seasons.

Every week  feels like a season.

If you want to get truly romantic (read: nerdy), some of the best chefs say there are 52 seasons in a year. (Which is technically true.)

One week you have figs, the next, they’re gone. That makes them so much better though. Only being able to have this one thing, for one week. I still think about Oregon strawberries and how I would eat so many they would make me sick. But I also have this memory in my brain that tells me what a strawberry is supposed to taste like and I will forever know it on my tongue.

Maybe that’s how I feel these days. The weeks fly. Some days feel longer than others. Meanwhile I sit around, scratching my head wondering when I’m going to dive in again. Maybe do something radical (in my own world) again. I’m not so good at seeing things that are in front of me. The day in, day out grind of working for a better world. Leaving this thing better than how I found it.

So far, I feel like I’m doing my part in my tiny corner of the world. I’ve yet to have to buy diapers for a child (okay sorry) or fly all over the country selling things I’m not very passionate about. I think about my carbon footprint all of the time. I live two miles from work. I stay kind of close.

I do forget to bring my reusable grocery bags, though. (This maybe carries the biggest conviction for me.)

I feel these things with a sense of urgency most days. That’s probably anxiety, in fact I know some of it is. I realize there are lots of things on fire. Some days I’m tossing lighter fluid, some days water.

I’m also excited and eager. I wish my body could keep up! Connecting my brain to what my body can handle is one of my newer  seasons. It’s also called getting older (which blah blah blah, I know, boring but for real it’s a sign that says, “Slow Down, Curves Ahead”)

Oh, the curves.

This season I’m thinking a lot about my dad. I am hoping he finds some more peace and clarity. It isn’t easy hitting the brakes. It’s scary jumping into something, somewhere without a map, but he’s good at that, so I’m gonna keep sending him good vibes on that journey.

I think about my mom, too.  My mom, aside from the fact that she is 100% a mom which maybe doesn’t make sense to you, but  my sister will agree, is the vessel I process much of this world through. Not only that, when I’m thinking about what to feed this city I live in,  I imagine how much she  would enjoy. That’s my secret. Would my mom crush this sandwich? Absolutely.

I realize I’m not sharing anything new. That’s not why I write anyways, I write for that one human being I picture in my head.

I want to tell that one person that every week is a season.

When you start seeing the world this way,  I feel excited to learn. Maybe to do more, within the limits of my fast-beating heart and the things that pay my bills. There is always more to do, so be careful with that.

I hope your season is going well. If not, just give it a few days. Things always change. You’re not stuck. The sun rises, the moon will continue to make people act like fools.

There is still time to fall in love. To move to a new city. To try that really weird Japanese dish you’ve been dodging for the last 20 years.

There are so many seasons – –

eat them up.

 

 

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dig in.

I smell the year’s dust burn off the coils and I am immediately put into my place.

The place where I dig even deeper for meaning and someone to share it with. It’s never easy but it’s always necessary. I don’t think it gets easier from here on out, but it certainly becomes more rewarding.

I will dig in, regardless. Another year placing my feet on the ground and putting on enough coffee for one. There is a comfort there that one only has when accepting yourself as loved and cared for because your heart is all yours and you get to indulge in it.

Maybe it is selfish. I don’t give up on other people. I still believe, regardless of how much we hurt one another, that they are the path to the bigger meaning of it all. Feeling selfless is a great feeling, but remembering to also love yourself is even better.

It’s easy to let it get to you — to gnaw into your jaws and clench tight — but you can’t hold it forever. Forever is an awfully long time to let anyone or anything hold you down from who you really are. We’re all still figuring that part out, and some of us never will.

You know your own truths. The truth that maybe you believe cilantro tastes like soap or that you will inevitably love your pets more than your human most of the time. Love is the quietness and understanding, and also the rage within.

Pull it up from your belly and don’t forget to water it and watch it grow. Give it some sunlight and fresh air.

Cut it fresh so that it soaks it in, thirsty for what gives it life and for the knowledge that you will burst open when the moment is right.

And keep your feet warm.

Wear your favorite sweater.

Invest in a tea pot.

Love yourself, and your pets.

Feed and water and give love to both.

Read a poem.

Hug someone because scientifically it’s good for you.

Crunch some leaves.

Eat really good quality chocolate.

Let go of it all for a few moments a day,
wake up, and do it all over again.

becoming

The cicadas have been loud lately.
I’m sure some of you have them where you live, as well. To me, they sound like home. I’ve been finding them on the small walk to my car, when I suppose they’ve given all they’ve had to give, their lifeless bodies and empty shells. Their wings, still shining and glossy and helping me to remember small beautiful things.

The acorns are falling as well. I hear them hit the tin roof of my small cottage every five minutes. More so, when there are squirrels rustling about. The perks of living under a giant Oak.

The pathway to my front gate is becoming over grown with things I know not the name of. My statue of St. Francis is still sitting out there — hopefully bidding some sort of peace to all the things that pass. I try to do the same.

It’s the changing season I feel. It’s hard to see where I am now, but I can listen to it. There is a small frenzy of things shifting. Some things are dying and some things are meant to harvest.

It’s always a season to reap what you sow — except now is when there is some quiet respect for what the Earth gives us and I feel the same.

No doubt, the months ahead have me feeling a little weary sometimes. We are going to be busy at work and we’re going to be missing traditions to help other people hold theirs. Sometimes that’s hard. It’s my job, though — I don’t mind it in this season.

I have put other things on hold — not because I don’t think I can find it — but because there are so many other things I am having to give. And also, I’m doing okay. It might not fit your vision of okay-ness – but that’s not up to you.

Still though, I hardly recognize what day it is. Only now it’s “Who has a table at what time?  When do we have to be there to setup? What’s the menu? Who’s coming in today? Do we have enough celery until Monday?”

Maybe my mind will clear the clutter. Maybe it won’t in this season. Regardless, I am still open to the mysteries and uncertainties. I am letting go more, and more. I am getting to see the darker ghosts of my past disappear and I am shedding their weight.

The trees aren’t the only things that lose those heavier things. We do too. And sometimes when they fall, they are meant for different things. Things you may not ever see in your lifetime, but they are there and they are growing.

Do not fear the moaning and growing because that is all that life will ever be.

Letting go. Moving on, and growing ceaselessly into your own becoming.

coming back.

I wake up every morning in a bed just big enough for me, that used to fit two.

I roll around for a bit. Back. Side. Stomach. Other side.

Taking deep breaths, I realize I am waking up. Officially. I have the luxury of sleeping in most days, due to my night time work hours. But alas, there is nothing like a restful morning, sitting in my big brown chair with coffee, catching up on the world, and at times, looking deeply into my own.

There was something missing.

Thanksgiving was kind of shitty.

And my birthday was last Monday. I arranged a few things, and some other friends invited me into their plans, which was just what I needed. There wasn’t a way I could weather my birthday alone, and I’m thankful that I didn’t have to.

A co-worker recently asked me if I was a Scrooge, or if I enjoyed the holidays. Very quickly, I responded, “Yeah! I just got a tree! Well, a 3-ft fake tree from Fred Meyer, with sad lights, but it’s beautiful! And it was 20 bucks!”

And so now I sit, with this warmly lit Christmas tree that looks like it got into a fight with a cat, and lost. Maybe two cats.

But that doesn’t matter. In the words of Mindy Smith, “..it makes my holiday feel like Christmas.”

Behind my tree are four paintings. They all represent seasons. Summer, Fall, Winter and onto Spring. As it goes. They make a big beautiful tree. I cherish these paintings because they were a gift from my little sisters, Willow and Olivia, who live in Georgia. My dad also helped in their final touches, and he brought them with him when he came to visit not too long ago.

Some days it takes me a long time to snap out of a funk. I’ll dig myself in too deep, knowing in the back of my mind I’ll be okay. I’ll get out of it. It’s a little disheartening to feel myself slipping into it, though. I know when it starts to happen. Bad ideas pile upon themselves and I’m left feeling like I did when I was a kid stuck under all those plastic balls at Burger King.

But like I said, I get out of it.

And days like today, I head into a kitchen, I put my head down and I chop onions.

I know, that if I put them on a low heat with butter and olive oil and salt, they will caramelize into this magnificent, sweet and savory brown sludge. A delicious sludge, albeit.

Also, I’m feeding people I do not know. I fed a gal tonight who was a southerner and said my gumbo was the best she’s ever had since living in Portland.

My sadness feels more like a hangover, at this point. Still sort of there, but on the outro. These good things, these things that make sense in my head jolt me out of it.

That kitchen, has saved me far too many times.

Maybe, it is my love of stainless steel. Big refrigerators. 1/9 pans and hotel pans, the hum of the dishwasher. It all sort of makes sense. Kitchens makes sense. Food makes sense.

All this other stuff, can be messy.

But I’ll take messy. Maybe not so much in a kitchen, but in you, I love messy.

And so my day, as the seasons come and go, will grow and fade and die and come back.

That is life.

Growing.

Fading.

Dying.

coming back.