Wordstalk 9 - Spatial metaphors

Just a quick look-in with a 'wordstalk.' It's amazing how different dialects (of 'the same' (but not the same) English) use spatial metaphors differently, especially in colloquial expressions. It's also amazing how I will still occasionally be surprised by a 'Britishism' coming out of my mouth, sometimes without my even previously realizing that it's a 'Britishism,' even after ten years in the US in which time I've been very careful to conform to local idioms and speak in such a way that I can be understood. (And yes, I know that my written English is a different story, but written language is a whole other dialect than spoken anyway.)

Just now, Phil wanted to look at our calendar with me. With our various insulation-improvement projects, the cabin is in even more disarray and clutter than it often is already (embarrassed to post a picture!) and he sat down slightly sprawled on the couch, leaving slightly too little space for me to sit without disturbing the next pile of stuff. 

Without thinking, I asked, 'Could you move up a bit so I can join you?' He immediately got that look of total perplexity, together with the 'upward' head gesture indicating that he was taking my request completely literally, which led to my instant recognition 'oh, is that a Britishism?' He said that he couldn't see what use it would be for him to move upwards into the air, and I said that that isn't what it means. 'So what does 'move up' mean, then?' 'Well, it means 'could you scoot over a bit, please.'' So strange, translating from one dialect to the other like that. And it reminded me of the first time someone asked me to 'scoot over,' when I hadn't been in the US for long, and I had no idea what they were asking me to do and got completely hung up and perplexed on the whole visual of 'scoot.' 

The View From Here/Up For This Week

The View From Here

Things are in full swing of growth here. We have our first little pea on a pea plant! Here it is, on the right of the photo:

The flowers are so gorgeous also.

We're supposed to be getting the sun back later this week: had a little hint of it first thing this morning. It's funny for me to compare myself, here at the end of June, to how I was last year. Back then, still fresh from living in warm climates, by design, for many years, I was full of resentment that the best we could hope for in June was low-50's and maybe a few days in the 60's. I resented having to wear so many clothes all the time. I resented not being able to see the sun often. This time around, I'm much more accepting, accustomed to it (resigned?). If the plan is for us to live here for seven years, it's a far better prospect if I can feel good about it.

Here's a little herb composition: in the reused salad tray are my second planting of cilantro and basil (it's just too cold for basil here, though, even in the raised beds - I need to put them in small containers on a southfacing wall, I think). 

We had a great cilantro patch last year, though. But the feathery plant just beginning to flower at the bottom of the picture is a wild herb. Up here it's called pineapple weed or dogweed, and it's a wild chamomile - you can see how much it looks like chamomile! It's a very pernicious weed and we pull it out in quantities, but I'm wanting to allow a bunch to flower and then to harvest the flowers and use them like regular chamomile (according to local herbals, it has similar properties).

And up on the left are some raspberry leaves. Of course the berries are wonderful, but I harvest a lot of the leaves too, and dry them for the off-season. They make a wonderful tea for menstrual cramps that actually works. (I usually combine them with some licorice).

Up For This Week

I didn't post every day last week and I felt ok with that. Does it seem like a reasonable rhythm? I've decided that I'm going to quit making excuses and complaining about the fact that we don't have internet at home and how hard that makes everything, and seriously look into how I can change that situation. And until I can change it, I'm just going to accept that I'm not going to be able to get online every day. Or that sometimes, I'll get online with enough time to post a blog, or to comment on others' blogs, but not both.

To look forward to in here this week, though, as near as I can project, I have a book that I want to review, there's probably one more 'theme and variations' post to be made, and if I can pluck up the courage and find the right words to say it, I may also talk a bit at some point about my own relationship with food and body and how it's been changing and possibly improving recently. I've been loath to talk about it of late, but it's probably not a bad idea to acknowledge what is going on and invite the input of others too. Have a great week, everyone!

Cabin Pictures, Self-Acceptance, A Flow of Water Breaks a Nightmare

How's everyone's weekend going? I hope that everyone else is getting more sunshine than we are: it's been gray, overcast, a little rainy. And busy, in a good way. Phil's friend Joe has been spending the weekend with us: right now, they're out fishing (but they may be back soon: I can see the wind starting to pick up and it's raining) but yesterday they made great progress on replacing the windows in our little storage room, which is part of the insulation project we're in the midst of. 

Here is our cabin from the south. I was wishing I had the 8x zoom on that lumix for this photo: remember that our cabin is 30ft from the edge of the bluff! I was standing right on the very edge to take the photo and had a scary moment when I almost stepped back to adjust! 

You can see how it's a solar oven in there when the sun's out, all that southern exposure! The red ladder is against the tiny storage room where they were replacing windows. The main room (about 10x16) is on the left. Underneath the main room, the gaping mouth is our crawlspace, which Phil built a better hatch for this week to keep out squirrels, porcupines and other critters who like to eat fiberglass. All the windows are going to have to come out of that south face too: an upheaval in waiting, since our counter, which is also my writing/work space, food prep space, our eating space and general space-on-which-everything-gets-put is right under the windows all across the south wall and everything is going to have to come off!

Here is the cabin viewed from the west:

A work in progress, as you can see. That glare to the right of the porch is some new windows, and the door that's halfway open leads into a small shed. 

While they were working on the windows, I was working on my poetry writing and also on some translating work. I felt fine about it. It has felt so good to me to make my poetry writing a priority and to view it as some of my most important work. And I love translating and take some pride in it - and of course, the fact that it makes some money is a good thing too.

Especially since having had some validation at the Writers' Conference, it's becoming easier for me to take my own directions and motivations seriously. Not that long ago, I would either have felt obligated to help with changing the windows, or would have felt guilty about being incapable of helping much - and similarly for every other project that I'm ill-equipped or disinclined to do: I'd have either forced myself to do it anyway or guilt-tripped myself. This feels like such a good thing, to accept the value of what I do and who I am. Especially living with a hyperactive greyhound like Phil, and with my own neuroses around burning calories, I've also tended to feel bad if I'm spending a lot of time doing sedentary work. But while there have been times in my life (not many, though) when I've 'needed' a lot of exercise, most of my life I've felt pretty awful if I exercise too much: getting time outdoors (which need I share with Phil) is the crucial piece for me, rather than getting out of doors and moving as vigorously as possible for as long as possible. Another thing that it's good to feel ok about.

How do we get around the trap of feeling that artistic endeavors are not worthwhile, because they're not consistently 'productive,' or productive at all in any traditional sense most of the time, and often require so much emotional energy without always providing a tangible harvest? I quit being a serious musician because of some of those kinds of considerations (and some life catastrophes years ago) - even quit writing for a bit at one point, but it seems like I can't not write, so that didn't last long. What do you think?  A less utilitarian view is more appealing to me at the moment, whereby the value of an activity, or of the resulting 'made thing' (a literal meaning of 'poem') isn't necessarily measured by some arbitrary monetary calibration.

A sweet little story from yesterday: as many of you know, we have a half-finished project to get running water in our home. We have a water tank in the 'bunker,' with a pipe buried 7ft down in the ground running from it to our cabin. Since there's a 16ft elevation change, we're hoping to be able to gravity-feed rather than getting a pump. This project had been stalled for some time, and the nightmarish problem that we were embarrassed even to mention was that when we poured water down the pipe (which is buried 7ft down, remember) it didn't come out the other end! 

Well, Phil and Joe took another look yesterday afternoon. Have you ever tried to push a rope? Well, they pushed a tight cable over half-way down the pipe from each end, thus reaming its entirety in two goes. (A plumber's snake, the traditional 'right tool for the job,' turned out to be heinously expensive to rent, and Phil is a master at improvising tools). They don't even know what they did, but after that, it worked!

Here is Joe holding the pipe outside our cabin, with water flowing into the rain barrel! Doesn't he look pleased?

Of course, by the time they were done, we were out of water - remember, we still haul it by the 6-gallon jug. We had just enough in the cabin for morning drinks. Small stuff, then, and nicely emblematic of the ambivalent exhilaration over the prospect of unlimited - or at least less-limited - water supply! (And now I'm at Safeway, using the internet and filling up water!)

Product Review and Protein Powders Comparison; Own Potions versus Recipes

Friday already! Has this week flown by for everyone or is it just me? Solstice brought some sun on Monday and Tuesday, but now rain is impending. Nice timing, since we got all our raised beds mulched by yesterday evening.

I have a product review to share today. I'm going to add my voice of response to Sequel Naturals' new 'Shake and Go' protein powder, thanks to my winning a 10oz package of it in Averie's giveaway a couple weeks ago. Many thanks again to Averie for that and much else.

We have an eccentric relationship with our mail service here, for reasons that are inscrutable to me (except that the dichotomy of using a PO Box but also having a street address is potentially confusing), and I ended up receiving my 'Shake and Go' via the town Library! This isn't as totally tangential as it sounds, since Phil's daughter works there, so I'm grateful to her as well for sending it in my direction.

I had the perfect opportunity to try it, because I got it last Friday night, when we arrived home late from Anchorage and I was to work all day at the bookstore the following day. I brought it with me, and shook it with some nut milk and hot tea as part of lunch.

Considering that this protein powder includes hemp protein, which tends to be grainy, and pea and rice proteins, which tend to be chalky, the texture is amazingly good. As with all 'shake to mix' protein powders, it's important to have some liquid in your shaker (or mason jar!) before adding the powder, or else it'll all just gum up on the bottom. But this powder incorporates well. I found that a combination of vigorous shaking and then stirring out any remaining lumps yielded good results. So the texture's good on two counts: not lumpy, and not chalky/gritty either. I was impressed by that.

This protein powder is sweetened with 'organic coconut palm nectar:' a new-to-the-market low-glycemic sweetener that's just starting to achieve prominence. It is produced by tapping the coconut tree for sap from the flowers (so that the sap is harvested rather than allowing the flowers to mature into coconuts) and then dehydrating/concentrating the sap. As a coconut lover, I'm glad to have read that tapping the trees is not harmful to them and that as an agricultural practice, it is equally sustainable to growing for the nuts. I'm glad to read it but not entirely convinced, having worked with coconuts so much, and feel that I should research it some more. 

That said, this was my first experience tasting a product made with coconut nectar. And to my taste, the shake is surprisingly sweet, but not in an unpleasant way. And since I'm avoiding sugars so much at the moment, it's likely that things taste sweeter to me anyway.  But compared, for example, to Olympian Labs' pea protein powder, which uses stevia and a little xylitol; or to Life's Basics' plant protein powder, which uses stevia, xylitol and a small amount of fructose, the sweetness in this shake is very pleasant. The two that I just mentioned are slightly sickly-sweet. 

The 'Life's Basics' protein powder also utilizes pea, hemp and rice proteins and also, like Shake and Go, includes green food powders, but its texture is not as good. That said, a 130 calorie serving of it provides 23g protein, whereas the 'Shake and Go' yields 12g of protein for 120 calories. So if increasing protein is really important to you, 'Life's Basics' may be a better value even though it doesn't taste as good. 

I worry about the fructose in 'Life's Basics' also, although not very much, since it's among the last ingredients listed and I suspect there isn't a lot of it. 'Life's Basics' also uses chia as a protein source, which probably impacts the overall texture. However, it only provides 3g of fiber per serving whereas 'Shake and Go' provides 6g. That said, the total carb count for 'Shake and Go' is 12g, which is at the high, high end of anything I'd eat, whereas 'Life's Basics' only has 5g total carbs.

On the 'Shake and Go' packaging, it suggests shaking with just half-to-one cup of water. That's a very small amount of liquid for a shake! I have a hard time imagining being satisfied for long with so little. I tried it with about 12oz (a cup and a half) of nut milk and herbal tea mixed. Even with that amount of liquid, using the two-tablespoon serving size yielded a shake that was satisfyingly rich and thick. Of course, this was probably helped by the fact that there was some nut milk in the liquid part (although my nut milks tend to be thin). I'm guessing that the xanthan gum listed in the ingredients is what allows it to be thick and smooth like that. By the way, for those who are allergic to corn: xanthan gum is a corn derivative. It's generally used in very tiny quantities, though. I don't feel good if I eat corn on the cob, but I haven't noticed ill effects from eating something with xanthan gum.

Speaking of allergens, pea, hemp and rice proteins are said to be hypo-allergenic, which is one of the reasons for their popularity. Combining them ensures optimal amino acid profiles. Something that's interesting to me in my body is that rice in general makes me sick, and I've tried a straight rice protein powder that also didn't work for me. But with both 'Shake and Go' and 'Life's Basics,' my tummy seems to have tolerated whatever rice was in there. In both cases, rice is the lowest-quantity protein used (judging by the ingredients label).

Two Bottom Lines:

First bottom line: 'Shake and Go' is delicious and wonderfully textured in a way that would cater to 'mainstream' palates. I'm so impressed that they've managed to smooth out the 'chalky and gritty' of many other hypoallergenic products that are typically only acceptable to people like myself who cannot tolerate the mainstream stuff! That said, it's priced out of my range and I probably wouldn't have gotten to try it had I not won it - so, many thanks again for that: I'm so glad to have tried it. But I think that it's kind of like a 'special treat:' I'll use it when I'm out of town for two weeks next month and probably won't have kitchen access and need to fend for myself. Or when we go camping. So, no regrets that I have it here when I'm off cacao for a couple of weeks: it will get its time in the limelight when I go on my trip!

Second bottom line: for some of us, it's really important to get a lot of high quality protein, and also to vary our sources. Some of us also have to be very budget-conscious And when we're at home, we can make our own delicious-tasting shakes by combining our own goodies. That's why I tend to buy Now Food's pure pea protein powder, with no other ingredients. I can get 2lbs of it for about $15, which is massively cheaper than anything else. 

Yes, it's bland and chalky, because pea protein is the only ingredient! But that means that you can add it to shakes and also to savory concoctions like dressings and soups: it's more versatile if a little more labor-intensive. And yes, it doesn't have any fiber in it - but it has 28g of protein for a 130 cal serving, which is significantly more than many whey or soy protein powders, even! I never use a full serving of it (nor of the 'Life's Basics') - but maybe I should. Even if I don't, though, I'm getting a significant amount of protein. And I always mix it with some flax meal or chia, to add fiber and omega-3's.

Finally, aside from the fact that it's cheaper to get a basic protein powder and add your own omega-seeds, cacao, maca, green powders and whatever else you love than it is to buy a ready-made shake, it's also much more in keeping with my personal temperament. Just like I never follow recipes, I also rarely use premade shakes as the directions mandate! Have you ever thought that a preformulated shake is kind of like a recipe you have to follow? Yes, it has its place, and I'm extremely grateful that there are some that cater to my extensive list of allergies. But I'm even more grateful that my lifestyle allows me to mix my own potions for the most part!

One Final Note: Congratulations on a whole year of blogging to the Twins at the Pure2Raw blog. They're hosting a giveaway in honor of this anniversary - so generous! Take a look...

A Break in Scheduled Programming: Things Are Looking UP!

Hi Everyone!

I hope you're all having a great week. Up here, the week seems to be galloping by, and in all kinds of positive ways. However, with all the extra busyness, I'm especially noticing how hard it is to stay connected and keep blogging with no internet connection in easy reach. And that thus far I've fallen far short of what I promised to write about this week!

So, grabbing a moment between finishing up some editing, finishing up caulking some windows, mulching a raised bed, making lunch, and heading to writers' club in a few minutes, I just wanted to give a little shout that things are turning to the better.

Does anyone else find themselves relying on cacao or caffeine for extra energy and then observe an inappropriately addictive relationship building with it, to the point that you have to quit cold turkey? I can't have caffeinated tea or coffee at all at the moment but have lately been using cacao in that way - and I love the taste, love the antioxidants, and it improves my appetite, which is supposed to be a good thing. But since yesterday, I've been off it cold turkey - no cacao nibs in my barks, no cacao in my morning smoothie, etc. I was starting to get unpleasant itching symptoms as well as just wanting more and more of it. This is maybe the third time I've had that dance with cacao. Would love to hear others' experiences.

So far yesterday and today, my energy has been lower and less consistent, as has my appetite. That's probably partly due to the lack of the 'cacao crutch,' but I'd been going full on for several days with enormously less rest than I'd been needing for a long time previously, and it's likely that that caught up with me a bit too.

Otherwise, my job/money worries seem to have found fairly quick resolution. One translation job that I thought was finished has come through with a lot more work. Some more editing too. And another completely new part-time job that I inquired about seems to have come through (still a couple things to iron out). I'll tell more about it when I know that it's for sure, but suffice it to say, for now, that it'll be a contrast to everything else I'm doing, whilst utilizing my relevant experience and skills, and should be a really good complement to everything else. There are also a couple of unpaid tasks that I'm taking on in addition, to help contribute more to the literary world and the environment-sustaining world.

Do you believe that you'll always find the work that you need, when you need it?

I hope you enjoyed all the photos yesterday! There will be more, from now on! It feels good to add things in and start to get the hang of them.

I Have Photos!!

A phone call to the Canon support team connected me to a real person in quick time, and it turns out that there was an extra step I needed to do to get the computer to 'see' the camera. In his words, Mac OS X.6 is 'a bit of a bear' when it comes to camera interface. He wasn't able to tell me why I'd never had that problem with the couple of cameras I'd tried - I guess that's not his to say.

But anyway - here are some pictures!

Here's Phil, whacking down the rampant horsetail grass in front of the outhouse. (It's rampant everywhere, including where we've pulled roots three feet down!) And yes, that is thin air and the edge of the bluff to his left, beyond the rowan tree. Best view from a toilet anywhere, I suspect!

Here I am in Anchorage last Friday, with a little wild rose Phil gave me. They are so pretty. Do you think my new hat is cute?

This is 'Turnagain Arm,' a long coastal inlet that the road south from Anchorage to Homer passes alongside of for the first 50 miles or so before climbing up into the mountains. This is the south side of the road. If you look closely, you'll see that those sticks of trees are festooned with terns. Right before I took the photo, they were all attacking an eagle, who must have been trying to make a meal from their nests. Eagles are so enormous and powerful, but we've been seeing them beleaguered by much smaller birds over and over these last few days - it's nesting season!
This next photo is the north side of the road in the same place (Girdwood). Still snow around in midsummer, but it is mountainous.

We drove back home with a stove in the back of the truck, which some friends of Phil's daughter had given her. We stopped in at Phil's friend Joe's place in Ninilchik, 40 miles from home. Here are Phil and Joe with Joe's boat and the truck swollen with stove:

Can you believe this photo was taken at 9pm?? And 45 minutes later, here's Phil's daughter, the proud new owner, with her stove:

Now I want to show some pictures of our place. I think I mentioned yesterday that we've actually harvested from our garden! Here's a picture taken from the cabin that we live in up toward the 'new bunker,' Phil's bugbear project, where three of our raised beds are in view:

And lots of our little starts too. And raspberry canes front right. Here's a closeup of the raised beds by the construction site:

The radishes are going great guns! And don't you love those stylish alder branches sticking up on the left? They're intended as trellis for those little baby peas. The garden cart in the background is loaded with about 100lbs of 'eel grass' that Phil harvested from the beach. Smells just like manure and makes great fertilizer!
But look at these mushrooms volunteering amongst the spinach and swiss chard:

Supposedly they are something to do with all the horse manure we mixed into the soil.
Here's my harvest:

And on the right you can see a salad tray that I recycle as a seedling tray.

Finally - I'm running out of time online here - I want to post a couple of pics of the beautiful used bookstore where I work occasionally.

Here's the view as you come in the front door:

Yes, that's quite a bookfilled desk from which to greet customers!

And here's another view of the first floor:

OK - I'd love to hear from regular photo-bloggers how to streamline this process! Maybe my computer and internet connection both are slow - but it's taken a long time to do this indeed. Probably I won't generally put as many pictures in a single post, but will just include a few each time. This is a bit of an overkill after many unillustrated posts.

lots of love.

The View From Here/Up For This Week

The View From Here

Happy Solstice, everyone! The sun is out today! We now have a camera, so internet connections permitting, I'm hoping to illustrate my posts more liberally at least some of the time.

We got our first harvest from our garden yesterday! It's still astonishing to me how quickly stuff grows here considering what a late start it has to get. 

So lovely to curl fingers in the dirt in the raised beds and feel that it's warm in there!

And there I was hoping that the rest of this post would be a bunch of photos of our garden, etc. But whereas with every other camera that I've played with, I've just plugged it into the computer and downloaded the pictures, the computer doesn't seem to recognize this one at all. It did come with a software cd but I was really hoping to be able to use the native Mac software and not clutter up the hard drive with more software. The camera we got is a Canon PowerShot SD 1200 - a slightly older model because Phil felt that having a viewfinder was absolutely necessary and the newer ones don't. Plus, his brother is a professional photographer and won't use anything except Canons or Nikons.  I was pretty sold on the Panasonic Lumix for about the same price - would have adored that 8x zoom - but have to agree that the viewfinder is important. What do other folks have as a camera? Powershot owners: is there something about them that necessitates the special software? 

At any rate, I hope to have pictures up soon.

Up For This Week

Like many people whose blogs I follow, I'm reconciling myself to the realization that I probably can't blog every day at the moment. Not having an internet connection means that even if I do write a post, it doesn't mean that I can automatically get online and put it up. 

My desire to make more room for writing and to take that whole part of life seriously and make it important means that I'm going to have to sacrifice some trips to town, and other things. The garden has an endless amount of work that it would like to have done. 

The State of Alaska is providing an incentive for homeowners to insulate their homes and make them more energy-efficient, by offering to pay for the materials and labor. There is a limited time-window in which this needs to be done. Phil set this in motion for our cabin some time ago and we're coming down toward the deadline. So yesterday, I spent the morning caulking windows. I carved out a little time to work on poetry and felt so much better as a result, but checking email and blogging had to be postponed. 

And it's pretty clear that I need to get a more regular income stream going, so I need to put some time and effort into identifying and securing that.

That said, I want to make sure that I'm posting here at least three times a week. This week, I'll do some more photo posts of all the amazing plants that jump up when they get the chance. Another wordstalk. Possibly another book review. And another 'theme and variations' post, although I may have covered most of the possibilities by now. A product review, and maybe something on our new camera. Ok, I might not get all of this done!

I'm putting my request out there to the universe for any tips on keeping the relationship 'ship' afloat when there's a lot of changes underway and a lot of work to be done. It's one of the most important things in my life and at the moment my heart is very heavy - things are not going well. I would also love and gratefully accept any advice and input on activating income streams, whether it's using the internet for passive income or bringing my special (writing/editing/translating) skills to the notice of the right person. Please - I'd be so grateful. And I wish for everyone a beautiful, sun-filled week.

'Theme and Variation' 5 and a Wordstalk! And Looking for a Job.

'

Theme

This week's 'theme and variations' piece is probably the ultimate and most quintessentially 'variable' item of them all, and also subject for a 'wordstalk' that will come out just from talking about it. This food isn't a single food item, but in its various forms almost everyone eats it, no matter their dietary preference. Of course, I'm talking about SALAD!

The basic 'theme' with salad is generally considered to be a collection of vegetables with a dressing on it. This can be, and has been, extended so that pretty much every food group can take a bow in a salad bowl in some form, whether shredded (like cheese, carrots and other hard veggies), chopped (carrots, lettuce, avocado, tomatoes, fruit, etc), boiled (eggs, potatoes), toasted (bread, nuts) whipped (eggs, avocado, tahini), or fermented (sauerkraut, pickles, olives, capers).

And therein lies a succinct description of many of the possible variations.

However, before I get into my favorite variations, let's do the Wordstalk piece.

See, the word salad, in its glorious nonspecificity, conveys such a tight and yet such a precisely defined area of food, but such a word wasn't even used in the times of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, who ate a lot of fresh vegetables, and in fact the common denominator which is all that 'salad' denotes is the salt - i.e. the flavoring of the dressing! So perhaps a naked salad isn't really a salad!

Not a lot of people realize that salad etymologizes directly as 'salted,' cognate with 'salsa' and also 'salacious' (to Roman sensibilities, adding some salt to something connoted being at least witty and probably risque too). And it may be questionable how relevant the etymology is to salad as we think of it nowadays. (It's an interesting question of its own how important etymologies are to actual current meanings. Some people inveigh against 'abuses' of words being used outside of their etymological context; others welcome this as organic extension of the language's flexibility.) 

In terms of the extension of the word's use, in theoretical Linguistics, 'word salad' refers to a string of words that make no syntactic sense (especially in a language that relies on word order for syntax), and although I haven't been able to track it down, I do remember it being used of a piece of music with a lot of different parts to it.

To make things a little more confusing, in German 'salat' simply means 'lettuce.' I remember when I used to sell produce being confused by a German customer asking for 'a salad,' when we weren't serving any salads, and then a blink later realizing that of course she wanted a head of lettuce. And in English too, a lot of green vegetables are called 'x salad' or 'salad x'  (e.g. 'corn salad,' an alternate name for lambsquarters/mache, and 'salad burnet,' a green that grows wild up here in Alaska and is mostly eaten by spring bears, but that I've also grown in California, with a lightly cucumber taste). But it's usually pretty obvious when it's being used in a 'specific' context, and otherwise variety rules!

Variations

I found it interesting to read about the 'Home Economics' movement in the USA in the late 19th and early 20th centuries being so concerned with constraining and tidying the food, so that 'salad could not be the wildly exuberant spreading, heaping smorgasbord of all kinds of food that many of us know and love. It was useful to understand some of the aesthetics that lay behind the 'molded/gelled' salad (which I'd never seen before I came to the US and find pretty abhorrent, especially when it's made with lurid green jell-o). The American salads that consist of loads of mayonnaise drenching tuna/celery/capers/peppers probably owe something to the same aesthetic. 

However, what's called 'salad' in the Mediterranean and Middle East is often more like this, or even closer to what we would think of as a dip: baba ghanoush, hummus, taramasalata (NB 'salata') are all considered salads over there. 

I have actually found myself making gelled salads a few times. If you chop in a bunch of okra, within minutes it'll be gelled! Seaweeds work that way too. And I have mixed chia seeds into a salad, especially if it's 'to go' in a trusty mason jar. 

I love to use wild greens - nettles, chickweed, dandelions, wild mustard greens, and here in Alaska there are a whole set of greens that grown only along the shoreline. They tend to taste strong and a little goes a long way, but they're great in a salad. 

Tomatoes or other juicy fruits are great in salads. Phil and I aren't big fans of cucumber but apples or even nectarines or grapefruit pieces (no fruit for me at the moment, though) give a satisfying crunch and moisture. I adore jicama for the same things, but I love it so much that I tend to just munch on it beside the salad. 

I'm trying to get my krauting and sprouting routines down so that I always have both of them: kraut and sprouts are wonderful on salads. I have coconut kefir going pretty consistently, and like to have some of that with salad also, and often use the whey in salad dressings.

But to be honest, my salad is almost always a bunch of greens, a little sliced avocado, kraut and sprouts, a little oil and vinegar, and then a bunch of kefir whey and spirulina/chlorella mixed all over.  It would probably be good to vary that up some! I'm in the process of deciding/recognizing that we can't afford to buy avocados, so probably more seed cheeses and kefirs in the salad. And I'm going to look for a job.

Writers' Conference Aftermath: First Impressions and the Most Important Thing I learned

The conference ended just over three hours ago and I won't pretend to have anything like the distance required for a full and thorough review. I'm exhausted but still excited, and holding a very firm intention that this has been just the beginning - of many new friendships and connections, of more performance poetry happening here in Homer, of my own attendance at conferences like this one, of my wholehearted and unashamed embracing of myself as a poet and a writer.

I remember the years-ago experience of being so jaded by academia and conferences, of being cynical and disappointed, exciting topics not being met as they deserved, panels echoing one another and not really saying anything, books larded with postmodernist jargon and too dense to evoke any real enthusiasm (or even comprehension). Granted, that experience took place when I was still floundering around trying to find my way out of anorexia and not really living at all, when everything palled and galled and fell short. And granted, after I've been to a whole bunch of writers' conferences, my enthusiasm to dive in wholeheartedly, be vulnerable, speak up, sincerely tackle every exercise offered, may wane a little. But I would never want to exchange the childlike enthusiasm that I experienced at this conference for that more somber mode of response. It's been a long time coming, but for these last four and a half days I have really lived the philosophy that life is meant to be enjoyed - something that has usually been a merely intellectual construct for me.

An obvious marker of this enthusiasm was that I felt so spoiled for choice. Every concurrent session, there were at least two presentations that I wanted to attend. Phil was a trooper, and often went to my 'second choice' (which often suited him just right). But I did get the full benefit of two sessions with each of the wonderful Poetry teachers - Maurya Simon, of whom I was already a fan, and Emily Wall and Joan Kane, both of whom were thoroughly inspiring in their different ways. In each of their sessions, we had the opportunity to write a poem of our own - or a draft of one - sometimes we had as little as ten minutes! And this brought home to me the truth of the fact that it's not just the faculty who were inspiring and wonderful: many of my peers in the room wrote the most beautiful, moving, inspiring or otherwise amazing poems!

And here was the golden kernel of what was possibly the most important thing that I learned: no need for value judgment comparison! When we really want to be good at something, it can be tempting to hear someone else who is really good and feel discouraged, think 'why do I bother?' or 'they're so much better than me.' And some such thoughts did pass through my head. But as I saw them passing through, I recognized that as much as I admired these other people's poetry, I didn't wish to have written it! I admired their level of accomplishment and in some cases it inspired me to think about how I could improve my own. But I want to tell my own poems the very best that I can, so that they are as touching/inspiring/beautiful/heart-pulling as they can be, so that they can be their best - not to take on someone else's voice.

This realization was so comforting and so empowering. Academics and poets all the way back to the Ancient Greek world have so often been so highly agonistic: Strife one of the great motive and creative forces, as Hesiod, Heraclitus, Empedocles, and others, all said.

It was great to have the opportunity to ask Michael Cunningham some questions about his writings, and then to have a workshop with him. He is one funny guy! In his workshop, he had the whole room create a character in polyphonic style, demonstrating how much is revealed about a character just from her physiology, attire and affect. We laughed so much, and there were some vigorous disputes too.

Laughter was served further in ample measure by Bill Roorbach, Dinty Moore, and Stephanie Elizondo Griest, but all three of them constantly offered profound, compassionate, deep messages together with the laughter.

I was especially grateful for the short presentation on performance poetry by Joan Wilson: reading poetry aloud, or performing it, seem so central and crucial to understanding it.  

And it was eye-opening and informative to hear from editors Elisabeth Dabney and Jennifer Pooley and from agent April Eberhardt about the business end of things. One of the major take-home messages was that the potential of the internet for communication and promotion is great and merits great attention.

Of course, there were several other presenters that I didn't get to listen to. I feel like I have about a week's worth of research to do online checking through and following up on what I've learned.

Nancy Lord closed with a memorable list of eleven pieces of advice for writers practicing the craft: a well-packaged take-home message to launch our new beginnings.

The View From Here/Up For This Week

The View From Here

After a gloriously sunny weekend that left many conference participants (notably my husband) at least partially regretting the enforced indoor time, it's clouded over again today and is blowing up strongly. Somehow the gray skies seem to accentuate the green everywhere, which is still comparatively new, remember, and hints at the promise of some dearly longed-for rain. The topsoil in our raised beds is so clay-predominant that  it's cracking open if we don't water every day. I'm doing 'we' sneakily: here 'we' mostly means Phil. I'm not so good at hauling 6-gallon jugs, and that's all the irrigation we have. Good job Phil is so strong.

This is Monday evening, just about to have another session of readings that are also open to the public: last night's show was an eclectic mixture of different kinds of laughter and some deep notes and chords struck. 

I'm still super-buzzed by it all but my energy is fading. I should definitely plan some significant downtime after this, no messing around on that score.

Up For This Week

I will definitely post a more thorough review of the Writers' Conference when I have more time and a little more distance from it. 

Of course it's been an intense sensory/social/informational/literary overload, and it will take some time to sort all of it out in my mind. However, a recurrent message from those at the 'business' end of the writing world was that using the internet as a communications tool is a very good thing to be doing as a writer. I've been so excited to be connecting with other writers (of poetry in particular), many of them right here in Homer, and am imagining that I'll be wanting to write about 'writerly' things more in addition to all the food and healing writing. I hope that that doesn't make my blog too eclectic or schizophrenic, but I never wanted it to be a monophonic, one-trick blog: that's not the way life is! That's what 'ulterior harmony' refers to.

So, probably some more musings this week about where I'm going with this blog and this life, and hopefully some putting into practice of those ideas. I know I missed my 'Theme and Variations' post last week and haven't done a 'wordstalk' for a couple of weeks, so time, energy and internet connection permitting, those will come too!

Our camera should also arrive any day now, so hopefully more pictures to come too!

Postcard from The Writers' Conference

Just starting the second full day of the Kachemak Bay Writers' Conference. I'm so excited! It has been just awesome so far. The panel discussions have been inspiring and representative of diversely valid perspectives, something for everyone. I've been going to all the poetry workshops, and it feels exhilarating to be in a room with several others who regularly write poetry. They're all so good too, so inspiring. And there are some who live right here in town, so I'm already seeing that we will stay in touch after the conference.

I ended up being the first reader at the open mike. Four minutes each: that is not very long! Having originally planned to read five poems, their juxtaposition forming a structure of its own, I ended up reading just two. It's been a long time since I've been up on stage and I was quite nervous indeed. But just like it always used to be when I did a lot of performing, as soon as I was onstage, I was just fine, happy to be there. And I'm glad to have done it, because I feel like it 'broke the ice' and made me approachable.

Michael Cunningham did an extensive reading from his new novel that's coming out in a few months. I was riveted and didn't want him to stop. Cunningham's writing is always so riveting to me, and it's sometimes surprising to me because all his novels have so very much in common in terms of their trajectories, and yet the characters are so lovingly developed and the prose is so beautiful that I'm always entranced (and don't wish to exit. Sorry, bad pun).

My energy has held out really well so far, although I'm noticing that I'm having more chronic fatigue/adrenal 'symptoms' today, so need to watch out. I've definitely had to pack all my own food and, since I'm trying to get more protein in and since I really need to feel better for this, it's a challenge with these packed days. I'm just so grateful that this is in our home town and that I can fix stuff at home for myself, and I am trying! More on that in another post maybe but I should get back to the writing group that I'm in right now!

But oh my, this really point some directions for life. Lots to think about.

A Minor Epiphany and A Book Review

I'm sitting in the lounge at the Land's End Hotel, at the end of the spit in Homer, which is 'the end of the road,' the location of the Kachemak Bay Writers' Conference. I'm registered, have my tote bag and name tag, and ended up signed up in the first slot for the open mike to read some poetry! Excited, nervous, anticipatory.

The Naturopath reiterated yesterday that I need to eat more, and specifically more protein, and that a lot of the residual symptoms I'm experiencing will improve if I do. So, my minor epiphany (helped, I'm sure, by the fact that I've been writing (poetry) this week, which always makes life feel better): if eating more will make me feel better, isn't it worth a try?!?! There is such a strong equation between raw-foodism and asceticism, and it's so easy for me to slip back into 'scarcity mode,' but really, what's not to like about feeling better? I don't want to go into too much detail on this because I want to get on to the book review, but another helpful comment from the Naturopath was that the nausea that I frequently experience after eating, and that encourages me to always eat less, is very possibly a 'habitual' response from my body, who has become used to associating food with ill feeling. So, if I can actively work against the nausea, maybe the food can actually do some good!

OK - without further ado, the first of two book reviews that I want to share this week.

On David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas 

This 529-page novel is a little hard to get into, but it blew me away! And I wouldn't call myself an easy grader as a reader. It's the best novel by some way that I've read in a long while, and I've been reading some really good ones just recently.

Like other Postmodern novelists such as Haruki Murakami and David Foster Wallace, Mitchell's style is intensely virtuosic, multifarious, speaking in many tongues, vocalizing many voices, accents, idioms. Like those others, he exploits strange and tenuous connections as focalizing points that link different parts of the story together, and makes bizarre and abrupt changes of scene with a mere spandrel of connection between them.

But unlike them, he writes as if there is a deep, underlying message, as if he cares about communicating that message, as if it really matters to him. I often come away from Postmodern novels dazzled by the brilliance, awed by the virtuosity, but thinking 'So what? What happened and what was the point?' (and I do understand that often that is precisely the point.) Reading Cloud Atlas, I experienced all the dazzle and the awe, but also a deep impression that I was receiving something significant that would stay with me a long time, almost to the level of something like Ursula LeGuin's The Dispossessed.

I mentioned that it's a little hard to get into. This is because of the ring-composition or 'Russian Doll' structure of the composition. The novel consists of six novellas, each set in vastly different places, times and genres, from the 19th century South Seas to a post-apocalyptic Hawaii via 1930's Belgium, the West Coast of the USA in the 1970's, present-day England and near-future Korea. Genres are journal, letters, thriller, film/memoir, interview, oral storytelling. The first five novellas segue into one another without warning (the first gives way to the second in the middle of a sentence, for example) and we then get the second half of each of these in reverse order after the central novella. (Might be interesting to go back and read each novella beginning to end.) Each novella is referred to in its successor, so that each of them is a real world within itself that is later reduced to a work of fiction: fascinating self-referentiality. The 'Russian Doll' structure is also frequently referenced in subliminal moments, as well as the number six as the dominant feature in the weave.

This all means that Mitchell - and we - are dealing with six different sets of characters, six different genres, six different scenarios, six different dialects/language uses, even. Where there are moments of stereotyping and pastiche of course, I find myself able to forgive it readily: with such sharp contrasts at work, it's sometimes good to write it large. And whilst the poignant beauty of expression and the enormity of the deeper meaning sometimes brought tears to my eyes, I also cried with laughter at the masterfully overdone tale of woe at the hands of British Rail in the fourth novella.

Some small concerns: there is free use of quotations in languages other than English, and the whole of the sixth novella is written in a created post-apocalyptic version of Hawaiian pidgin, with apostrophes everywhere for elided and omitted sounds: very busy on the page, which makes it hard to read and maybe hard for someone who isn't a linguist to follow. I'll put my cards on the table: I love all of this: for me, it's an enrichment, it makes me engage more deeply with the text. But, I'm a linguist and multilingual enough to be able to understand the quotations in other European languages at least (I don't remember any Korean-language quotations, but if the characters' names had deeper meanings that would have gone over my head). And I know that that particular element of the virtuosity, the bewilderingly adept code-switching and the quotations, might be alienating for some. 

I guess he has an audience in mind and that's who he targets.  It's definitely me. You too?

I am so grateful to have read this, because of the double inspiration I received from it. First, I'm inspired by the beauty and virtuosity of the writing. Second, and perhaps more important, I'm inspired by the depth of the message conveyed through the storytelling: the care for life and its unfoldings. It gives me the hope that I may be able to do something like that with my writings too.

Anyone else read this? I recommend it so highly. For something completely different, I devoured his next novel, 'Black Swan Green,' in a single evening. It is totally different, being told through one single perspective, that of a 13-year old boy in small-town west England. But delightfully enough, several characters from Cloud Atlas are encountered in the course of the story, at very different stages of their lives from those in which they appear in it.

Here are some links I have found online about David Mitchell:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mitchell_(author)

http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth03A30M451712634910

http://www.threemonkeysonline.com/als/_david_mitchell_cloud_atlas_interview.html

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/afterword/archive/2009/08/01/q-amp-a-with-david-mitchell-author-of-cloud-atlas.aspx

Why Blog?

I think everyone whose blog I read has wondered why they do it at some point, triggered by an insensitive comment, harassed by time pressures, or just feeling like it's gotten 'old.' Presumably it's a good idea to periodically re-evaluate the worth of anything that we put a lot of time into. I am really trying to do my best, both with writing this blog and with life in general, and between a hurtful comment from a friend, my husband's skepticism of the value of blogging, and my own feeling of being overwhelmed with things to do, it's a good time to ask this question. My initial reaction to the hurtful comment and to my husband's skepticism, I'm afraid, has been annoyance and digging my heels in. 'I want to write my blog and you're not going to stop me' -style childish defiance. So, in the interests of 'doing better,' here are some thoughts about 'why' that are hopefully more mature than that.

First of all, I write because I need to write. Half the time, I don't really know what I'm thinking or feeling until I've been writing about it. Often, when everything feels crazy, if I sit down and do some creative writing, work on some poems, or even just journal, it takes me into a much happier and saner place. It also allows me to like myself more, which motivates me to take better care of myself. In other words, I love to write. This also answers my husband's question of this morning, of why I write 'morning pages' quasi-religiously every morning.

But there is more, of course. I want to share of myself, through my words: to give friends, loved ones, family, and anyone else who might be interested (who is probably just a more distant or yet-to-be-discovered friend or loved-one or family) a window into this fascinating, crazy life and world that I experience, and to open myself to the opportunity to learn from and share and connect with them in return. Having moved around so much, I have so many dear friends and family members all over the place, with whom I want to share. Since writing is my preferred mode of sharing, isn't this a good way to do it?

One of my husband's main complaints about the blog is that it isn't face-to-face connection with 'real' people. He seems to think that you have to be 'into blogging' in order even to think about going to read someone's blog, negating the possibility that our friends or family might just go look up my blog and see what we've been up to lately. And the hurtful comment I received kind of supports that. I had emailed a friend a month ago, briefly mentioned that I'd been in an accident (the truck/blizzard accident when I was driving the bees down here at the end of April), and also mentioned that I'd written about it in detail in my blog, which they know about. After a while, I got an email back saying 'don't expect me to be keeping up with your life through your blog.' I found this hurtful because I wasn't expecting anything, just letting them know that if they were curious what had happened, I had written about it here. I have so little time online and want to share to the max. Maybe I am being oversensitive, but I felt a subtle accusation of narcissism underscoring the fact that something I was offering was being thrown back in my face. 

Of course, I agree with Phil that making friends here and connecting with real people up here is a good idea. And I am making some efforts to do that, and am also hoping that having my online home here  might facilitate that by giving people another handle on me. This recent rejection of that has given me some second thoughts. 

And then, there's the whole food thing. There aren't many people who live here who are into living foods - hardly any, in fact. And I love this mode of sharing. Whilst I no longer think at all, like I did for a few years a long time ago, that I can only really relate to people who are raw foodists (witness the fact that I'm married to someone who isn't!) I do think that people who are drawn to that tend to have many other things in common also, and I really enjoy being able to immerse myself in that vibe. 

Since, unfortunately, I've been unable to convince Phil as yet that the raw food milieu is a separate issue from residual eating disorder issues and is a vibrant and healthy way of being, it's not likely that this reason for blogging would be very convincing to him. But for me, it's still a good reason.

Now, I don't want to spend too much time on my blog on posts like this! I don't want to be self-reflexive, self obsessed, narcissistic, maudlin or self-pitying. Or redundant! What I do want is to take a sober look at why I do what I do, make sure that it is serving the highest good, and re-evaluate if it isn't. I know that oftentimes I'm too invested in whatever it is that I'm doing to be truly objective about it. But if I feel like I love to do something and that it's serving, is it wrong to continue with it? A serious question - and if you see any chinks in my assumed objectivity and want to point them out, I'd be most grateful for that also.

Feeling Lucky/Creating Our Reality

This is going to be a short and impromptu post because we're driving back home today and I probably won't get online again until tomorrow.

I want to explore the idea of 'getting messages from the universe' and creating our reality.  When I logged on yesterday, I learned that I had been one of the winners of a 'Vega' shake-n-go protein powder sample from Averie's 'Love Veggies and Yoga' blog. This was a really powerful message for me for two reasons. First, I haven't tended to think of myself as lucky, and usually haven't entered giveaways, etc, because I've had no faith that I'd win. In this case, I dared myself to participate because I also wanted to support what Averie does with her blog, and really was interested in the product also. These additional reasons and just making the effort to participate seem to have rewarded me with the experience of feeling that I can be lucky sometimes too! Second, as I said, I admire Averie's energy, upbeat positivity, no-nonsense attitude, clarity, and many other attributes so much. Whilst I recognize that we are very different people, there are so many things that I see in her that I feel I should cultivate in myself. So, a great transfer of energy, and at a good time also.

How much of this is just serendipity, and how much of it is a sign from the universe helping me to create my reality for my highest good, which is also the good of all? I have been musing on this back and forth for some time - even one of the poems I posted a couple of weeks ago is about just that thing - and it's a constant question. (And what is the message of the fact that the internet in this cafe seems to be sketchy - I may not even get to post this before I have to leave?!)

I really want to believe that I can create my own reality in my highest good, for the good of all, but I recognize that I also fear the responsibility that entails, especially considering all the ill that I have wished myself and given myself when I have been depressed. What an amazing responsibility, to invite what is good into our lives, and also to swear off the negativity and ill-wishing, recognizing that it is truly damaging. I don't believe 'sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me:' I think I've been more hurt by words than by any painful accident or all the painful digestive troubles, both words from others and words to myself. Why would I keep choosing that? It takes time to break a habit, even a horrible one, but looking at it this way helps to motivate me to break it.

The View From Here/Up For This Week

The View From Here

We're in Anchorage again for appointments and shopping and visiting with friends. Hoping to get a little more light shed on Phil's continuingly recurrent and debilitating vertigo problem. Maybe trying to help sort my crazy head out a bit too. 

This disorientingly sudden summer means it's snowing apple blossoms up here in Anchorage, dandelion flowers are everywhere and all the birds are fighting either to mate with one another or eat one another's young ahead of the game. The whole of the vertebrate kingdom, we are acting like a bunch of superheated insects, moving faster faster faster quick get everything done before it starts freezing again in two or three months! Our allies the plants are acting just the same, and since up here in Anchorage it gets both hotter and colder than it does down in Homer, the 'window of movement' is even smaller and perhaps it isn't surprising that everything is a little farther along here than back at home. Flowers are more 'out,' mallard ducklings barely ducklings anymore, cabbages and parsleys full size rather than just having their first pair of true leaves like the ones in our raised beds at home. 

But it is quite glorious. Sunshine, over 60 degrees, and even approaching 70 yesterday evening - and with the sun out and bright, these relatively cool temperatures are all warmer than they would be in the SF Bay Area where I used to live, for example. Another strange thing is how late in the day it gets truly warm. 6 or 7pm is often the true 'high noon.' Circadian rhythms what? And yet I seem to be very attached to my circadian rhythms and to stick to them anyway. I'm wondering if it's a detriment to spontaneity that I'm seeming to need such rhythm in my life. I don't feel well when the schedule is chaotic, I can't eat a whole load of food 'up front' so that I won't need to for hours after, like some people do, nor can I eat super early or super late to compensate for missed mealtimes. I feel somewhat of a failure, or at least a misfit, for that: people who really thrive up here often seem to have more of that flexibility. At least I can say I've tried.

Up For This Week

The produce from the Lower 48, which Alaskans call 'Outside,' is that bit fresher up here in the big town. Fred Meyer was fragrant  with peaches today - I insisted that Phil should have one. And I bought a jicama that turns out to be so sweet it's almost candy! Sweet, juicy, crunchy, fresh... Jicama is wonderful - I almost can't believe that it is so low in calories and carbs. The bigger ones are always better: smaller usually means picked too early, woody, less juicy. 

Well, aside from waxing lyrical about a leguminous tuber from Mexico that I never saw on the continent on which I grew up, and which some folks in Hawaii chose not to grow because they deemed it too low-caloric to be worth the effort (now, there's a thought!) - this week I'm getting in gear for the Kachemak Bay Writers' Conference. It'll last Friday 11th through Tues 15th. My first writing conference, and I'm so excited and also somewhat apprehensive. I really hope to meet some potential mentors and friends, and I'm really apprehensive about it being cliquey and closed-up, and of being too shy myself, or too dorky, or too passionate about obscure rhyming schemes, or too trendy in my attire. We have hit the thrift shops here in town, though, and in addition to my usual black pants, black turtlenecks, black hoodies, Phil persuaded me to get a very cute squashy billed cap with a checkered pattern in colors I wouldn't normally have chosen, but which puts some color in with the black and which he says makes me look very cute! 

So another of the main 'up for this week's' is contemplating the possibility of being 'cute,' paying attention to my appearance and recognizing that first impressions are important when you meet people. Can you believe I'm 33 and only just starting to figure this out? Dirty hippy girl… It seems like most girls whose blogs I read are professionals at all of this: is anyone else clueless like me, or got clued up really late on? Aside from when performing in plays a few times, I've only worn make up four or five times in my life. Never had my nails done. Been to a hairdresser maybe five times ever. Anyone else like this?

This week I'm also intending to finally buy a camera - can take a pic of that hat and some other things too - all the wonderful, galloping plant life…

As the writers' conference looms, I'm going to post a couple of (non-food-related) book reviews this week, books I've recently read that have had a positive impact on me: one, because it talks about why it's not a good idea to be hopeless and check out of life, and the other, because of its sheer artistic genius. Not words I use lightly.

My appeal to the collective consciousness/mind/brain trust is for advice on how to 'get moving.' Even allowing for my low energy levels, it is taking me forever to get things done at the moment. Important phone calls are not getting made. Incubating poems become phantom pregnancies through neglect. Seeds get planted days later than I intended to do it. The only person who would call me lazy is myself, and only when I'm being unfair. And yet I can't seem to get stuff done. Advice? A bigger question, that I'll address more in one of the book reviews, is how to figure out what our life's purpose is. Is there a still, small voice that you hear? Or is it all just a rat race?