinched-tight corsets of Scarlett’s genre.  I hope I never faint again, nor choke on a carrot or even a bit of apple either.  May we all remain forever novices to swooning and choking.  It’s not cute or fun in any way.

Back To the Block

This naturally brings me back to Writer’s Block, which is, metaphorically speaking, a sort of Near Death Experience, a more than theoretical Sinking Boat, an almost literal Choke. Assuming we ever get past it (because if we don’t, it is Actual Death, Snow White’s last suffocating gasp spent beneath glass without the benefit of True Love’s Kiss).  Having researched writer’s block (you smile, and you’re right; I might as well have been ironing the cheesecloth for my crabapple jelly), I have garnered perspective and advice for us all on the subject.  Which I’ll share, with a challenge.  And then I will leave us to our own devices.

Advice On Tackling Writer’s Block (And Other Creative Paralysis)

“You can’t wait for inspiration.  You have to go after it with a club.”  — Jack London

“I learned to produce whether I wanted to or not. It would be easy to say oh, I have writer’s block, oh, I have to wait for my muse. I don’t. Chain that muse to your desk and get the job done.” — Barbara Kingsolver

“Quantity produces quality.  If you only write a few things, you’re doomed.” — Ray Bradbury

“What I try to do is write.  I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat.’  And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff.  But I try.  When I’m writing, I write.  And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay.  Okay.  I’ll come.'” — Maya Angelou

And especially this:

“Don’t take anyone’s writing advice too seriously” — Lev Grossman

The Challenge (Heigh ho)

To myself and anyone else aspiring to create wonderful things– who also has happened to read  this (maybe my sisters, brothers, a handful of friends, a cousin or two), I extend an invitation and challenge:  Just do it.  Just write (0r whatever it is you are longing to do but are not doing because only heaven knows why).  Pre-dawn, midnight, or like Lev Grossman, in ten minute snippets and other stolen moments, just do it.  Go after inspiration with a club, chain your muse to your desk, write nonsense if you have to, don’t take anyone’s advice too seriously, and remember to never take counsel from your fears (I think that was Stonewall Jackson).

My daughter invited me to join her in a challenge to write 50,000 words of fiction during the month of November.  I’m already behind in the challenge, but actually, I’m days ahead of where I would be had I not started at all.  Amongst my paragraphs and pages of gibberish so far, I think there are a few gems.  Out there, with you, dearly beloveds, are a whole lot more.

Heigh ho.

Post Script

*This post convalesced in rough draft form for weeks through October; I almost deleted it but couldn’t bear to give up on one more.  So I’m publishing it.  Having made the crabapple jelly ages ago.  It is delicious.

** “nouragement”: Ogden Nash’s word (Love Under The Republicans– Or Democrats) which I take to be a perfect hybrid between nourishment and encouragement.  Nash uses it sarcastically;  I don’t.

(***)  The ultimate scapegoat:  Fainting Goats.  People bred goats with a genetic disorder that predisposed them to fainting when stressed to serve as decoys amongst herds of sheep.  If wolves threatened the herd, the sheep would run and the goats would tip over in a stiff-legged faint, serving as a perfect distraction for the sheep getaway.  Grisly and sad, and one more nuance to the ancient term “scapegoat”.

Promises To Keep, And The Best Intentions

Like many people, I have sometimes made promises I didn’t keep (such as my promise to myself to write consistently on my blog).  And like most of us, I have never wanted this mistake to become a habit.  My kids might beg to differ, depending on their mood and/or which pet they’re remembering with angst-laced fondness, but I insist:  my promise-keeping intentions are sterling (notice my most recent: a new crazy-eyed pet, Ophelia Evangeline The Fluffy.  “Kitten” for short).

So sterling, in fact, that in order not to break them, I mostly refrain from making any promises at all.  Fear of commitment, maybe.  But it’s an honest fear.

Nevertheless

I am making this promise to myself one more time:  I will write daily.  Whether my words reach Everyday Bloom or not, I will write.  If it’s only one paragraph on the back of an envelope, a quick sketch of  five little neighbor girls parading down the sidewalk with an empty refrigerator box covering their heads— like five child-sized, wayward pallbearers who’ve lost their way in a funeral parade—  even if it is only to record this, I will write. Every day (which to me means…what… roughly five times a week?  Four?), I will write.

I’ve also promised myself to do art– sketch or paint or glue rocks to jars– for at least twenty minutes every day.   On the train on Saturday, I sketched the faces of two oblivious passengers.  Trivia:  One had a wonderfully long nose, reminding me of a more hipster Roger from 101 Dalmatians.

Today I will sketch… zinnias, I think.

Whew.  Yikes.  These are serious promises to make.  But with Everyday Bloom as my witness, I commit.

The End…?

Or Not.  Regarding Loose Ends and Starting Places…

But that’s not all.  Well, it’s all of the committing, but it’s not all of the writing.  Last week, while I stalled, I Googled “writing tips”.   Aside:  According to several prominent advice-giving authors, Googling when you’re trying to write is counter-productive.  Their counsel?   Stay away from mindless distractions, namely the internet (also ironing pillowslips and alphabetizing recipes).  Anyway, I read that it’s best to stop writing while you’re on a roll, while there’s still something left to say.  The  idea being that the next time you sit down to write, you have a place to start.

Like this:

Last Winter, I Went to College.   I took two classes, both of which required a lot of writing.   Short stories, commentaries on literary masterpieces.  Delightful, incredibly fulfilling.  The results will both be fun to share here, and will offer a leaping off point for further writing.

Last Summer, I Visited Several Cemeteries, Narrowly Escaped Shipwreck, Met a Man Who Carves Horses, Read (And Finished) “Great Expectations”, and Grew Magical Pumpkins.  Other Things happened too, like Ophelia Evangeline the Fluffy (aka Kitten, who is, even as I type, nipping at my elbow for attention), Roadtrips with Daughters, Adventures With Sisters and Friends, and Extreme Seamstressing, or The Sewing of Many Bodices.  Look at all the things there are to write about!

Also I Started Taking French on Duo.  Which isn’t going well; once I got past the first few lessons, I began making so many mistakes that I got kicked off the app until the next day (Duo’s way of encouraging its users to buy credits, which I won’t).  I have to wait a day before I can start each lesson over again.  Sort of like Groundhog Day, with less French and no donuts.

That is all.  Adieu for now.

–Musing On Celebrations And Monuments: Reception Story

Since we’ve seen a lot of them this last year.  Summer and  fall waxed sumptuous with weddings in particular– a season of cake, flowers, and fare-thee-wells.  I can think of six nuptial celebrations between June and October.  These are big events–monumental even–especially when one is at your own door.   In my case this summer, in my lap and pulling on my hair.

Because (remember) Maurya, my second daughter,  engaged in June, got married at the end of July.

I was the bride-appointed wedding planner.  Maurya didn’t want anything to do with planning her party.  Happy to schedule the temple for her wedding ceremony, happy to collaborate with her intended on the honeymoon destination, but absolutely no…  Not the reception.  She was grateful she had a mother to handle it.  A couple of years ago, she’d texted me from a friend’s bridal shower: “I’d rather poke my own eyes out than plan my reception.”

(The Reluctant Wedding Planner)

 Mother Goose/The Reluctant Wedding Planner

I’d always imagined I’d love carte blanche as wedding planner.  I am, after all, right brained…and a romantic.  But in real life (with a budget, a bride, and a deadline), it was mostly terrifying.  Sometimes, yes, exhilarating (like when the flowers I’d planted in pots began blooming).  But then I’d make the mistake of peeking at Pinterest again.  Pinterest, riddled with the opulent, the ridiculous, and the beguiling.  Host of centuries’ worth of unrealistic expectations.  A schizophrenic outgrowth of today’s entitlement paradigm, the DIY movement, and our misogynic history (rank with dowries and mail order/trophy brides).  And keeper of some of the prettiest pictures I’ve ever seen.  The most tempting pins targeted my adolescent longings for the ethereal with eery acuity: soft lights filtered through gauze, antique urns overflowing with blossoms, Irish linen, vintage chandeliers.  Each one promised a world that exists only in photoshopped pictures and fairy tales.

Awkwardly balancing our narrow budget/timeline and my teenage dream/cultural angst—and ignoring the whining of my inner Crazy Puritan Woman (wary of enjoyment, suspicious of abundance, she relishes only the “guilt” in “guilty pleasure”)– we set out to make a reception for our daughter.   It helped that Frank is left brained (and OCD); he made lists, took measurements, pre-hung curtains, strung wires, ran cables.   It didn’t help that we hadn’t saved for the date, and that we’d learned of the engagement just before we sent Ez off on his mission, whilst in the throes of landscaping our newly acquired bare dirt.  Nor did it help that I stubbornly persisted in the belief that I could make everything—bridesmaid’s skirts, groomsmen’s bow ties, wedding cakes, cream puffs, hor d’ouevres, decorations— from scratch (Maurya chose a dress off the rack; she looked simply beautiful, made Dennison’s year, and saved me from myself).  As I recall the DIY I feverishly took on, I realize that Crazy Puritan Woman did find a way to assert herself after all.  Insisting that Beauty pay in blood, sweat, and tears for her unbridled loveliness.

At any rate, we felt a little deranged sometimes.  Occasionally, we whispered to ourselves, “Why Are We Doing This??”.  Our only good answer:  “Because We Love Maurya And Want Her  to Know It”.   We do love Maurya (Dennison too), and it is paramount to us that she know it.  I think though that last summer, we questioned the efficacy of the means.  It seemed, at least for a while, a preposterous way to show love.

(Bride, With Cake Pans)

But The Kindness of People…

Until the week of the reception, when the kindness of people put celebrations and monuments in perspective.

People offered to help, texting and calling from near and far.  The offerers were insistent.  Apparently, our celebration was important to other people besides us.  A friend helped me make tart shells; another helped make cream puffs.  I had a cream puff filling party in answer to even more offers of help.  Despite my stress-induced ADD and the cream’s nasty tendency to spooge out of the tops of the pastry bags and all over everything bound by the laws of gravity, my friends filled hundreds of cream puffs, saving me at least two sleepless nights of cream puff stuffing all by myself.  They even washed all my dishes afterwards.

An aunt and cousin dropped by and chatted while we gathered tulle skirts.  Cousins collected empty cans for me (centerpiece containers, a clever idea I may have seen on Pinterest).

One friend lent me tin tubs.  Another lent me all her cake pans….arguably enabling me to wander further into the nether reaches of DIY craziness…but in truth, it was so kind (left to my own devices I’m sure I would have tried to make cake pans from tin foil and hub caps).  The morning of the wedding, her stack of pans (their mission accomplished) became an abstract but meaningful detail in a couple of Maurya’s bridal photos.  Which were taken by my brother in law David Stark, choreographed by my sister Mara Lee (that task alone!  the shoot—and the editing afterwards!  an unimaginable gift).

My sister Leah became my wedding cake doula, saving me from disaster at the midnight hour by Making The Frosting, using her own favorite recipe.  I cannot overstate the save.  It was a sort of Sleeping Beauty/finger on the spindle intervention:  I’ve only had a handful of cake successes in my life, and was crumbling under the Crazy Puritan Woman dictum that now, on the threshold of my most important cake occasion yet, I would pay for the hubris of thinking I could actually make my own daughter’s wedding cake (notice that Puritan Woman is not only crazy, she’s also a hypocrite: she insisted I DIY everything in the first place).  A certainty that Maurya’s reception would be the scene of The Most Epic Cake Fail Of The Century grew ever more perilous in my mind; it was mere hours away from becoming a self-fulfilled prophecy.  Leah stepped between me and my self-imposed cake fate with experience, an objective mind, and a delicious whipped cream cheese frosting.

(Scullery Maiding aka The Great Cake Rescue)

(Naked Cake.  On Purpose)

My sister Nola showed up with her best friend MacKenzie and flats of blueberries from my parent’s farm.  Wafting the nonchalant breeze of Columbia River Gorge Bohemia—very relaxing.  Granted, the blueberries weren’t originally meant for us.  But somehow, they became ours… some even made their way onto the wedding cakes.  Not enough good things can be said about home grown blueberries, Northwest breezes, or the bearers of them.

Another dear friend and his wife agreed to man the refreshment tables (despite the fact that he was recovering from a tumor and a collapsed lung).  She asked me, “So, how do you want me to do this?  Do you need a Refreshment Nazi, telling all the little kids that they can only have one, or do you want me to hover invisibly in the background, and refill as needed?”  Her husband just smiled his mellow smile.  When it came to it, their Un-invisible, gracious friendliness lent warmth and ease to the party.  I don’t think anyone else could have done better.

Raising The Barn

The day of the wedding, we had three hours to set up for the party afterward.  I had no idea how we’d pull it off…but there was the kindness of  people again.  My parents, Frank’s parents, my siblings, Frank’s siblings, nieces, nephews…some helping in the kitchen with hor d’oevres, some packing sparkly breakable things in boxes to be moved to the party site.  Some hanging lights and curtains at the bowery, some loading and unloading furniture (yes, furniture), boxes, food, and really heavy pots full of flowers.  It was like moving day…and we had all just that morning been to a wedding (and a luncheon put on by the groom’s parents in between–a delightful affair done with excellent taste)!  Yet no one complained about the insanity of it…no one griped about the wedding planner, the demented person who wanted an entire house moved There and Back Again in one evening, just for a party.  As a matter of fact, everywhere I turned,  people said the nicest things about how beautifully it was coming together, or asked how they could help now.  Instead of feeling exhausted, I was buoyed up.  Crazy Puritan Woman shuffled her feet in the dusty yard, packed her black valise, and trudged back to Massachusetts in her ugly, practical shoes.

The party was magical.  We felt so loved (it struck me then, still seems to me now, that attending each other’s celebrations is an act of generosity, a social kindness, and I am grateful for it).  Our daughter and her groom were emotionally present (contrary to the culturally held standard for newlyweds), and beaming.  My sister Nola helped with the music (she’s got great taste in music), and my brother Daniel spontaneously orchestrated a chair dance like the one in Fiddler on the Roof.  We had a multitude of photographers, from my nephew Doug, who had rigged up a digital “mobile photo booth”, to my sister Andie, who asked people to kiss each other as she took photos, to Mara and David who made the wedding party look fabulous.  I couldn’t have asked for more.  It was one of the highest points of my life (“Sunrise, Sunset” kept going through my head—also “I Cannot Believe it, Did You Ever See A Night Like This”).  And when it came to an end, people were still there—plus more!  Big burly Barney cousins (and Super Kent), Aunt Marcielle and her van.  So many people helped clean up.  It came down fast.  A miracle to me.

(Chair Dance, a’ la Fiddler on The Roof)

We–with our community– had built a monument.   More than a beautiful  tribute to Maurya and Dennison (and a communal pledge of hope and confidence in the life they’ve ventured into), it was a deeply generous expression of love for all of us. No man (or woman) is an island (Except maybe for Crazy Puritan Woman–but then she’s just a figment of someone’s imagination).

I’ve never experienced an actual barn-raising, but I like to think it would feel similar to our celebration/monument building, how it gathers a community in a cooperative spirit, creates the bond of not only a common goal, but also a common affection.   And how it marks the significance of an event—a beginning, an embarking, a promise of future good will.  How it is both celebratory and rigorous, all at once.

I’ll end with snapshots of Maurya and Dennison’s celebration, and a few from a couple of other wedding receptions/barn raisings I visited this summer and fall. I so love all these folks…

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch….(Chase and Alicia’s Reception in Central Oregon)

And in Rexburg, Kissing my Favorite Leprechauns at Kenya & Larry’s Wedding

The End

(Photos Courtesy Primarily of David & Mara Stark and  Doug Leonard, also Andrea Hill,

Frank.  And me.)

Love Actually, For Reals And Keeps

When she was born I couldn’t quite believe it. That she was real, that she was here, that the contractions heralding her arrival were actually over.  That she was, after all that impossible agony, intact.  Even though I’d been through it all before with her older sister—the incoherent pain, the sensation of delivery, the overwhelming wonder and joy as a gentle new soul (my baby!) was placed warm and naked on my chest.  Love, actually.

Strange how we are so surprised when actual experience displaces our carefully constructed theories.  When fact eclipses the anticipated.  You’d think we could handle it better…after all, sometimes we wait a long time, rehearsing possibilities, planning, anticipating.  This is a recurring theme for me, the clumsy exchange of expectations for the reality they can’t possibly approximate.   Reality is so…wide and deep.  And rich.  I am convinced you cannot know it until you experience it, and accept it.

Like when Maurya decided This Was Love, Actually, and Got Married.

I may have wanted, on some level, The Perfect Match for Maurya (“To Infinity, And Beyond!”), but still.   Believing I was too smart now (after all I’ve been through) to be disconcerted by the expectation/reality schism, I was open and welcome to a multitude of possibilities as Maurya dated.  And there were many possibilities…she dated a lot.  Broke a few hearts, which was hard to witness; was broken hearted herself, which was unbearable.  A few months before she met Dennison, she dreamt that I begged her not to give out her name, number, and address.  So of course (dreams being the logical phenomenon that they are), she had pizza delivered to the house.  “What Have You Done?”  I cried as we ran for the door.  “Now You Will Never, Ever Be Safe!”  Despite my protests, she opened the door, and there, on the front porch, stood all the boys she’d ever dated.  One was shirtless, flexing muscles.  Another tried to shoulder him off the porch.  They had formed a support group, had come to air their grievances, or enact an intervention.  The dream goes on (the boys argue over who will be the spokesman, for instance); the details I’ve shared might be slightly squiggly.  The point is:  Maurya had lots of options, and was apprehensive about the eventual outcome.  So was I, though I tried hard not to be (mothers should always be fearless and confident in their children’s future, right?  This is about as easy for me as not getting scared when a dog is about to bite, or a bee to sting, because the fear smell will only make them sting or bite more).

And then she chose someone.  Out of all the possibilities (chance encounters in airports, along mountain trails, on a large island), she chose.

You Must Choose…Wisely!

I have liked Dennison from the first, I really have.  He is kind, smart, wry.  I like him but I didn’t think he’d last (no one else had); there was still a world of possibilities for Maurya to consider.  She didn’t think he’d last either, really; they hadn’t been dating  long when she sort of broke his heart for a minute (translation: week) while she contemplated never seeing him again.  I was privately ok with this; after all, Dennison was nice, but he wasn’t Abraham Lincoln or Atticus Finch or even Superman, all of whom seemed like better options to me (though I wasn’t counting on them).   Ultimately Maurya decided she wanted Dennison in her life…indefinitely.  The thought of permanent severances made her squeamish.  Being together seemed to make both of them very happy.   This had to be good (Maybe Dennison would grow up to be a little like Atticus Finch).

So that when Maurya told us they were discussing marriage, I was both relieved, and…well.   It’s not that I was disappointed. I was just…rattled.  What do you do when reality looks nothing like what you were trying really hard not to hope for?  When Superman and Lincoln send their regrets, and you’re in the Cheesecake Factory watching your daughter snuggle with a nice fellow who reminds you vaguely of a very young, slightly hipster Hugh Grant?

Dennison, old fashioned and gentlemanly as it turns out, had arranged the Cheesecake Factory meeting so he could respectfully state his intentions to the parents (apparently, since “Fiddler On The Roof”,  no one asks permission anymore).  Maurya was there because she didn’t want to miss the show and had invited herself; Frank was there because he totally approved and was, after all, the Daddy.

And I was there because I couldn’t, in good conscience, be anywhere else.  I fumbled for words, tongue tied with totally inane advice and the best intentions.  “Scotty, beam me up”, echoed ridiculously in my head.

To Be The Mother of the Bride, Actually…Or Not To Be.  Maybe Not the Right Question…

Through most of Maurya’s brief engagement, I found myself yearning again and again for a transporter, for a way back to the familiar.   No matter how I tried, I couldn’t take in reality’s enormity.  And it is enormous…all the years of responsibility, of being smitten again and again by that wonder and joy I felt the morning she was born (like when she interviewed the chickens about animal rights, played “Pie Jesu” on the piano with those beautiful, long fingers, or sang “Skinny Love” into a microphone at the mouth of a canyon in Provo at sunset).  All the long, breath-held moments of investing in and protecting her happiness, only to finally actually realize something that I’d accepted in theory but hadn’t really—her fate isn’t in my hands after all.  It’s in hers—and Dennison’s.  I can only watch.

And keep on loving.

I tried to enjoy the moments as they came (strange, too, how we can be filled with love and awe, but enjoyment still evades us).

There were truly wonderful moments to be savored.

Like Maurya trying on wedding dresses.  She was so, so beautiful in everything she tried on.  I could hardly take it in.  Or Dennison trying on suits, clicking his heels when he found the right combination of suit and shoes—or was it that a suit was further proof to him that she really would be his?  His vulnerability and delight in Maurya are his most endearing qualities to me.

Or taking engagement photos…such lovely moments, such a lovely couple—but what on earth?  What are they doing?  Who is that boy?  Will she really be happy?

I was still off kilter the morning of the wedding.  Maurya, eager to get going, was distracted in her heels and white dress, her graceful beauty reminiscent of the tiny baby, wriggling warm and fragile and wonderful in my arms.  Both real and ephemeral, a gentle soul I could hold but couldn’t, after all, keep.

Frank and I arrived a little late at the temple.  Maurya was already inside, waiting for me to bring things she’d forgotten (this is traditional, the forgetting things).  I was struggling not to be grumpy because we were late and it was our daughter’s wedding and I was off kilter.  The first person I recognized inside was my mother in law.  Overwhelmed, I hugged her like she was my Scotty, there to personally beam me back to somewhere more familiar and comfortable.  Eventually, after a bit of confusion over lost and still forgotten items (another family tradition, the comedy of errors), and a quick, sweet moment in the bride’s dressing room with my daughter,  I was led to the sealing room where Maurya and Dennison would be married.  For awhile I was completely alone; I had the room all to myself.  Struggling against tears, I was totally ok with that.  I breathed in.  Breathed out (and in, and out…).  Looked around the room.  The altar, covered with a dainty doily probably crocheted by someone’s sweet grandmother.  I miss both of mine.  Looked up at the ceiling.  Scrolled, diaphanous gold leaf and pale florals— One of my favorite blues.  The chandelier, a thousand crystal twinkles, a quiet wink, a nod.   I’d been in this room, or rooms like it, so many times before.  Peace enveloped and embraced me.   I knew this place; all was well.

I do believe in love.

During the ceremony, my mother sat next to me, and in a rare move, reached over and took my hand, and held it.  I remembered her crying at my wedding, a couple and a half decades ago.  She was crying again.  My heart went out to her in that moment past, facing a reality I’d had no idea of till now.  I was so grateful she was with me, again.  Still.

And I felt truly hopeful and happy for my daughter and her new husband.  All is well.  No matter how it goes, it will be all right.

 This reminds me of our family mantra, a Legendary Frank/Daddy quote:

“Everything works out in the end.  If it hasn’t worked out, it isn’t the end yet.”

Watching them now, Maurya and Dennison… knowing a little of what lies ahead because I’ve been there, I think of John Lennon’s “Grow Old Along With Me”….”

“Grow old along with me,

the best is yet to be.

When our time has come

We will be as one

—God bless our love, God bless our love”

God Bless Their Love

By The Way:

All of these photos, speaking of love actually, were taken and edited by my brother in law, David Stark.  Hours of work.  My sister Mara Lee Stark helped choreograph—which basically means that she and David made Maurya and Dennison comfortable enough to be themselves.  Amazing photos, wonderful people.  Thank you David and Mara Lee.  And Maurya and Dennison.  I love you.