In the Flux

I apologize for having left things hanging in a scary place!
Since I last wrote, I have returned to Homer.
I have moved from far in the beautiful back of beyond down to town, house-sitting for dear friends, getting around temporarily without my car.
I'm not running sprints yet, but my energy does seem to be steadily increasing.
I have been harvesting what others planted.

Feeling grateful for the abundance, warding myself off from the disappointment and self pity at not having planted a whole lot myself this year.

In this intense and poignant time, giving humor its space, narrow though its berth tends to be in my psychic space--thanks always to the carrots.

I don't yet know what room or apartment, and what fellow-dwellers, will be in my life this winter (if you have the room I'm meant to live in, please let me know!) and, as with everything else right now, I interpret that it's my job to be okay with that uncertainty.

Kidneys are all about water, flux, fluidity and shifting; in the Chinese cosmology they're associated with winter, the season into which we're moving now. I suppose it might be ideal if that energy were balanced with a rock of security in my life now--of warmth, comfort and safety--but perhaps the lesson and blessing here will be to sink down and find that security and comfort in each moment that I live from boxes, packed and ready to move, each time I throw out freezer burned veggies that have moved with me three times now, each time I release my habits of buying in bulk and storing as neither appropriate to my lifestyle nor actually providing of any real comfort or safety. Each time I let go another specious tie to safety, each time I invite the universe to show me real safety. Sinking means finding depth. The water bloat from the IV that troubled me so much when I left the hospital barely able to do up my jeans dissipated in less than a week--a little flag that told me to have faith (and not freak out over engorged body). But yesterday I got stung by a bumblebee (first time for that) when working in the garden, so I have a little reminding reservoir of fluid on my right wrist. Ebb and flow.

On a good day, this makes sense! What is also there for security is the writing and translating. The writing which has gotten all serious and intent and goal-oriented and "thesis year of the MFA program" titled. How did that happen so fast? And why don't I feel any less of a novice as a writer? And now I must make time to write as never before, and yet not feel that I'm up to the ankles in time's spilled milk when I sit a whole evening and morning, as I did recently, trying to 'catch' a poem and get barely a pair of consecutive words down. My dictionary translating job is marching toward its completion, and in order to stay on track, I must translate a certain number of words each day, an intended lemma on which to close the day. As time bound and time sensitive as the MFA completion is, I somehow have to admit the space for the 'get nowhere' times, the times when the blank page stays obstinately blank, the times when the scribbles stay obstinately obtuse and uninspired.

As for this blog, I intend to continue updating, more frequently than of late but not more than three times a week. I'll be musing mostly about writerly things, I suspect, but also some on sustenance of other kinds.
Thank you for letting me share my voice.
With love.

Confession of the Week - Sauerkraut - Reflections on Self-Love: Fat Talk

Hope everyone's having a great weekend! Today's reflection on self-love was an extremely powerful one for me: not only did Tina raise the ugly demon of 'fat talk:' she also gave a striking example of how she had countered it and talked herself out of it. What a lifeline of an idea this is, that we don't have to be stuck with berating our bodies: that we can consciously choose better ways to talk to ourselves.

I'll come back to that with some reflections on my own in a bit. First, though, my confession of the week. My confession is this: I love to have so many projects going on, especially growing/culturing/fermenting projects, and I don't always stay on top of them. And the worst thing about it is, sometimes I haven't just plain forgotten: it's in the back of my mind that something needs doing but I just don't get around to it. This makes me sad. Sometimes I have kombucha, kefir, sauerkraut, sourdough culture, sprouts I'm growing, mead wine…all on the go at once! And more often than I'd like, I don't take the best care of everything for it to be its best possible. I've just been using yeast to make Phil's bread lately but recently started a sourdough, and then didn't take sufficiently regular care of it, and it went bad. Sourdough culture gone bad is a variety of stench that you're really not missing if you can avoid ever smelling it!

One thing that helps me not to mess up like this, and also keeps my anxiety down in general, is to make a to-do list. Somehow, if it's on the list, it'll get checked off! Even if it doesn't make it that day, it'll go on the next days list and eventually get done. I've noticed I'm less anxious if I make a list every day. Otherwise, it's easy to think I've done nothing because I discount all the myriad little things that I do.

OK, so with our garden season coming to its end, I'm pleased to be able to report that my first batch of beet kraut came out great, and that the past couple of days I've put on two more batches of kraut and am determined to pay them good attention.

Back in August, our cauliflowers were the best I've ever had…

…and then the slugs came. What a difference a month makes! It's not just that they're not as pretty (the purple on this one is because I had beet on my hand lol) - they get embittered by the predation of the slugs. So, I chopped the cauliflower up fine, ensuring that there were no slugs still lurking in there ;<), added some of my batch of cabbage-jalapeno kraut to get things started, and about a tablespoon of rock salt, and ensured that the kraut is submerged in liquid.

Today I did the same with chard. I'm going to keep them as warm as possible given how chilly it's getting here, and within a couple of days they should be fermenting nicely. 

OK - back to today's reflection on self-love. Tina calls it "that inner dialogue of self-doubt that puts down our image and denies us our true beauty. I actually like to think of it as 'self doubt talk,' because I believe it plays in more than physical appearance." I am so strongly in agreement with this. I have never been a person who read the 'fashion icon' magazines, dressed fashionably, or even paid much attention to all of that side of things, and yet 'fat talk' has dogged me pretty much forever. And it's all to do with a feeling of unworthiness, a feeling of taking up too much space, a sense that nothing you can do could ever be good enough. 

What if we are enough? What if doing our best is plenty, even if the level of it varies from one day to another?

I am so profoundly grateful for Tina's story about how she has learned to stop that kind of self-talk in its tracks. And along these lines, here is a bonus confession for the day: I am aware that this talk has been such an integral part of my inner voice for so long that there is some ambivalence about stopping it in its tracks. There is some comfort in familiarity. But it makes me ashamed to say that evidently there is a part of me that wants to beat up on myself like that: surely, this runs counter to my goal of doing my best; to my recognition that to love others authentically, I must love myself, with love being a comprehensive, pro-active state of being and doing?

So, how about stopping it in its tracks? Going back to the gifts of the body, when I get down on my thighs and butt (like I did when I saw the above photo), I can remind myself that I'm able to hike every day now - maybe not so far some days, but a few months ago I'd have to rest for several days after one not very long hike. I could point out to myself that they are long and shapely, even if I see some cellulite when I put them in certain angles. I could remember to feel gratitude that they carry me so far and work so tirelessly. I know that I eat very healthily and not too much, and that I can't give my body the message of starvation because it's being trained not to have that message all the time. In the same way, why not train my body to believe that it is beautiful, lean, proportioned just how I want it to be, so that it reflects externally my inner beauty rather than my inner frustration with myself?

We Didn't Go Across the Bay - Self Love and Finding Joy - How To Lose A Pipe - Amazing Grass Giveaway Winner

Here's why we didn't go across the bay after all today - 

- the fog rolled in! It's amazing - we're literally in a blanket of fog, but it's only about 6 degrees cooler than yesterday, when the sun was out. So I will announce the winner of my Amazing Grass giveaway today after all - at the end of this post!

Some pictures from two days ago when it was unabashedly sunny - potatoes that I tickled out of the ground reflecting the sun -

- and a harvest of spuds!

Tina's reflections on self-love post this morning reminds us to look for joy - and to find it - here and now in what we do with our lives. Her post resonated so perfectly for me: just like her, I'd gone back to bed for some extra snuggling with my husband rather than jump on my work as soon as I got up.

And we've been finding joy in the day even postponing our berry adventures. A potentially very frustrating story: Phil can't find the pipe that runs from our sink, that is failing to drain! He ran it out to the edge of the bluff last fall and insulated it. Now, if we spill water in the sink it doesn't run out, so we have to cart out dishwater in the little basin we keep in the sink. He dug where he thought the pipe was, so that he could unblock it - and he can't find it! 

He dug a hole crotch-deep, and that isn't a pipe down there in the hole, it's a retaining rope. He's been looking and digging on and off for two days, and no sign of the pipe! This could be infuriating and frustrating, but I just think it's too funny. And at this point, Phil's thinking he'll just start over with a whole other pipe and give this one up for lost.

I was talking before about wanting my plants to go to seed and the growing season being too short and cool - one thing that's gone to seed in a big way has been arugula! I pulled some out today, and will save some of the seeds, but Phil is concerned that if I leave it all to self-seed, we'll have more than we know what to do with next year - the mustard family likes it up here, that arugula got big!

The smoke behind me is a brush-pile that Phil is burning. My man loves him his chainsaw! He'd taken out a bunch of alder trees, that take over everything otherwise, when we started our building project. We'll use the ashes to amend our soil (potash).

For further joy, we went hiking on the beach despite the fog. The picture at the top of this post shows the view. We always find beautiful things when we hike on the beach - it's hard not to bring the whole beach home, there are so many awesome rocks! Here's Phil with the most darling little feather - 

- and then we put it in a little snail-shell we found -

- precious.

Now for the selection of the two winners of the Amazing Grass Giveaway!

Please bear with me if I do this clunkily - I haven't done it before.

There were 38 entries for the giveaway, many of them multiple by a single person, so with two winners, everyone had a fairly good chance.

Using the random number generator at this website, I was given number 11 and number 30. So…comment #11 was by Bitt! And…comment #30 was by Amber Shea! Congratulations to both of you! Please drop me a line with your contact info so that I can get your goodies sent to you.

Have a great evening, everyone! What joy did you find today?

Reflections on Self Love - Love From Others & Confession of the Week

I've so been looking forward to writing this post today, because today's reflection on self love was an extremely powerfully expressed invitation to reflect on the love that we receive from others. When we're not being loving toward ourselves, we can tend to shun the love that comes to us from others and persuade ourselves that nobody loves us at all.

This is a trap that I've fallen into, and the timing was perfect, as I wanted to talk about something on similar lines as part of my confession for the week.

However: it's 10.30pm, we've had guests and then been guests all day except when I was preparing for their arrival, Phil is likely leaving for a week's hunting tomorrow and I have food to prepare for him, and I'm toast, so I'm not going to do the full justice to the subject that I'd been hoping to. I had all the photos uploaded (does this take ages for anyone else? I do it ahead of writing the post) but we just got home and I discovered I'd left the burner on the stove on! I'm horrified by this. I'd been sauteeing a couple of these beautiful beets to take with us

- and I guess we left in a bit of a rush.
Here's my latest no-sugar energy bar creation, drying under the fan - chia-sweet, mesquite, ground walnuts, ginger, cinnamon, nut pulp (so nice and fluffy now I can grind it in the Vita-Mix!) and flax meal.

I've realized that I really do need to give it some heat for the first portion of drying time - the fan doesn't penetrate to the center unless I make things very thin. I made all kinds of unusual-to-me creations - quiche lorraine, key lime pie - the last few days, glad to expand my repertoire of things I can make that the palates I live with appreciate! And huge salads from our garden, of course.

So, it's such a gift that we all have, that people love us - we're never truly an island except when we believe it so and isolate ourselves.
This reflection was so appropriate for me, as it ties in very well with a non-serving habit that I've been consciously trying to change starting this past week, and have been having some good results so far, I think.
I confess this non-serving habit: I have a tendency to interpret things in the most negative possible light, just as a reflex, almost. Even if someone gives me a compliment, I often think that they're really telling me that what I've done previously hasn't been adequate! Or if someone asks me why I'm doing something, I have been prone to taking it as an attack as opposed to just a question. This habit hasn't served my relationship with Phil, who is my best friend as well as my husband, and who looks out for me and tries to help me be my best. It has left him feeling untrusted and like he can't be transparent with me. It's because I value transparency so highly that I am dedicated to working on changing this attitude habit, of listening to what people say and ignoring the little voice that converts it instantly to something negative, of working instead to try and find a more uplifting meaning, something that would encourage me to feel good instead of bad.

I am so grateful to Phil for loving me (here we are on our anniversary last January)

and to everyone else who loves me too! I love you all as well.

There were other things I wanted to write about, but I can't even tell if I'm making coherent sense, I'm so tired!
Love and gratitude.