Tomorrow’s steel cut oats simmer on the stove.
Freshly peeled ginger steeps in a mug of hot water.
It’s Wednesday evening, and I’ve been totally–unapologetically–unproductive for two days in a row.
I’m looking for a way back into my writing. Into that story that has to be finished.
When will I make the time? When will I feel dedicated enough?
And then Ira Glass speaks soothes my writing soul.
The first time I pulled this pizza from the oven, mid-bake, the gorgonzola had melted into bubbles and the puffed dough had turned a golden hue. The smell, sharp and pungent, wafted around my kitchen like some kind of olfactory nymph.
As I stared at the bubbling crust and inhaled the baked cheese I thought: if you could pull sex from the oven, this is what it would look and smell like.
So before I’d even finished baking the first pie, I knew I’d have to make another one and take pictures so you could see just what I’m talking about. I guess there’s a new phone that can kiss you, but what I want is a computer that transmits smell. A scratch and sniff computer. The smell, salty and aromatic, like heavy cream and like the blue cheese we used to dip our fries in at Bob’s Big Boy. And that was before the addition of the figs.
I always jump at the fleeting fig season. I adore the end of summer fruit, the tender purple skin of the turkey variety, the little seeds surrounded by the fleshy, stringy inside. After eating four baskets of them straight, I decided I needed to do something else with them. Pizza.
This recipe is adapted from Bon Appetit. The call for two cups of cheese sounds over-indulgent, but I can see now that after it melted that I really should have used all two cups. But hey, you’re going to make this twice, right, so try a little bit of cheese and then the whole amount; tell me what you think. (Note: after round two, I say use the whole damn block. It looks like a ton, but oh! OH! And buy the best gorgonzola you can afford–the bluer and stinkier, the better.)
You’ll have to restrain yourself in every step of this recipe: when you slice the figs, when you add the balslamic, when the pizza comes out in round one in a come hither way, and finally, when the whole pizza come out, figs steaming and the pie pulsing with fragrance. I suggest cracking a beer to buy your time to the cool down. It’s worth every second of the wait.
From Bon Appetite
The Elwha River Photo courtesy of Steve Ringman, Seattle Times
Three hundred million dollars.
Two hundred-year-old dams.
One chance to restore our environment.
It’s in our backyard, and it’s a huge deal. Read about “one of the most ambitious ecological restoration” projects in the United States, as covered by the Seattle Times.
Hold fast to these rays of hope.
Loot from Betty
The neighborhood cats and I set out at the same time for an evening prowl.
I didn’t want to go. In fact, I was half-way through a completely different blog post when I realized that I had to move my booty, lest it be glued to the sofa for the next 30 years. Begrudgingly, I traipsed outside.
The sun was giving way to gravity and a whiff of forest fire scented the air. I cruised up and down alleys, peered into gardens, admired leaning sunflowers, pompomed zinnias, the fact that even the best looking squashes had powdery mildew. I found another secret patch of wild blackberries and a plum tree. My old haunt called me, so I crossed Division Street and wandered over to my favorite gardens by my little house of yesteryear.
A man reshingled his garage while his trusty dog watched on. Two kittens–a grey and a black–crouched in the gutter, stalking the bugs of twilight. A garden sign announced: “In Bloom’s Color Winner” amidst explosions of hydrangeas and fuchsias. Another house boasted royal purple dahlias big as a dinner plate.
I saw an older woman cross behind the house. “Your garden is beautiful,” I called out, pointing to the spiky blossoms.
Her name is Betty, and the little guy at her feet, Mr. Chips. His girlfriend lives next door and when he goes to visit her, all Betty sees is his “hiney wiggle under the fence.” She’s lived on the corner for twenty-nine years and she has friends who retired from Sedro Woolley High School and they’re traveling the world now, and she works to raise money for cancer awareness, and all the while, she’s piling these huge dahlias in my hands–a bouquet for your kitchen table, she’s saying–and her gold capped teeth are flashing and I can’t believe she’s not exhausted after weeding all day in the sun. “Someone must have taken the big yellow guy,” she ponders out loud, “But that’s okay, so long as it’s bringing a smile to someone’s face. I garden for the neighborhood, and no one thinks twice about seeing folks in my yard. You bring your scissors by next week and get some asters,” and next thing I know there are two yellow zucchini, long as my forearm, piled in my open hand.
I walked home with a grin on my face and produce in my arms. I stopped to pet the kittens and watched the last glow of light leave the sky. Yes, I did walk through a few gossamer spider webs, and no, I did not get my heart rate up high enough to make up for the pile of brownies I had eaten earlier in the day.
But the next time I lack any motivation, say…tomorrow, I’m going to conjure Betty’s gold-toothed smile. And I’m going to put on my exercise clothes and head outside. Because you never know what awaits.
Room With a View
We’re losing light up here fast, by almost three minutes a day. These final weeks of summer–brilliantly cloud-free summer–are pulling out all the stops to make up for its tardiness.
Soon, it will be dark by 5 p.m. Then 4:15. Mornings, I’ll watch the sun rise over the Cascades on my way to work. A few weeks later, headlights and coffee alone will signal morning. The geese sailing overhead are a harbinger of routines, rain and all.
Years ago, Erin (beloved teaching partner/running mate) and I developed mantras to get our asses up the hill behind Valhalla High School. It was glorious to run down the hill, then out into the brushland and scrub. But the way back–oh, the way back. A Goliath of a hill. I knew to put my head down and not look to the top of the hill. But the burning in my lungs and legs unnerved me. Then it dawned on me: that’s exactly where I was–running up hill, out of breath, about to die, blood pumping, pumping, pumping. And the feeling wasn’t going away unless I simply gave up on the running. My mantra was born: Settle in. I remember that moment of discovery: the hill did not shrink nor did my legs find some new source of power, but my mind did. For many agonizing blocks and minutes, I ran with my pain, not beside it.
And contrary to my belief in those moments, I did not die.
Erin soon found her own mantra: Easy. (As in eeeeaaaassssyyyyy. And there’s a hand gesture too, like a pushing down of the air with both hands.)
So we charged up hills, mantra in mind.
Years and continents and states later, Settle in has not left me. I summoned the saying while in India, riding the bus back to Kolkata in the sticky, swampy heat only India can manufacture. A herd of uniformed school girls sang songs in Hindi at the top of their lungs and the bus paused, then sat, then turned off its engine in the middle of a traffic jam. It had been a long day. Men in kurtai’s with scraggly beards peered into our parked bus. Despite the green light, not a single car moved across the intersection. The smell of too many pre-pubescent girls on one bus wafted down the aisle. Sweat beaded under my salwar kameez. The other white girl on our school expedition consulted her watch: “We’ve been sitting here for 27 minutes” she said. The bus windows only cracked open halfway. The nun on the bus wouldn’t let us open the door or let us out in the middle of the city. Undoubtedly, in an ironic twist of fate, I found myself in Dante’s Inferno while volunteering at a religious school. The girl in front of me kept checking her watch. And I thought about running the hill behind Valhalla–I decided to settle in. It was perhaps the second time in my life where I didn’t let the overwhelming nature of the situation consume me–where I found a bit of zen–nah, “zen” is too nirvana sounding, and believe me, there is not an ounce of nirvana to be found when 49 adolescent girls, rife with body odor squeal a rendition of Britany Spears at the top of their lungs for twenty minutes in stopped traffic. No, decidedly not zen. Peace? Acceptance? Yes, I found acceptance with my surroundings.
So, up here in the PNW, I am getting ready to settle in. I am squeeing at the prospect of the rain forcing me inside to read a book, to graph out the raised garden beds, of researching and interviewing for the new book idea I’m so fired up about. I can’t wait to drive towards the sunrise. Can’t imagine how simple life might be: no moving! no monumental life-event to plan! no commuting via plane to see my honey! no world trip to plan! no world trip to pay off! For the first time in perhaps four years, I am ready to settle into serious routine.
Alley Berry Breakfast
But first, with what may be the final glory days of summer, I must pick the ripe blackberries down the alley and paint the garage.
Respirators always help while settling in--(before)
Remind me, will ya, when I start bitching (around the second coat) to settle in.
Let me tell you how to sweep away the stress of moving, collectively, four times in one year. Of living on two temporary jobs. Of living in two states and then two counties. Of buying an old home. Taking twelve units. Working part time. Of organizing a wedding. Of hosting herds of people at your house. Having to start another school year.
Lean in close.
I left the stress that has been the last 365 days on the ferry ride to Orcas Island. And because it was our honeymoon, and because those three days will be forever knitted into the fabric of my baby marriage, I’ll leave you only with a brief log of what you must do when you make your way there. And I know you will. You must. It even takes away the sting of losing the wedding rings two days before the wedding. (And finally conceding that they are lying (together forever, as N so sweetly says) at our local landfill.)
Watch the clouds zebra stripe the sky over lit fields.
Laze a rainy day away while oogling the tree house, gardens, and of course, the pottery at Orcas Island Pottery. Begin the totally worthwhile calorie accumulation of your finest day of eating–ever–at Rose’s Bakery and Cafe. Langor over the cauliflower soup and the rain. Discover early island life (a man who rowed 10,000 miles in the same row boat! A pre-historic bison!) at the Orcas Island Historical Museum (well worth its $5 entry fee.)
Relish the finest meal of your life from Doe Bay Cafe.
Sticky Date Cake with Cardamom Ice Cream: Auh-maz-ing
And be sure to scour out a camp site so next time you eat there you can roll back to your tent.
While the weather’s just so-so you can hit the trails for minimal exercise.
And discover gems of waterfalls in Moran State Park.
When the weather turns–and it will–grab your favorite beer and head to the beach. Perhaps Obstruction Pass?
And you must whale-watch. I don’t mean to get too picky, but go at sunset. It will look like this:
You’ll be in awe of being so close to this:
A visit to The Lower is a must–they have Ninkasi on tap!
If you feel the need to burn off the calories you’ve been collecting, head to the top of the world–Mount Constitution. Though only 2,400 feet, it has been suggested that the 360 degree maritime view is second only to Rio de Janeiro in the Western Hemisphere. From Baker to Rainer to Vancouver to Bellingham, the view is worth the hike from the bottom (you can also drive if you’re feeling extra lazy.)
Swing by The Kitchen for the potsticker special to eat while waiting in line for the ferry.
On the way home, I’d advise you to stand at the bow of the vessel and watch the world go by. Feel the wind across your cheeks and breathe in the salty air. Hold the hand of a honey and marvel that this great world of ours–nature and all of her bounty–can wash away the wrinkles of a year.
And when you return, buy a replacement wedding band for your new husband at Sears.
This Saturday, I have the absolute privilege and honor of marrying NF. I also have the legal right. It’s a mother effing shame not all of us do. (And yes, worthy of the swearing.)
I’ve donated to Lambada Legal every year.
In honor the of the right I’m going to exercise, I’m urging you: what will you do to ensure Civil Rights this year?
If you’re on the fence, read this.
And remember what Martin Niemoller said:
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Liv has missed you. And I know your life has not been complete without hearing from her since–GASP!–April. So, to the latest installment of my award-winning baby manuscript:
After breakfast I went home and logged onto my computer. I didn’t know what I was searching for—just looking, I told myself—though I’d typed “Summer Henty” into four search engines and scanned all the sports photos from Santa Barbara high school’s web sites. I had to see another picture of her. Had to see her. Had to find that inlet of memory and follow it to the source.
So somehow, I clicked and navigated and Googled and clicked and a chugged a bottle of wine and ended up at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations website.
When the page loaded, the sight of it made me wince. Though half-squinted eyes, I watched the faces of “California’s Most Wanted” scroll across the screen. I forced myself to tap my cheek instead of bite my nails. They were down to nubs, anyway, the lavender polish cracked and chipped like a broken window.
The menu on the left had links: victims, visitors, offenders. I clicked on the visitor’s section, where more information spewed forth than I knew what to do with. It dawned on me that I didn’t know what prison Donna was in. How would I find her in this mess? The only thing I knew for certain was that the familiar rush of rage I always associated with Donna Henty had still not poked its head from the murky waters of my insides. Since I’d delivered my parents’ ashes, that feeling had muted? Died? Outside seagulls called atop the bay-side palms. It was Summer, not Donna I needed. I left the window open and spent another bottle of wine looking for the blonde in gingham, plus eight years. It was like she didn’t exist. Not possible. I had to find her.
My eyes, blurry with chardonnay, wandered through pages and pages, and then I found an “Identification Unit/Inmate Locator” link. Clicked. The page gave me a number to call and the information I would need to find out where Donna was held: full name and complete birth date. How would I get that? Further down it said that the phone line was only open Monday through Friday until 5:00 p.m. It was Sunday morning. Couldn’t do anything even if I wanted to. All this to find a girl. To scavenge a memory.
Still, I rifled through the pages of the Internet, learning that I would need Donna to fill out and send me a questionnaire that I would then have to complete and return before I could visit. There’s no way I could do that; I couldn’t even find what prison the woman was in. Plus, I didn’t want visit the woman. Couldn’t I just call her or something? Find out where Summer was? But she’d need to know that I wanted to call also. What if I ended up not doing anything? What if this was one of those fanciful whims that snaked its way up my sleeve, and slithered out the very next morning?
But the next morning, I called my Aunt Karen.
“Tell me about Costa Rica,” she said.
I ran through the necessary details.
“And everything went…okay? With the ashes?”
“Yeah. I freaked out a bit, but when it happened, it just worked, you know?” I sat at the kitchen table, yellow legal pad and pen ready to take notes. I drew circles, a pyramid of them in the far corner of the paper. Turtle eggs? “So I got the letter.”
“Huh?”
“The letter. It came a couple hours after you left. Before I left.”
“Oh, gosh, Liv. That was supposed to arrive when you got home. I’m sorry. I hope you just tossed it. I would, you know, but they’re not mine to toss. Oh, sweetie, I should have waited.”
I looked up from my drawing across the room to the door, where I could see the bay. Blue, blue. “I opened it.” A boat across the bay. “I might go see her.”
“What?” Her voice cracked. I imagined her red curls splitting at their ends, her green eyes popping out her head at the thought of me visiting Donna Henty.
“Go see her. In prison.” I drew curved lines off to the side of my pyramid of circles. Waves? Drew the patchworked shell of a turtle.
“See Donna Henty?” She paused long enough for me to draw another set of turtle eggs. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”
When I had moved to San Diego six years earlier, Karen had allowed herself, for the first time, to have a life outside of me and her third grade classroom. Despite her husband and eighteen month old, Sophia, and despite the fact that I was twenty-three, Karen still channeled my mother, still spread her wings and squawked loudly when a predator circled.
“Idea? Yes. A good one? I don’t know.” I couldn’t possibly tell her about Summer. She would flip.
“It just seems like you’ve finally moved on, the ashes and Pete and all. I’d hate for you to open a new can—
“Just thinking about it. Didn’t say I was going tomorrow.”
“I know how hard all this is for you, sweetie, and you just got back from Costa Rica…”
She’d started calling me “sweetie” ever since she’d been pregnant. Usually, I could handle it. Today it made me want to throw the phone at her. “It’s different now.” My voice clipped. More waves on the page and now a dorsal fin peeking out. I cleared my throat, softened my voice. “It’s something I have to do.” I didn’t mention the picture, the dream. The scrap of memory. She wouldn’t understand. It wasn’t worth trying to explain.
***
The next day I sat down to write a letter to Donna Henty.
Donna,
Could you send me a visitor’s application form? I’d like to ask you a few questions.
Olivia Simpson
I folded and stuffed the sixth draft into an envelope. Walked it down to the blue mailbox, stood with the dark mouth open, let the letter fall in as I squeezed my eyes shut. Two steps away from the mailbox, I spun around. Shit! No taking it back, I realized, peering into the dark hole. The lid clanged shut. Palm trees swayed “no” in the August breeze. Life caterwauled on around me.
Nine days later I pulled out the familiar white envelope, two different kinds of handwriting on the outside. In addition to my forwarding address, Karen’s pen had scribbled: Call me!
Olivia,
Of course I’ll answer any questions you have. It’s the least I can do. It would mean so much to me if I could apologize in person after all these years. Here is the visitor’s form. I hope to see you soon. I understand if you can’t make it.
Sincerely,
Donna Henty
Enclosed was a questionnaire, complete with full name, social security number, driver’s license number and a litany of questions that implied I might be a convict too. I filled it out late one night after a half bottle of an ’01 Chianti. Drummed my fingers on my cheeks and fiddled with the glass vial around my neck. Ran it to the mailbox after downing the final splash of blood red liquid courage. I hated that I had to go through this circus to get to Summer, but I’d called the attorney who had prosecuted the case, and he said the only way to find out about the “other girl” was to go through Donna. “And that’s not the kind of information people give out very willingly, you ought to know.” He acted like I was trying to revive my parents. Just a memory, I almost shouted into my cell; just looking for a god damn ounce of memory, you bastard. Acting like he couldn’t spare a second to answer my questions.
A month later, in early September, I received approval from the warden of California Institution for Women to visit Donna Henty, inmate number 16744578. Visiting hours were on Saturdays and Sundays, and I read through the long list of rules regarding what could be brought in: ten photos, ten diapers, one unopened box of tissues, one transparent pacifier.
I let the approval sit around for several weeks taped to my fridge.
“So, you’re really going?” Pete asked, grabbing a Pacifico from the fridge. Dirt was still under his nails from work. He had just finished telling me about the deck he built for a house out in Rancho Santa Fe. Not the kind of small job he normally did, but the money was good, and future jobs promised. “Nor Cal redwood all the way around,” he grinned, revealing his chipped tooth.
I could picture him out in the September sun, a glint of sweat along his forehead, his shoulders, his back.
But argh! Those fingers. “Your nails are so gross. Don’t you wash those things?” I teased. I snagged a swig of his Pacifico. “Maybe. Maybe I’m going. And hey,” I brought my hand to his face, “don’t get so much work that you don’t have time to work on our boat.”
“Our boat?”
“I like to think Boati’s ours.” I winked up at his almond shaped and colored eyes.
“I’ll go with you if you want.”
“Where? To the prison? Not with those nasty hands, you won’t. I won’t be caught in public with you and those dirty nails.”
“Seriously.”
“Seriously. I’m going on Saturday and you have that big house to finish.”
“Saturday? You’re going this Saturday? Don’t you have to teach?”
I shook my head. The new session of rowing classes had begun at Mission Bay Aquatic Center, but I’d rescheduled one of the classes. Grabbed his beer again. It was news to me too.
“Well, you know what Pema Chodron says, right?”
“No, Pete, I don’t know what Pema Chodron says? And who is he anyway?” Pete’s ability to pluck a quote from thin air always amazed me.
“She. She is a Buddhist nun and she says ‘The only reason we don’t open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don’t feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else’s eyes.”
“How long have you had that rattling around up there,” I touseled his hair, “just waiting to use it on some poor, damaged girl?”
His crooked smile showed his chipped front tooth. “Forever. Just make sure you look in her eyes.”
The countdown is on:
in T minus 16 days (eep! can I get it all done?) I get to marry my best friend.
It makes me grin just thinking about it.
There will be a vintage dress! Frisbee! Cold beer! One almost finished handmade quilt (right, Mom?) A fiddle! Miniature pigs!
SQUEEE!
Now back to work!
Every Sunday ought to be just like this:
collecting driftwood
finding flipflops on blackberries
testing rope swings
fetching fresh crab
gobbling plump berries
eating larger than your head ice cream (but you have to share) (and still toss 3/4 of it)
(“famous for their immodest icecream cones”)
Writing in the Rain 