Category Archives: Happiness

Hurray, Hurray, It’s Boxing Day!

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photoChristmas was a genuinely Big Deal in my family’s household when I was a mere stripling. Not only were there the churchly obligations and celebrations inherent in a pastor’s (that would be Dad’s) profession but there was being in a Norwegian-American extended family quite fond of eating, partying and jamming into one or another of the aunts’-and-uncles’ homes, all thirty or forty of us, to mark the occasion with the annual family gathering of the season. There was the feasting, of course, with mountainous platters of lovingly baked Hardanger and potato lefse*, meatballs, and all of that tasty stuff, not to mention all of the traditional cookies–rosettes, fattigman, sandbakelser, krumkaker and the like–enough to get kids and adults alike surfeited with sugar for the rest of the week. There were the much-anticipated visits from Julenissen, who in a stunning development was a dead ringer for Gramps at his jolliest and arrived bearing a big burlap sack full of surprises stuffed into other surprises, and all secreted in a multitude of newspaper-mummified little packets that had to be carefully unrolled, unwrapped, unfolded and unwrinkled from the mass in the sack, one by one, to reveal anything from a single nut in its shell to a dime-store toy to a larger gift earmarked, one for each specific kid among Granny and Gramps’s–ahem, I mean Julenissen’s–much-loved passel of holiday-hyper children.

At home, Christmas Eve was the biggest day of the season, thanks to the Norsk roots on both sides of the family, and always included the midnight candlelight service but also usually had its own bit of household festivities, not least of them the opening of the gifts; only the Santa stockings were reserved for that “lesser” festival of Christmas Day morning. Perhaps the most distinctive Christmas Days were in the years when we would have some of the family, often from Dad’s side, at our house since they weren’t always at the big gathering of Mom’s much more extensive family. Then, if Dad’s relatives were with us on Christmas Day we might well do another post-Norway-inspired deed, moving the Christmas tree into the middle of the living room and circling it slowly, hands joined, while singing a couple of old Norwegian Christmas carols. Lest you get the wrong idea here, we were so far from the von Trapp family as to mostly stumble around in our circle, forgetting half of the songs that we only half understood anyway (the pantomime bits that went with the songs were the best part, for all that), and on two occasions our beloved great-Auntie Ingeborg tipped the tree right over. But of course it was entirely worth it to get through that ritual to reach the package-unwrapping mania that followed, so we dutifully did our attempted tree ‘song and dance’ without too much impatient grumbling. After all, the tree might get tipsy yet again if Auntie was with us, one hoped.

Christmas Day, if it risked being anticlimactic after the big splashes of family visiting and diet-busting and gift-giving on and before Christmas Eve, wasn’t without its own attractions. First and foremost, it was a day when we were allowed to recover somewhat quietly from all of the foregoing extravagances, always rather oversized and glamorous in our eyes because of the time spent with our crowd of cousins and the general extremity of differentness from the rest of the year. Not that we slept in, I imagine, because despite the family focus on Christmas Eve we young twerps certainly didn’t object to getting a morning surprise from the depths of those stockings we’d hung up by the fireplace, along with the expected in-shell nuts, coins and orange, the latter best enjoyed by rolling the fruit against a hard surface to release its juices, cutting a small square opening in the side of the orb and stuffing a sugar cube in the hole through which to suck sweetened orange juice. After the hurried discovery of the stocking-stuffers we could concentrate on Christmas breakfast; the best and most traditional of the offerings on that morning would be a big pot of Julegrøt, a sweet milky risotto-like rice dish best enjoyed with plenty of melted butter and cinnamon and sugar, with a blanched whole almond buried somewhere in the pot to provide the lucky recipient with a particularly excellent year to come.

All of this tells you that I came from family traditions with no special recognition of the Feast of Stephen, let alone a clue to the existence of the great traditions of Boxing Day. When I first heard that name I might be forgiven for having thought it was a reference to the fisticuffs that followed less congenial families’ stressful Christmas Eve and Day events, and later for thinking it a reference to the pugnacious behavior of those returning and exchanging imperfect or disappointing Christmas gifts to a thousand thousand overworked retailers. It was both a pleasant surprise and a relief to discover that while both of those aspects were undoubtedly real in some unfortunate lives, Boxing Day was happily celebrated in many more households than those where it was feared.

This year’s Boxing Day at our house will be spent in rejoicing at the chance for a peaceful recovery from the unusually busy return this fall to a combined university-plus-church choral season of ‘all choirs all the time’ for my conductor husband, as we’ve been happily immersed in that good craziness now since September. So I think it’s time to introduce yet another optional definition for the day’s name, perhaps, something along the lines of a ‘Day for willingly Boxing ourselves into the house incommunicado and attempting to reverse the effects of all the wild busyness and cheerful excess that has gone before’. With that, I bid you all Peace!

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See the Blazing Yule Before Us! Or just past, or a year away . . . or, well, see the coziness and great pleasure of holidays well spent!

* Tomorrow: a recipe for Mama’s Justifiably Famous Potato Lefse

Fanfare

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My friends, whether you celebrate Christmas or not, between that and the coming of the New Year this is certainly a time of year in the western world when the presence of Christmas and New Year advertisements and discussions and preparations are ubiquitous to the degree that many of us still get drawn into the whole element of assessing our lives and our places in both the temporal and our inner worlds. It’s not a bad practice to do a bit of examination and evaluation from time to time anyhow, I think. Regardless of beliefs and philosophies, hopes and dreams, politics and projects, we can all benefit from a bit of gentle thinking-through about what matters to us. Somehow, for me that makes the end of a calendar year a cleansing time and a happy one in which I can look forward to a grand and hopeful entrance into the year just ahead.

With that in mind, I wish all of you great happiness in this time. I hope that you can find all the friendship, healing, comfort, peace and joy you desire, now and in the year ahead. And if you do celebrate Christmas, I wish you a truly happy one. If it’s Hanukkah for you, L’Chaim! If you’re preparing to celebrate any other holy days or holidays or are simply going forward full steam ahead with life, I send you my most heartfelt wishes for these delights to fill you now and in the year to come.

digital imageRinging Twelve

As the midday bells are sounding,

Morning light sharpens to blue,

Quiet moments find their grounding;

Thought needs no more things to do

To resolve all unsolved queries,

Weary, troubled, trying times–

Now thoughts rise to higher aeries

In the bell tower, where chimes

Ring new peace, and calm awaken,

Where new joy can sweep away

All the old thoughts, now forsaken,

At the bright noon of the day.

photo + textFanfare

With trumpets blazing bright as stars

The grand procession moves apace

To urge us from a darker place

Into the light no shadow mars

Nor chill cuts in; no drop of gloom

Can enter when this day springs forth

And blossoms cross the secret north

And leave no sorrow any room—

Let each take up the pageant’s pace

To follow at the trumpets’ call

And sing their joy to one and all

In this extremity of spacedigital image collage

The One Person More Lost than Me

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photoMom has taught me a whole lot of things. One of the most useful is how to turn one of my most frustrating shortcomings into a strength.  It’s a skill I’ll still spend the rest of my life polishing, but having been taught the basics, I know what I need to practice, and that is a tremendous boost.

My lifelong shyness and social anxiety rose to a not-at-all-surprising high level when I started college. The small university I attended was hardly an unknown element to me, as my parents and a couple of other relatives, as well as some friends, had attended there and my older sister was already starting her junior year there when I arrived. But being predisposed to fear and intimidation as my responses to all social situations, I was guaranteed to struggle with extra doses of my old hauntings by the terrors of interpersonal experience in the new to me surroundings, with a roommate I met the day we moved in to our shared dormitory space, all new classmates, new teachers and administrators and a neighborhood where I’d never more than visited briefly before.

For the most part, I muddled through just as I’d done since I was old enough to know how to be afraid of new people and situations, and even had, as always, plenty of the enjoyment I was capable of having. I did acquire a number of grand new friends, including my roommate, who turned out to be a fantastic companion and like-minded girl. I took classes that challenged and intrigued me and I dragged up enough courage to participate in some events and extracurricular activities that broadened my scope significantly. I was surrounded in my living quarters in an all-female dorm by a cadre of terrific young women who bolstered my puny sense of self and cheered me on like the best of good neighbors.

But one day, as the first year progressed, I was visiting informally with a handful of those girls and we got into a discussion (as college coeds still often do, from what I’ve seen) about First Impressions. One of the girls, to whom I will be eternally grateful, let it slip that on first meeting me she had thought, and had since learned that others had too, that I was Stuck Up. That’s the simple classification among my tribe of someone who thinks herself superior to others and disdains and dismisses them. I was dumbstruck.

She went on, hastily, to add that on getting to know me she had realized that the reason I often refused invitations, that I didn’t look people in the eye, and that I evaded interactions and conversations instead expressed a defensive retreat into my giant ossified shell of shyness and my fear of all things new and unknown and that, in fact, she and others really enjoyed my company. That was some consolation, but realizing through her honesty that I projected an image far less benign and far more distancing than I guessed, I knew I’d have to somehow wrest my way out of the armor I’d built around myself and at the very least learn to act the part of someone with social skills even if I didn’t have them.

Naturally, I went whimpering off to Mom. And she surprised me by going beyond the sympathetic and consoling mother needed in the conversation. I’d never imagined that this person I’d always known as having not only a mother’s authority but a certain status as both the recognized Favorite Mom among all of my friends over the years and a kind of built-in First Lady of all of the organizations in which she participated, not least of all as the pastor’s wife–that she had another side, one not so entirely different from my own. That she had been deeply intimidated by being expected to play the roles of guide, hostess, chief female church member, community do-gooder and cheerleader, and all of the other philanthropic and social leadership parts inherently assumed by others to be part of her place in the world. And that, when Dad was busy being the speaker, preacher, chairman, boss and whatever his role of the moment happened to be, she was stuck in meetings and receptions and services and classes full of strangers who expected her to carry not only her own weight but that of whatever they thought was required for the occasion.

I almost wilted, thinking of what it must have been like for her.

But then she imparted the piece of wisdom that ‘cracked the case’ for me. I got the MacGuffin: social anxiety and extreme shyness assume that I am the center of the universe. That the rest of the world is watching me and is dependent on my doing or being certain things for its success and happiness. And that I am suffering the most for the cause. She put it in much more tactful terms, I’m quite certain, given that I was a flimsy excuse for an ego, a fragile not yet twenty year old still unable to see my path in everyday life clearly.

I think what she really told me (from which I extrapolated the above) was the incredibly handy ‘trick’ she’d learned for coping with all of these unreasonable social and activist demands. When you arrive, immediately look for the one person in the room more uncomfortable and more out of place than you. Even when you’re absolutely sure it’s not possible, there’s always someone more scared, more intimidated, more inexperienced or at the very least, who thinks that they are. It’s true, by the way; I’ve seen it proven over and over since. Go and gently introduce yourself and ask this person about him- or herself. Make this person the most interesting part of your life while you’re there.

That’s it, really. Suddenly, it’s not my job to be perfect or achieve the goals of the event or even to be interesting or brave; it’s my job to make another scared person feel more welcome and at ease. I don’t have to spend any energy on worrying about how I look to others or whether I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, because nobody with an ounce of sense is going to argue that taking care of someone in need isn’t what we’re all supposed to be doing, that recognizing that there’s someone whose need is greater than our own isn’t precisely the most attractive thing we can accomplish, and that a friendly smile isn’t the most fashionable item anyone can wear for any occasion.

I fall down on this effort often enough, still, and do my well practiced imitation of an additional pillar holding up the dimmest corner of the room. I haven’t Saved anyone else from the brink of doom through my heroic attempts to cheer them up for a half hour. I still have impressive dramatic skills in making faux pas and pratfalling my way through the day and then doing my best to make the earth swallow me whole.

But afterward, I remember to quit imagining myself the cynosure of Creation, let go of my need to be correct and impressive and likable and spend my energies on helping someone who doesn’t know Mom’s useful little technique to feel more correct and impressive and likable. I will put on my shiny smile and play the role of somebody better than me and hope that someday, if I practice it hard enough, it will become second nature and I won’t even have to work at it at all. It makes me smile just thinking about it.

If you happen to be headed to yet another office holiday party or first-of-the-year reception any time soon, you can test this theory yourself. Thank my mom. Or, if you happen to subscribe to a certain story that is commemorated on this very night, thank the Person who became most vulnerable of all in order to protect and rescue everybody weaker.

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A Sort of GPS for Traveling through Life

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graphite drawingWhile I’m Rabbiting Around

Out in the widest open spaces, and the wildest places, too,

I have the tendency to racing ’round as rabbits tend to do;

I get a wild hair and I tear off just as often as I can,

Run all harum-scarum into Nowhere–yes, like any man,

Woman or child who senses freedom, hopping haplessly amok

With no goal or real direction, until suddenly I’m struck

With the knowledge I’m abandoned, lost, no compass-point in view,

Leaping like a rabid rabbit, with no hope, so far askew

From a purpose, from potential friends and comforts, joys and dreams

That I realize my running’s not the freedom that it seems,

That the beckoning horizon’s better when it holds a prize

I can dash toward, ears pricked upward, light a-dazzle in my eyes

And the scent of grand achievements drawing me to hare ahead;

All of this makes great the dashing and the derring-do, instead

Of tangential, random rambles, jumping pointlessly around,

And I’m glad to race and rabbit onward now, to higher ground
graphite drawingMy Inukshuk

Should I leave my friends a signpost

Where, I wonder, will it lead?

What will mark my place of passage;

Will it serve them in their need

For direction or for comfort?

Will it offer strength or hope?

Should I leave my friends a signpost,

Can it guide them up a slope

To a vista rich with promise,

To an exponential view

Always growing and expanding

With delight, as it should do?

Should I leave my friends a signpost,

I would like to have it guide

Them to grand and gracious places,

To that glorious countryside

Made of sweetness and of pleasures

Great as travelers can see;

Should I leave my friends a signpost,

Love is what the sign should be

There is Not Enough Chocolate in the World

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photo collage

This is the anniversary of one of the truly important days in world history. No, I’m not as confused as you think. (Not in that way, anyhow.) I’m not referring to Christmas and getting the date all wrong (nor Hanukkah or Ramadan or Eid or the Chinese New Year or Samhain and getting the date that much wrong-er). December the twenty-second is, in fact, the anniversary of the birth of my Number One Sister. And that is a very big deal.

Believe me when I tell you that there are not enough superlatives in the world to describe how fortunate I feel to have followed in her footsteps, even if I make up really cool sounding words for the occasion.

My big sister paved the way for me. She test-drove our parents through child-rearing for nearly a full two years before entrusting little me to their care–and hers. She trained them in the ways of infants and toddlers admirably, and continued to lead the way right through our developmental (emphasis on the last two syllables) years, both for the parental party and for her pesky little sister. Why, in fact, she didn’t “accidentally” lose me, sell me to a traveling circus or bump me off on certain occasions remains a complete mystery.

Instead, she was a great playmate and co-conspirator. She was both a good enough student to set up positive expectations of the family lineage when I followed her into her former teachers’ lairs and also enough of a strong-minded individualist that they dared not assume we should be compared–thank goodness, as not only were we always distinct in our personalities and tastes but she was easily a more natural scholar than I was and I’d have drowned in those expectations. And she was Firstborn enough to assert her right to test all boundaries and, occasionally, the parental patience, just enough to make my follow-up look that one necessary shade paler by comparison. That’s us in succinct terms, one might say: I’m pretty good at life’s tasks in general–learning, adventuring, inventing, enjoying–and she’s always a notch more substantively and colorfully so. The great thing from my perspective is that I never felt this as a shortcoming on my part but rather that I’ve lived in the presence of a fine example of levels to which I can aspire. I am working on it.

Meanwhile, back in the land of sisterhood, I have this amazing friend who was waiting for me the day I showed up for my first public appearance and has embraced, cajoled, guided, teased, taught, humored, chastised and entertained me ever since. The exemplar of Big-Sisterhood. One I can say anything to and ask anything of, and she still loves me. Even when I’ve been utterly unlikable (I know, it’s hard to believe I’ve ever been a stinker, isn’t it!), she’s stuck by my side. Or at least waited somewhere backstage to reclaim me when I finished my big scene.

Now, I won’t immerse you in treacly lies and say that I think anyone is perfect, not even my sisters, as fabulous as they all are, but I wouldn’t dream of changing a thing. When I showed up on the scene I was immediately gifted with a built-in mentor and companion, and that has never altered. So when I say Happy Birthday to my big sister, it’s always doubled by my sense of having received her as my own first birthday present too.

From that point forward, she has been coaching me in all of those skills and arts most meaningful in living a full life: curiosity, assertion of self, living by one’s convictions, passion for those people and things that matter, playfulness, generosity and a good appreciation of the ridiculous. She taught me, more than anybody else, how to laugh until my face aches and my lungs are bursting and tears are shooting out of my eyes as though I’d had a squirt-gun transplant. And she taught me the proper respectful adulation of all-things-chocolate.

How’s that for a long way of saying there aren’t enough words! But you know what I mean, especially if you have been lucky enough to have a sibling (let alone three) so worthy of hyperbolic paeans. Yes, I think it’s grand that all of those other marvelous and perhaps more widely recognized holidays and celebrations are right ahead, but I have every reason to celebrate this date with elation and a great deal of gratitude, so if you feel like raising a toast or hugging your sister or setting off some nice fireworks or sending my sister a chocolate cake (with chocolate filling and chocolate frosting and hot chocolate on the side) or anything, feel free to join right in and consider this a very worthy day for such things. Happy Twenty-second of December!digitally enhanced photo

Interludes

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photoContinuity

Winnowing chaff from new-cut heads

Of grain, the girls toss up from trays,

Flat-woven from the grasses there,

The seeds in ancient ways

And let the antique wind blow out

The husks in clouds of gold,

Then bow back down to seek more grain

As in the days of old,

For nothing changes in the dance

Each time the story’s told.photo

Elixir

They all were young and fair who sat

Under the rustling summer trees,

The copper beeches, lindens; these

Broad green allées of hazel that

Gave shade and silver glints of sun

In rhythm with their part-songs, airs,

And with their sweet dallied affairs

While laughing brooks made haste to run

Away, as time is wont to do,

And youth, but these stayed young and fair

Forever in their summer air

Because their songs of love rang truephoto

Foodie Tuesday: It Makes Me Hungry Just Reading about It: Food for Thought

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Julia Child. Jeffrey Steingarten. Ruth Reichl. Anthony Bourdain. Jane & Michael Stern. Calvin Trillin. MFK Fisher.colored pencil on black paper

Whether you have a Pavlovian reaction of immediate salivation when you hear any of those names (or get an instant craving for a perfectly prepared Pavlova), or you are filled with horror at the mere mention of them, you probably recognize that these are all persons associated with food, and specifically, with writing about food. For good or ill, they have collectively made a deeper impression on the palate of every would-be foodie in the Western world than any of us can even guess–even those of us that know little of the specifics of these individuals’ writings and gustatory opinions. Because the modern world does hold art criticism with a certain sort of reverence not usually associated with the arts themselves (obviously, those who determine the ostensible value of art must be much smarter and more reliable than those who merely make the stuff), and chases after those things that the most influential critics tell the world it should desire, or reviles that which they tell us we should fear or disdain. And where our tastes go, there go our wallets also. Soon to be followed by every shopkeeper and purveyor of ingredients and/or ideas related to said tastes. It’s the way we’re wired.

What attracts me to any of these, or other food writers, is that when at their best, each of them speaks not only with a truly distinctive and individual voice–but also writes as much about the context of the food as to give me a deeper and more delicious sense of its place within its cultural surrounds, in history, in each writer’s personal history, in the sciences of cookery that led to its development. Every bite we eat is potentially not only a small barrier between us and starvation but also is fraught with danger (want to talk about all of the discoverers of what wasn’t safe for human consumption?), full of potential for making memories that outlive and outlast every scholarly hour any of us ever spent on Serious Pursuits, and able to make or break meaningful relationships. We find, and lose, ourselves in what we eat and when and how and why we eat it, and these writers all carry that weight with such authority and finesse at times that there’s as much heartbreak in the description of a tender stalk of asparagus, as much ethereal joy in the coddling of one little egg, as though one were reading the great philosophers, the kings and queens among novelists. Oh, wait: all of those have also waxed wildly poetic on food from time to time; it’s how they connect with the rest of us too.

That this relationship between the ordinary and extraordinary can so blur at its own boundaries is precisely because food has such life-and-death power over us all and because we seek it, when we can, for its own allure.

So I am thankful, not only on a Foodie Tuesday but whenever I pause for such thought, that there have long been people who loved food enough to prepare and eat it–and to talk about it, study it, and yes, write about it well. Sometimes reading good food writing is almost like the actual eating of it; more often, it makes me desirous of both eating and knowing more of it. My parents and relatives and friends have trained me up in certain ways of cooking and eating, and the larger world offered numerous expansions on the ideals of both. And the great and good among food writers and critics and historians have pushed my horizons further in every direction. When I set out to put food on the table (or just directly into my mouth), it is most often done with a current of those thoughts they have inspired in me running through every move I make and every ingredient I take in hand.

I think, as a result, of how I first knew of various simple elements of cookery: ingredients, techniques, recipes and menus. Then I think of how I might wish to recombine them in the present moment. Who should be present. What is best suited to the occasion. How I wish to assemble it all. And off I go.

Spare ribs were an infrequent but welcome treat when I was growing up–infrequent because Mom’s method was of the boil-then-broil variety, a slow simmering on the cooktop in water or broth followed by oven roasting to finish with a bit of higher heat for caramelizing the glaze. I doubt that I ever requested her recipe for the ribs because I was too daunted by the amounts of time and labor required to want to fuss with any such thing. Ever so much later, here I am making them too, but with enough of a boost from kitchen rocket science to simplify them to a point where even Miss Lazybones is willing to make the (much more modest) effort, knowing that the ribs will turn out tender and juicy no matter what else I do with them.

My process, then, is simpler than the description of it will sound, and the ingredient list is flexible and easy to decide as well. I have (I believe I mentioned before) that dream-machine of lazy cooks, my home sous vide appliance [not a compensated endorsement but yes, I really do like it!]. It’s about the size of a very small microwave oven and even lives on our kitchen counter between uses because I have the luxury of a great expanse of countertop workspace. Sous vide cooking is the method of putting vacuum-sealed packets of food (plus, if desired, seasonings of various kinds) in a temperature-controlled water bath and letting the bath do pretty much all of the work except for final browning or caramelizing. I have a kitchen vacuum sealer, also a fairly pricy but mighty handy appliance as it allows for good freezer-proof packaging of meats and vegetables so they don’t spoil as quickly, and with the food-safe wrappings means that I can even put pre-seasoned packets directly from the freezer into the sous vide machine if I allow enough time for the frozen food to come fully to the correct internal temperature and stay there for the right amount of time.

The water bath cooking method is as old as the hills, really, though in olden times it required much more elaborate and ingenious ways of wrapping the immersible foods and a constant vigilance over the cooking temperature of the water bath that yours truly would never dream of undertaking. Sous vide mechanisms with automated water circulation and temp control can even be home-built by the mad-scientist sort of kitchen enthusiast. Me, I was gifted with a ready-made beauty by my kindly spouse. It cost quite a chunk of change, as you’d imagine, but the payoff for him is worthwhile, I think, when I actually endeavor to make such previously tiresome things as a rack of perfectly fall-off-the-bone baby back ribs.photo

Baby, Come Back to Me Ribs

[Special equipment: a food vacuum-packing machine and a home sous vide setup]

1 Full rack of well-marbled pork ribs

Spice rub

Butter

Barbecue sauce

I slash the rack of ribs in half and vacuum-pack the halves separately so that I can nestle the two together, thus making a small-shoebox-sized batch of meat that can fit comfortably into my sous vide and still be surrounded by water. For prep, I put each spice-rubbed* half-rack into an open vacuum bag with a pat of butter, then seal the packets closed, fit the two together snugly, and keep them in the fridge until start-up time. The evening before Rib Eating Day, I’ll immerse the conjoined twin packs in the sous vide. I use the machine’s handy printed cooking guide to choose and set the temp for a mere hair-above-minimum ‘ideal’ for ribs, and let them slowly melt into juicy morsels overnight. About a half hour before mealtime, I take the now soupy-looking packets out of the water bath, open the bags carefully over a sauce pot and drain all of the extra juices into it for boiling down into a nice quick base for the barbecue sauce, and while that’s heating up, very delicately (as they’re now falling apart) dress the rib racks with some of the prepared barbecue sauce** and put them, in a 9×13″ or larger baking pan, under the broiler to brown them nicely for serving. Watch out for burning! When they look and smell enough like candy that you can’t wait any longer, grab them out of the oven and rush them to the table. Hopefully, everything–and everyone–else has been gathered on or at the table beforehand, so it’s all ready to go. Eat ribs with your hands, and become outlandishly messy. Wear your worst old clothes, because if you’re not all painted elbows-to-eyebrows in barbecue sauce by the end of the meal, you’ve definitely done something wrong. This is barbecue, after all. [If you eat these in summertime y’all can go out and run through the sprinkler afterward to wash up.]

Ribs go down wonderfully with a wide range of goodies. I like a Kansas City or Memphis-style rub and sauce (slightly spicy, sticky and sweet), so mine tend to be as follows:

* Spice rub: salt and black pepper; brown sugar; ground cloves, cinnamon, allspice, ginger, garlic powder and cayenne.

** Barbecue sauce: we love Corky’s (from Memphis, no surprise) regular sauce, so if I have some on hand I may well use it straight out of the bottle, just adding the concentrated meat juices I’ve cooked down. If I’m making my own BBQ sauce, I concoct something in a similar vein, using dark molasses, ketchup, tomato puree, the same spices as in the rub sans sugar, and usually some citrus juice (orange is great) and a splash of whiskey to coat the ribs for browning, and to blend with the meat juices for serving.

Side dishes: at our place, it’s likely you’ll see coleslaw and corn (creamed, on the cob, or cooked kernels of super-sweet corn are all pretty hard to beat); buttery mashed potatoes, fresh peaches and watermelon . . . of course, any good Southern side dishes are pretty perfect with ribs: a mess o’ greens (would that I had the late great Raydell’s delectably classic recipe!), biscuits or soft rolls with butter, grits, beans cooked down almost to disappearance with salt meat. Big ol’ pitchers of sweet tea. Some sweet potato pie or lemon cake to finish. Ohhh, my stomach is growling now. I’d better read me some good foodie scripture right away before I lose my soul. Help me, blessed Calvin Trillin! Save me, saint Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher!colored pencil drawing + text

Empress of the Ordinary

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digital graphicOrdinariness is not a vice. It has taken me most of my life to grasp that home truth, to recognize the sublime simplicity that what is ordinary is not inherently bad. It’s not even necessarily boring or predictable, though most of us treat it that way and make it so.

It occurred to me as, for the umpteenth time in my life, I was marveling at the biography of some outlandishly gifted famous creature and reflecting on the comparably slack bag of tricks that could be held to define me. No one, I thought, will ever have reason to pore over my biography, no, not even to write it. I never so much as kept a diary for more than a few brief delusional periods before being recalled to my senses and silence by the glaring absence of exotica to lure even its author to reread it, once written. What is the great magnetism of the larger-than-life character’s story, I wondered; why am I compelled to recount and savor the life stories of those who loom heroically or with great drama or grand style on the horizon?

And I realized my answer was a strange surprise: I am seeking my own reflection.

Doubtless wiser souls have spotted this long ago! But what a freeing moment, in a way, was the discovery that what I am always hunting is familiarity, commonality, a sense of communion with others. It’s glimpses of characteristics I can truly understand—my own—that make extraordinary people real and attractive to me.

If that’s so, then perhaps my own “universal” qualities, my being Jane Doe or Everywoman, cloak in the seemingly ordinary person that I am not only shared parts that other people would find familiar in that same compelling way but also distinctions they might find equally surprising, strange, dare I say it, impressive. In the rags-to-riches celebrity tales, it’s not entirely the thrilling alternate universe of that unfamiliar life of wealth I find titillating—that’s so often a short last chapter to the tale, revealing little of real mystery and glamor—it’s that someone who seemed as ordinary as me got there. The story of a brilliant achiever or fabulous saint is rarely of great interest unless that greatness is seen set in the contrasting frame of dimmer, plainer beginnings, the quieter greys of mortality and everyday being.

So who am I, if not merely the forgettable dust of common humanity? Perhaps I really am Jane Doe. I have no characteristics more notable or exciting than my DNA or fingerprints and dental records to separate me from billions of others on the teeming earth. No reason to complain; the great and grand, the famous and infamous, the rich and rare among humankind would have less grey to offset their glory without me, and that might be purpose enough.

But I am more. I realize that every Jane and John among us has a story, a single glittering spark of distinction that sets us apart from all others. It may be the peculiar combination of ordinary traits alone, which for the unrecorded life dies with it and may remain ineffable forever. It may be no more (though this is presumably the greatest trait one could aspire to have) than that I am loved. Or maybe, just maybe, I am more interesting than I guess, and looking at myself as a biographer should can reveal someone more impressive and worthy of note than I have heretofore imagined.

And there’s always room to write a new chapter for the autobiography as long as it’s a work in progress.digital graphic illustration

Calling All Knights: To Each His Own Grail

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digital photo art

If you don't have a dragon handy to defend your treasury, you may have to put on your own armor . . .


Never Give Up Your Holy Grail!

Just because some genius expert says the object you treasure is kitsch, the popular song you adore is cheesy and off-key, or the person you date is too dorky for you doesn’t mean you have to live by the so-called expert’s standards. If the object is radioactive, the song causes neighborhood riots and shatters windows all down the block, or the significant other is a part-time serial killer, then you should definitely be revisiting your values. Otherwise, winnow down your oddities to the ones that serve and please you well, and keep a relatively low profile with them where it keeps the peace. And then enjoy your little eccentricities. You are, after all, unique.

digital photo art

No matter what you treasure, you may be called upon one day to make a choice . . .

Never be Unwilling to Throw Out Your Holy Grail!

If the time comes when honest reassessment of your most treasured effects, whether they’re objects or ideas, leads you to the realization that they’re not what you once thought they were, can you do the brave, smart thing and amend the situation? Can you not only let go of your sacred cow but give it a firm boot in the behind and get it out of your barn altogether? Things, beliefs, even people—those ingredients of your life that once had a revered place in you—can change. You can change.

The past never snuffs out of existence, but you can put it in its appropriate place and give yourself permission to turn to better, more present things. Only if you’re willing to haul off and pitch away what you once held dear, vigorously and decisively, can you start afresh. The loss stings madly for a bit, and discarding anything you once adored generally tends to feel like misbehavior, but if you’ve really embraced the transformation, when the pain recedes that missing part can be replaced with better and richer possibilities, and your new life and new self are infinitely worth the trouble.

mixed media collage

One man's treasure is another man's trash . . . one woman's trash is another's treasure . . .

Daring to Live the Adventure of Life is Its Own Reward

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The wonderful Eve Redwater (http://everedwater.wordpress.com/) gave me a generous gift on my birthday. I’m not sure it was intended specifically as a birthday present, but it was aptly timed so I’m certain there was at least some synchronicity at work in the event. See, I operate under a very contentedly delusional science system in which I, the sun, am always finding ways that the universe and all of the wild diversity in it revolve around me and conspire to do good to me and for my benefit. On the heels of Lady Eve’s kind gift, I was contemplating how to respond appropriately to receiving the Versatile Blogger Award from her and, virtually simultaneously, both got into a discussion via several posts and comments on my blog and those of several friends (thank you, CF, Smidge and Co.) about the roots and responsibilities of our creative lives and was reminded by my own birthday that my late godmother’s birthday was imminent. And yes, they are all interconnected–what a coincidence, eh?–in and through me.

It all meets at that point of origins + inspirations once again.

Getting involved in blogging was quite a milestone in my progress as an artist: the culmination of a large push I’ve been making toward steady, committed practice and broader sharing of my work, and also a starting point for working with a marvelous new community of inspiring and educated peers and mentors in the online community to expand my horizons to places I can’t yet imagine. No surprise, then, that it also begs the questions of where I started, where I am now, and where I might possibly be heading. That’s what’s on my mind a lot lately.

A significant part of the whole equation is that I have parents who raised all four of their kids to be unabashedly themselves and do their own thing. Of course, being semi-normal mortals, we all had our periods of self-doubt, frustration with finding out just what our own ‘thing’ might be, and any number of other growing-up issues. Having loved to draw and write and do any number of similar, incredibly unworldly things from very early, I was haunted fairly often–not least of all in my undergraduate days–by worry about how ridiculously impractical and selfish it seemed to study, then major in, and commit to a life’s work involved with the arts. I mean, really. Mom and Dad patiently assured me at all points that I should do what I felt called to do and be who I thought I was made to be, and I thwarted all of their efforts with equal stubborn force of hemming, hawing and hunkering fearfully behind innumerable university requirement courses before I would willingly and publicly admit to my addiction to art. [Ed: I like that when I typed ‘art’ just now, my computer offered to “correct” the word by writing “artichokes“, so it apparently recognized that I was in such denial it wanted to help me by disguising my intentions even from you, faithful readers!]photo

The upshot of all of this muddling around and foot-dragging is that I approached my junior year of college without having dared to declare a major, and I skulked around like a sneak-thief in the hallways of the art building and spent significant amounts of time maundering and mewling about the whole ordeal when I really ought to have been simply plunging in and getting soaked in all of the art I could lay my grubby little hands upon there and then.

Oh, woe is me! Boo Hoo, and all that. I thought I was supremely talented at evasion, but of course my parents had a secret weapon trained on me from the very beginning, and it was activated during these very tenuous years of my faltering development. It was a pair of super-agents they called my Godparents. My parents, it happens, besides being nifty talents in the parenting department, had the smarts and/or temerity to choose as godparents for their children some people that took the whole parental-surrogacy aspect of the job quite seriously. Mine were a couple of Mom and Dad’s closest friends from the quartet’s days together attending (you may be beginning to feel the frisson of familiarity, the sting of synchronicity, here already) the very same uni where I was now paddling around in a diminishing spiral of destiny-denial. Furthermore, my Godma, as I called her, and The Godfather, as he was known to me (for being, thankfully, the polar opposite of that fictional character), had long since taken up employment at said institution as a Business Office administrator and head of the department of Radio and Television, respectively. So I could go and see my Godma when I was paying my tuition or trying to find out where my last scholarship had wandered, or just when I needed some bucking up, because she was seriously skilled in dealing with all of those aspects of my college life. Her estimable spouse was housed in another building, across Red Square from her digs, and I had a little journey through the catacombs of the old dustbin to drop in on him, which trek I gladly undertook on certain occasions when I wanted a different flavor of encouragement from hers, or–gasp!–artistic advice.

See, with The Godfather, I could go all clandestine and it seemed right in character, so I didn’t try to pretend with him that I wasn’t heading in an art-ish direction, though which one of many directions was still quite cloudy in my crystal ball. After all, there was that James-Bondish crawl through dusty and dimly lit corridors in a faintly creaky building just to find him in his office. And of course there was the visiting, during which he would puff away on his pipe and I would pretend not to see or smell it, because Officially he had “quit smoking” and his wife “didn’t know” he still did it. Apparently he thought that her willingness to admit to relation of any sort with me proved she was non compos mentis, and I was certainly in no position to argue that, so he pretended not to smoke and I pretended not to be coming in every time to whine that I couldn’t sign up as an Art Major because that was just plain irresponsible and stupid. I would go ahead, maybe, with an English degree and get ready to teach, because at least that might lead to, oh, I don’t know, a paycheck or something like one. My godparents, bless their dear departed craziness, never once chastised me overtly for being, oh, I don’t know, irresponsible and stupid by not doing what I really felt called to do and exercising what little native wit or talent I might dig up in my education to do what I was perhaps meant to do. But somewhere along the line the gentleman with the invisible pipe neatly skirted the issue of what-to-do by saying, in effect, Never mind what you think you’re supposed to do, or even what you want, this is about who you ARE. He proceeded to clarify by telling me that it was perfectly obvious to him and to anyone else that might have spent thirty seconds or so in my company that there were certain compulsions and eccentricities that I couldn’t exactly gloss over that earmarked me plainly as an Artist.

I won’t say that I never questioned the whole thing again, but somehow Mr Wise Guy pressed the right button at the right moment so that what my parents and sisters and friends had all been eternally encouraging me to do and be suddenly was revealed as so much more dazzlingly clear and excellent than when I had been studiously ignoring them and covering my ears and singing LA-LA-LA-LA! at the top of my voice to drown them out the whole time.

This is all a mighty stretched-out way of telling you that I still believe life and all of the fine creatures surrounding me in it work pretty hard to steer me in happy directions and plunk dandy gifts in my path all the time. That many supportive people and useful events in confluence led me down the primrose path of Art; that a life lived in the midst of said art connected me to a whole lot of additional supportive folk and dropped me amid numerous other grand gifts; not least of all, that opening up the stubbornly barred gate to my own artistic playground was one of the really great gifts life has given me and I can’t imagine not living life surrounded by all sorts of ARTICHOKES! ARTICHOKES! ARTICHOKES!

Oh, you know what I mean: Art.photo + text