Mornings and Rituals (and donuts!)

I've always been a morning person, and I enjoy that about myself.  I think it all began when I would sleep in my parents' bed and they would wake up for work, leaving me sprawled in bed and aching for attention.  I think it's the promise of a new day, a new opportunity to make decisions that either enhance my life or fuck it all up.  I like that, the sublime wonderment of choice of indecision.  How they intermingle to create discontinuation in the plans we make ourselves as children.  It's hope, it's nascent disregard for obligations.  It's a half hour of freedom before hot showers and coffee that's cold by the time you're out of traffic. This week has been especially enjoyable for mornings because I've been sleeping in the living room, under fleece blankets from Christmas, under an I Love Lucy woven blanket, under a quilt that was hand-stitched by a great-aunt named Naomi, called Noni.  Everything is gifted, nothing bought.  I'm sleeping in the living room because of Elsa, the tiniest member of the family.  I'm sleeping with her cradled in my arm, curled in a ball to keep warm and comforted by my drumming heartbeat.  They say a ticking watch reminds puppies of their mothers, and so I keep one on all night to help her sleep.  And in the late, dark, ash moon midnights of this April's beckoning, that sigh of puppy-breath and the thunderous metronome of timekeeping are my only companions.  The things that keep me warm and sane.  I pray to the rhythmic god, a space-time confusion of faith and disaster.

And in the mornings, when it is cold and I'm too tired to press the coffeemaker button, I sit with a cradled puppy and my thoughts.  I watch the sunlight thread through cloud eyes, I watch the birdsong swell up in the robin jays.  I watch it from the bay window of our kitchen, through a tangle of dying tarragon leaves.  I watch it until I can make the decision to keep going, to fulfill a prophecy unbeknownst to me.  I brush the sleep from my eyes, have my morning coffee with cream and two sachets of sugar, stir it with a wooden rod.

And I eat one of these amazing donuts.  And I know life is good, that life is doable.  That it's all worth it.

___________________

Sweet Corn Donuts with Honey-Sugar Glaze (makes a dozen mini donuts)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 cup flour
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 Tablespoon applesauce
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoon butter, melted

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400
2. Prepare donut pan with cooking spray or butter
3. Combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in large mixing bowl
4. In separate bowl or in liquid measuring cup, measure and mix all remaining ingredients
5. Pour wet into dry, mix with rubber spatula (here, I refrigerated mine overnight and preferred it, as the liquid gets into the coarse cornmeal, but it is not necessary)
6. Pour into pan 3/4 way full
7. Bake 10-13 minutes, until browned and springy to the touch
8. Glaze while warm (recipe below) and serve (they're so good warm, I microwaved mine back up after they cooled!)

(For the glaze: whip 2 TB room temperature butter, mix with 2 TB raw clover honey, spread on warmed donuts with butter knife. Dust with confectioner's sugar)

Banana Donuts with Hot Cocoa Glaze (makes one dozen)

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 3/8 cup sugar
• 1 whole egg and 2 egg whites
• 1 1/3 cup flour
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 overripe bananas, mashed

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Grease donut pan
3. Mix butter, applesauce, sugar, and eggs with hand mixer on high until blended
4. Add flour, mix until blended
5. Add juice, soda, and bananas (one at a time)
6. Mix on high for two minutes. Mixture should be glossy
7. Fill donut pan 3/4 way full with mixture
8. Bake 8-11 minutes until browned and springy to touch
9. All to cool before glazing (the "hot cocoa glaze" is 1-1-1 1/2 ratio of Hershey's cocoa powder, confectioner's sugar and heavy whipping cream) 

I hope you enjoy these as much as I have!

Introducing Elsa

Time is a rudimentary trick of consciousness.  A way in which we evaluate truth, a way to discredit our own mortality.  We remember to remember birthday cards and grocery lists, and forget to forget terrible fights and subsequent broken mugs.  I wish I could remember everything and forget nothing, but then my grudges would last forever, and I have enough trouble remembering to give second chances.

I wish I could remember favorite moments, but I have to use context clues to be back in that moment again.  I remember reading Wuthering Heights in a hand-me-down hunter green cot, wrapped up in sweatshirts, in the middle of the night.  I remember it so vividly, the peace I felt in that moment, in the tempestuous blur between mysticism and romanticism and how I longed for an obsessive love.  I was fourteen.  

I remember two days before that, my mother walking out because of a fight we had and her not accepting my apology when I tried to hug her to stay.

I was fourteen, she was thirty-nine.

And I remember last year, when I was twenty-one and Nolan was twenty-five and the memory of my mother didn't have the same comfort it once did, when I had quit law school and was unemployed and crazy.  I remember it in technicolor, ruby-red and emerald green.  I remember picking Murphy up the hour after my Contracts II final, in a Korean neighborhood of LA, where a Mexican family was feeding him adult dog food mixed with water.  He was $300 total.  I cradled him in my arms and sang in a low whisper songs off of The Carpenters' Greatest Hits.  We drove for four hours, to our new home in San Diego.  Traffic was bad, but my knowledge of failure was worse.

That was nearly a year ago, a year of memories that I have to convince myself that they are worthwhile to remember.  How every day could have been a blessing, if only I had allowed myself to feel blessed.  Instead, I entrenched myself in fear of the unknown and the unknowable regret of "what if" that's plagued me in various manifestations since childhood.

What if I didn't move to San Diego?

What if I shouldn't have even moved to California?

What if I get a shitty job and I'm stuck, all alone?

But, there was one thing I knew for certain since May 20, 2013:  That I loved Murphy.  I loved him greatly, powerfully, and unnaturally closely since the day I held him.  I still do, I always will.

But I loved him so much that the commitment to play with him, to hold him close to me when we were sleeping, was not enough to get by while I was at work.  He was lonely, pitiful each time I crouched down to say goodbye and he would look up with wide, white eyes and reaching paws.  It was heart-breaking (but convincing!).

And so the search for a sister began.  The checklist was long, having to include energy and kindness, a rescue and a puppy.  I looked every day for a month on Craigslist and hoped for the best, bookmarking dog after dog, mix after mix, and using Wikipedia to research an unfamiliar breed.  

And then we found her.  We found her instantly and the love was strong and as paternal as that which I have for Murphy. We found her on a website for an animal sanctuary down in a border town twenty minutes from the Border, Baja Animal Sanctuary. We changed her name from Violet to Elsa (a family name for Nolan), and picked her up from a Petco twenty minutes from our house when friends from Phoenix were in town.  

And, like last time, every moment is precious.  And I'll remember to remember these memories more fondly, cherishing Murphy and Nolan and the little family we have together.  I won't make the same mistakes again.  She's fitting right in, making herself at home on the Native rug and she's slowly training on the disposable pads to help with potty training.  But it's all worth it when I see how content Murphy is, now that he's no longer waiting for a friend to come by the window, to look at the world through glass while we're at work.

Here's the new addition:

Corporations and Banana Bread.

The hardest part about working is losing yourself. It's easy and it's selfless, to give everything to a mechanism. I understand the Upton Sinclairs of the world now, having been in the corporate office for six months now. Funny how everything leads up to moments like this, and then you realize how comfortable you were drinking tea in coffee shops in Pittsburgh, in a scarf and rainboots. How the music was interrupted by a bell that clanged when the door blew open by the wind. How far outside your comfort zone do you have to go to find yourself, to find identity by a process of elimination of what's novel to you, to the life you constructed for yourself like a cocoon of experience. Then you wonder how you get to the position, when there is so much promise at your fingertips at sixteen when you're applying to college and you choose the one you think has the most name to it. Duquesne. French and Catholic, two things I am not. Two things I would pretend to be later. I chose English and fell into Philosophy. I remain unmarketable, I remain steadfast in my decision that I did the right thing.

I moved to California and perhaps "sold out", but I'm making the most of my decision and, ideally, will move into a more comfortable position that is not commission-based. And, to do so, I allow others to take control, to feel special, to give them what they want, whether they asked or not.

The following recipe is for chocolate banana bread, which I made for my boss in hope I'll get a promotion.

Chocolate Banana Bread Muffins

Ingredients 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed 1/3 cup melted butter 1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup) 1 egg, beaten 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 teaspoon baking soda Pinch of salt 1 cup of all-purpose flour 1/2 cup cocoa powder

Directions 1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). 2. Mash bananas until softened, leave chunks if desired. 3. With a mixer, cream butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla until a pale yellow color forms in ribbons. 4. With a rubber spatula, combine bananas with butter mixer. 5. Gently mix in baking soda, salt, cocoa powder, and flour over the mixture. 6. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan or into prepared muffin tins (i did mine with parchment paper and butter). 7. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack.

Ansuz.

I was eight in Kentucky, visiting family that still lived in the double-wide trailer I was babysat at.  It was blue with a water bed, where my cousins and I would watch Twister with our aunt, Tammy.  I was at the mall and I didn't hold my mother's hand.  For two hours I was lost, wandering around and navigating the shops that lined the main concourse.  We probably circled each other's paces like satellites.  And when she saw me, she hugged me tight and promised not to let go.  

Of course, it's silly to promise things conditional on the human emotion, on circumstance and change.  I left my mother when I was seventeen and she was never able to hold my hand again.

But we place reminders on ourselves to not forget to stay connected, grounded to the bluegrass roots that shaped us in one way or another.  She used to leave me post-it notes on my dashboard to read before school and I still try to revive that tradition with an occasional text.  It goes unanswered, lost to the lull of technological synapses between our generations.  I have a reminder on my calendar for her birthday with a little heart next to the 14 and the days leading up to it are marked in my planner with "Don't forget to buy the card", "Don't forget to mail the card", "Don't forget to call her."  

They're all unnecessary insurance, anyway.  I don't plan on forgetting anytime soon.

But that's how I am with many things, with all things, in some way.  I like the insurance of planning, of making a to-do list and never marking anything off because it's all finished before I even looked to it for guidance.  That's how I am with myself, with my body.  I like to be organized, to have constant totems nearby to retrieve the inherent "me" that's sometimes fogged by the daily coil of corporate life.  I didn't want this to happen with writing, something I've always valued within myself.  I wanted to remember it as it was, and not lose it for two hours and come back scared.  I wanted my talent to shine in a way that was nurtured and remembered like when your mother remembers your favorite dish for dinner after you haven't been home for a year.  I wanted to build a relationship with my writing, and I just needed a reminder to appreciate it while it's still around.

My new tattoo is the Elder Futhrak rune Ansuz, which symbolizes the creative mind, the poetic soul, and the "god's breath".  I wanted to hold it on my forearm and invoke that metaphysical energy during my day-to-day life and remind myself of the innocence of the energy that, when reduced by half like a marsala wine, just boils down to love.

still healing.  don't you love this quilt?

PS, I updated my "Connect" page and you can find me on pinterest, instagram, and VSCOgrid. Feel free to say hi :)

What's on my desk is on my mind.

I hardly ever make eye contact and when I do, it's electrifying in it's own way.  It's because I hardly ever like to do it, unless I'm trying to intimidate someone.  I choose to see the world in a different way, to save sight as a last-ditch effort to understand my surroundings. I never made eye contact with the waiters in Naples, but understood their language through the food.  Stilettos walking on marble and the slightly monotone sermons I heard the Sunday I moved to Italy at 18 echo deep in the recesses of my dreaming conscious.  It was invigorating to experience things, dreamful things, in a way that wasn't hearsay. 

I've always wanted to combat the feeling of distrust that comes from second-hand lives.  Spoken words mean nothing to me.  It's the written form that creates a contract, that solidifies the veracity of life not yet experienced.  And so, I choose to read.  

I'm picking up books at the library like four-leaf clovers.  I've been this way since June of last year.  They sit in stacks, in piles and on shelves by my nightstand and I feel lucky to be surrounded by so many words.  Currently, I have anthologies of Didion, Neruda, and Eliot, a French grammar book, two Hemingways (one featured below), and Wuthering Heights.  My fine at the library is $6.50.  I have had the Didion book since September.  I'll never finish all of them, and I don't expect to.  I am just lucky enough to have them as guests in my home.

And so, I choose to read them.  I remind myself of their ephemerality.  I remind myself to learn from them and to experience the world that's contracted in the pages and to believe them to be true, because my elders told me so.

And maybe, one day, I'll be thought of like this, too.

I read outside last week, drank and espresso and ate a scone.  I realized how many worlds I've lived in, and that I need to write them all down.