kefir (it's oh so easy)

Back in December I was pondering what to do with all the maple syrup I have somehow accumulated. Then Evan started making kefir every week and now I'm in the habit of making sure we've got some around myself.  Most mornings now I have a little juice glass of kefir with a spoonful of maple syrup before heading out the door by quarter past seven. Yay calcium, and yay maple syrup!

Here are Evan's instructions on how to make kefir. Let me know if you want a grain (we have two looking for homes at the moment):

It's as simple as combine Part A (milk) and Part B (kefir grain), and wait. But for some more detail.

1. Put milk in a container (glass bowl, jar, food-safe plastic, etc. I use a 1qt. jar)
2. Put kefir grain in container with milk
3. Lightly cover container (ie. just set lid on top, or rubber band paper towel or coffee filter over top)
4. Leave at room temperature for 24-36 hours. The longer you leave it, the more it will ferment, and the more tart it will become.
5. Remove kefir grain from container, and place in a separate container with fresh milk (I use a 16oz jar and drink the milk that it was stored in after each batch)
6. You'll see it separates, kefir at the top, whey at the bottom. You can either spoon out the kefir at the top and use that (it'll be thicker, like thin yogurt), or shake the jar and reincorporate the whey back in and it'll be like a buttermilk consistency.

If you don't make a batch after 3-4 weeks, replace the milk in the storage container and it'll be fine for another 3-4 weeks.

I'd recommend getting some fruit syrup, honey or maple syrup to stir into the kefir to drink. Or just pour over granola/cereal instead of milk. Use in recipes in place of buttermilk.

relapse, or, being freakisly good (at being very, very bad)

It's funny the way that anger can feel like a drug.

The sordid truth is that after writing last week's blog post, I relapsed right back into that unfortunate little addiction.

I had been counting weeks but now I am back to counting days. Again. (Before yesterday morning it was in increments of hours, so I suppose there's that.)

It felt like such a coming out, that writing of last Monday night, and I got such wonderfully sweet feedback (thank you Abby, thank you Tracy, thank you Ari and Connie and Katrin) that was in itself a rush.  Evan and I joked that night about how, given past patterns, I had jinxed us by acknowledging that things were getting better. We joked and laughed together before succumbing to a bitter week of frustration and disappointment, almost entirely (it must be confessed) at my hands.

The morning after one of my nights of rage I apologized to my poor boy and he, with a heartbreakingly wounded look in his eyes, said tiredly, "You're freakishly good at it. Fighting, I mean."

So I am back to counting hours (and now, thankfully, days) of loving calm, minutes of straining to find the peace of my own breath. I am back to trying to remember that though anger is enticing (oh, the power and cold and quick-witted intelligence I feel in the midst of a bout of fury), it always feels completely and utterly shitty the next day.

I have quit worse things. Shocking how difficult it seems, some days, to quit this.

'the way you listen to New York City...'

I am dying
because you have not
died for me
and the world
still loves you

I write this because I know
that your kisses
are born blind
on the songs that touch you

I don't want a purpose
in your life
I want to be lost among
your thoughts
the way you listen to New York City
when you fall asleep

(Leonard Cohen)

'33 minutes of unfruitful rage'

There's an Etsy shop I keep finding myself going back to, though I have yet to purchase anything from her. She's a print-maker in Portland, Oregon (of course), and her prints -- simple to the point of mundanity -- move me almost to tears. There is one in particular, this one, that's been haunting me for awhile now.

There are two numbers that I never want to know: the amount of money I've wasted on cigarettes, and the amount of time I've wasted on rage.

God, how I've raged and cried in my nearly-thirty-seven years, how I've thrown away huge swaths of my life to uncontrollable, unbridled anger. I have raged over big things (my father's death; my mother and brother moving thousands of miles away; Mick wrapping his car around a tree; the abortion; Chris going off to law school and falling in love with another woman; beautiful little Wynn's difficult beginnings) and little things (the wrong music, food in the library, miniscule snubs, a missed train) and things completely out of my control (the Catholic Church, security theater, Republicans, NOM).

I spent one summer listening to this, gorgeous and furious and running through my head for days, weeks, months. After awhile I couldn't get it out -- neither the rage nor the self-loathing it masked.

More recently, I yelled and sobbed my way through the months and weeks leading up to the New Year, and drove my poor Evan further and further away. I wrote beautiful things about wanting to be happy for him and with him and then instead was often and unpredictably cruel and desperate and sad. I began measuring time in increments between having to wash my glasses because of crying in them, and then would hold this over his head (as if it could possibly be his fault) in the middle of fierce arguments.

And the truth of it, of course, is that there is a certain power in rage and depression and sadness -- over one's self, over one's family and friends and lovers. It's not the power I find myself wanting these days, but it's hard to unlearn such entrenched patterns, such ingrained ways of being after decades of being that way.

It's not easy armor to give up, this cold steel of rage, but for the first time in my life I'm actually and actively working at letting it go. Last November I began seeing Jane on Thursdays, and in early January Dr. Bulow and Zoloft were thrown into the mix, and later that month I discovered that meditation (much to my cynical heart's surprise) is actually helpful.

And strangely, at this ripe old age of thirty-six, my own rages are beginning to seem a little less scary, a little less all-consuming, and I can't begin to tell you how simply nice this feels.

Tonight has been shaky -- shakier than it's been in a few weeks -- and I've been argumentative and accusatory (how dare Evan interrupt my writing to have dinner, and how dare he encourage me to write in the first place, and why oh why is nothing ever right in the world?).

My mother called a little while ago and we were chatting and finally I told her I was having a bit of a rough night.  She paused and then said, "I thought as much -- your voice sounds different tonight."  I told her I'd been writing about rage and then I got mad at Evan and she just laughed and said, "Of course you did. Now you get off this phone and go tell him sometimes you just get mad, and you're sorry."

What I value most in all the talking with Jane and Dr. Bulow, and what the medication and the meditation seem to be helping me with, is learning how to live emotionally (I fear I will never not be overly emotional, alas) without being consumed by those pesky emotions.

Sometimes it seems like an impossible battle, but more often these days it seems like a possibility of contentment, and a letting go of all those minutes, weeks, decades of unfruitful rage.

For now, I will continue to take my little green pills, talk incessantly about all of this, and look forward to those daily fifteen minutes of quiet sitting, eyes closed, breath for once measured and calm.

ivory bridal shawl in merino & silk, beaded

This, I will have you know, was begun on January 3rd, 2012 and finally completed yesterday, March 3rd, 2013. It was one of the more difficult pieces I have ever done -- grafting two separate pieces of lace together sucks. Just for the record. This took over three hours. Seriously. My neck and shoulders are still recovering, 24 hours later. Luckily I had Bill Frisell and Built to Spill (not to mention Evan's delicious breakfast) to get me through.

tea rose scarf

A lovely, delicate rose lace scarf knit from 100% sugar cane fiber, available here.

conversations on knitting

Conversation One, between a friend of mine and her five-year-old who just recently got a Clover Wonder Knitter:

H: Can we go for a nap drive so I can knit in the car?
C: If we go for a nap drive, then yes, you can knit.
H: Can I knit on the way to Daisy Scouts?
C: Sure, Helen.
H: Can I knit at Daisy Scouts?
C: Well, you're supposed to be listening and doing things with your friends.
H: But can I knit during snack time at Daisy Scouts?
C: That might get messy.  But I like the way you're thinking.  You're thinking like a knitter.
 
Conversation Two, between Evan and myself:

Evan: You remembered to take the leftovers for lunch this morning!
Me: Yup.
Evan: What time did you have lunch?
Me: Ummm...
Evan: Come on, fess up.
Me: Well, 8:30. I wanted to have time to knit on my lunch break.
Evan: Let me get this straight. You ate the lunch you brought with you to work at 8:30 this morning... so that you could knit on your lunch break?
Me: Well, yeah, I guess.
Evan: You do know that you have a problem, right?

rainbow scarf

Available here

'i'm going to barnard, i think,' she said

Sadly, my dread of last week was well-founded. But before that sadness there was this lovely scene which, I must admit, made my heart sing the littlest bit:

Steenie left us, and I walked Marcia home. It was pleasant to walk with the snow melted, and we held hands and scuffed our shoes on the clay sidewalks, doing a lot of pointed inhaling to sniff the first scents of spring, which were largely imaginary.

"I'm going to Barnard, I think," she said as we reached the rectory. "My mother went there. I'm scared to death. I'm so stupid, and it'll break my poor father."

"You'll do fine," I said. "You've already got a head start on the New York girls in categories like blunt talk and dirty words."

"Are you really going to Harvard? I don't think anybody from De Crispin has ever gone to Harvard."

"That's always been a pitiful little dream of my mother's," I said. "It's more likely that I'll go to the University of Alabama. It's more my speed. They have forty fraternity houses and one classroom, where they teach the History of the Confederacy. They have a good record, though. They haven't been guilty of education since eighteen thirty-one."

"Well, where do you want to go? Don't you care?"

"Barnard's part of Columbia, isn't it?"

"That's right."

"I want to go to Columbia."

(Red Sky At Morning, Richard Bradford)

cream of carrot soup scarf

Knit from a wonderfully soft merino / alpaca / bamboo / nylon blend in a gorgeous, bright rosy orange with flecks of yellow.

Available here.

dread

I am reading Richard Bradford's Red Sky at Morning, a surprisingly beautiful coming-of-age novel about a boy suffering through his high school years during the Second World War.  This is one of those crumbling, brittle-paged books that I must have inherited from my parents, who apparently inherited it from one Joanne O'Neill (or so says the name inscribed on the first page).

Particularly moving, to me, is the relationship shared between the main character and his father. And this scares me, because the father has volunteered for the Navy and is off battling U-boats off the coast of France. It seems practically inevitable that he will end up not coming home, and I'm afraid this will break my heart.

firefly

Firefly. A wee nocturnal beetle. A wonderful TV series tragically cut short in its prime. And my new favorite eyeshadow: a glowing iridescent shimmery jade green. Ridiculous, the little things that can bring moments of joy

best dinner

I found myself grinning over dinner this evening, and wishing my legs were short enough so that I could swing them back and forth with glee.

What had me grinning and feeling like a grade-schooler was what I found in front of me after a long day at work: a little glass plate holding a simple egg-salad (a la Mark Bittman, with less egg and lots of mashed up celery and carrot and a dash of salt and pepper and a splash of vinegar and a dollop of  mayonnaise) sandwich made with Evan's all-the-flour-in-the-cupboard (buckwheat, all purpose, whole wheat) just-baked bread; a big glass of Nestle Quick chocolate milk (because oh how I love chocolate milk); and finally a bowl of sliced apples.

I couldn't help but grin and chuckle at this, our elementary-school-lunch-for-dinner, and it was delicious and delightful and everything a girl could ask for almost half-way through a long week.

hats, or, kid logic

When I was a wee lass I hated wearing hats, and winters especially were brutal affairs. After hours of tromping around in the snow or skating hither and yon across Mohegan Lake and back, my overly thin and fine hair would be tangled up into a veritable rat's nest under those pesky warm woolen hats.

My parents threatened and harangued and cajoled, and tears and No More Tears and unfortunate haircuts inevitably ensued.

My father even tried using numbers on me. He told me, at some point during one of our pitched hat battles, that we can lose upwards of 90% of our body heat out of our heads, and that if I only wore my hat like a good girl I wouldn't be nearly as cold.

This sounded dubious to me at best, and I came to the obvious conclusion that if this were true it should be alright to run around naked all winter long, but for a hat.

Luckily for me my parents did not, as far as I can remember, let me put this to the test.