Anchorage Trip, Alaska Writing, Alienation, Natto

Yesterday, I drove to Anchorage and back. Left at 5am, having gotten up an hour earlier to drop Phil off for a day playing about the bay in his boat. Got home around 10pm, to go and pick up Phil and boat and a whole mess of fish (mostly cod and a sizable halibut). I had an appointment, did some errands and took some downtime/internet time at Title Wave, the independent bookstore. Even then, I was a bit busy! A new writing obligation that I've taken on is putting together the 'Weekly Roundup' that goes out every Friday on the '49 Writers' blog, which is devoted to all things literary in this state. It feels good to me to help out with these kind of things. Of course, first time around, it wasn't smooth sailing. I hadn't quite grasped the extent to which these wysiwyg programs like Word and even Blogger have deep memories of old formatting that they will throw up like reefs in your smoothly prepared work. And then, I scheduled the post, published it - and it disappeared! The two ladies who run the blog ended up having to rescue it/me, when the whole point was to give them space to expand. But all the links got lost, so I sat at the bookstore with temporary admin privileges and sorted it out. Hopefully not too many readers will be able to infer that whole story from the post's appearance!

Here are lupins blooming! Elderberry (but not the edible kind) behind.

Since the continued work on improving my relationship with food and life and using writing to mediate that was the whole purpose of my appointment, I'd thought it might be a good time to write a blog about that too. But yesterday there simply wasn't time (see previous paragraph!) and today is the usual catchup-after-trip kind of day with a friend's birthday party in the evening too, and I'm not feeling ready to write about it now. 

Just the obvious: since my ND appointment right before the Writers' Conference and the Conference itself, I've been making efforts to eat more protein earlier in the day and overall, and have been writing more and feeling very convinced that doing so is what I need to be doing. And my energy has been lots better, as well as my mood, and I'm feeling a welcome sense of purpose. That might even be all I need to say, but of course there's lots more to it.

I took 'company' with me for the long drive - books on cassette from the library! For someone who loves reading aloud so much and values the oral/aural element of language so highly, it's astonishing that this was my first experience of books on tape since a couple I had as a little tiny kid! I took John McPhee's 'Coming Into the Country,' stories about Alaska and specifically the Alaskan Interior, and Hawthorne's 'The Scarlet Letter.' Very different companions, each thought-provoking and fascinating. 

'Coming into the Country' is a 400-some page book and this was excerpts, read by the author. It underscored the irony for me of my attempts to insert myself into the Alaskan literary community - and community tout court - McPhee has a very specific, forthright, opinion about who should come to Alaska and be a part of it, and it is not me! It was as if I was constantly hearing a subtext, throughout his readings - 'You don't belong here. You don't deserve to be here. You're a sissy when it comes to the cold. You are a slave to the urban, in the trap of modern society,' and many other things besides. Whereas he could have been eulogizing Phil directly. I wonder whether there's any other place that could have brought out the differences between the two of us more strikingly. I could console myself by thinking that whilst I didn't recognize myself in any of the characters he portrayed with approval, I wasn't like the urban sharks either. And while I felt like I fit in so well in Hawaii and California, there was always some alienation there too. And growing up in England, people always asked me where I was from. It's not just because I look Israeli, I don't think. 'For I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner' is going to be the title of one of my books of poems. But I loved the experience of having the books, and I definitely absorbed a lot aurally. I stopped for a restroom break here in transition between the two…

…and took a few minutes to recall what I'd heard. It was rainy yesterday, still somewhat so today, and the sun over the Kenai mountains was a fuzzy orb:

Since I was in the big town, with Asian stores available, I bought and tried some natto along with the chlorella 'slaw I'd packed. Natto is a fermented soybean product that many people, including raw enthusiasts, promote as an excellent source of good bacteria and enzymes. People often say that soy can be quite nutritious when it's been fermented, because that removes many of its existing problems with trypsin inhibitors, phytates, etc. Natto is sold frozen, in these little styrofoam containers (not my fave) and was still semi-frozen when I mixed it in. (I'll take a pic and upload asap.) Even semi-frozen, it was obvious that it's an intensely mucilaginous, sticky, viscous substance, like okra, more so than flax goo. I know that some are grossed out by this but it doesn't bother me at all. I know that foods with that kind of texture are often soothing on the stomach, because it's often to do with soluble fiber content. It has an enormous amount of protein too! 

But given how my tummy is, I probably shouldn't have had a whole package (which is maybe 3-4 tablespoons) all at once. I definitely had a tummyache afterwards for a while. And it's obvious that I should start much more slowly - back to my 'slow and steady' watchword at the moment - have just a little bit at a time. Flavor-wise, it's one of those weird fermented Asian things that I'm pretty tolerant of but that I know lots of people hate, especially when allied with a mucus-y texture. So I don't feel very well-qualified to critique the flavor. It's not particularly strong to taste, but smells strong and earthy. Mixed in with a gingery slaw and chlorella seemed like a pretty good way to do it.

Anyone else tried natto? Thoughts?

The internet connection I'm on right now is quite good, but I'm in the lounge of the local motel (probably my shortest walk to an internet connection - about 30 minutes each way - and I'm aiming to get more walking in) and everyone's smoking in here! I can't stand it, spoiled California girl that I am... So I probably won't be staying long!

These beach peas are so beautiful and the flowers, leaves and peas are all edible and quite tasty. Flowering just beside the road in the drizzle as I walked down here.