ALERT ALERT!! There are only two more spaces open for my Wyoming Creativity Retreat in June! If you’ve considered joining me for a week of creating, horseback-riding, and napping next to babbling creeks under the shadow of a golden canyon while a chef makes you dinner over a campfire…now would be the time to act HERE!!
Happy March, Blueberries!
Mar....ch!
I admit I have particular attachment to this month whose initial sounds redouble my own.
Plus, in the northern hemisphere, March has a fresh herbaceous quality to it. First wobbly footsteps into spring; I saw daffodils poke their heads up this morning after spending a whole autumn and winter underground, preparing to bloom. Or was that you?? :)
I devoted February to writing my book and creating my art show, so I don’t have much to recommend, aside from remembering to keep your cat from SITTING ON THE ART.
I do recommend going to a Dolly Parton look-a-like contest, if you can. (I was clearly an attendee, not participant—would have needed more Aqua Net!):
And I do recommend chocolate mousse in general:
Otherwise, here are a few things I learned and enjoyed during a rushed but creativity-filled February:
DOING
I’ve been taking a hip hop dance class every Sunday. I’m usually hesitant to go, and always elated that I went.
Wouldn’t you be too, if this guy was your teacher?!
It’s the only class I’ve taken in a long time that actually makes me feel good about myself. I’m not, uh, Aaliyah, but I like to believe I have some rhythm, and make up for the rest with theater-kid-enthusiasm.
I always end up dancing next to the same woman, let’s call her Paula Abdul, who is 800 million times better than me. It’s stressful.
I figure she must resent my mediocrity in her presence, and sometimes I get the feeling that she’s deliberately showing off in front of me to drive home this point.
Whenever I put some extra flair in my moves, she takes hers up ten notches. Whenever I make a mistake, I imagine she’s gloating.
Or, at least, this is what I thought was happening, until last week.
Paula Abdul and I ended up walking to the locker room after class at the same time, which brought me right back to middle school. By her side, I felt like Mrs. Potato Head next to a beauty queen, which is how I felt for most of 7th grade.
But Paula shocked me when she noticed me nearby, and then stopped to say, “I love when we’re in class together! You always push me to try harder and be better!”
Record-scratch-jaw-drop-say-what-EXCUSE-MOI???
We introduced ourselves, she told me to let her know if I ever wanted to hang out, and then she skipped into the bathroom with a smile.
(This was extremely not at all how middle school was for me.)
The narrative I had in my head was all wrong. Maybe Paula Abdul is intense in class, but that doesn’t mean that she regarded me as a piece of lint on the dance studio floor. Rather, she actually…seemed to appreciate my existence on some level?
I am still processing this information, to be honest. But the point is, our internal monologue is often night-and-day from what’s actually going on here.
How often have you said or been told, “I thought you hated me at first!” or something to that effect? Our perceptions of others’ thoughts are often so ungenerous, and we realize how much time we wasted in assuming the worst.
As someone who constantly believes that everyone is secretly mad at me, it’s a healthy practice for me to resist buying into my own monologue until I’ve done some fact-checking.
To do: If your assumption is that someone doesn’t like you, try assuming that they do like you. Or, at least, revise your worst assumption into one that is slightly more generous.
EATING
Braggs Liquid Aminos
Once upon a time I worked in a cafe situated in the elegant suburb that is “Evanston, Illinois.”
I know that heretofore you assumed “elegant suburb” was an oxymoron, but let me direct you just north of Chicago’s American Toby Jug Museum (please don’t make me explain this) and you’ll end up in a rather lovely collection of streets and houses that will make you turn to whoever you’re with and say, “I could live here, right?”
In any case, when I worked at this cafe, I had a co-worker who always brought Bragg Liquid Aminos to work, to spray on all the leftover produce we had and all it a meal.
I was mystified by this, as someone who scarfed down three chocolate chip scones and called it lunch.
My coworker ate leftover vegetables as though it were something delicious and fulfilling, and apparently it was all thanks to this magical seasoning.
268 years later, I bought this spray-seasoning for myself and realized that it DOES make any conglomeration of leftovers taste delicious, as though the chef had intended for the dinner side of Brussels sprouts to co-mingle with the brunch option of hash browns.
I’ve been making some rag-tag stir-fries this month, and, in an effort to make them taste like I actually intended for the scraps to go together, I’ve been spraying them with this Bragg Liquid Aminos situation.
May I suggest you do the same?
Coconut Stew
I found the recipe for this flavor-bomb on Bon Appetit, but since they paywall it (wouldn’t know anything about that!!), I’m going to rewrite it for you with my own additions, in the way that I write recipes, which I’ve been told is “annoying:”
Chop and sauté a big yellow onion—evocatively called a “Spanish onion” at my favorite grocery store—with a good deal of heft and lots of glorious crinkly skin. The recipe would have you use coconut oil, but I used olive oil and lived to tell the tale.
After the onion is sautéd, translucent, and fluent in Spanish, add some crushed garlic and ginger to your liking. My liking is a couple cloves of garlic and a lob of ginger that looks like it’s growing witch-fingers.
Keep sautéing your little heart out, while tossing in curry powder and cayenne. I would say to be very liberal, regardless of your political proclivities, with the curry, and more conservative with the cayenne.
When this concoction gets really smelly and sticky (mmmm!), pour in a can of coconut milk, a cup of red lentils, 1/2 cup of shredded coconut (trust me), some salt, and 5 cups of water or vegetable stock.
Bring this all to a boil while pretending you’re Strega Nona, then let it simmer for 30 minutes. Feel free to sing, “Best believe I’m making stew, I’m boiling lentils for you, I can still make the whole soup simmerrr…” to yourself.
Add a bag/box of frozen spinach and one of those hefty 15-oz cans of crushed tomatoes (I accidentally got the fire-roasted kind and it was sooooo goooood) and keep Strega-Nona-stirring until it’s all glooped together…..
Eat! Serve with cilantro, lime, and/or plain yogurt if you’re an over-achiever.
I’ve eaten this for lunch every day for weeks!
READING
Pitbulls and Addicts
I was so touched by this article on a recovering addict who cares for neglected and abused dogs as part of his mission to help others struggling with addiction. Precious angel on earth.
He says pitbulls and addicts are “two misunderstood breeds” that need care and acceptance. “I wanted to show people what works for me,” he said. “This lifestyle with dogs just made me not want to cope with drugs no more, but to cope with broken souls, because I was a broken soul. These animals gave me a purpose to live.”
My own inspiration for writing about animals comes directly from the experience of loving my “broken soul,” my sweet kitty Sunny whose troubles and trauma I will never understand, but I signed up to care for.
I am her steward, and she is mine to love: for everything she is and everything she is not.
Because it would take me an entire book to write about what this relationship has taught me, I started writing one. Through loving an animal who is terrible for my ego but transformative for my soul, I learned that I, too, in all my brokenness, could be loved unconditionally.
Intuitively I’ve always had a big heart for pitbulls (I smile gigantically at people walking them), and this article made me want to adopt every last one.
If you haven’t had the honor of intimately bonding with any sort of “misunderstood breed” (dog, cat, human?), may I encourage you to seek one out today?
Rough Sleepers
I’ve been reading a lot about addiction this month—another newsletter for another day—and picked up Rough Sleepers, the story of a doctor who created a community of care for Boston’s unhoused population, particularly those struggling with mental illnesses and addiction.
My stunningly soulful friend, an effervescent Enneagram 7 who knows her own tendency to avoid pain, has resolved during Lent to bear witness to suffering by reading an in-depth article per week on one of the conflict zones in the world. Given the nature of her work and interests, she reads a lot of headlines, but headlines don’t allow us to hold people’s full stories or delve into complexity.
This quote from Rough Sleepers reminded me of her resolution:
“Listening to the man’s story, Jim felt he’d been granted a privilege. This was intimate contact with life, the very thing he had missed during all those years of reading philosophy.”
I’ve noticed my own avoidance of holding people’s full stories while I study social issues at a distance. I crave that intimate contact with life. This book is helping me delve in.