recovery is in the details

RIP Dame Anita Roddick, pioneer, revolutionary, beautiful soul.
RIP, all that were lost in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. You are not forgotten.

Little by little, I am emerging from my dizzy hell. I have a long way to go, but I actually have moments wherein I feel like myself again. When I could stand to write, when writing didn't make me want to puke, I tried to capture what I was feeling in poetry. It is my way, my language--I would try to journal, write complete sentences, but my attempts were futile--full, "complete" thoughts were not the way my brain was apprehending the world. Bits and pieces, snapshots, glimpses. Concentration was at a premium. I did a lot of staring straight ahead, sometimes in the garden, sometimes while laying in bed, finding patterns in the ceiling. Somewhere beneath many, many layers of paint on our bedroom ceiling, box-pattern wallpaper reminds us of how more than a century ago, such things (like wallpapering a ceiling) were in vogue. Details. It's all in the details.

God (When I’m Sick)


Can we write about cigarettes any more?
Is the hurry truly propelled?
Can we sit for days on end watching
wires touch tree limbs and not
move to cut? To stand?

What is this garden but lucky chaos
happened upon the right colors
selective thinning and a slim
chance of hail big as quail eggs?
Maybe this is the hand
we’re dealt, and maybe those

worn out words are tired but still
breathing. Can we write about what
gets us up in the morning?
What desire has to do with dizziness?
Why can’t I stop smoking?
Can we write about that?

6.20.07


Letter


Because we are not plumb
you and I
because we are not tarred
because we wake with idle thumb and risky face
because we will succumb
to every cancer’s bleating,

be still, be unmoved, unclimbable, mountainous –

because recluse is by far
the worst excuse for silence
because we cannot prove or disprove
congenial offerings in suits

be wise, counterbalanced, be true
to the shadow’s fleeting,
battles receding in sleep

be still, be unmoved, mountainous, diffuse.

Because we are not plumb
you and I

because we are unmoored
because we capture paltry sums
then put them to misuse

be filled, be distilled
reduced, traversable.

7.14.07

all we are saying...

...is give fleece a chance.

Today, the high in Denver was 58 degrees. I am sitting on my couch with an afghan over my shoulders. And socks on. I think we're going to dust off the slow cooker soon. Yes, it's going to get back up into the 70's before this week is over. But that's not going to keep these thoughts from flowin'...thoughts of stews and soups and warming from the inside out. I am ready. I've forgotten the snapathy of last winter and I am actually ready for snow to fall again. Give me relentless cold over relentless heat any day. Within reason, of course.

Note to self: soaking bread in egg/milk mixture for 24 hours makes a killer could-almost-pass-for-a-souffle frittata. Add chevre and sauteed (fresh from the garden) zucchini, yellow crook neck squash and onion and you've got damn near breakfast nirvana. 45 minutes at 400 degrees. Just this morning.

love tastes like figs

First, camera phones don't take the best pictures in all the world, but I think the basic gist is here:(broiled) figs, (rosemary-infused) honey, (vanilla) ice cream. And why on earth would I put this picture here?

Because I'm not into suffering. I'm not into pondering every single detail of my day with my punitive alter-ego lashing me for my mistakes. I'm not into obsessing over everything I put into my mouth, into going over it again and again, into feeling like a failure for a slip up or that I need to get serious (and a little strict) with myself if I'm human and make the old mistakes. I am into striking the balance between health/nutrition and maintaining my weight. I still want to have friends over for dinner, to experience food at the peak of its season, to git jiggy wid my culinary mind, to experiment a little, hell, I even want to (gasp!) indulge.

For me, this is a picture of abundance and celebration and not going the way of excess. It's a picture of integrating what I have (in season, in the house, in my heart) with an occasion, and not feeling neurotic, or that I've messed up, or that I'm out of control. It's just a little something (x4) that I could have had more of, but didn't. And that was the case for the entire meal. Good stuff in fair quantity, mindfully and carefully made, with love. Because for me, it's love I wanna stick in my mouth, and it always has been. I'm just now learning to actually taste it...