Lessons from a voting booth...

Dear Clara,

As we emerge from this last election, I think we’re all breathing a collective sigh of relief to the end of campaign season and campaign advertising.   But the election season, for all that could be improved, is still something I welcome as a sign of our democracy and ability to participate in the political process.   I rarely talk about politics publicly, but based on my experience, I can tell you this:

• Go VOTE:  Voting is a right but also a privilege and a duty.  We often take this for granted, but believe me when I say that lots of people don't have this luxury.  If you had been born in a slightly different time or a slightly different place, you would understand.  The right to vote for whom you want without risk that your vote would be disclosed, manipulated, distorted, or thrown away is not something everyone has.  The right to vote for whom you want without fear of retribution on your safety, employment, family, friends or your own life is not something everyone has.  We might feel like it doesn't matter, but it does.  Every vote counts, and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.
• Even if the candidates aren't perfect, you still need to vote: Assuming that you always have the good fortune to vote in free elections, you still need to go and vote no matter how much you don’t care for the candidates.  It’s still a choice, and if you really disagree with both, register your protest with a write-in, but don’t expect sitting at home to register as legitimate opposition.  Don’t ever be complacent in a democracy.
• It’s okay to keep your vote to yourself: It’s also okay to be public about it. That’s up to you.  But don’t feel like you ever have to disclose your vote or justify it---you voted based on what you decided and it’s up to you how much you want to tell others.  People can be quick to judge or quick to assume any number of things based on voting, parties, or any other political indication so be cautious.  Personally, I find those immediate delineations so limiting since a person can think any number of ways on any number of issues.  In a free election with democratic parties, people are entitled to their vote and opinion.  Remember to give the same respect to the political opinions of others that you would hope to have for yourself.
• You can’t build your own success on the back of someone else’s misery:  Someone gave me this advice in the context of a relationship decision that I had to make,  but I’ve used this same advice to guide me through many big decisions, and think of this frequently when making decisions around politics.  I wouldn’t ever tell you which way to vote, but I will tell you that reflecting on this will help guide you towards the right decisions.  They won’t always be easy and they won’t always be obvious, but you’ll get to the right answer.  Remember, if you want to build prosperity and freedom and a life full of good things we aspire to, you can’t build that simply by taking those things away from someone else.
• Weigh your trade-offs: It won’t be possible for all voters to have all things.  It doesn’t work that way.  And you’ll more than likely have to make some trade-offs and some compromises---as you should.  In the end, a healthy political arena is a collaborative one.  When looking at your candidate or party, weigh the alternatives and look for the person who will make the best compromises on your behalf without losing sight of key fundamentals that are core to you.   You want someone who will represent you as you most of the time, while working towards a key set of principles all of the time.

It will be a few years still, but I look forward to seeing you at the polls.

All my love,

Mom

The responsibility to love

Life had been reduced to a stack of flashcards in the past week. The green ones contained information on United Nations peacekeeping missions: mandates, areas of deployment, challenges. The blue ones referred to peacekeeping doctrine. The orange ones summarized relevant legal citations. At the top of the flashcard stack rested a question: "What is the legal status of the Responsibility to Protect?" Affectionately dubbed R2P, this refers to the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. The questions of whose responsibility this is, how to uphold it, and where it fits on the spectrum of legal duty or interpreted responsibility are complex and controversial. Last night, at his speech upon being pronounced the winner of the 2012 presidential election, Barack Obama articulated a different set of responsibilities, both on the part of leaders and of citizens. Among the many issues he touched upon, one stood out to me: his articulation of the responsibility to love and to serve. There is something refreshing, and new, and inspiring about the responsibility to love being framed as a duty in a speech on election night. At a time of prevalent cynicism, it is an exhale to hear a call for a triumph of compassion over cynicism. The inclusion of these words, and the lifestyles and ideologies they inspire, elevates them. It renders them necessary.

In my eyes, cynicism is easy. Compassion is a difficult practice. It is exactly that: a practice, a muscle that needs to be exercised. It is a stretch to be compassionate towards those who look different than we do, who behave differently than we do, who hold different values, whose ideology rests on different principles. But that is where empathy lies: in being able to extend compassion not only to those we already care about, but to those whom we do not know and whom we are not already programmed to love.

I am a foreigner in the United States (and everywhere?). A "non-immigrant", as my visa states. A "non-resident alien." I could not vote, though I do not consider the casting of a ballot the only way to formulate and articulate opinions that give one a stake in her own community. I have already handed in a midterm with many misgivings about whether "R2P is a legal duty or 'just' a responsibility." I woke up this morning, however, with no misgivings whatsoever about my responsibility to love.

Fashion's Ethnic Problem

I’ve been thinking about how fashion---which, side note, is one of my favorite things---tends to represent the worst in our superficial, looks-obsessed culture. For one thing, there’s the whole skinny, stick-thin, pound-obsessed, weight-watching, calorie-counting, only-one-body-type-is-acceptable thing, which marginalizes the beauty potential of all body-type-deviations.

For another, there’s the whole woman-as-canvas thing, where models seem to forgo personhood to become agency-less, blank-faced, silent background scenery.

And then there’s that whole ethnic representation thing. The continued premium on Eurocentric notions of beauty, and the exoticization of those outside of it.

Aaaand now we get to the subject of this post: racist fashion. Yes, there's such a thing, and it's such a thing.

It’s been almost two months since New York Fashion Week and its European counterparts, but there was more than enough fuel for some racist fashion ranting. There was Dolce & Gabbana’s “mammy” motif including some very Aunt Jemima-ish earrings. There was Jeremy Scott’s neo-Orientalist take on Arab punk. And there were the romantic adaptations of traditional Indian garb by Marchesa and Vera Wang, with Wang telling E! reporters she didn’t want to go too far with any of that “belly dancer” stuff. So much problematic-ness, so little time.

I’m not sure what made me think of this now---maybe it’s the way every major clothing store from Urban Outfitters to Target has suddenly been all over the Native American print trend. Navajo-panty-gate caused an uproar a while back, and yet the trend has continued to diffuse through all retail chains. You can buy bags, hoodies, or what have you emblazoned with traditional native-style prints, and UO even has T-shirts with skulls wearing native headdresses.

The prints are often beautiful, but they’re also an uncomfortable example of cultural appropriation. Meaning, the hegemonic culture, for all intents and purposes "white" though of course participated in by a range of backgrounds, appropriates the cultural heritage and imagery of a minority group without their consent or direct participation. Just this past week, No Doubt pulled its new video after a wave of complaints about its representation of Native Americans. For more on the issue, I recommend you check out the Native Appropriations blog, which does a great job of breaking down indigenous images in pop culture and even succeeded in getting an apology from Paul Frank for their “powwow” party a few months ago.

None of this is surprising, I suppose. Racism and sexism are embedded in our culture, and fashion is just another art-slash-entertainment form from which they can poke their ugly heads. (Favorite racist Project Runway: All-Stars judge quote last week: when host Carolyn Murphy asked derisively upon seeing one contestant’s design, “Where are we, Spanish Harlem?”) My only consolation is that noticing it and not simply accepting it, we recognize that those ugly heads are still a problem. And this is where my somewhat jumbled assortment of thoughts that is this week's post comes to a head.

I love you Fashion, but you can be a real jerk sometimes.

After the Storm

Last Monday, my husband, James, and I were alternately cowering in our apartment waiting for the impending storm and braving the winds and rain to walk down to the river and check in on the condition of the harbor. By midday, the river down the street from our apartment was already churning and the water lapping up as high as we’d ever seen it. At night we lay awake in our bed, listening to the sound of the wind and ambulance sirens, both relentless in their shrieking. From the river itself, we heard nothing.

The next morning, we walked back to the water’s edge and it was clear that river had been where we stood. Clear that while we had managed eventually to sleep it had dashed in and then retreated as quickly as it had come, leaving bits of styrofoam and seagrass strewn in its wake. In DUMBO, a four-foot high brown water mark tattooed restaurant windows and a small lake rippled in the remaining wind at the foot of Main Street. Park benches were covered with the same mess we’d seen further down the road. The power was out and so were the neighbors, walking among the debris to survey the damage.

In the days after the storm, the subways remained flooded and so my sister and her husband walked from the East Village across the Brooklyn Bridge and over the river that separates us. They set up shop in our tiny apartment and we tried to maintain a semblance of normalcy---a surprisingly easy task when there’s a wi-fi connection and warm drinks to be had.

The heartbreaking bit of course is what’s still happening in places where normalcy is harder to come by. In DUMBO and Red Hook and Rockaway and along the Jersey Shore and the Connecticut and Rhode Island coasts, there were lives and livelihoods and homes swept away with the rising tides. We’re such a fragile bunch, us humans---so reliant on the technologies that we’ve built and the infrastructure that buoys us. But as always happens after a tragedy, I am also astonished, astonished by our resiliency. If you're looking for ways to help, head here. 

Reaching for Sweet Things

“So there is a girl sleeping in the front room,” I hear my grandmother whisper to my grandfather. “Did you know that?” I listen through a cracked door. She has just said goodnight to me very warmly, despite the fact that I am mostly a stranger to her these days. The room I am staying in is a blank walled cube with a vaulted ceiling and three big windows. In the mornings I wake when the sun comes in, when it is quiet and bright. The shape of the space reminds me of a hamster carrying crate, the cardboard kind you’d get at a pet store. Four straight walls, a milk carton style top. The ever present sense of fascination and fear I feel while staying in this room makes me feel a strange kinship with those small furry creatures. Bewildered. Alert. In this house I feel wonder at all the new things I see, and also a heart pounding anxiety in facing the unknown.

My grandparents both have Alzheimer's Disease. My grandmother is further along than my grandfather. I have recently been recruited to spend weekends with them so their regular home health aide can take time off. Their regular caregiver is a beautiful woman who moves through their home with grace and kindness, who tiptoes through the land mines of potential conflict as though it were her sixth sense. Instead of correcting, she redirects. Instead of asking "don't you remember?" she slips into their world and accepts their state of being. This is only my second weekend, and so far I have stepped on plenty of land mines. I have, for example, identified myself as their granddaughter, to which they say, defensively: Of course you are, we know that!  Now I've learned to say it less directly, more casually. And I usually add: Well, you have so many, it's hard to keep track of us all. A concession which they gladly take.

Food is also land mine. What to eat, when to eat, where to eat. Too many questions and decisions, too much room for confusion. Long menus with complicated descriptions are overwhelming, and so it helps to pose two options. Would you like the chicken, or the pasta? Because one of those is what you usually get. These are key words and phrasing. You usually do this, so does that sound good? The answer is always: Yes, I will do what I usually do.

Last Saturday morning we had breakfast at home. I made french toast---my favorite childhood breakfast---then arranged pieces of cut up fruit into little bowls and set them at the table next to two small plastic boxes of pills. The next morning I made "sunny side up" eggs, also an old favorite. Each morning I feel like I'm entering into a new world where there are new social codes, new conventions, new people. Our one moor, the one common thing we have to keep us from drifting apart, is food. As volatile as it can be, it is also our touchstone.

As we are finishing breakfast, we talk of lunch. Then we talk of which day this is, we talk of the weather, we talk of the newspaper (which one of us will read out loud, sometimes going into imagined stories of the people in the photos on the front page.) But it always comes back to food. Well, we just had breakfast, so what is for lunch? Breakfast then lunch then dinner -- a sequence of time based actions that is retained. I think talking of food is also comforting because it is a ritual, a measurement of time. Our day is held up by meals. When do you want to have dinner? My grandmother asks. We could eat at five, would that be ok? I will say, repeating this answer to a series of questions new to her, but the same to me.

When I was little I remember standing on my tiptoes in my grandmother’s kitchen and reaching my hand into the wooden bread box on the counter top. I must have been very small, because I clearly remember the discomfort, as I reached, of my armpit digging into the edge of the counter. But it was worth it. If I were lucky, I'd come out grasping a handful of Starbursts.  I would separate the pinks from the rest and squirrel away my cache in my pocket, saving those cherished pale beauties for last. I would sometimes mould many flavors in to one pastel blob, rolling and kneading the hardened corn syrup into a sticky ball, which I would later nibble, pretending it was a special kind of apple.

That breadbox is on their counter still, but I’ve not been able to open it since being here. It’s as if opening that box and finding no Starbursts would mean something. That my grandparents, as I had known them in my youth, are lost forever? That my happiness is no longer so easily accessed, that my inner life is now more bland? That we've lost the time of tiptoes and reaching? Yes, maybe all of the above.

Still, I stay with them in their kitchen and make them the breakfasts of my childhood, pretending that those french toasts and sunny side up eggs can link our two worlds and the past to the present. Maybe next weekend I will buy some Starbursts to hide in the old breadbox. I entertain the idea of catching glimpses of pink wax wrappers beneath loaves of brown bread.  I know that a gesture like that won't make my grandparents feel any less lost or confused. It won't make me less worried for them. It won't bind my shattered heart, which breaks, each day, into smaller and smaller pieces as I brush my grandmother's hair, hold her hand, fold her clothes, paint her nails. But I will do it anyway. I will do what I usually do. I will gesture, reach, and imagine. Just like I will say to my grandmother, for the fifth or sixth time in a row, We could eat at five, would that be ok? 

Yes, she will say, that will be fine.

Looking Forward: Looking Back.

Somewhere in a closet at my parent’s house is a journal I kept as a child. It’s orange. It has gold pages. There’s a painting of a cat on the cover. I don’t remember much of what’s written in it, save for the fact that I assigned each day a letter grade, a decision inspired by a book I’d read by Judy Blume. Days when friends came over, or when I managed to sit next to the older girls at summer camp, or any day on which a birthday party occurred received an ‘A.’ Bad weather, chocolate milk shortages at lunchtime, or having to accompany a parent on bank- or insurance-related errands merited a ‘C,’ or worse. Really bad days (missed soccer goals, botched trips to the zoo) were accompanied by a drawing, barely discernible, of a hand with the thumb pointing downward.

As must be the case with most children who like to write, I was given countless journals as gifts over the years. For whatever reason, this one was the only one I ever used.

Years later, in high school, I filled two large, spiral-bound books with what I referred to as my thoughts on “reality, rebellion, and rock ‘n’ roll.” I wrote extravagant, long-winded essays – all by hand, a feat I can hardly fathom now – on art, and music, and the meaning of life. I cataloged regrets, made lists of goals, and — because I was, in the end, a teenager — diligently made note of each and every movement made by the floppy-haired boy who sat behind me in math. (Taped to one page of the journal was a tiny balled-up clump of paper he threw in class one day, intending to hit the back of a friend’s head. It landed on my desk instead and I saved it, convinced its altered course was a sign.)

I found these journals — the cat one, and the two from high school — a couple of years ago as I packed up my room before moving to New York.

I read through each.

The one with the cat cover, filled with chicken-scratch entries that made me smile, went back on the shelf, where it remains today. The other two, whose pretentious ramblings I could barely get through without vomiting, went into the shredder.

 ---

I had a conversation a few weeks ago with a group of MFA students about how hard — and how painfully embarrassing — it can be to read old work. I’m not sure what I was thinking as I destroyed page after page of those spiral-bound books, but at the time, I felt that the many hours I’d spent recording my thoughts were less important than the possibility of someone finding them. And judging them. And thinking that the words on these pages represented me.

I realize now that those journals were like marks on a growth chart. That I needed to go through certain phases in order to get better. That attempting to “cover my footprints” was unnecessary. But I’m still not immune to the urge to hide work I’m not proud of anymore.

However, now that so much of my writing is public, I no longer have the luxury of being able to rip up my work if I decide later that I don’t like it. The thought of this sometimes makes me uncomfortable, but the solution’s clear: my only choice is to write as honestly as I can. Then, there’s nothing to regret.

In college, I attempted to write a story about an artist in diary form. It contained two parts: one was a journal he wrote for his eyes only, and the other was one he wrote with an audience in mind, one he hoped people would find after he died.

I never finished the story, because I couldn’t keep track of the two voices. I can only hope that as a writer, I never have that dilemma myself.

The challenge ahead is to create a single voice; for better or for worse, an honest one, my own.

Bluff View Art District

I've become quite obsessed with the historic Bluff View Art District.  Any time there is mention of a weekend walk, my first request is to venture over to this magical place.  It may only be a sliver, not even two city blocks to be exact, of the Chattanooga pie but it packs huge flavor.  The neighborhood is filled with restaurants, one of the best coffee houses in town, an art gallery, beautiful gardens, and plenty of quirky sculptures to ponder.  The art district will have your senses yearning for another visit.

For sight starters, this secret garden sits on top of a cliff giving it the most dramatic downtown and Tennessee River views. From the highest point of the bluff, it would seem the river flows to the end of the earth.  The mortar-speckled dwellings are covered with dark green ivy and provide an enchanting setting for alley strolls.  At night, the city sparkles with lights as if it were decorated for the holidays year round.

The smells that permeate the Bluff View Art District will leave one full before ever sitting down for a morning pastry or a savory meal.  Rembrandt's Coffee House is a European-style cafe nestled behind grand foliage on the main street. They provide an abundant selection of fresh coffee beans, rich chocolates, sweet danishes, hot pressed paninis and cold salads for the lunch crowd.  Right around the corner located in a Victorian mansion is a casual but superb Italian eatery known as Tony's Pasta Shop and Trattoria.  The aroma of warm pastas and homemade sauces tossed together with fresh herbs and meatballs would have anyone drooling.  Just a short walk down the block and you'll stumble upon the Back Inn Cafe's menu of upscale dishes and a wine list that will make the head spin in delight.  Between the quaint library, the bright sun room, and the outdoor terrace, this restaurant allows you to pick your own setting while enjoying dinner with friends and family.  I'm a real sucker for fresh-baked bread so naturally my favorite stop is into the Bluff View Bakery.  This artisan bakery specializes in rustic breads and infuses only the best ingredients into their hand-molded loaves.  If my husband and I get into a disagreement, I always tell him to forego the bouquet of "I'm sorry" flowers and instead bring home a roasted garlic ciabatta or rosemary focaccia loaf as a peace offering.  It works like a charm every time.  Whether it be a create your own pasta dish or an after dinner dessert, the taste of the Bluff View Art District will leave your buds completely satisfied.

For such a tiny area, the sounds of the art district come in a variety pack. While lounging on one of the benches in the garden, the natural flow of the river combined with the chirping baby birds provide a calming and rejuvenating sound for the ears.  The background noise is a mixture of friends sharing laughs while catching up over a steamy cup of joe, servers politely asking their guests if another bottle of wine should be opened, and flattering oohs and awes of tourists.  This district area has a unique bustle all of its own.

As for the sense of touch, the "do not" signs discourage it but with all the beautiful flowers and artsy pieces, how could you not?  If you find yourself in Chattanooga for any reason, it's definitely worth a visit and I'll be more than happy to meet up for dinner with a view.

The Effects of a Storm, an Ocean Away

My landlord woke me up with a phone call on Monday morning. “Are your friends and family okay?” he asked. “I heard about everything on the news, and I was so worried.” It’s the first question off any of my new London friends’ tongues when they see me, and the first question of any stranger when I first tell them where I’m from. Is everyone okay? Is my old apartment okay? Is New York okay?

My answers are, in order, yes, yes and I don’t know. The first two are easy: almost everyone I know in New York lived mostly out of harm's way. A few of my friends have had to walk or bike to work; some have had to go without showers or use candles to light their way. My old apartment, nestled safely in Midtown, never even lost power or water. The last question is the worst and the hardest for me to answer, both because I have no information and because I hate that I have no information. I don’t know how New York is, because, while I identify as a New Yorker to everyone I meet in Europe, while I compare everything I encounter here ceaselessly to the world I knew and loved back there, while many of my friends and family are still in the place I consider home, I am not. I am in London.

I’m not jealous of those in New York, and it should be said plainly and clearly that I absolutely wish Sandy hadn’t hit the East Coast and Caribbean. I wish it was a repeat of last year in New York City, where we ventured out into Times Square in the middle of Hurricane Irene and took pictures in the typically overrun with tourists hub that was now deserted (I, of course, also wish Irene had never negatively impacted the areas outside of New York that bore the brunt of the storm). But there’s something to be said for the ache you feel when something happens to your home and you can’t be there. You want to stand up for it. You want to experience things with it, so it doesn’t have to go it alone. I don’t fool myself to think I know what New Yorkers are going through right now, but there’s a part of me that wishes I was there for it. New Yorkers, I believe, are at their best in the face of adversity, and I feel a pang in my chest when I read Facebook updates about candlelit sleepovers or charging parties or the Exodus like group walking over the Brooklyn Bridge together. I want to change things there---I want to help, desperately, beyond the Red Cross donations and options from afar---but that’s not the whole story. I want to be there because I feel it---the city, the people in it---would change me.

And while my heart goes out to everyone affected by the storm, New York will be okay, with or without me. And I will be okay, with or without it. But it’s moments like these you realize that it doesn’t take a hurricane to create ripples strong enough to be felt even across an ocean.

XI. Provence

My classmates and I pile onto a bus and drive for over an hour, winding up and over and around the steadily climbing hills of the Luberon valley and eating tasteless crackers to keep from getting sick. Then we step out and this golden-orange view, peppered through with greenest evergreen trees, is what awaits us. We are in Roussillon, a town whose rusty clay cliffs have been mined for ochre for the past century or so.

Tipsy on the fresh air, we rush to climb and play in the silty dust like children, and the ochre cliffs---run through with brilliant smudges of pinks and oranges and crimsons, even---rub off on our clothes. The earth feels like soft charcoal on our fingers. Soon we are covered with it, and traces of color will make their way back on the bus to Aix-en-Provence with us, only to be found hours or even days later by scolding host mothers, impatient with hanging the laundry outside to dry only to find it still dirty and streaked through with red silt.

Why they insist on cleaning our clothes is beyond us---the teachers at the ACPP center tell us it is a différence culturelle which translates most directly as don't question it.

The Faithful

"“Do I love you this much?" she’d ask us, holding her hands six inches apart. “No,” we’d say, with sly smiles. “Do I love you this much?” she’d ask again, and on and on and on, each time moving her hands farther apart. But she would never get there, no matter how wide she stretched her arms. The amount that she loved us was beyond her reach. It could not be quantified or contained. It was the ten thousand named things in the Tao Te Ching’s universe and then ten thousand more. Her love was full-throated and all-encompassing and unadorned. Every day she blew through her entire reserve." -          Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

My latest pick for book club was a wholly personal one. My friend Dorothy gave me a copy of the book right after my mom died, but it was almost seven months before I was ready to pick it up. For anyone unfamiliar with the story, Strayed writes about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail by herself, after her mom's death. What stuck with me most about the book weren’t the months she spent alone while hiking, or the blisters on her feet that she writes about in detail, or the weather or wildlife-related obstacles she encountered on the trail. For me, it was reading about how her life spiraled out of control after her mother's death.

I thought about this last weekend, while I was in California with some of my oldest and closest friends. We had gathered for Brooke's wedding, a friend since we rode our big wheels to nursery school together. We then spent years in Brownies, with my mom as our fearless troop leader. Last summer, Brooke showed up in New York for my bachelorette party, Brownie sash on. She said those are some of her best childhood memories, in large part because of my mom. Katie flew in from Australia for the wedding. Just a hop, skip, and a 14 hour flight for her. The line between friend and family is blurry with Katie and I; that's how long we've been friends. Katie is the kind of friend who flies halfway around the world when your mom is in the hospital, the kind who sits with you and makes you laugh when you think there is nothing left to laugh about, the kind who can be trusted with the most unpopular of errands (buying boxers for your dad, for instance). Andrea came from Chicago, leaving her baby boy at home with her husband.  Andrea has a laugh bigger than any room and a heart to match. She’s loyal and never forgets---not the bigger things like birthdays or even the little ones, like the color dress you wore to prom. Sara, my daily lifeline and keeper of secrets, was the only one missing---and miss her we did.

The wedding ceremony was a traditional Catholic mass, held at a beautiful old church in Santa Barbara---my first time in church since my mom's funeral. We sat together, observing the same rituals we’ve known since we were kids. The only off-script moment came during the Prayers of the Faithful, the part of mass when the congregation prays for those in need. The groom's cousin---leading the prayers---giggled his way through, while the rest of us looked on in confusion. Later, Brooke confessed that the prayers she and her husband had prepared weren’t waiting on the altar, and so their cousin was forced to improvise. More importantly, she wanted me to know what wasn’t said: a prayer for my mom they had intended to include in the ceremony. It was an acknowledgment that took my breath away, and I heard my mom so clearly in that moment, reminding me what good friends I have.

Back in Brooklyn, it was my turn to host book club. Just like every other one over the last six years, there was a heated debate about the merits of the book, but more importantly, there was plenty of wine and laughs. Overwhelmed with gratitude, I looked around at these girls who have become my friends later in life, who have held me up and righted my footing repeatedly throughout the last year. Rather dramatically, I announced that it was because of them---because of all of my friends---that I was not off hiking by myself somewhere, a la Cheryl Strayed.

My mom gave me the best and the worst of herself: her eyes, but also her hips and thighs; her brains, but also her impatience; her candidness, but also, at times, her candidness. There is no doubt, however, that she also gave me the gift of friendships, to which there is no downside. For that, I will thank her now and forever.

On making (and breaking) tradition

As a brand new family unit, my husband and I now face the strange and interesting task of managing tradition—embracing some of the traditions that have been passed down to us from our families and communities, casting others aside, and creating new ones. I’ve always been interested in tradition. I’ve loved learning about ritual practices and mythologies and uncovering the origins of our often deeply-held beliefs about why we do things the way we do them.

But engagement and wedding planning were a bit like being tossed into the deep end on the tradition front. I can’t count the number of times I received advice in the past several months—often from perfect strangers—that began with the loaded word “traditionally.” Let’s try out a few basic examples to get the “tradition” juices flowing.

“Traditionally, a bride wears a white dress.”

“Traditionally, a bride is escorted down the aisle by her father.”

“Traditionally, Americans eat turkey for Thanksgiving dinner.”

Why do brides “traditionally” wear white dresses? In which cultures is this true? Who started this trend? What if a bride hates white? What if a bride does not have a father? What if there is no bride, but rather two grooms? What if an American is also a vegetarian?

Ouf. As (I hope) you can see, even the simplest statements about tradition require a bit of unpacking and may be more useful in statistical reports than as practical advice for individuals.

This is not to say that all traditions are bad or wrong. Traditions can offer guidelines for interpersonal conduct that help us connect with and show respect for others. Traditions can help us make meaning of important life cycle events. But many traditions also have the frustrating characteristic of seeming natural and obvious to insiders, while appearing completely foreign and unnatural to outsiders. Many traditions do not account for difference.

So as we continue in the process of “tradition management” together, I hope that we will be able to practice a bit of what we’ve learned thus far—that tradition is best handled with equal parts critical thinking and creativity, research and respect, humor and sensitivity.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

Ashely Schneider has slowly but surely made her way from one coast to another. Born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, she left her hometown to attend college at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina.  A month after graduation and with her sights set on new territory, she ventured off to the wild west settling in Jackson, Wyoming, where she lived for 4 years. Currently, she and her husband live in Portland, Oregon. Ashely prefers bikes to cars, hiking trails to shopping malls, and she likes to document it all from behind the lens of a camera. 

Jim Minick, The Blueberry Years

Ever wonder what life on a farm is like? I daydream about it all the time!  After reading Jim Minick’s The Blueberry Years, that dream doesn’t seem so impossible. I was drawn to this book for two main reasons. First and foremost, it’s a memoir about organic blueberry farming, which for me doesn’t get any more idyllic. His pursuit of a simpler life is one I related to within the first few pages. Second, the book is set in Virginia, the place where I was born and raised. I couldn’t resist reading about life in the mountains of Southwest Virginia. Minick, both farmer and poet, writes about food, family, and the choices we make as consumers. He chronicles not only the joys but the frustrations of running one of the mid-Atlantic’s first organic, pick-your-own blueberry farms. While everyday brings him face to face with challenges such as weather and pests, Minick finds his work gratifying, and he focuses on the soulful and physical rewards it yields.

Jack Kerouac, Big Sur

I picked up Jack Kerouac’s Big Sur a few days before traveling to Big Sur, California. A little cliché, I’ll admit. I was familiar with Kerouac’s work and writing style, so I felt prepared for another alcohol-induced stream of consciousness narrative. That’s exactly what I got. Kerouac recounts his three trips to Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s remote cabin in Bixby Canyon, just south of San Francisco. There he seeks solitude after gaining fame from his novel, On the Road. But the wilderness takes its toll on Kerouac as he travels that road inside his head, and his mind and body begin to deteriorate. He struggles to identify with both his natural retreat and the city life he wants to escape. While there are lucid moments in between these struggles – during which he documents sights, smells, and sounds and their effect on his soul – Big Sur is the story of Kerouac’s emotional breakdown at the moment of his rising popularity.

Gabrielle Hamilton, Blood Bones & Butter

As a self proclaimed foodie and amateur cook, I had Blood, Bones & Butter on my menu of must-reads for a year. Gabrielle Hamilton’s memoir is a modern day success story.  Hamilton’s journey was an unconventional one filled with divorce, drugs, and theft. But after a tumultuous twenty years of what seemed to be personal and professional confusion, she returns to what she always knows to be right – cooking. Seeking some direction, she gets a taste of the restaurant industry by working its range of gritty jobs from waitress to caterer to line cook. Eventually she musters up enough strength and confidence to open her own kitchen. Her restaurant, Prune, proves to be difficult at times, but Hamilton recognizes that she’s exactly where she’s meant to be.

 Joan Didion, Blue Nights

Joan Didion’s most recent novel, Blue Nights, is a heartbreaking account of the unnatural order of things. Her daughter’s untimely death forces Didion to reflect on her role as a parent. She weaves together stories and memories of her only child, Quintana Roo, who died from medical complications at age thirty-nine. Reflecting on her daughter’s life, Didion struggles with decisions made as a mother, and she finds herself constantly dwelling on those things she might have done to make their time together more rich. At the same time, Didion worries about her own age. Blue nights – the long evening light in the sky that leads up to the summer solstice – serves for Didion as both a symbol for life and a warning that seasons are changing.

Lessons from a workshop...

Dear Clara,

Since we’ve been back in the US this past year, I have tried to remain mindful to use the time we have here for things that we wouldn’t be able to do abroad.  Part of that time has been allocated to friends and family, taking advantage of their proximity.  Part of the time has been dedicated to seeing the great United States – you’re still too young to remember your adventures here but I’ve taken lots of pictures and amassed all kinds of stories.  But part of the time I’ve stashed away for myself to get out of my shell and learn some of the things that inspire me, but that I haven’t been brave enough to learn more about in previous years.   And so, this past year has become the “year of the workshop”.

One of the things I’ve made peace with – at least for now – is that sometimes our professional lives can be rewarding in their own way.  We like well enough what we do, we have good colleagues, and it helps us to put our portion of dinner on the table.  It gives us a lifestyle, and it gives us worth in our day.  But what it might not give us is something more passionate.  And what our passions and interests give us, might not exactly fill those other qualities that our jobs provide.  So I’ve used this workshop time to help round out those creative interests that aren’t necessarily related to my professional life, but they are to my inspired life.  I’m nervous at these workshops, which are mainly related to photography or the creative aspects of my blog.  Before each one, I contemplate dropping out, and after each one, I’m always so glad I stuck it out, usually at your father’s insistence.  So after all of these workshops this year, here are a few of the lessons I’ve learned:

• The first step is signing up: This is the most intimidating part – signing up and sending the money.  Choose wisely, after all, resources will be limited by either time, money or both, but choose bravely.  One of my managers told me once that any job should make you sweat outside your comfort zone just a little bit, and I’ve applied the same principle to choosing learning outside of the job.  Push yourself a bit and you’ll be surprised how much you can learn.
• Be flexible: Chances are, the workshop won’t run exactly the way you expect it too.  Maybe it’s in a location you’re not used to, maybe they’re flexible on timing…just come with an open mind.  The whole point of doing something different is to do something different, right?
• Attend all the events: Sometimes workshops have a dinner, or a get together, or some other event associated with it.  If you’re going to know a new group of people for just a short amount of time, get the most you can out of it.  Do the events and don’t be shy.  Introduce yourself and get out there.
• Give yourself time to absorb: The great thing about workshops is that they usually fill you with lots of new and grand and big ideas.  Make sure to give yourself a little clean time after the workshop to let it all sink in.  You’re going to want to go in 34 directions all at once – don’t compromise the value of everything you learned by overloading social commitments or other things that start the minute the workshop is over.  Give yourself space to absorb the learning and plot out exactly what you’re going to do with it.  A few notes to yourself now will pay out great dividends later.
• Translate into your own voice: Sometimes when we see something by someone we admire at a workshop, we’re tempted to go home and recreate the exact same thing.  Re-creation is great for practice.  But the workshop’s intent was to teach you a series of tools so that you can create what you want out of it.   It’s still going to be up to you to apply them in your own voice and vision.  Don’t hesitate to stretch what you’ve learned into the direction that you need it to go to work for you.

All my love,

Mom

More or Less Normal

By Carey Swanson Taking my daughter on her first official trick-or-treating excursion did not happen quite as planned.  We went early, at four o’clock, rather than after work.  I wasn’t at work, of course, because it is Day 3 of the Hurricane Sandy school closings.  We will end up with this entire week as a surprise staycation, with no school for the kiddos in the city as we cope with the aftermath of this storm.

I'm homebound from my apartment in central Brooklyn, and the strangeness has officially set in.  I was not alone in my decision to simply celebrate Halloween.  Loads of kids decked out in store-bought animal costumes, or inspired cardboard cars and sandwich boards dotted the streets, only on occasion having to divert their path to avoid the stray fallen tree or branch.  For the most part, there was simply no sign of anything amiss, and everything seemed more or less normal.  Most businesses are open, with bins of candy ready.  It feels so strange, the normalness of it all.  It feels like it should feel different.  The mood is festive.  People laugh and smile and wave at the costumed children and adults alike.

Step a little closer, however, and you’ll hear a touch of the strangeness, if you know what to listen for.  Bits and pieces of cell phone conversations:  No, we’re fine, but we have four guests with us.  They don’t have heat, electricity, or hot water and who knows how much longer it will last.  Or: Another day with the kids is going to drive me crazy!  And if you look closely, scan the landscape; you’ll see a glimpse of it here and there.  The Laundromat sign, broken and caved in, bulbs exposed.  The shop awning, inexplicitly on the ground, trick-or-treaters simply stepping around as they make their way down the street.

Go a mile in any direction and you’ll find streets or homes still in water, without power, businesses struggling, a city slowly but surely pulling itself together after this crazy storm.  During the storm itself, as my lights flickered but kept steady, I found myself feeling left off the hook somehow.  It was hitting us, it was right on top of us, my Facebook page was telling me that people were losing power in every direction, but I was markedly unaffected.   It hit my city, but somehow it missed me.

So what is to be made of this?  I know I’m supposed to simply be grateful and count my blessings.  However, I feel like that seems unfair—shouldn’t everyone get to do that?  Why do I get to count my blessings as opposed to the shop owner in lower Manhattan, or the family in Staten Island, or the neighborhood in Queens?  I’ve been sitting here in my apartment, homebound these past three days, and yet everything is the same except for my day’s destination and the endless sound of the news anchors on repeat in the background. I can’t help but be transported back over a decade, to the last fall morning I sat on the couch slightly removed and yet right in the thick of disaster.  And I won’t try to compare tragedies or even in any way equate one to the other, except in the feelings it brings up to me as spectator.  Back then I was uptown, couchbound and fixed to the news, aware of the fact that I was technically stranded on a closed off Manhattan Island.  In my city I was a safe distance, while to my friends and family in the Midwest I was right in the thick of it.  And I watched, cried, and then went about my life.

Today, I took my daughter trick-or-treating.   While the mayor peppered the city employees with praise, I attached paws and a tail on a 20 month old.  While firemen went door to door looking for trapped victims, I stuck lollipops and bubblegum she’s not old enough to chew into a bag.  And when a fallen tree blocked my path, I crossed the street, and kept on walking.  Side view of a disaster, and yet life goes on, more or less as normal.

A few of my favorite things

I mentioned this last week, but I have an exceptional fondness for records, handwritten letters, and books.  I'm not sure what it is, but I love the presence of such things; the tactile sense of touching my music, turning a page, or holding a pen.  I think it helps me appreciate those elements and actions a little more. I almost always think better with a pen in my hand; I'm a dedicated note taker & list maker.  I even write my Equals Records columns out by hand every week before typing them. Handwriting letters is is extra special though. Its like sending a little piece of myself to a friend. And of course I treasure return letters, they sit in a special box in my office.

I've been an avid reader for as long as I can remember. When your mom is a librarian, the love of books is basically instilled at birth.  Growing up I was never the girl who could shoot a free-throw or predict the next makeup trend, but I could work a card catalog like nobodies business. I love to read and use an e-reader often, but nothing beats the turn of a page.

Music is a bit different.  My parents had a record player when I was growing up and it was common for them to have music playing in the evenings. I collected CDs & Cassette tapes like any other child of the 80s &90s, but eventually gave them all up to go digital. For a while I listened to my favorite tunes through headphones or computer speakers. So it probably came as a shock when I told my parents I wanted a record for christmas.  But they obliged and my vinyl collection gradually grew through gifts, record shops, and thrift store purchases.  Now I love to choose an album, slide it out of its case and gently place the needle, just as I love to flip a page and hear the scratch of a pen.

Big Love to New York (and the whole East Coast)

I’m feeling particularly homesick for New York today. With so many loved ones struggling through the hurricane aftermath (including Miya in Brooklyn and many of our beloved contributors all over the East Coast), it’s difficult to believe that I’m across the country and can’t do much more than obsessively scroll through photos and check in on friends and family through texts, emails, and phone calls. Sandy proved devastating to so many, but it reminded me that the fundamental beauty of New York City lies in its people.  New York is tough and New Yorkers are tougher; don’t let that deceive you though. If you’re going to cram over eight million people into a small island and its boroughs, everyone needs to get along. I’ve yet to visit or live in a city where people demonstrate more generosity of spirit than in New York.

Maybe it’s because New York is a city of transplants and all of us remember the first time we found ourselves on an uptown express train instead of the downtown local, holding back tears while wondering if daily life would ever feel easy. Then there’s the day you become a real New Yorker and offer directions to a band of map-wielding tourists or recent grad decked out in her interview best.

In that same spirit of generosity, everyone is lending a hand while New York wrings itself out. Even before Sandy made landfall, Facebook and Twitter exploded with offers to house evacuees. And after, those with power, water, or . . . booze opened their homes---offering charging to the powerless, grooming to the waterless, and merry-making to the stir crazy.

That's how I know New York will be just fine; after all, it’s full of New Yorkers.

Oh, and see you tomorrow (Jet Blue willing)!

It’s easy to contribute to the relief effort in New York and other afflicted areas. To donate, visit the Red Cross, call 1-800-RED-CROSS, or just text the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation. Another way to make a huge impact is to donate blood. Blood supplies were severely depleted, but the need is as great as ever. Please consider scheduling a blood donation by visiting redcrossblood.org.

Frida Kahlo: Survivor. Communist. Mexican Icon.

Everyone’s familiar with Frida Kahlo’s face, at least as she painted it. The dark, somber eyes. The brightly-colored dresses. That inescapable unibrow.

But Frida Kahlo is much more than that famous face, with its ugly beauty and its unconventional emphasis on female facial hair. She’s also a fascinating figure who lived through some of the early twentieth century’s most interesting events, who was attached to some of the early twentieth century’s most interesting people. And on top of that, she really put the “pain” in “awesome painter.” (Sorry. A stretch, I know.)

Frida was born in 1907 in Mexico City, just before the Mexican Revolution, to an immigrant Hungarian-Jewish father and a Spanish-Amerinidian mother. She suffered from polio at a young age, resulting in a permanently withered leg. But the seminal painful moment in Frida’s life was in 1925, when she was in a horrific bus accident that left her with spinal fractures, multiple broken bones, a crushed foot, and, the one that gives me the biggest heebie-jeebies, an impaling by a metal handrail. She wasn’t expected to survive.

But survive she did—albeit with an enormous amount of pain that never really left her. She went on to have over 30 surgeries in her lifetime, the last of which may have left her with the pneumonia that killed her at age 47 (though it’s also speculated she killed herself).

Despite the immense pain that was to haunt her and characterize her relationship with her body—or maybe, in part, because of it—Kahlo went on to do great things. She began painting while in bed, recovering from the bus accident, starting with her most famous subject: herself. “I paint myself because I am so often alone,” she said, “because I am the subject I know best.”

At age 22 she married famed muralist Diego Rivera, who was two decades older and two hundred pounds heavier than her (!). Their relationship helped her to develop her own work, while also being one of those Hollywood-style tumultuous marriages with tons of affairs on both sides and even a divorce thrown in the middle (after which they remarried, each other). Frida, for her part, had affairs with many famous figures, both men and women, including Georgia O’Keeffe and Leon Trotsky, whom she and Rivera put up in their home after his flight from Russia. (Ironically, after he was assassinated she became a Stalinist.)

Meanwhile, Kahlo’s work was feted in New York City and Paris, and she was the first 20^th-century Mexican artist to be featured in the Louvre. I can just imagine her mingling in that most romantic of settings, 1920s Paris (think Midnight in Paris), at an art showing, being toasted by Picasso and Miró and Andre Breton, a Parisian anomaly in her long, bright, traditional Mexican dress.

But as it were, Frida rejected what she called those “artistic bitches of Paris.” Her heart remained in Mexico City, where she lived most of her life in La Casa Azul, the house she was born in (which today houses Museo Frida Kahlo-- a must on my world tour list!). She and Rivera were also involved in a movement called Mexicanidad, aimed at preserving an essential, traditional Mexican culture in opposition to the encroaching cultural dominance of “the West.”

Kahlo attempted to live this Mexican ideal in her dress, in the symbols and colors of her art, and, also, in her rejection of conventional beauty norms. In fact, it’s reported she even darkened her unibrow and mustache to emphasize a kind of pre-Columbian femininity— where in this case, pre-Columbian means “before tweezers.”

Because of this, Frida Kahlo remains to this day a shining symbol of feminism and Mexican culture, and her art and celebrity have been completely embraced by the mainstream. But it’s easy to overlook the ways in which Kahlo’s art, and life, were less about empowerment and more about suffering, about the visceral experience of bodily pain and the social and political difficulties of being a woman. One of her most affecting works, My Birth, was painted after her miscarriage, depicting a bloodied Kahlo-like head emerging from a woman’s body.

Additionally, it should be recognized that "authenticity" movements seek an essentialized, pre-modern, sometimes imaginary past; in this case, a pre-Europe Mexico. Kahlo's embracing of "authentic" Mexican culture must be understood as a kind of political statement, rather than a representation of the Mexico that actually surrounded her.

In my opinion, the complexity of her personal and political life and the tragedy of her experiences, as well as the diverse vitality of her influences—which range from street artists to Catholic votive paintings to images of disasters to pre-Columbian folk art—makes her work all the more fascinating. There's so much beauty in what she created. Beauty in the attempts at authenticity; beauty in the expressions of human suffering; and, perhaps most surprisingly, beauty in the ugliness. I'm not going to grow a unibrow out in solidarity, but doesn't mean I don't appreciate what that unibrow represented.

On The Way To Palmyra

Palmyra greeted me wrapped in a mist of a spring late afternoon, years ago.  The Syrian desert surprised me as quite different from other desert landscapes I had seen before. It’s a dry barren wilderness, suddenly covered in green patches that gather in small oasis, where for no apparent reason water breaks through the ground surface. What I am sharing here is a memory of the country of Syria as I remember it, and I wish that soon it will be possible for me to visit those amazing places again. Most importantly, I wish people peace and happiness. I wish children to grow in harmony and equanimity.

***

April 2001.

The trip from Damascus is hard---cloudy sky, stubborn winds, and oppressive heat.

Mamma, papà, brother. All of us accompanying my grandfather in a business trip throughout Syria, and occasionally taking time to explore.

We are only forty miles from Palmyra, but a sudden Jeep breakdown risks to jeopardize our family adventure. Two hours stop in the middle of the unmerciful desert, without food, only cans of delicious mango juice for lunch.

We sit by the roadside, on our right and left only an endless road, starting in the capital and ending in one of the most ancient cities in the center of the country. Our driver, Amin, blue eyes, brown skin and four children at home, lies under the car, occasionally breaking the silence by muttering words whose meaning is easy to guess.

The emptiness of my stomach matches the emptiness of my cultural background---I don’t know much about Palmyra, I only imagine the ruins from the Roman Empire, surrounded by desert. I know of an oasis. And I have seen pictures of a big castle on a hill, which dominates the valley like a severe guardian.

Finally Amin the hero fixes the Jeep, we feel relieved and begin to drive the road towards our destination.

As we reach Palmyra with great expectations, we can’t see a thing. The wind is blowing hard and the landscape appears like a pink thick cloud. We opt for a half an hour break at the hotel. And while we rest, a heavy rain starts.

When we step out of the hotel, a miracle has just happened.

The sky is ocean blue, and the wind has calmed down, becoming a pleasant warm breeze.

The desert in front of us is rich, full of past, enlightened by the sun.

There it is the old Roman ruins from long ago---right next to the road. No fence, no guards, and not many tourists around. Only a couple of local Bedouins at the beginning of the column road, waiting to give foreigners a ride on their camels.

We stood there for a long while. The light and the colors of the columns were amazing---the sun still strong in the sky produced an amazing spectacle in different shades of yellow and pink. And that is when we know that the trip was worth the effort.

 

by Sir Edwin Arnold (1832–1904)

A weary waste of blank and barren land,

A lonely, lonely sea of shifting sand,

A golden furnace gleaming overhead,

Scorching the blue sky into bloody red;

And not a breath to cool, and not a breeze

To stir one feather of the drooping trees;

Only the desert wind with the hungry moan,

Seeking for life to slay, and finding none;

Only the hot Sirocco’s burning breath,

Spangled with sulphur-flame, and winged with death;

No sound, no step, no voice, no echo heard,

No cry of beast, no whirring wing of bird;

The silver-crested snake hath crept away

From the fell fury of that Eastern day;

The famished vultures by the failing spring

Droop the foul beak and fold the ragged wing;

And lordly lions, ere the chase be done,

Leave the black desert to the desert-sun. 

Greetings from Grrls Meat Camp

The morning is chilly and bright. A sheen of frost covers the picnic tables and the wooden deck, the nearby pond is shimmering in the morning light, and the towering evergreens sway in the breeze. This idyllic setting belongs to the YMCA’s Camp Duncan, located just outside of Chicago. Inside the cozy cabin kitchen there are biscuits in the oven and sausage gravy simmering on the stove. After breakfast there will be an entire 250 pound hog delivered to the back porch, followed by lessons in whole animal butchery, pate and sausage making, and grilling and smoking. This is Grrls Meat Camp.

I first learned of Meat Camp via Kate Hill's Kitchen at Camont blog and through last year's Washington Post coverage of the inaugural event.  It's a gathering of chefs, butchers, bakers and enthusiastic home cooks. It's a weekend of food, fun, and ultimately of camaraderie and encouragement.

The group's Facebook mission statement reads: "To inspire, educate and foster sisterhood through a cooperative collaboration of women . . ." with an aim of "giving voice to those working with animals and meat on farms, butcher shops, restaurants and home."

It was an inspiring weekend, and not just because of all the delicious food.

It was a salon, of sorts, with conversation focused on sustainability, ethical farming, and our shifting food systems.

Even more moving, perhaps, were the personal stories shared of learning a craft that didn't typically welcome gender diversity. At Grrls Meat Camp, though, we were all in the front row. We all had access to new knowledge and experience, and were encouraged to participate.

At one point over the weekend I over heard a conversation between two of the butchers who were discussing the most physically difficult parts of their job. "If you have the right tools, you can do anything. Anything is possible if you've got the right tools." It's true of butchery, sure, but it struck me as some advice for life's work in general. "The right tools" could mean sharp knives and saws, but also the strength an individual receives from a supportive community. Many women I met this weekend were self-educated and self-motivated, their successful careers the products of their own initiative. Even the professional food photographer who was busily shooting stills of the beautiful dishes coming out of the kitchen agreed: No one taught her to be a photographer, she taught herself. So, even if you have no desire to butcher a hog or some beef hip, these lessons from Meat Camp resonate with those of us finding our way---in the kitchen, and beyond.

Kitchen Meditation

The potatoes are cold in my hands, imbued with the chill of the refigerator. My husband will only peel potatoes after they’ve been sitting in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes, but I prefer to do it quickly and go on to other things. Dusty brown peelings curl off into the trash can, the little pile growing fast as the white flesh of the tuber is revealed. When the potatoes are chopped and placed in boiling water, I raid the crisper for other vegetables: Carrots, onions, fresh garlic (a staple in my kitchen), celery, corn. I have a method for chopping each different vegetable—the carrots are sliced in half long-wise and then diced into half-moons; the onions are gently scored in both directions across the top, so that when I cut off an inch from the onion’s face, I’m rewarded with a shower of evenly-chopped pieces falling to my cutting board.

I vividly remember a conversation I had shortly after getting married, when I was still part-time in college and struggling to get the degree I knew was out of my reach for the time being. “I want to like cooking,” I had said into the phone. “I feel like it’s the kind of thing that I should enjoy, that I could enjoy. I feel like it’s something that could bring me a huge amount of satisfaction. But I’m always just too tired.”

And I was. Even with a light class load, by the time I got home from my one or two classes in a day and finished my homework, I’d exhausted my slim supply of energy for that day. I made dinner each nigth with my husband because I believed in good, home-cooked food, and I loved eating the fruits of our labors—but I rarely enjoyed the experience. Always, I felt that frustrating sense that the true joy of cooking was just out of my reach, the kind of thing I ought to feel, but didn’t.

I baked bread, and ended up so tired I could hardly enjoy the finished product. I made muffins, and thought that cleaning the muffin tin might be the death of me. I cooked soups and puddings and even, on occasion, things like pasta from scratch, reveling in the knowledge that I could identify every ingredient that went into our meals—but ultimately, feeling utterly spent by the task.

Two years later, when I began the true transition from part-time studenthood to full-time homemaking, I was surprised to discover that suddenly, I was beginning to love cooking. All at once, as I began to spend less time in the classroom and have more time for the kitchen, I was feeling all those things I had thought I should feel before. Baking became a celebration. Chopping vegetables became a game. Doing the dishes afterward became a meditation.

Now, as I sweep a neat pile of onions and carrots from my cutting board into a pan for sautéeing, I think about that time of transition. Cooking still tires me, of course; it’s a physical task, one that requires time spent standing up, and often one that demands strength in the kneading or rolling out of dough. But in my life as it stands now, that’s all right. I may be tired afterwards, but I have the liberty to spare a few minutes for rest and recovery.

It is, I think, a perfect example of the unexpected joy the last few years have brought me—my adult life in a microcosm. For such a long time, I was frightened of my plans being changed, terrified of being forced to find something new to define myself. And yet, when that change did come, it wasn’t meaninglessness that lay on the other side—it was just a different kind of purpose, a different shape to my days.

A different shape, but a good one.

I pour extra-virgin olive oil over my pan of vegetables, letting the rich, fruity scent of the oil assail my senses, hearing the crackle and pop as it hits the bottom of the hot skillet.

And in this quiet kitchen moment, I know what it is to feel peace.