Bike Park City

 

I've Got The Month of May

May

 

You're Invited:

Want to write with me in 2020?

You might’ve noticed I fell way, way silent last year. After the incredibly kind response of my family and friends, I wanted to see what it would mean to write for me again. Not for a blog post, or an Insta caption. For my eyes only. No filtering, fluffing, or fixing allowed.⁠⠀
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And so began A Year of Reflection, where I sat down weekly with 1 simple passage and just a  journaling prompt to reflect on. Achingly simple, astoundingly profound.⁠⠀
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What I hoped would happen: I'd learn to hear myself.⁠ I'd break patterns. I'd finally learn what I wanted, not⁠ what I wanted to want.⁠⠀
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What actually happened: That - and everything⁠ else.⁠⠀
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I didn't expect a byproduct of confidence, this complete and unwavering clarity. I didn't expect improved writing, or braver conversations around the dinner table. Hell, I didn't expect to quietly untether myself from social media - but alas, wild things happen when you put pen to paper.⁠⠀
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So, round two. I'm doing it again, my simple 20 minute practice each week. But this time, I want you to join me.⁠

A Simple Smattering of Memories and Moods

Bang trims, watercolors, mango slices.

Musical recitals in the sunroom, his stage. He wants to learn taekwondo, needs to learn piano first, asks me to play ‘Road Race Rally’ on repeat.

For a bit, I say, sliding the door shut.

 

He remembers candy and legos from last winter, and our tradition begins. Yesterday, we signed him up at Master Kim's.

Already? Martin says.

Already.

—

We have had two dinner parties in two weeks. The first, pizza with our favorite kids – leisurely, loud, lovely – the second, more quiet with foam in the beer. The child seated at the piano performs well: just the one song, thanks.

At our first family dinner, we talk about the future and other people. The second, we talk about now and ourselves. Many of my doubts, much of his sureties.

But you’ve always said… 
I know…

At home, we laugh in the kitchen, a jealous dog left at Max's.

A gift from Divy: five sheets of paper stapled together, presented to his father. It’s a book, he says.

—

The boys want a ball or two, or many. When they are done playing softball outside they're thirsty, he makes the sound of a caveman; a grunt, or a mouthwash gurgle. He has been doing better with his group time, already in the dorm phase. 

How is Morgen doing? someone asks me last week.

But he already is on his own.

A gift from my mother: a Ziploc bursting with puzzles. For Divy, she says.

—

A quote in my journal: “I love you forever’ really means ‘Just trust me for now,’ which is all it ever means, and we just hope to keep renewing the “now,” year after year.” -Adam Gopnik

Rosy Thoughts

In my journal:
When you push your stroller past a group of elderly women, you’ll see in the turning gladness of their bodies a glimpse of the children they had been, turning toward the tin music of the ice cream van.

This is the time of year in which I am reminded that all people have goodness, and quite a lot of it. It’s the time of year in which businessmen driving BMWs, coffee-clutching mothers in minivans, school buses and garbage trucks and helmet-clad riders on triathlon bikes all come to a screeching halt, a total stand still, and wait patiently as a meek mother goose and her docile gaggle of eight amble across the road to safety.

I will never tire of the sight; an entire civilization making way for another. Ceasing business as usual to usher in an everyday miracle.

Aria has been hard at work in her latest humanitarian efforts to save the world. There are no-selfish roots in the quest, let the admission stand, as she’s intent only on gathering enough to feed the world for her just-now-finished play writing. 

They can have my written word! she says, before scampering off to the garden, and I’m left thinking of this odd spinning sphere and its twisty ways.

All else is all else: yardwork and wheelbarrows, painting finger-nails, blackberry chai. Ordering stacked vats of Chinese food and flinging the front door open, calling it a dinner party. Linen dresses coming out of storage, the faint familiarity of must and memories.

Rose dryer sheets for the old dress; rosy thoughts for the old wearer.

Hibernation

And so, it’s been Hibernation Station in these parts for something like six weeks? Bedhead, house shoes, clementines for breakfast. I was on vacation for a week, and I’m not certain Martin and I left the house for anything other than a milk run on a random Friday. It’s been lovely, really, and yet, Quarantine has this tired way of sucking you dry. The clouds hang low; the color drains from the world. It’s unsaturated, quiet, semi-maddening.

Luckily, it's beautiful right here. 

The fires are a delight, and I saved just enough room in my weekend for Divy’s stuffed panda and a pair of sneakers (he’s been into tumbling this week and let it be said for posterity: this is not a phase I should be encouraging, but really, you should see the panda’s transformative back flips. Stunn-ing.)

Now

Things I have been saying:
In a sec.
Pancakes or bread?
Careful!
Shoes.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
Now.
 

My COVID Experience

Three Good Things I Did Today...

1. I lived another day. 

This is not pessimistic but grateful thinking. I woke up healthy, breathed fresh air, enjoyed working, driving, cooking, smiling, talking, watching friends post about their adventures during the COVID pandemic. 

2. I improved myself. 

I didn't just do what I needed to do, but I made steps to embrace what is possibly the hardest time in most of our lives. I didn't break down, instead I worked towards improving the situation. I spent time reading, planning things, preparing for finals, signing up for fall classes, and learned a few new things. 

3. I made differences to people. 

In my own small ways. Figured out a way to help our immunocompromised patient's feel safer with masks and private rooms for waiting, called my family on Group FaceTime and shared my care, spoke to my near and dearest, and worked on a couple of blog posts. 

I do a lot of things everyday, but what's the most important ones among them? All may be trivial and taken for granted, however, I'm grateful to live them, and to find strength to keep moving even during such a difficult time. 

See Markus' COVID Experience here...

Currently

The sun is shining, a side yard lilac bush is in bloom. When its Lilliputian flowers dance over to my back stoop, I can’t help but sense they’re carrying an early conception of chimera. As it stands, every idea I’ve pursued at length – plans snared to homes built to projects born to school proposed – has been hatched in the spring.

Generous lilacs, they are.

Really, it’s just that my brain is as seasonal as they come. Last winter, and every winter before, the pattern emerges: I cannot bake, I want to quit, I have nothing to make, not another cake.

Wait until April, Martin says while we are soaking in the tub, and he is always right.

 

In April, what with the remote work and home schooling, it is difficult to shut up.

For You

I have never believed in love at first sight, that we are able to give our hearts away upon one view or that after just one glance we are in love. But I do believe that the second I saw your eyes, I loved them. And the moment I saw your smile I loved it. And the instant I heard you laugh I fell in love with the sound.  

I have never believed in love at first sight, but I believe that after one glance in your direction, I have belonged to you. Completely. 

 

Great Magic

 Madeleine L’Engle once wrote about the great gift of love, the great cosmic pairing of two, and she said this:

“It’s a strange thing, how you can love somebody, how you can be all eaten up inside with needing them–and they simply don’t need you. That’s all there is to it, and neither of you can do anything about it. And they’ll be the same way with someone else, and someone else will be the same way about you and it goes on and on–this desperate need–and only once in a rare million do the same two people need each other.”

And when we do find that same one, that same one who needs us as we need them, it is great magic. It is great love.

Heaven

Later, he makes me a replacement cake – a special concoction with homemade icing, black currant jam, an ingredient sworn to secrecy. There’s some currants in there, he whispers, and I will myself to not devour the whole heavenly thing down.

Delicious, I tell him, because some times the grand scheme of things absolutely warrants pretense.

Yesterday, we colored Easter eggs and drank coffee in the kitchen and a pool of caffeine drains to my heart. Are you sad? Martin asks when he brings paper towels.

I want to tell him that I am not, that a global pandemic is no big deal in the grand scheme of things, but I notice that’s precisely what I feel, sad, and that sometimes, often, the scheme of things aren’t grand enough for pretense.

I say yes, and that I also feel happy to have someone here who understands.

Morgen is Morgen, which is to say that I’ve taken to him sending me selfies to disguise a smattering of bite marks, pink crescent moons of love and chagrin. He’ll kick the habit by summer, I think wishfully, for vanity sake alone. (I never was one for enforcing rules.)

 

Cake No. 3

You make this cake when it’s been overcast for four days and you’ve pulled another sweater out of storage for the week ahead. When it’s unseasonably gray, and you’re unseasonably gray, and if the weather calls for it, why not summon a bit of sweetness?

You’ll whisk in the eggs as a 7-year-old asks you what will happen if his class doesn’t have school again next week. It will, you tell him.

But what if it doesn’t? he’ll ask. Could I bake another cake?

Not a chance of either, you tell him, handing him a whisk for licking.

You wait not-long-enough for the cake to cool, then dice the double batch into tiny cubes for sharing and, oh, familial corner portion justification.

You top with melted sugar, scoops of jelly and currants, then gust yourselves out into the chill to deliver some neighborly cheer. To anyone on your favorites list, you knock, containers in hand. Just in case you need some for later?

You become a traveling team of salesmen, minus the one-time-only offer, nor the fee, you and your particularly jovial captain. He fusses with his helmet; you breathe in a cold spring day. But you both know the truth: of the many available offerings on a day like today, shoving cake upon the innocent is perhaps the very best. You bike and cycle, and still, there is half a cake to carry home.

There might be enough to save some cake after all! you prepare to say, as you reach your front door. But he stops you mid-sentence to read his first draft of his newly published paper, and there’s pride in his eyes and joy in his voice, and you decide there isn’t a worthy substitute for such beauty.  

On Saturday, he earns $20 worth of bonus points.

You both celebrate with cake.

 

12 Pizzas: A Series

Baking Our Way Through The Year Ahead

This is the story of a girl who was hungry. 

For what, I am oft unsure. But after decades of turning down carbs, of declaring a war against cheese, of craving veggies over salty at first glance, well? It appears I’ve changed my mind, and very much so.

Just this week, I have pulled the following from my oven: a lovely Margherita, lightly browned and rising inches beyond its’ stone girdle. A smooth, decadent tomato-less, a pint of macerated onions nearby for glazing. An egg and bacon honey pizza with hand-cut mozzarella, packed lovingly into a convection oven with a baking stone.

In truth, I can’t tell you what’s come over me. I can only tell you that my mixing bowl once reserved for an occasional hand-kneading of bread now has deep scratches from dripping whisks, metal mixers, golden tasting spoons.

I can only tell you, too, that I plan to never stop.

12 cakes, pizzas. One per month, although I’ve admittedly been “testing” roughly three a week. I’ll save my favorites for you, my leftovers for (very pleased) neighbors.

The first crowdpleaser is up next week, and in preparation, here are a few supplies I’ve been ever-reliant on since this phase (obsession?) sparked last month:

And so, in the spirit of delicious simplicity, these made the cut (click image to peruse the recipe):

S U P P L I E S

Four months ago, I didn’t own a pizza stone. (Fun fact: it is not an unlikely experience to see Martin mixing pizza dough by hand.) And yet: is this newfound hobby just a phase? He doesn't want to use a pricy stand mixer in the name of a 4-minute time savings?

Short answer: nope.

For the novice bakers out there, here’s all I’ve needed to dip my oven mitts into the world of pizza, pizza, glorious pizza:

Don’t ever let anyone tell you baking requires schmancy supplies. Just add parchment paper, deal?

Up next week: triple-layer jam and frosting cake, or more aptly named – The Thank-Your-Weary-Home-School-Teacher-Cake. Best served with a side of hugs and plastic forks.

But first, a reminder for us all — May we be ever-surprised by our own capacity for change.

Here’s to rolling out the dough, every last bit of it.

 

Great Trek

With today off, the boys and I set off for the Alta road with a packed lunch of rye bread, pepperoni, a wedge of cheese. Divy got buried somewhere between the road and the forest, though we didn’t notice until a mile or so later.

I start to turn around, to commence another Great Trek up the mountain, but Martin stops me. He will make it down after such a good struggle, he says.

We decide he’s right, and we keep on watching.

 

Unspeakably Beautiful

 

Found in my journal, by G. Saunders:
“Only then did I realize how unspeakably beautiful all of this was, how precisely engineered for our pleasure, and saw that I was on the brink of squandering a wondrous gift, the gift of being allowed, every day, to wander this vast sensual paradise, this grand marketplace lovingly stocked with every sublime thing.”

Blooming

All through the long winter, I dream of my garden. On the first day of spring, I dig my fingers deep into the soft earth. I can feel it's energy, and my spirit soars. 

Cake No. 2

As it stands, I’m not much for cookies.

But you know what I am one for? Cake homemade, in a cold metal bowl fresh for the whisking. Taking turns getting elbow cramps with a son, both faux-complaining, knowing all the well we’re better for the wait.

The cake itself was lovely and light, a perfect bounce, an ideal spring dessert. But after taste-testing the precise ingredients the recipe called for, Martin and I decided we were in the mood for something… sweeter.

(In all manners of life: when are we not?)

Friends: this is the cake to bake the day the earthquake shakes you out of bed, when you first catch a shaking and rumbling after you get out of bed to pee. It’s the cake to bake when your boyfriend sends you the message “Mammogram turn out OK?” and you respond with a thumb’s down, find the almonds from the back of the pantry, preheat the oven. It’s a cake he can balance on the floor mats of your electric vehicle, quietly jostling at every left turn, en route to hard-working nurse in need of some sunshine.

We called all the boys and pulled out a slew of emergency supplies, cartons, tinctures. Unsure of what we were looking for, to be fair, but we’d know it when we saw it.

We shopped and chopped and mopped, and in no time flat, a happy tower of TP sat proudly atop our own second glances. Where? We’ll never tell.

But also: it’s the cake you bake when you’ve lost a sliver of hope through a long, dark winter.

And it’s the cake you bake when you’ve found it again, right here in the throes of the daily.

Liner notes:

-Recipe is from his mom, a fast fave.
-For the curious, any variation of a breast biopsy will do. Martin came with me for the Ultrasound, but I’m betting he would be there with me for any kind and I’ve got my eye on testing results the whole rest of this week for what comes next (ice-packs for a sick day, yes?).
-Would you believe this was my first time having to go back in for a second mammogram? Call me Nervous Nelly, and stat.

 

p.s. Up next: the sweetest  cake you ever did see. Also: what are you baking? I want to hear everything.