Good News + Pictures I Didn't Post, Nettles, Snippets

This is a hodge-podge post of scattered thoughts.


First time I hit "publish", I forgot to include a piece of good news in the past week: I had a poem accepted for publication! I hadn't submitted anything for ages, but the last submission I made was to Cirque, and they're publishing one of my poems in the Summer Solstice volume! Time to start sending submissions out again...


I'm including three photographs of nettles for the benefit of our friend David, who bravely ate the steamed nettles on a bed of caramelized onions with balsamic vinegar that I served last night, although he was mortally afraid of ending up with botox-lips. He concluded they were delicious--"Now, where can I find some of those?" 
They're everywhere, but if you don't know what you're looking for, how would you know?

I didn't take a photo of the beautiful nettles on caramelized onions, but I hope you can picture it.
I also chose not to take a photo of the mama moose bedded down with two tiny calves right by the highway these last few days. Walking home from my writers' group on Monday, I gave them a wide berth, walking in the middle of the road so as not to come too close. Moments later, mama moose awkwardly lurched upright, put her head down, and moseyed across the highway, leaving two improbably small calves, their umbilici still dangling, milling confusedly on the other side. She stayed over there several minutes. The calves, sensibly, were disinclined to step in the road.
I was so relieved when mama crossed back and rejoined them.  
It just didn't seem right to take pictures. Sorry, guys.

Speaking of pictures, I feel such gratitude for connection. At a time when I'm not very connected even to my own body, and in a limbo of decision-making, it's a good reminder. I'm not a visual person, and I didn't even catch that the photos of the two breakfasts in my previous post, light and dark respectively, were highly symbolic, until my giftedly visual friend Terry pointed it out. Thus artists collaborate, thus our own best work is more than what we make it.

Another picture I didn't post--another picture I can't post: I wish I could record and share the sound of the songbirds these days! The piercing plaintiveness of the golden-crown sparrow threads through the melodiousness of the song sparrow, punctuated by the persistent chirrup of the robin, the kazoo note of the chickadee, the throaty croak of the raven. When I'm outside picking nettles, their threading melodies make me feel the webbedness of air, the multidimensionality of sound, gold threads spangling what we think of as empty space. A beneficence.


I'm not doing great this week, and am realistic enough to recognize the unlikelihood of acceptance of my plea to my naturopath to let me stay home and figure this out myself because the whole 'searching for options' is making me worse with the stress. On a happier note, things are coalescing, and clarity is gradually congealing over my possible destination. I won't be able to update my blog initially, for as much as a month. It'll be a different me on the other side, no doubt.


Thank you to everyone who's pushed their comfort zone and talked with me about this. I feel gratitude to have given so many women the opportunity to open up to me about their own like issues. More gratitude for those offering Phil support.

Well, This is Embarrassing...How did we get here? (Fifty First Weeks)

Fifty First Weeks: this week my "fresh start" will be a move toward more transparency. Since I seem to be crashing and burning for all to see, I might as well own it and quit soft-pedaling, in hopes that my sharing from within the situation might be of help to others. This is uncharted ground, so I'm learning every step. Perhaps I'll still manage to pull a phoenix out of the ashes.

Blossoming currants. The birds always get any fruit.

I'm as thirsty as ashes

I hadn't thought anything of it until a conversation on Friday brought home to me how narrow my food choices have become in contrast (see below), but I'm drinking enough to float the Ark!

I waken parched.
First thing every morning, I drink a pint of warm lemon water with some powdered supplements in it (MSM, lysine, magnesium). Then, after working out, I make Phil's coffee, and I make myself a quart of one kind of herbal tea and a two-quart thermos of another kind. The quart jar gets topped up several times over the course of the morning. I've probably drunk a gallon by lunchtime, and continue through into the evening. I seldom have to wake up to pee at night.

Now, it's true that this has all been my pattern for many months, but I think the quart jar gets topped up more often these days, more extra tea gets brewed in the afternoons, more stevia sodas get drunk... Whenever I hike, I have problems with thirst. Never hunger.

Kudos to me, though: for the past eight days, none of this liquid has been caffeinated and I haven't taken any caffeine pills either! Small victories!

I can't eat that...but I know all about it

Over with friends on Friday, I was asked "Do you eat quinoa?"--they'd fixed it with me in mind. I thought for a moment and responded honestly, "I do eat quinoa in theory, but I only eat it at your house (or anyone else who made it with me in mind)." "It is plant in nature," said my friend--i.e. a good candidate for Ela-food, and mentioned he'd been eating more of it lately to soothe some stomach issues. Off I went, enumerating the nutritional virtues of quinoa, why it's so good for you--for him...I caught myself spouting nutritional information about different foods a couple times that evening.

Perhaps because my friend was so sweet about it, I was forcibly struck by the truth of the fact that theoretically I can eat quinoa, that I know it has nutritional benefits, but I won't eat more than a tablespoon of it at a friend's house, and will usually avoid even that. Yes, this is partly because I don't know what else got put in there, and partly because I don't like to eat heavy in the evenings, but it's mostly, as I admitted in the conversation, "too calorie dense." Same story for beans, sweet potatoes, other starches. I won't eat nuts except a little coconut or seeds except chia/hemp/flax and I can't remember when I last ate flax or hemp other than in protein powder. With the possible exception of sweet potatoes and chia/hemp/flax/coconut, these are all things I definitely feel better off without. But who am I going to be able to convince of that, when I can't eat gluten/dairy/soy/animal product to begin with?

A few months back, I was eating quinoa for breakfast--this is an old blog pic!

OK, it was less than a quarter cup of quinoa buried in turmeric-water and fruit, and OK, if I had even a teaspoon too much of that breakfast, I would spend the whole morning trying to keep it down, even after I nixed the banana, which was making me sick. So, true, I wouldn't dream of going back to quinoa for breakfast. I'm so happy not to be spending my mornings nauseous, as I did when this was breakfast, when chia pudding was breakfast (even made with one tablespoon of chia seeds), when carrot slaw with my favorite protein powder (which unfortunately makes me sick in more than minuscule quantities) was breakfast, when...you get the picture.

Nowadays, this is a more typical breakfast.

It's a few wild blackcurrants with spirulina and a whole teaspoon of molasses, with some stevia, and some psyllium to thicken the whole thing up. Maybe some fruit or dried fruit on the side. I'm using my nutritional knowledge, see, and trying to make sure I get some iron in. I don't want another iron shot after the one ten days ago--my butt hurt for almost a week! Spirulina and molasses are both great iron sources, and dark berries probably have some too. I'm pounding the nettle tea and eating nettles--sometimes the breakfast pictured above has had nettles in place of the currants.

I say this is great, I adore not being nauseous all morning. But realistically, if I go to any treatment center, they're not going to let me have that kind of breakfast! They're going to want me to have something more like the first breakfast, at least. Makes me nauseous just to contemplate. How will I manage with crappy institutional food and none of my normal superfoods--spirulina and chlorella--and supplements that keep me functioning so well?

It's a brutal paradox--I know so much about the nutritional properties of so many foods, but apparently am unable to feed myself sufficient quantities to stay out of trouble. Obviously, it's a matter of degree. Ordinarily, I do great on way less than anyone else around me. But maybe way, way, way less is too much "less"! Since the idea of going away to a treatment center is both so horrifying to me and apparently almost impossibly complicated to arrange, it troubles me that I'm apparently unable to work back up even to avoid the horror. I couldn't even explain why I can't. Hoping to find a way out. Hoping something will give before I have to deal with it that way.

Phil and I sat down this morning and brainstormed a little about how I ended up in this situation. Not surprisingly, the overwork of the past several months was a major culprit, but of course there are others. A long manic episode, the left-field caffeine addiction, some self esteem issues maybe...My mum immediately asked whether it had anything to do with the trip to Israel last November. One of my old great aunts, who hadn't seen me since I was 70 or 80lbs, greeted me delightedly with "You're fat!" Naturally, I was extremely upset... But I don't think that's the 'cause' of this situation, although I can't deny that it's crossed my mind, in Hebrew, to tell my great aunt I'm not fat anymore.

Let me know if this is too much information and you want me to return to my usual, more guarded sharing. I'll listen to any feedback I receive.
Thank you to everyone for all your friendship. My deepest thanks to those who are giving Phil support. This situation is hard on him: he's so used to being so good at helping people, and he feels helpless and frustrated.

Moving into a New Phase/Poetry Reading/Bucket List

It's getting greener every day here, and a couple mornings ago we had not one, not two, but three moose in our yard! Unfortunately I couldn't get them all in a single shot, but it was cool to see.

Poetry Performance

Since my previous post, I performed in this event: 

--last night, I shared two poems with "bird" themes as part of this event, itself a part of the annual Shorebird Festival here in town, the subject of that newspaper article a couple weeks ago. I was sorry not to have had time to memorize my poems, but another thing I did since my last post was turn in grades, so I'm now officially done teaching for the term! I did have the poems mostly from memory, and was in eye contact with the audience, as I prefer to be, for the majority of the time. It was a wonderful event, with some great music and many beloved local poets sharing.


We saw some sandhill cranes on a back road recently. They are so...arresting.

yes, still plenty of snow higher up

Plans and Writing

Since last posting, I've also finally made my bucket list--actually written down all the things I'd been hoping to get done when the semester was over! 

Lots of room to add more details!

Writing is top of the list, followed by reading, followed by outdoor things. Of course, I never stopped either writing or reading, but I'm so happy I'll have more time to attend to those drafts that are crying out to me like babies. I think it was admirable restraint that I didn't put "cleaning" and "taxes" top of the list--those are things I really haven't gotten to that have really bugged me! Soon...


I've also had a wonderful conversation with my mentor, soon-no-longer-to-be-my-mentor, about which authors I might want to be reading for the months until the MFA residency in August. It feels great to have the promise of some structure as I continue to develop as a writer.

Food

I've been enjoying nettles every day, including in puddings like this, made with the immersion blender from unsweetened almond milk, warrior protein powder, xanthan gum to make it puddingy, and stevia.

As you can see, the immersion blender doesn't completely pulverize the greens, and I like that there's still texture to chew on. I imagine it's sort of like oatmeal, but way healthier.


Since we're talking about food, a quick revisit of my talk about increasing calories last time. I appreciate the comments and responses; I even appreciate the caring puzzlement elicited. I don't have many more answers yet. except for one thing I need to give up!


Yes, it must be so old by now, but now that the pressure's off, I really have no excuse not to give up caffeine, as I should have weeks and months ago. The first thing that has to go is the chocolate, which I notice I'd posted about giving up over six weeks ago. I've been eating the odd tiny piece of very dark chocolate every few days, and putting cacao in my smoothies regularly, because it's one of the few things that's appealing to me. However, even aside from the caffeine/theobromine synergy exacerbating the negative effects of caffeine on my systems, the cacao has started to cause the uncomfortable irritation effects that it always has on me eventually--this time around, I was hoping it wouldn't happen, but it has. Not worth the pain! So, no more cacao or chocolate. Still bargaining for my autonomy, so I'd better find something to replace its calories in my intake. 


As for the caffeine pills and caffeinated tea, to be honest, I've been relying on them just to stay awake through the day this past month. They haven't even been impacting my sleep as much as they ordinarily do. But now things have mellowed, and I don't absolutely need to stay awake all day! I'm dreading the withdrawal--just six hours of sleep is leaving me with crushing headaches--so I'd love any advice on how to get through that. I'm thinking a gentle taper would be the smartest thing to do.


Excited to get out more, excited that the only work-work I have now is editing and translating, both of which I love, excited to catch up on rest and friends!

Six(th) Sen(se)tence Story--Penultimate HAWMC!

After all that drenching sunshine, a band of cloud came in yesterday. You can see it wreathing the mountains across the bay. When the sun isn't out, it feels so much colder here, even if it's only a couple degrees lower.

Today's penultimate prompt is inspired by the Six Sentences blog, and asks us to write a six sentence post--tell a story, make it short and sweet.

Six sentences--is that like a sixth sense? That the overall message of the story will be something beyond the sum of the six parts? I love any kind of challenge to impose a formal structure on my words, and I have no idea what I'm going to write! To make up for the paucity of words in this post, I have some springtime pictures to share afterwards.

In Six Sentences: Centrifugal, Centripetal

Living in Alaska has made me acutely aware of a year's passage as a journey around the sun--the face of the earth, the texture of the air, are so different in different seasons, I might as well have traveled to a different place. At times (equinoxes, solstices), the rate of change seems to accelerate and I am conscious of myself as a fly, a mote of dust, on the back of a stampeding elephant. The scanty hairs on the elephant's back are too stout for me to grab on to; the sticky filaments on my own legs have little traction against the wind in my face. Will the G-forces pressing on my back push me down through pachydermic skin, vortexing like water through a plughole, into the warm center, or will the headwind rip my grip loose and send me spiraling into orbit? Connections with loved ones reticulate the slippy surface of my ride, modulate the forces. Someone folds paper, concertina-fashion, draws a figure, cuts it out; opens up a chain of dancers, holding hands, links of the chain that keeps me here.

Springtime Pictures

I ate my first fresh nettles last night! If you've been reading this blog, you'll know how much I adore nettles.  

This moose and yearling calf were eating fresh green beside our road yesterday afternoon. With the angle of the ditch, they didn't even have to go on their knees. Baby went into the woods, but mama wasn't bothered by me at all, so I got a closer shot--

After such a hard winter, she looks to be in wonderful shape. Her coat is glossy, she's not near as skinny as some of the moose we've seen. And she didn't have to abandon her baby/now-yearling, who was also looking good.

Happy Sunday!

Berbere-Spiced Split Pea-Nettle Stew and its Reinvention

It's pleasurable to be flexible, even in the midst of a 'tetra-diet,' and it's pleasurable to introduce foods to other people. Not many people know nettles.

Nettle pesto and all that can be done with it is obviously a great intro, but I wanted to make something closer to my own culinary roots: a different take on spinach and lentils.

1 cup yellow split peas, soaked overnight and then cooked, long and slow, with a piece of ginger

coconut oil for the skillet

half an onion, finely chopped

three cloves of garlic

two teaspoons berbere spice

one teaspoon ground ginger

one teaspoon ground turmeric

sprinkle of salt

big bunch of nettles (maybe six cups?)--roughly chopped with scissors.

Two burners is all I have, so sometimes there's pot-juggling here.

Saute' the onions with the berbere. Once the onions are translucent, add nettles and garlic and remaining spices, and a little water if necessary.

Stir all together; once the nettles have wilted, add the whole contents of the skillet to the pan of split peas.

Stir through and season to taste.

Of course, I was retrofitting and hadn't added the ginger and turmeric at the beginning! I thought they looked a little pale in the above stage, and so my 'season to taste' was the ginger and turmeric: 'season to eye' also--but they'd have been better added to begin with. 

I adore the taste of berbere. Spicy, with cardamom. How could it be better? (Sorry, Phil...) And since I'm playing around with eating spices more seldom than every day, it's fun to go straight for the yummiest.

This stew was enjoyed just like that, and then it underwent a rebirth as part of a salad. Also featured in the salad were about four cups of spinach, chopped tomato and avocado and julienned beets.

The stew (about two-three cups of it) is just mixed in with everything else: the nettles begin to disappear at that point, but they're in there, playing their quiet and steely role.

Do you replay, reinvision, rebirth your creations? Or is a cheesecake always a cheesecake and never a smoothie?

Charged by a Moose, Shipping Charges and Others

Close to a month ago, I decided that it was time to get a dehydrator. That very day, a refund check arrived in the mail that would cover the cost and I took it as a sign. Ever since then, I've been stoked and excited at the idea of having a dehydrator, looking forward to all the things that I would make with it. I anticipated having it shortly after we returned from our trip.

I wanted to make crackers for Phil, which he loves so much. I wanted to make all kinds of granolas and camping foods for the summer. I wanted to make my carrot bars but unbaked. I wanted to try to make nettle chips (not kettle chips, not kale chips)--we have nettles here now, and I'm loving the heck outta them!

 I've made my first batches of nettle pesto--nettle/cilantro, and nettle/parsley/basil.

 Yummy, and takes just a minute to make.

Thank you so much for the suggestions about my breakfast smoothie: I'm working on something much simpler right now.

 Nettles, a piece of baked yam, some cooled herbal tea--that's it! This time, I felt sick too--but I think I od'd on the nettles (didn't even know it was possible): it was a whole blenderful of raw nettles... So, still a work in progress.

Back to the dehydrator: that digression was realistic--it takes me a long time to make purchases like these, to do all the research and figure out the best fit for what I need. I made a purchase yesterday, but it turns out that I'm going to have to wait another month to have the machine. It was going to cost $50 to ship it up here, but shipping was free to the lower 48. So, I've had it shipped to Phil's mom in Oregon, since we're going back there for a wedding next month. I have some sadness, having allowed myself to get so excited and anticipatory, but I recognize that it's just a delayed gratification, and $50 for just three extra weeks of use was something that even my intense hankering couldn't justify. I've waited this long, after all...

I went with a 5 tray 2000-series Excalibur. Given finances and space available, it seemed like the best option and I got a good deal on eBay. Now I'll just have to anticipate a little longer. One of the disadvantages of living in Alaska is that a lot of commodities are not available in the stores here but are also harder to ship up here from online stores. There are whole classes of things that Amazon won't even ship here. Many other companies offer free shipping to the 48 but charge an arm and a leg for shipping up here. I try to pay attention to the accompanying advantages: that we're not in the midst of commercialdom, are in some pretty unspoiled country. And sometimes, I wish I could have my dehydrator and use it too.

Speaking of high charges, we got charged by a moose when we went hiking a few days ago! There were four of us, heading down the Diamond Creek trail toward the ocean. It was raining gently and the willows, all furry buds and dancing wands, were undulating in the drizzle. I noticed a moose running down the path away from us and called out to point it out to everyone. A moment later, it turned around and ran at us. We slowly moseyed off of the track, which winds down the bluff with cut sides, and stood against the uphill side. The moose's hackles were up and its raw, musky smell overpowered the balm of gilead wafting from the budding cottonwoods. It stopped about 20 feet away from us, then hesitated, legs splayed, then charged toward us again, much closer, and sheered off at the last minute to plunge down the almost sheer cliff. I had to go look over the edge and ensure that it hadn't plummeted down: for the size of these animals, their sure-footedness is phenomenal.

The encounter was over so swiftly but we could smell the moose's odor for many feet down the trail, and see the coarse bristles that it was shedding.

I didn't feel scared, although I was very much aware that the moose was afraid, and was far bigger than any of us. Intense, though.

We hiked several miles up the beach with our friends. They had their backpacks and were going to camp on the beach. Our one friend's pack was quite impressive to me:

He confessed that he'd packed 'the kitchen sink!'

I love the beach north of Homer: it's accessible and yet truly remote and wild: we often see seals, otters and all kinds of birds, as well as coyote tracks and other sign. The bluff is also constantly dynamic: I particularly love this rock at the toe of the bluff that looks like a turtle head--it does, doesn't it?

We left our friends out there when they found their camping spot and hiked back, racing the tide. It seems like when we go on long beach hikes, we often end up having to go much faster on the return leg to beat the tide, where I'd prefer to go slower on the way back.

That said, I'm continuing to be amazed and gratified at my continually increasing exercise tolerance and even enjoyment! I've actually taken on a training program for myself, as well as some dietary tweaking, that I'll talk about soon. Charged up!

Do you take time over online purchases or make impulse buys? (Usually, as I said, I take ages, but very occasionally, something is so compelling that I buy it more rapidly.)
Would you be alarmed by a close encounter with a moose?