Growing Versions

"For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.”  ―  Thích Nhất Hạnh ,  Being Peace Walk away from home. At the end of the day, walk away from work. As you walk toward the other, resist anticipation of what is ahead, just leave what is behind until you arrive again.

At the end of last month, I had to be somewhere. That somewhere held me fast in an embrace of saltwater, rose petal fumes and hard granite. I went to that somewhere, to be where I had to be. That somewhere turned into here and now it is, sigh, there, again. I guess you had to be there, but your somewhere that you had to be was probably somewhere else.

There is something so full of potential in a new roll of tape. All the things that can be put up on the wall, all the things that will get fixed or made visible due to this tape's properties. When the tape runs out, we have to stop and get our bearings. We substitute with stickers for a bit, biding our time, until one of us remembers where there is more tape hidden or until I remember to get more.

One time, my university room mate confessed to me that my white sauce terrified her, along with my driving.  I was hurt at the time, but I got over it and went onto have a life long friendship with the room mate, a good driving record and to crank out 2-8 creamy white sauces a month for macaroni and cheese from then on.  She urged me to take the critique and not overlook the value of a good, creamy, thick (but not too thick) sauce. For whatever reason, this argument has stuck with me. During my recent downtime, denaturing on the beach and bulking up on strawberries and kebabs, the words "thicken the sauce" kept occurring to me. As I roamed the beach for smooth beach glass, I would glance over at the clear surface of the low tide and see little shards of broken shells and schools of fish undulating.  I would hear the words, thicken the sauce. As I learned (to finally) make yeast raised buns for the first time, and marvelled at the elasticy substance in my hands...

I got a day older than the day before last week and it was just enough older to warrant a party of a higher order.  A reckoning party, a chance to be bathed in the light of my dear friends and hurl myself at the challenges ahead. The next morning, another day older yet again, I read my horoscope: "An imaginative soul isn’t predictable as she travels over and around obstacles, but calls on creative magic to fuel her ingenious liberations.”-Rob Brezsny

 1. Pick a box, any box. 2. Poke 26 holes in it, all over. 3.Buy 26 suckers (or find them lying around). 4. Choose 10 to be winners. 5. Paint the tips of each of the 10 winning sucker sticks. 6. Let dry. 7. Poke suckers in the holes. 8. Put rocks in the box so it doesn't topple over. 9.Find 10 prizes. 10. Offer friends to pull a sucker. 11. If they pull a sucker that has a red tip they get a sucker AND a prize. 12. If  they pull a sucker that has no red tip they just get a sucker. 13. Save box so you can do this again without having to do steps 1-8.

"Always do what is next."-George Carlin

Start with the sky and go up from there.

Around the age of 9 or 10, I learned how to make pancakes. I began a career of making "quick breads".  I slowly perfected the pancake temperature, committed the recipe to memory. Now I make them once a week without blinking. The role yeast plays in baking consistently did not get through to me. Baking soda,baking powder, those were my leaveners of choice. They were the ingredients that were accessible, uncomplicated and within my technical grasp. If I did use yeast, which I occasionally felt compelled to do when I attempted pizza dough, it was yet another frustrated reason why I was not a yeast bread girl. I rushed it, I tried to make a "yeast bread" project into a "quick bread" project. This summer, I finally decided to revive an old family recipe, my grandmother's french rolls.  Their airiness still lingers on my tongue, 30 years after I last had one. I googled a recipe and reluctantly invested in a whole bottle of yeast. I faithfully ...

Stay, this moment! -Virginia Woolf

Sometimes there is no space for words.

246 995 11 300 3 These numbers used to say something important about me. 

If I am not there wihtin ten minutes of the bell ringing, I get a phone call, politely inquiring when I might be gracing them with my presence.  Day in and day out, my children go in that building, I occasionally follow or am ushered in for a special event or because I forgot to pack their lunches. There will be a day, one that is rapidly approaching, when they won't be there.  They will have finished all the lessons required of them and they will transition to another school.  If I show up within ten minutes of the bell ringing, it will be politely tolerated and then, if I persist, eyebrows will be raised. I walk past the wooden gates of the daycare where my son went the year before school.  I walk along the street towards the building on my way home. The late spring warmth permeates everything. The children's voices and laughter escapes through the fence. I walk on.