Canning

Yesterday I canned five jars of pickled beets. This delights me to no end, that I "put up" some fresh food. I gave one jar to my brother and opened a second one because I just wanted to taste them, had to taste them. But I still have three perfect ruby jars of canned beets sitting on the kitchen table for me to admire.

I have always wanted to learn how to can food, but the rules and warnings regarding safe canning methods intimidated me. Boiling and sterilizing and sealing and boiling again - it can all sound very risky when you realize an error could create an odorless and tasteless bacteria that is extremely deadly when ingested.

Rachel, a new, delightful, and once misjudged friend, arranged a day for her mother to walk me through each step involved in canning. We arrived at her mother's house around 10:30 am, and we didn't leave until 4 in the afternoon. Ella was well-behaved and respectful of the new and tempting things to open and touch and bang on. While the morning was spent in the kitchen canning beets, the afternoon was filled with splashing around an enormous jacuzzi tub full of bubbles and seashells. Ella was beside herself with the wonder of it all, and Rachel and I talked the whole time. Satisfying, meaty conversation. We had such a great day.

So yes, canning. I am no longer intimidated by canning, and learned that it's simply a matter of keeping things clean and ensuring a solid seal on the lid to prevent bacterial growth. It is a long, labor intensive process that requires much patience, but not as scary as I once thought.

My passion for canning, just now realized in this first tiny batch of pickled beets, is as much a matter of taking up my place in a long line of women through history, as much as it is a matter of feeding my family food that I canned myself, as an active participant in our food chain and local food economy. Canning methods are like oral histories, passed down from generation to generation, caretaker to caretaker, tweaked each round. As nostalgic as it may sound, now I have my place in this history, and in time will develop my own methods and tweaks before passing my secrets on to someone else. And how satisfying to eat food that is free of chemicals and high fructose corn syrup, that didn't travel a thousand miles in a truck to get to our table, that wasn't purchased at some ridiculously marked up price in some organic foods section of the market!

(And also, how ironic that I should leran canning from the mother of a girl I so completely misjudged.)

Now, to plan a garden that I will actually plant next year.

Gossip

I was at a baby shower this weekend for one of my younger friends - she is maybe 21 years old. All of her friends were there, this gaggle of young, perfectly coiffed mothers with beautiful basketball-round pregnant bellies or children already in tow. They fascinated me, these young mothers. My cousin (also hot and young, but not pregnant, and never will be for fear of ruining her hot, perfect body) was also in attendance, and so I I tried to pump her for any information about the gaggle of mothers. But my cousin, she isn't one for gossip, so my curiosity was left unsatiated.

I love gossip. It doesn't even have to be juicy gossip. Any plain old gossip suits me fine. I try not to gossip to judge, to tsk-tsk a decision someone has made or to cast judgment on their life. Instead, I try to gossip simply to know, in the most benign way possible. (But I make no claims to absolute success in this department - I am human, after all.) I just like to know about people - what they do, how they live, what kind of choices they make. Everyone I encounter becomes a character in my head, and I add all the little bits I gather here and there until I have fleshed out the person, or character, in my mind.

In my favorite book on writing ever, Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott writes: "If you are a writer, or want to be a writer, this is how you spend your days - listening, observing, storing things way, making your isolation pay off. You take home all you've taken in, all that you've overheard, and you turn it into gold. (Or at least you try.)"

I remember hearing somewhere (The Hours DVD special features, perhaps?) that Virginia Woolf would incessantly quiz people about their day, about the particular, routine details of their life. She might ask things like what had roused the person from sleep that morning? And if it was the sun, what was the quality of that sunlight - crisp, golden, cold, foggy, what? And what did they eat for breakfast? In knowing these mundane details, she could come to know the person, or maybe gain some insight into a character she was working on.

I think this is truly why I love to blog, and why I love to read other people's blogs. It fills the need in me to simply know how other people lead their lives.

Feng Shit

For the past week I have been a whirling housekeeping dervish. My life has felt stuck lately, like I can't move ahead in the direction I want. When that happens, when I get royally stuck, I usually turn to housekeeping as a way to get the energy flowing again. It may seem archaic, or quaint, or silly, but I find that when I clear out the physical and mental spaces in my life, catalog and organize everything neatly and efficiently, then I can move on and make room for new stuff, new thoughts, new routines, new ways of being. I do this often. It is so freeing, to eliminate the excess and start anew with what's left over.

I have donated more than ten bags of stuff to the thrift shops, and most of Ella's outgrown clothes have been passed along to a baby cousin. I have sorted the books and kept only the must-keeps, and I've tried on and honestly assessed every item of clothing in my closet (!). I even got Chad to purge some of his clothes. I cleaned my storage space at my Dad's on Monday, and last week we cleared off our porch.

I can feel the energy loosening up already, I swear it.

Creativity

I try not to leave holes in this narrative more than three days long, but this post comes after a five day hole. I apologize. I've just been so wrapped up in getting my dreams out of my head and into the real world. The enormous effort required to take action on these dreams has eaten into my blogging time.

You see, I used to make things. I used to make cards and invitations and fun paper things. I used to be crafty. I even used to do graphic design. But, as I've said before, it gets very difficult to keep the creative side of yourself alive when a child enters your world. It's simply a matter of time, and in my case, space. Our home has absolutely no space for me to set up a creative nest.

Lately, this daily lack of creativity in my life has become a nagging problem, a dull headache that won't go away. And I have dreams of using my creativity to generate income, but if I don't address the lack of time and space for creativity in my life, those precious plans can never come to fruition.

I have spent the last few days feverishly clearing out a storage room at my dad's, in hopes of soon having a space for myself to experiment and create, a space to turn my ideas into little things to sell. It is arduous work, clearing out and sorting through years of accumulated stuff. Until I get this work done, please bear with my occasional absence. (Please don't leave me! Please!) I promise it will all be worth it in the end. I'll share some pictures of the final space.

Treadmill Brain

Okay, it is now 10:05 and Ella has gone down for her morning nap. The morning nap is the singular time of day I have alone, second only to night time bedtime. When I lay her in her crib and shut her bedroom door, my mind begins to race, like this:

Check the clock. What time is it? Okay, it's 10:05, so that means I have until 11:30 or maybe, if I'm lucky, noon. I need to write a blog entry. I need to finish Ella's birthday invitations. I need to get my resume sent out to that photographer guy, even though he is in the middle of bum-fuck-nowhere and I would have a huge commute time. Commuting sucks. And oh yeah, the car. The junkyard is coming to pick up the old car today. Oh god, I hope their loud truck doesn't wake Ella up.

Oh my god, what did I just step in? This kitchen floor is really gross. Are those smooshed bananas all over the place or just sticky dust bunnies? Why don't the dogs clean up the bananas anymore? Maybe they're not feeling well. They are due for shots and checkups, I need to call the vet. Call the vet. Maybe I should just clean the kitchen floor and quit thinking about it. But no, write! I want to write! And I have some emails to send. All I ever want to do is write!

Check the clock. Shit! It's 10:30 and I'm still thinking about what to do. Maybe I should go outside to smoke a cigarette. Clear my head. Get some things done because fuck! It's 10:35 already. And the dishwasher is still full. And is that me that stinks? I should take a shower, maybe shave my legs and paint my toenails. But if I don't take a shower, I'll get an extra 20 minutes and then maybe I could get that stuff listed on eBay?

And so on. They say new mothers get forgetful - I think they call it "mommy brain." In my own experience, I think it would be more appropriately coined "treadmill brain."

Round and round. And shit, look! Now its 11:00 and I hear Ella cooing herself awake. At least she wakes up happy. And at least I got to write a little bit.

Home Again

And so I am home from sunny, hyper-real California, having parted ways with the most wonderful friends a girl could have. Each time we get together, I feel rejuvenated, inspired, refreshed. I feel beautiful and funny and creative. Gone are the insecurities about looking frumpy, the hesitation before I speak lest I say something totally wrong. We girls radiate off each other, making each other shine like the gems that we are.




It is always so hard for me to hold onto that inspiration and glow once I return to Real Life where the girls don't live, to dishes and diapers and clothes to be washed. To overflowing coffee filters and dog hair everywhere and not enough space or time for me to spread my wings and create.

This tension between being creative and being a responsible mother and being a loving girlfriend is sometimes difficult for me to navigate. But I think I may have come home from this trip with a clearer map for finding my way. At least I hope I have.

***

Regarding Chad and Ella, as it turns out the house does not entirely fall apart in my absence. Sure, the coffeepot overflowed and the dishwasher needs run and the clothes need washed. But I hear that she was fed and bathed and dressed in clean clothes most of the time. And apparently they had a good time together. Which I can now illustrate for you with a photograph, because Blogger has ceased being a fucker. (edited 4/20/07).