I’m going back to basics this week, pals. Returning to the original format of Three Things, mostly because I can only mine the deep, dark depths of my soul for so long before I need to come up for air. Excuse me while I suck in as much life-giving oxygen as I can. In the meantime, here’s this week’s Three Things.

SOMETHING I’M LISTENING TO: EVERYTHING, ON SPOTIFY

Music is the marrow in my bones, the plasma in my veins, it’s the pump of my heart that sends life pulsing through my body. Raised in a house filled with a full spectrum of art, music has always been the most powerful influence in my life.

It seems just like yesterday and also a million miles ago when I sat in a Starbucks in the early 2000s and breathlessly picked out ten songs of my own choosing and burned my very own custom CD at one of their now-defunct Hear Music bars. Not long after that, iTunes launched and shivers shot down my spine when I realized I had a seemingly limitless library of music at my fingertips in my very own home. Down the rabbit hole I tumbled, sometimes losing myself searching for and downloading music for hours on end. When the first iPods were introduced, my mind was officially blown. My mom was still alive when I tried to explain to her how thousands of songs could be stored on this wee device. I don’t think she ever quite grasped the concept.

My kids have chided me for holding onto to my quaint iPods and allegiance to iTunes for so long. Although I may not be quite ready yet to surrender my tiny blue iPod Shuffle that clips to the hem of my shirt while I’m sweating on the elliptical, I am slowly coming around. I know music streaming is where it’s at and I need to start putting all my eggs in one basket, musically speaking.

Spotify has been around for ten years now. Developed in Sweden, it was an easy choice. I’ve actually had a Spotify account for a number of years, but only recently upgraded to their premium service. I love that I can listen to Bach on Sunday mornings and obscure 70s disco tracks while I cook and switch between the two with a tap of my finger. Chill downtempo dubs? Yes. Trap and 80s house music? Sure! A little Chet Baker vibe mixed with early Johnny Cash? It’s all so easy and right there. Of course I have my favorite songs and artists, but nothing thrills me more than to discover brand spankin’ new music. That never-before-heard song that makes you swoon, that artist that blows your mind, that one trigger that sends you down the rabbit hole again and sets your soul ablaze. Once you’ve used Spotify for awhile, their Discover Weekly playlists become more and more perfectly customized to your tastes. It’s like cracking open the most beautiful Easter egg and discovering oodles of shimmering gems inside.

By the way, did you know Madison McFerrin is Bobby Mcferrin’s (“Don’t Worry, Be Happy”) daughter and her music is dreamy and to-die-for? Thanks, Spotify.

I create custom playlists for all my yoga classes and am often approached about the music I play. With over a hundred playlists on my iTunes account, I’m in the process of switching them over to Spotify so that folks can eventually access all my playlists there. I’ve linked my Facebook to my Spotify account, so feel free to find and follow me on Spotify–my user name is “trixiekat”. Once there, you’ll be able to see what rabbit hole I’m presently in and maybe even take a tumble down alongside me.

C’mon in and join me. We’ll hang out.

SOMETHING I’M COOKING: HARISSA CHICKEN AND CHICKPEAS

Speaking of rabbit holes, lately you’ll find me in the one filled with chickpeas.

Honestly, I’m not a big fan of hummus, but give me chickpeas (also known as garbanzo beans) in their whole, unadulterated form and I’m in heaven. In my younger days, I’d often crack open a can and just eat them on their own. So when I found myself searching for a way to put a jar of harissa paste to good use, this recipe caught my eye.

Trader Joe’s is my favorite place to discover inexpensive little jars of interesting condiments, sauces and seasonings. The bright and fiery orange-red jar of harissa called my name and I dropped it in my shopping cart without much forethought about what I’d use it for. I brought it home and there it sat in my pantry–always so pretty and inviting, but mysterious and exotic, like that attractive stranger you notice in line at the coffee shop but can’t imagine ever talking to.

So now what the hell do I do with it?

After a bit of research, I learned that harissa is a smoky-spicy condiment from Northern Africa–Tunisia, to be exact. Made from peppers and spices, its purpose can be as simple as swirling a small smear into your scrambled eggs for a morning jolt of zing or making it the featured player in a more complex dish. You can make your own harissa fairly easily, too, and thereby control the heat a bit more. Apparently, each jar and tube of harissa can vary widely in the hotness department, so make sure you give yours a nibble before dumping the whole thing in your pan.

The Trader Joe’s harissa packs a mighty punch. You’ve been warned.

I know the Instapot is all the rage these days, but if you don’t have a well-seasoned cast iron pan, don’t even start with me. My cast iron pan gets at least as much use as any of my other cookware and yields results that you just can’t get in a standard frying pan. Cast iron easily withstands a high heat to get a wonderful caramelized crust on things like veggies and meat, and then can get tossed right into the oven for finishing. This recipe can be made without a cast iron pan, but it’s so much better and easier with one.

Harissa Chicken and Chickpeas uses bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs which I adore. You can probably substitute boneless, skinless thighs, or even chicken breasts if you must, but why pay more for less flavor? I love the crispy sear the skin develops with the high heat and the meat cooks better, tastes better and stays super tender when cooked on the bone. You can play around with the amount of chicken stock, giving it more or less sauce as you see fit. I was grateful to have a pile of couscous flavored with stock alongside the chicken to cut the heat a bit. Plain yogurt with a drizzle of good olive oil would be a nice, cooling accompaniment as well.

The best part of Harissa Chicken and Chickpeas is that it’s done in one pan–simple, inexpensive, packed with flavor and spice. Also, chickpeas.

More chickpeas, please. And pass the harissa.

SOMETHING I’M DOING: THE HARD THINGS

My parents gave me many gifts, not the least of which are my love of music and cooking really good food. But in the area of discipline and buckling down and doing the really hard things, they were a bit remiss. I like to give them ample grace, though, knowing that I came along as a seventh surprise towards the end of a wild, crazy ride. I get it. They were tired.

As I grew into a teenager and young adult and found myself faced with a daunting challenge or two, my mom would wring her hands and tell me I could quit. Sometimes she told me I should quit. She hated seeing me upset. Granted, I’ve always tended to feel and express things in big ways–I’m not much for subtlety or a poker face. As a mom myself now, I understand how tough it is to see your kid struggle. But you know, it’s not about the mom. It’s about the kid learning what it means to do the hard things. And how.

Yoga has been my greatest teacher on learning how to do the hard things. Physically, without a doubt–putting in the time and effort to build enough strength, endurance and body awareness to take myself into more advanced postures was where it began. But then came the mental test. Holding a simple pose for an extended period of time, watching my mind shift into overdrive and doubt. Convinced I can’t withstand the challenge, daydreaming of leaving my body and running out the door to find relief. Overwhelmed with fear and self-loathing, my worst enemy is almost always myself.

I’m still learning how to get out of my own way.

So it goes with writing. There is a common misconception that writing comes easily to writers. Any ease of writing that I’ve developed has come primarily from practice, not from any innate gift of creativity or expression. I think most writers would agree that while writing is not easier for us, it is much more necessary.

And sometimes it’s necessary to do the hard things.

Week after week, I write. I struggle. I doubt. I want to quit. My pity parties are unparalleled. Over time, I’ve grown more comfortable with writing poorly so that I can go back, revise and write better. I watch my mind flail and falter into the same self-defeating thoughts I’ve learned to identify in my yoga practice. Through my yoga, I begin to make the connections. I start to understand how I am prone to undermining my very necessary writing practice as well.

And so it goes with life. We show up. We don’t quit. We write that first word of the first sentence of a new paragraph and cringe. We do the hard, necessary things and maybe, just maybe, it gets easier.

I’ll make the playlist and bring some really good food along the way.

 

 

 

Fear.

I don’t consider myself an anxious person by nature, but I’m well aware of the fears I have.

It was Christmas morning when I unwrapped this book--Fear, Illustrated, by Julie M. Elman. Sent to me by my brother in Athens, Ohio, it was as if it had been written for me. As I thumbed through the book and its fantastic illustrations, I saw my quirky self reflected back from its pages. We all have fears, some more than others. And while I’ve often been teased for the strange fears I have, I don’t think I’d necessarily trust a human being who claims to have no fear of anything.

Just for perspective, here is a partial list of things I am not afraid of: going to the dentist, public speaking, big cities, needles, raucous punk clubs, parallel parking, growing older, confrontation, sushi and horses.

Now, I’ll tell you about one fear I’ll always have, another fear I’m working on, and one final fear that I’ve had to face and live through.

SNAKES

The backyard of the house where I grew up seemed big and expansive, as all things seem to feel when you’re a child. We had a large deck that wrapped around and led to a patio, which then led to the lawn, which was terraced into two parts. The upper lawn–where most of the action happened–and then a gently sloping grade which took you to the lower level where wild Oregon grape shrubs and my parent’s failed goldfish ponds were tucked. My siblings and I would take our little green army men and cowboys and Indians and recreate epic battles amongst the bramble and broken concrete.

My father liked to spend hot summer afternoons working in the yard, wearing nothing but his tiny red Speedo briefs. His psoriasis was severe and extensive, covering nearly all of his body except for his face with an angry, scaly, red rash. Clothing would often rub and irritate his skin even more, so he took advantage of the few summer days warm enough to expose as much skin as possible to the sunlight. Although a common sight for me, I was mortified when friends would come over and witness this. They’d stop in their tracks and take in the sight of my father, hairy chest, belly out, scaly chicken legs and softly mutter “oh” as I quickly ushered them into my bedroom to play.

When I was old enough, I mowed the lawn. First, with a rotary push-mower, which took forever and whose blades would jam if the grass was too long. Later, my dad proudly bought an electric model–complete with a long, snaking cord that needed to be plugged into an outlet at the house in order to run. The cord was cumbersome, always getting in the way and I constantly feared it becoming caught in the mower blades and me being electrocuted to death.

But the threat of electrocution was nothing compared to my fear of snakes.

After mowing the main level of lawn, I’d park the mower at the top of the hill, run inside for a cool drink and an bushel of courage. You see, the snakes lived down there. On that lower level, they found refuge in the terracing stones and would slither out on the warmest afternoons to sun their scaly skin, much like my father liked to do. Early in the season, I was safe and could successfully mow both sections of lawn without incident. But come August, all bets were off. Always wanting to do a good job and be praised for my efforts, I’d steel myself and start the mower up. Things would be going smoothly, confidence increasing, so very sure I was in the clear.

And then it would happen. It always happened.

As if laying in wait, the snake would appear, sometimes just one, but on the worst days–two. I’d often hear it first–the subtle rustle of the grass, the slight slither of movement. There was no thought, just  instinct and adrenaline. A blood-curdling scream and a swift sprint to shelter in my house, abandoning the mower and its ridiculous cord down below. It would usually take a day or two before my father or a braver, older sibling would finally finish the job and bring the mower back to the snake-free confines of the garden shed.

It’s just a harmless garter snake! everyone tells me. There is no such thing, I reply.

My family was camping in southern Oregon, on our way to the Shakespearean festival in Ashland when my sister and I awoke early, before the rest. Let’s go for a hike, my sister suggested, so we set off towards the rocky hillside that towered at one end of the campground. Clambering up the boulders, I was all of nine years old and thrilled to be included in this adventure. Higher and higher we climbed until I turned, hearing an ominous rustle. There, just beneath the cover of a large boulder, lay a coiled rattlesnake, diamonds on its back, shaking its tail. No thought, pure instinct and adrenaline, blood-curdling scream, one sneaker lost in my desperate scramble back down to the campground, sobbing hysterically.

I woke up the entire campground that morning in southern Oregon. I like to think I warned everyone about the dangers of rattlesnakes nearby.

Even today, I will double-back and retreat if I see or hear a snake on the trails in the woods by my house. I cannot look at a photo, let alone a video, of a snake. And don’t even suggest exposure therapy to me.

Snakes and I will never find peace.

BRIDGES

I spent the first two decades of my life in a place called Lakewood. Unlike some places whose names are descriptive but not at all indicative of the actual environment, Lakewood really has five lakes and a whole lot of woods. It’s changed massively over the years, but back then, Lakewood was an idyllic place to live and play.

The second largest lake in Lakewood, and the one I lived nearest to, is Lake Steilacoom. From our back deck we had a peek-a-boo view of the lake, our house just one lot away from the water. I’d often ride my bike down the narrow and winding Interlakken Drive, past stately stone mansions and more modest Colonials to get to my friend’s house on the other side. A bridge spanned the width of the lake, sometimes filled with optimistic fishermen or mischievous teens. Once on the bridge, I’d pedal my bike as fast as I could, looking straight ahead, legs tingling with nerves and let out a big exhale as I got to the other side. As summer neared and school emptied out, I heard tales of older teenagers tossing others off the bridge–a rite of passage, a ritual of sorts. Not any kind of swimmer myself, I consciously avoided the bridge during most of each June.

Bridges freak me out.

It didn’t help that not far from me was the Tacoma Narrows Bridge–also known as “Galloping Gertie”. The black and white footage right before its collapse in 1940, its bridge deck undulating like a belly dancer’s midriff, is permanently etched in my brain. We’d often take the Narrows Bridge on our way to Gig Harbor and points west for a day trip or camping. I’d hold my breath, not daring to look left or right, until we safely made it to the other side.

As I got older, I tried to figure out what it was about bridges that frightened me. The floating bridges across Lake Washington in Seattle don’t bother me much, even when the wind blows the water up and over my car.  If I can see the looming expanse of the bridge in the distance before I cross it, my anxiety level increases substantially. The Astoria-Megler Bridge, which connects Washington and Oregon at the mouth of the Columbia River is a classic example. Even simply driving past this bridge on my way to the Oregon coast shoots shivers down my spine. Pitch and grade seem to make an difference, too, none more anxiety-inducing than the Eshima Ohashi Bridge in Japan. I have nightmares about that bridge.

And like most fears, it’s not rational. I know the bridge won’t break. I’m fairly certain I’ll be fine. And yet.

It wasn’t long ago that I was New York City with my kids. Taking a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge was on our bucket list of things to do while we were there. Our Airbnb apartment sat on the Lower East Side, not too far from the Brooklyn Bridge, but much closer to the Manhattan Bridge. It was Friday night and we had spent the day traversing Central Park and browsing at the Met. My feet were blistered and I had just come back from a much-needed foot massage in nearby Chinatown. The three of us, exhausted and sore, but we were in New York City on a Friday night.

“Hey, let’s walk across the bridge!” my son suggested with the energy of someone thirty years younger than me.

We decided on the Manhattan Bridge–a short ten-minute walk from our apartment. The sun had already set on a warm summer night, the city aglow with shimmering lights and bustling energy. My feet, still greasy from my massage, slipped and slid in my flip-flops, reminding me of my blisters. But we were New York City on a Friday night!

As we neared the bridge entrance, my breath quickened. I felt the familiar trepidation creeping in. My kids knew about my phobia and checked in regularly. How you doin’ mom? they’d ask. I’m okay, I assured them, trying to convince myself.

There was a broad, separate path for pedestrians and cyclists on the bridge, so the rush of traffic didn’t affect us much. Steadfast in my goal, I trudged on as the bridge deck rose from the surface street, approaching, but not yet above the East River. I can do this I can do this I can do this ran the mantra in my head. I wanted to be brave for my kids. I didn’t want to be the scaredy-cat mom. I wanted to share this victory with the people I loved the most. I imagined the high-fives and atta-girls I’d collect across the river in Brooklyn. How proud they’d be! How proud I’d be! And then I remembered I’d have to cross the bridge once again, all the way back into Manhattan.

The bridge rose higher and the East River was now becoming visible not too far in the distance. I took deep, slow breaths, but vertigo set in and my head began to spin. My legs, buzzing with that familiar tingle. I don’t think I can do it, I told my kids. They cajoled, they encouraged, they offered moral support. I didn’t want to ruin the experience for them with a full-on panic attack, so I decided to turn back and let my son and daughter continue on to Brooklyn and back on their own.

Alone and only a little bit disappointed–after all, I was still in New York City on a Friday night–I made my way back down to the bridge entrance. Finally on my own, I was able to slow down and immerse myself in all the sights and sounds and smells of the city–taxis and cyclists, all in a focused rush to get somewhere important. I breathed in the perfume of wood-fired pizza from a sidewalk bistro mingling with aromas of garlic/ginger/soy/seafood as I neared Chinatown. I stopped at a Thai ice cream shop, ordered a cup of matcha rolled ice cream and took it back to our apartment. I sat on the balcony, three stories above the bustle, and waited for my kids to return. I decided to give myself grace rather than wallow in defeat.

There’s something heady about facing a fear and giving yourself a personal challenge. It’s powerful stuff, even if you don’t succeed. I know I’ll make it back to New York City one day soon. In my mind’s eye, I imagine myself confidently striding across both the Brooklyn and the Manhattan bridge by myself. Maybe I’ll document it with a video on my phone. Maybe it will be a private victory. Maybe I’ll bring someone with me for moral support.

No matter how I do it, I like to finish what I start.

MY PARENTS DYING

Spoiler alert: my parents died.

I was the youngest child of seven kids. My mother was forty-five years old when I was born. Even by today’s standards she would be considered an “older mom”, but back then, it was virtually unheard of for a woman of her age to give birth. I’ll be fifty years old when you’re in kindergarten! my mom would often lament.

I was always aware that my parents were the oldest parents on the block. The oldest parents at my school. The oldest parents of anyone I knew. I’m not sure how or when it began, but I was always aware of death and afraid that my parents would die.

Mortality on my mind.

As a very young girl, I’d lay in bed at night, reciting the familiar prayer, “Now I lay me down to sleep…” silently to myself. At the end of the verses, I’d add “And please let my mom and dad live for many, many, many, many, many more years.” I’d often drift off to sleep in the midst of the “manys” and wake up, worried that I had jinxed it somehow.

My father was a heavy smoker and developed heart issues as he aged. After a scary episode while he was teaching at the college, my mother returned home from visiting him in the hospital. “I just didn’t think I’d lose him this soon!” she sobbed, still frantic from the incident. Her distress distressed me, but I also felt secretly pleased that she seemed to still care about him. My parents had a complicated and imperfect marriage. As it turned out, my dad made it through the crisis. With a new prescription for nitroglycerin and a diuretic, life returned to normal.

Through my childhood and teenage years, my mom had a few serious heath scares and we all lived under the threat of my unpredictable, sometimes violent brother in the house. But no one died.

I consciously counted the milestones in my life my parents were around for: establishing my career, getting engaged, getting married, buying a house, having my first child. When my son was two, my dad became critically ill.

Other than my grandparents, with whom I wasn’t especially close, I had never lost someone I loved. This was it, I thought. Here we go. I had to prepare. I threw myself into research, buying books on death and dying, reading about grief and what it felt like, trying to imagine life without my dad. He was always stubborn and a bit cocky and wasn’t ready to die. He talked about wanting to live to see the year 2000.

But he did die.

The hospice nurse called me the morning of his death. Your father is showing signs of dying soon, she told me. I asked her to be specific. Tell me what you mean, I insisted. Calmly, compassionately, she listed all the physical changes he was going through until I was satisfied. You should come now, she said.

My father died before I got there. I’m pretty sure that’s how he wanted it. Or at least that’s what I’ve told myself.

I had never seen a dead person before but I wanted to see my dad. I entered his room and saw a man’s body in a hospital bed, eyes closed, mouth slightly ajar. That’s not my dad, I thought.

My dad had left the building.

It was the middle of March when my father died. Corned beef and cabbage were simmering in the oven that evening, the Mister and my son playing quietly downstairs. I stood at my bedroom window upstairs and gazed out at the blustery day, letting my grief wash over me in unfamiliar waves. My eyes hurt from crying. So this is what it feels like to lose my dad, I thought. I couldn’t believe that everywhere else, life just went on, as if nothing had changed. Because everything had changed. I turned to leave when out the corner of my eye I caught a flash of color rise up in the gray sky. A bright red mylar balloon, set free from somewhere, swirling and whirling in the wind, floating up into the clouds. I squinted as I made out the words on the balloon:

I love you. 

Me, too, Dad. Me too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ORANGES

I saw the sign for the Cara Cara oranges as I strolled through Central Market last Wednesday, picking up a bulb of fennel and a few stalks of celery for the pork ragu I had planned for later in the week. Five pounds for five dollars. A buck a pound. I picked out three oranges, weighing each in my hand to determine juiciness, before wrapping them in a bag and tossing it in my cart.

My Thursdays begin before dawn and lately I haven’t been getting home until much later in the afternoon. My Thursdays are my Fridays and my body knows it. As if on cue, my muscles go limp once I’m home on Thursday afternoon. Flopping on the sofa with just a hint of drama, I kick off my shoes and feel the drop of adrenaline snake through my veins. That invisible force that keeps me moving forward through all my classes promptly exits, stage left, and I’m a slug.

A body in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted on by an outside force. 

Sofa = outside force.

Over the past month I’ve had a strong craving for citrus on Thursday afternoons. Vitamin C deficiency? With no oranges or grapefruit in the house, I tear open a pack of Emergen-C and mix the powder into a glass of water. It’s refreshing and quenching, but not quite satisfying. It’s happened enough on Thursdays that I pay attention now.

A decade ago, I faithfully followed the Atkins diet. It’s surprisingly healthy–not the bacon and eggs diet that the news likes to paint it as, but mostly vegetables, protein and fat. Fruit was prohibited, especially in the early stages. More than the crusty bread or bowl of pasta, it was fruit I craved the most. The crisp-tart-juicy crunch of a fresh apple. The soft yield of a ripe honeydew melon, giving way to a wave of sweetness. A just-right Bosc pear with a slim knob of cheddar. And the citrus–grapefruit and oranges, in all their varieties. It didn’t seem right to abolish all this natural fruity goodness, but I’m a rule-follower. Years passed without me ever biting into an apple or pear.

The springtime of eighth grade was when I began bringing a single navel orange in a thin, brown paper sack to lunch everyday. Ever since my best friend had unceremoniously disowned me earlier that year, I dreaded lunch time. I’d enter the cafeteria, scan the room for an empty seat, ideally far away from my ex-friend and her new, drill team squad. Someone would usually welcome me over and I’d sit, pull out my orange and start to dig my fingernails into its bumpy skin. Oranges were the perfect foil for a lonely lunch break. It took a good amount of time and focus to peel off the thick skin of the fruit and then, the careful stripping away of the papery membrane beneath. Once the white pith was removed, the sectioning began. I’d section as I ate, elbows perched on the table, holding the remaining orange in one hand, nonchalantly slipping the sections in my mouth with the other. If I timed it right, it would take the entire lunch period to fully peel and eat my orange.

I can’t believe all you eat for lunch is one orange! a classmate wrote in my yearbook that June.

Rule #3: Let them be astonished at your discipline.

The bag of Cara Cara oranges sat on the kitchen counter, untouched. It was Thursday evening and I was already in pajama pants and fuzzy socks. I looked at the oranges and felt the familiar craving for citrus, right on schedule. I pulled one from the bag, held it in my hand and contemplated how to eat it. Cut into neat wedges and torn from the skin with my teeth? Or the more primal, skin-ripping, oil-squirting method I used as a teenager?

My fingers dug deeply into the skin–so deeply that I punctured the delicate flesh underneath. I kept on, though, splitting and ripping orange peel, until the brilliant rubied-flesh of the fruit was fully exposed. The Cara Caras seemed more fragile than a traditional navel orange, so I gave up trying to neatly section the fruit and instead, shoved the jagged pieces, dripping with juice, into my mouth.

Craving, vanished.

A waver of guilt, leftover from my Atkins days. Disobeying the rules. A flashback from junior high. The safe silence of me and my orange.

Fingers, sticky, messy, covered with pith and pulp. Unkempt.

DONUTS

My best friend in seventh grade, Kathy, had a kitchen full of illicit goodies. Cases of Coke and Dr. Pepper, boxes of Milky Way candy bars, multipacks of Cheetos, Fritos and Lays to drop into lunch sacks and always, a large, brown, waxed cardboard box filled with old-fashioned donuts from the day-old bakery across the street from Bowlero Lanes.

My own family’s paucity of comparable snacks made Kathy’s stash all the more beguiling.

My favorite after-school snack at Kathy’s was one of those old-fashioned donuts and a tall glass of whole milk. By this time, skim milk was all my mother would buy and the thick, rich whole milk tasted like sin and goodness. The very best of the worst. But it was the crispy crunch of the outer crust of the donuts that I loved the most. The sugar glaze, spread and nestled into uneven crags. The cake-y insides, not as sweet as the rest, but soft and welcoming. Sometimes my teeth ached in response.

Later in seventh grade, Kathy and I shared a paper route. Dutifully mounting the heavy canvas bags of carefully folded Tacoma New Tribunes on our Schwinn Varsities, we rode through our neck of the woods, tossing papers on porches and stuffing others in narrow boxes at the end of long, gravel driveways each evening. It was a good job for a thirteen year old. My paper route paid for my first pair of red-striped Adidas Superstar sneakers and my bright orange Schwinn ten-speed I named Nigel.

And on Sunday mornings we ate donuts.

Not the slightly stale, old-fashioned donuts from Kathy’s kitchen, but fresh, hot, raised and glazed donuts from the Original House of Donuts.

Our route crept through our sleepy suburban neighborhood and always emptied out right before Gravelly Lake Drive, where the traffic got busy. The Original House of Donuts, with its iconic A-frame shape and unmistakable bouquet of yeasty delights sat on a quiet corner of Gravelly Lake Drive and would lure us in like a cat to catnip. After delivering our hefty load of Sunday papers at the crack of dawn, our appetites were primed and ready. We’d shake out a few quarters and dimes on the counter and pick and choose our favorites. Maybe a cinnamon twist or a simple chocolate-glazed? Maple bars were always good or is today the day we splurge for the pink frosted with sprinkles?

With our bikes perched on kickstands, we’d sit on the curb outside and inhale our sweet reward before cycling back to our respective houses and burrow back into our beds.

I moved away from my hometown in my early twenties. Donuts loosened their grip on me, partly due to my ever-increasing litany of food rules, but mostly because all the grocery store varieties and Krispy Kreme versions were sorely lacking. If I was going to bother having a donut, it might as well be the best.

Growing up and having a couple kids brought with it frequent trips into nostalgia. Usually once a year, my daughter’s gymnastic schedule took us to Lakewood for a meet, a mere five minutes from the Original House of Donuts on Gravelly Lake Drive. Extolling the virtues of the finest donuts in the world, I’d insist we stop in and fill a pink box with a dozen or so. Once, I brought a box in for the gymnasts to share after competing. Most of the girls–all preteens or just beyond–gazed sadly at the selection and shook their heads no, thank you.

I recognized that gaze. Longing. Resolve.

It was just last month that I took a Friday to travel down to Tacoma to visit my new great-nephew and my sister, Karen. The rain was insistent and cold, the freeway a constant blur of gray spray. Like a homing pigeon following its instinct, I took the Lakewood exit and dropped into my old neighborhood. I’m always startled by the change–how this once bustling place I spent my life growing up in now seems like a ghost of its former self. I turned onto Gravelly Lake Drive and saw the familiar red neon “donuts” sign beckoning down the block. Pulling into the parking lot, I exhaled and sat in my car for a few minutes, surveying what used to be everything I knew. The red-brick building of the bank my parents used, remembering the silver coins my mother would drop in my palm after cashing her checks at the drive-through window. The shoe store next door, with its giant “Shoeland” markee, now a vacant skeleton of a business, the sign disappearing decades ago. Across the street, a flat, freshly razed lot where the vacuum cleaner repair shop used to sit. The beauty parlor, demolished and scraped clean as if it never existed.

Inside, the warm, familiar scent of yeast and sugar. My Sunday mornings, bottled up in one whiff of that perfume.

I choose four pastries–a cinnamon twist, a chocolate glazed, a maple bar and one filled with Bavarian cream. I paused, as I always do, as I paid the counter clerk and debated whether or not to regale her with tales of my Sunday morning paper route and what this shop had meant to my formative years in this town. As I always do, I took my change and left with a simple “thank you.”

Back in my car, windows streaked with raindrops, I pulled out the cinnamon twist, brushing the shards of sugar from my lap. I took one bite and set it down. That’s enough, a voice told me. I paused and closed my eyes and felt my breath. I picked the twist up again and took another bite. And another. I sat in my Prius and finished the entire thing.

Rule #17: Never, ever eat an entire donut.

Little victories. Sweet victories.

FISH AND CHIPS

I sat in the therapist’s office and silently judged her. Probably fifteen or more years older than I, slim and conservatively well-dressed, she seemed more cold than warm. I had found her listing on the back page of the Seattle Weekly, advertising counseling for eating disorders. Her last name–Erlandson–seemed strongly Scandinavian and thereby trustworthy to me. Although I was newly married and years beyond the most extreme of my anorexia, my anxiety over food had skyrocketed. Body dysmorphia cast a dark, looming shadow over every important relationship in my life. Sometimes, I still resorted to hundreds of frantic leg lifts behind the bedroom door.

What you see is not always what you get.

This therapist and I worked together for several months, meeting once a week or so. I was in my late twenties and portrayed a pretty picture of tangible success–good, interesting career, stylish and relatively slender. But as soon as I opened my mouth, a cavalcade of jumbled emotions tumbled out. We talked about food and the hold it had on me. We talked about food and the power I gave it as I freely abdicated my own power away. We talked about food until I hated talking about food anymore and insisted we stop. When we stopped talking about food, she led me through a guided meditation, the vivid images of which have stayed with me throughout all these years.

What scares you the most? she asks me. Eating, I tell her. Eating what? she presses me. I stop in my tracks, overwhelmed at the list of things I’m too afraid to eat.

She sends me on my way with an assignment. That evening, I am to choose something I’ve forbidden myself to never eat and eat it. Just do it. No rules.

For the rest of the day, my breath is shallow and a thick ball of nerves sets up shop in my belly. The assignment hangs over my head, dark and forboding. I could lie, I think to myself.

I hate lying. I choose fish and chips.

I choose an Ivar’s Fish and Chips where I won’t run into anyone I know. Sitting in the parking lot, I watch as families and singles go in, order, sit at the tables inside, seeming to enjoy their food. I am in awe. It seems like too much. I fantasize about leaving and going to the gym instead. Finally, I get out of my car and go inside. The young girl at the counter seems friendly and not judgmental at all.

Three piece fish and chips to go, please. Tartar sauce? Okay, sure.

Rule #22: Never eat in your car. It is gross and gluttonous and looks like you have no control.

I sat in my car and took out the small cardboard tray that held my assignment. It smelled like failure and despair. Hot grease and crispy, fried things.

Rule #12: Never eat anything deep fried.

I draw the first piece of fish to my lips, hot and steaming. I nibble. I stop and put it down. There, that’s enough. I let it cool a bit, then take another bite. The next piece I dip in the tartar sauce. I pick up a french fry and eat it. How long has it been since I’ve eaten a french fry? Years. A decade, maybe. I finish eating and crumple the bag and take it outside to the trash at the restaurant. I drive home with my windows open, airing out any evidence of my indiscretion. I feel sick to my stomach and full of shame and self-loathing.

Baby steps, my therapist consoles me as I report back. It gets better, she says.

My Thursdays are my Fridays and my body knows it. With three yoga classes taught and under my belt, I had just finished my last physical therapy appointment. The sun was out after a sprinkling of snow the night before. From my therapist’s house, I can see Puget Sound and hear the distant horn of a ferry boat crossing from Whidbey Island. I had forgotten my little bag of nuts I carry in my car to keep my blood sugar and hunger in check when I don’t have time to eat. My stomach rumbled and growled in response to the six hours since my last meal.

I turned right instead of left and headed down the hill towards the ferry terminal. An Ivar’s Fish and Chips sits at the bottom of the hill.

The sun was shining, but the air was full of ice and frost and the driftwood still speckled with spots of snow nestled in their nooks and crannies. I took my order of fish and chips to my car and parked in a space right in front of a glistening water view. I pulled out the familiar cardboard tray and gazed at the pieces of fish, still hot from the fryer. Funny, they don’t look that powerful. I glanced up and saw a few hearty souls, bundled up to their ears, briskly walking the picturesque waterfront. For a fleeting instant, I felt the familiar shame and embarrassment of eating in public.

See rules #3, 12 and 22.

I finish my lunch, satiated and content. The bag and a few leftover, soggy fries, tossed in the garbage can at the end of the beach. I breathe in the salty, frigid air and take a short walk, my exposed calves in my yoga tights stinging from the cold. I snap a photo or two, always and forever in awe of the natural beauty I live so close to.

Back in my car, heater on blast, I brush a few crumbs from my t-shirt before backing out and heading home. I look down again and notice the word, printed in white capital letters, emblazoned across my chest:

UNRULY.

Finally.

 

 

 

 

It’s the season of Lent.

According to the Christian liturgical calendar, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. This year, Ash Wednesday fell on Valentine’s Day, February 14th. This year, February 14th was the date of another mass shooting at a school in America.

A holy day. A day of foreheads crossed with ash. A day of love and candy hearts. A day of unimaginable terror, loss and pain.

At Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, seventeen people were killed at the hands of a young, white man using an AR-15 rifle. Seventeen families’ lives altered forever. A new, awful reality.

Blood red hearts. Silenced. Still.

I bring up Lent and the Christian calendar and yet I cannot tell you what I believe. I am the baptized daughter and granddaughter of Lutheran ministers and I’d love to confidently say I believe in a loving and benevolent God. But the truth is, the older I get, the less faith I have. While my grandfather fulfilled the more conservative, traditional picture of a pastor, my father did not. He was a man of quiet faith and liberal leanings and didn’t talk to us much about God and even less about Jesus. By the time I was born–the youngest of seven children–my family’s church going had dwindled to an occasional drop in the bucket. Following a series of unfortunate events, my father ultimately left the ministry, became a college professor and spent most of his Sundays as the choir director, pounding out “A Mighty Fortress” on the church organ, rather than preaching from the pulpit.

As a child, I never even learned the simple words to “Jesus Loves Me.”

What I did learn from my father is that having faith sometimes means that we fall out of step with popular culture. The season of Lent is a time to consider letting go, doing without, fasting, abstaining. To be honest, I rarely took Lent seriously and almost never participated. But this year is different. I may not have a lot of faith these days, but I do believe in the power of stepping back and stepping off the mindless hamster wheel of life. I believe in the value of paying attention and doing without that which we have grown to depend on–a dependency that may have crept up on us unnoticed.

This season of Lent, I’ve chosen to step back from my dependency on social media.

A dear friend of mine described her renegotiated relationship with Facebook as a “snack”, rather than a full meal. An amuse bouche, an aperitif, a simple taste of what’s going on in our friends’ lives, rather than a five-course feast on what may or may not be reality. I set out on this journey away from social media a few weeks ago and was immediately struck by how many more hours in the day it felt like I had. It was a substantial difference–considerable enough to motivate me to continue. This week, I’m sharing with you three things I have been doing more of since stepping back from Facebook.

THING ONE: SWEATING

With raggedy-jaggedy torn meniscus ligaments in both knees, rest is not my friend. As my physical therapist often reminds me, our joints like to move. They need to move in order to stay functional. Since I no longer begin every morning with a cuppa joe and an endless scroll of my newsfeed, I now arrive at the gym early before teaching my classes and get busy getting my sweat on. The elliptical trainer is my new best friend and my knees seem to approve. Even though I had stayed active with hikes in the woods and a passel of yoga classes, I’d missed the serious sweat a good cardio lashing gave me.

Heart-pounding, blood-pulsing, muscle-reviving.

I don’t sparkle. I sweat. I sweat buckets and bushels from my pores. Full-body baptism. Born again.

The elliptical is just the beginning. I move on and lift and pull heavy things. Grip and grunt, powerful might. Strong as dirt.

Muscle swell. Bicep bulge. Call and response.

Alive and kicking.

THING TWO: READING AND WRITING

Reading and writing go hand-in-hand. You can’t write well unless you’re a reader. Every writer needs to read more.

Reading my Facebook feed throughout the day deadened my writing. It killed my creativity and massacred my motivation. There was never an instance where I spent time on social media, pushed away from the computer and felt inspired to do anything, let alone be more creative.

Ennui. Languid. Apathy for as far as eyes could see. Like a virtual virus.

So, I begin my day reading poetry or an essay or a chapter from a book. My notebook sits at my elbow, ready for a few scratches of ideas, a theme to flesh out, a doodle or two snaking down the margins. The critical voice of my inner editor is hushed. Shhhhhh–not now. Words, ideas, shapes and scenes tumble forth without second-guessing.

For my eyes only. Spiritual, creative push-ups.

I wrote and sent Valentines to a few friends. Sentiments of love, trails of thoughts, prayers of appreciation. Gratitude and grace. I wrote a letter, a real letter, on paper, stamped and addressed and delivered. When was the last time you found a letter in your mailbox?

Would you like to? Would it make you happy? Or do you not have time?

THING THREE: COOKING

It was a rare Friday night that we were all together for dinner. The Mister, myself, my son and daughter. Dinner together, the first since Christmas.

Too many years were wasted believing I didn’t deserve to eat. When I did eat, I was careful to not enjoy it too much. For me to fully relish food and its preparation equated to gluttony. Gross. Fat. Unloved. Unloveable. Those messages are still rampant out there–on social media, television, magazine covers, sometimes even from friends and family. It’s insidious and weakens the potential power of every woman on earth.

Sustenance. Hearty, heartfelt. Imagined, prepped and simmered, served with love. Breaking bread. Connection and conversation.

Holy communion.

That’s what food and cooking equate to me today. My weekends are for cooking and preparing meals to last me into the busy week ahead, so that I’m not tempted to resort to food devoid of soul. You know that stuff–food that’s over processed, prepackaged, quick to heat and eat but leaves you hollow and empty. Less time on Facebook gives me more time to plan, shop for and create meaningful meals to feed myself and my loved ones.

Nourish. Manna from heaven.

A sacred Friday night shared with my family. Spinach and chickpeas, caesar salad and crusty bread. Bellies full, we draped ourselves across our new sofa and watched Jeopardy and then Olympic ice skating, collectively gasping at every bobble and spill, triple and quad axle and lutz. The quad of us. Divine fellowship.

Here’s the recipe I cooked that Friday night, the Spinach and Chickpeas. Born of Spanish origin, the smoked paprika is where it’s at. I use at least twice as much paprika as the original recipe called for. You be the judge. Make it for someone you love, or for yourself on that night when Facebook simply won’t fill you up.

It’s the season of Lent. Letting go, doing without. Stepping out of our habitual rhythms, dwelling in the possibility of connecting with something greater.

I hope someday I can tell you what I believe. I wish had the answer to the crisis our nation is currently in.

I know for sure the answer is not on Facebook.