Smaller but Deeper

When I change my footwear after lunch, Bodhi starts bouncing around the kitchen. He knows it’s time for a walk in our woods, and he can hardly wait: he’s entirely optimistic that he will find something new. Today, for example, he found a well-aged leg bone, no doubt from a deer skeleton that’s been there for months and months.

The air is just cool enough today to call fall to mind, which calls to mind the change of seasons. It’s a false construct, really, this four-season model. When I walk the trail every day, I see the progression is constant, day to day, week to week. In the early spring, the trail is wide and I can see deep into the forest; now parts are claustrophobic: I have to turn sideways if the leaves are wet, or I’ll get soaked. The Bracken ferns that were roll-ended sticks forever in the spring are now waist-high and part of the crowd. The Sensitive ferns have popped up in the sections that are flooded in the fall (and will be again, too soon).

Receding water is part of the transition from spring to summer. This spring was wet enough to have flowing water in a few sections of the trail. Now the entire circuit is dry, although you can tell by the patterns of dirt and moss and leaves where the water will return first in the fall. The boardwalk that’s underwater in May is now twenty feet from the edge of the pond.

We’ve watched the blackberries leaf out and then blossom. We can pick a bowl-full every day now, which feels deserved when we watched and waited for the berries to turn from little green nuts to blushing pink and finally—finally—to black. There are patches all over, some with berries the size of your thumb, others the size of a pea. Every one of them is delicious in a pie or a clafouti or in a bowl topped with sweetened condensed milk, which is my granddaughter’s second favorite way to consume them. Her favorite way is direct from the bush.

There aren’t many flowers at this time of year, after the progression of April through June, but maybe I haven’t been paying attention (or have been scouting only for berries). I’ll look more closely tomorrow. What’s multiplying is the number of seeds that find a way to attach themselves to any passing dog, pant-leg, or princess dress; some have painful hooks, others are a more subtle kind of velcro.

I’ve walked this trail at least a few times a week for at least a decade. In our current routine, it’s rare for me to miss a day. And somehow, I’m paying more attention. What was a task—walk the dog—has become something entirely different, sometimes a social occasion, sometimes a game, most often a meditation. While my world has become smaller, it’s become deeper.

Cooking with Friends

I rotate things. This is a longstanding habit; I’m not quite sure when I started or why. My approach might be described in business terms as “first in, first out,” or FIFO, but there’s never been a particularly business-like motivation. Lest you fear for my wellbeing, these are only habits that I’ve set, I’m aware that I’ve set them, and I can break “the rules” whenever I like without losing a wink of sleep.

I hang my clothes by category (dresses, skirts, tops, pants), and insert clean clothes to the right in each section. Items on the left are up for grabs when it’s time to get dressed. This system limits the daily dithering about what to wear, although my partner would assert, and does, that my system is not as efficient as his, which is a uniform of blue jeans and white shirt, every day, all year. This habit also highlights things that can go: If I’ve skipped that blue shirt for a month, there must be a reason. What’s been clarified in the last few weeks is that dresses without pockets are even more worthless than I’d thought (at least until it’s cool enough for pocketed layers).

I’ve allowed myself two shelves for cookbooks. When I cook from a book, I return it to the top left, shifting the books between shelves as required. If a new cookbook enters the house, I need to make room for it. Books on the bottom right are prime candidates, since I use them less often. (I recently acknowledged that formal French cooking is not so much my thing with information from this rotation.)

I’d thought a few weeks ago, when I moved The Microwave Cook’s Complete Companion from the top shelf to the second, possibly on its way to eventual exit, that it represented a pandemic lifestyle change. Although we’re cooking all the time now, we don’t need to cook quickly. In the weeks since, I’ve realized other blessings from my inventory management system.

When I’m seeking inspiration or wanting to change up our menus, I can look to the bottom right to hear from a different culinary voice, possibly a different culture. A glance tells me we could consider some Indian food, exotic pizzas, or Perfect Picnics. In the absence of ready treats at coffee shops or convenience stores, I’ve dusted off the cookie jar and am keeping it populated. Choosing from the lower right supplied us with “Grandma Jean’s Herb Cookies” with fresh mint, a complete departure from my habitual oatmeal chocolate chip. 

I have long preferred my own cookbooks and clippings to online recipes, and this season has helped me understand why. My cookbooks connect me with people, past and present; recipes I have made before can do the same. Cooking has always been a therapy, a meditative practice for me, and in this time of separation, I’m often meditating on people and the histories we share. 

This cookbook was a gift from my friend Deb, and contains a “Zucchini Soup” recipe that’s a good candidate for tonight’s dinner. She lives only a city away, and we’ve shared interests in needlework and papercrafts for decades. I own that cookbook because my brother once spent a summer in Colorado—and a son lives there now. Here’s one I bought as menu inspiration when planning a church fundraiser. This cookbook I was given as a tenth birthday present; from it I made oven-fried chicken to serve my dad while he could still eat solid food. That cookbook came to me when my mom winnowed her own cookbook shelves; when I flip through it, classics—cole slaw, potato salad—conjure full childhood images. This cookbook taught me vegetarian cooking, and from it and that tiny kitchen on Eleventh Street I fed gatherings of college friends.

All of these people and all of those times are with me in the kitchen, which is no doubt why I don’t mind mincing onions, julienning carrots, and peeling squash. For all the frustration, heartbreak, isolation, and loss associated with this pandemic, there has also been grace. And gratitude. There is, daily, the chance to remember who I am, who I love, and where we’ve been and what we’ve done together. Sometimes the kitchen is downright crowded.

Hazel and the Naughty Bear

This week I posted a photo of my granddaughter, Hazel, running ahead of me on our forest trail. It’s a magical photo, if I do say so myself. And social media friends agreed: “This looks like a cover for the next edition of The Secret Garden or something!” “Chasing the White Rabbit!”

The longer description, which didn’t quite fit in a social media caption, is this: When Hazel and I walk our trail, I’m assigned to play the Naughty Bear, lumber behind her, arms upraised and hands clawed, saying “Rawr” periodically and, once or twice, “I want to eat a sweet Hazelnut!” Hazel’s role is to run ahead of me, occasionally turning back to bring me a “sweet bloody stick” which I may [pretend to] gnaw on, since I’m unsuccessful [by design] in ever catching an actual sweet Hazelnut to assuage my hunger.

I’ve been thinking about this game since. First, I hope she’s not having nightmares. 

Next I think about all the ways in which we create motivation for ourselves. There have been other times on this trail when Hazel is dragging, asking for piggy-back or shoulder rides to make one circuit. When chased by a bear, she can run two or three times around—three times is a mile—without pausing even to catch her breath. I’m not sure how I feel about this motivation including faux fear, but Hazel herself is giddy, exhilarated, so I needn’t judge.

But then I think about fear. Of course there’s an enormous difference between fear we engineer ourselves—by assigning a Nana to act [sort of] like a bear—versus reacting to a genuine danger—like an actual bear. Once we get past the hard-wired fight or flight response, there’s some wisdom in considering our fear: Is it real? Or did we make it up? Do we have reason to be afraid? Or is it just Nana? 

For Hazel in the woods, fear is a toy; playing with it makes her feel brave and adventurous. I don’t want to live fearfully, especially in these disordered days. I’m going to work on clarity about which threats are imagined, and which are real. For those that are real, I’m going to do my best to look with clear eyes, to define any threat as clearly as I can, and to figure out what I can do to disarm it. And I’m going to hang on to hope. And maybe a sweet bloody stick or two.