Poor Mom.
She chop chopped.
Her finger top off on the onion block.
It fell in the sink.
But she did think
To Ziploc it tight for Emergency
With a bag of cold peas
Went the amputee
Who carried the flesh, assured it would be
Unfit for the Pot Roast, stewing at three
Monday, December 20, 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Doughnut Confidential
This is a very serious subject.
Retract earlier statement: this is not a serious subject. It is funny and slightly sad and borders on embarrassing. I spelled embarrassing wrong the first time around. That was embarrassing.
This is the little known story of the doughnut and what it means to me. Take with care the cryptic secrets I am about to unlock. These are the ex-files, no, not that 90s FBI show about unsolved paranormal phenomena. It is the story of the first "ex" and doughnuts. Yes, that kind of "ex."
If you just gasped, fearing a flood of expletives on its way, or Lord-knows what people say in public about their private relationships, I will do nothing of the kind. You are a few and cherished readership, I refuse to drive off. After all, this story is not about me, its about doughnuts. And other things I deem interesting to say.
I am off-putting the inevitable doughnut story. It's because I really don't want to tell it. But with the virtual mask of the blogosphere to my advantage, even the reticent speak with bold and reckless abandon.
Something at the 24-hour Winchells Doughnut shop on Rosecrans went horribly, terribly wrong. It was not their heinous mispelling of doughnut as "donut", though regrettable. It was really the fact I was sitting at the Winchells at all. I hate that Winchells, and not just any, you see, but that one in particular, off some junky San Diego side street. I'd have the notion to set it ablaze. Don't take that comment too seriously, more in the literary sense of the word fire.
Formerly, I was apt to offer up my heart over a sugary doughnut treat. But this was not the occasion to share a sugary treat, or in any case, my heart. No, not then. I was there to wave the white flag of failure.
My first boyfriend who shall remain nameless, because names are not important and remember, (this story is about doughnuts) thought it appropriate to discuss our fated ending in this doughnut shop.
Mortified, tears of acceptance ran down my cheek as the man behind the counter witnessed our relationship dissolve into nothingness. I nurtured a little bit of hate for him, I will confess, being the vendor of the tasty treat my former boyfriend enjoyed before me with the ease of a midnight snack. I could have fried him in his own grease, that pretentious doughnut seller.
It would take the passing of many holiday dinners to remind me how to eat for pleasure again that year. That was embarrassing to say, I want you to know. But that cavalier, finger-lickin' damnation of our time together was a revelation for me. With a stomach churned of grief, I learned to overcome.
Retract earlier statement: this is not a serious subject. It is funny and slightly sad and borders on embarrassing. I spelled embarrassing wrong the first time around. That was embarrassing.
This is the little known story of the doughnut and what it means to me. Take with care the cryptic secrets I am about to unlock. These are the ex-files, no, not that 90s FBI show about unsolved paranormal phenomena. It is the story of the first "ex" and doughnuts. Yes, that kind of "ex."
If you just gasped, fearing a flood of expletives on its way, or Lord-knows what people say in public about their private relationships, I will do nothing of the kind. You are a few and cherished readership, I refuse to drive off. After all, this story is not about me, its about doughnuts. And other things I deem interesting to say.
 |
| Photo courtesy of herobyday. (Black line courtesy of myself :) |
The deep-fried sugar-glazed comfort I have always known and loved, preferably with a slight maple coating and shaped in the rectangular Roth's Family Market way, was once threatened to destruction forever. Culprit? Emotional ties to eating; memories associated with taste and smell that can revive delighted-in childhood memories, or alternatively, fear and loathing.
I have this miraculous capacity to overcome the latter kind of memory; the time when I threw up chocolate, and the bravery, or ignorance, exhibited when I dared to eat semi-sweet morsels again. It is a strength I hope to pass on to future generations.
Formerly, I was apt to offer up my heart over a sugary doughnut treat. But this was not the occasion to share a sugary treat, or in any case, my heart. No, not then. I was there to wave the white flag of failure.
My first boyfriend who shall remain nameless, because names are not important and remember, (this story is about doughnuts) thought it appropriate to discuss our fated ending in this doughnut shop.
There were no fond attachments to this doughnut house, no memories or visits there together--it wasn't even the halfway point between our two places of residence. But there I stood, before the high heaven of heart attacks on Rosecrans Avenue, glaring with a feeling I deigned to accept: heartache.
I should not have agreed to go. But I had this intractable hope for normalcy between us. I like to call it Fanciful Notion #1, this hope that drove my car into the space next to his. There would be many notions of like-kind to follow.
At Winchell's, Home of the Warm 'N Fresh, on a September-something evening, I was feeling quite the opposite. Cold and stale was a closer reading of my hard-convinced heart that things were not right in the universe of our couple-hood.
But to be fair, it wasn't the doughnut seller's fault. It was the handling of my honest emotions poured forth; as a grease traced napkin, once possessed of something sweet, now tossed aside with irrelevance. It was the fact that I could not think, let alone eat in the wake of this loathsome feeling, as I watched my once boyfriend lick his fingers of powdered sugar, washing his hands of what had been.
It would take the passing of many holiday dinners to remind me how to eat for pleasure again that year. That was embarrassing to say, I want you to know. But that cavalier, finger-lickin' damnation of our time together was a revelation for me. With a stomach churned of grief, I learned to overcome.
Silly as it seems, years later the enjoyment of an apple-cider doughnut on the stop before home by Bauman Farm's has never tasted so empowering. Now considering that day, I am determined not to be rid of my love for deep fried fat. Men come and go and I've decided that the doughnuts for one, shall keep coming.
You can laugh if one day I'm fat, permission granted. I'll laugh too because that's what fat ladies do, or is it sing? At least I'll be happy. Happy for a memory, though sad, not to destroy the sweet little things I love about life. I have extracted the final ounce of meaning left in this doughnut story and have only to leave you with this Warm 'n Fresh wisdom. Eat your heart out Winchell's, it's nothing personal.
Friday, November 19, 2010
I can't take it in...
There are moments in life, I just can't take in. Moments given at an appointed time, more fulfilling than that one moment's capacity. So much, that I must fasten to them again, later in thought. Returning and remembering anew. When time slows its march, suspended and spinning like a glass ornament, I am defined. By times often happy and doubtlessly, good.
The tiny still-sleeping breaths of my baby niece, I could bottle. Lifted to my ear, they are as the sound of the ocean in a conch shell.
Watching dawn and dusk close upon an infinitely spreading African plain. A prayer lifted for each cup of suffering spilled over Ugandan earth, bitter with the blood of past wars.
The pure belief of Lucy Pevensie, slipped into a dream-swept corner of Narnia. The lightpost lambent with mystery and adventure in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
My tears returned as salt into the Pacific ocean, where the Creator of its vastness spoke comfort to me from the ancient words of Psalm 81:
I am the LORD your God,
Who brought you out of the land of Egypt;
Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
The aroma of coriander in endless hours of watching hope rise and fall with the capacity of an organism as minute as yeast. A lesson of patience, yielding an edible reward.
Breath leaves my body slow in one long release--life just couldn't be, any more...
Thoughts. Pictures.Words. Images. My soul awakens to each, containing a trace of great glory that one day I will abide in fully.
The tiny still-sleeping breaths of my baby niece, I could bottle. Lifted to my ear, they are as the sound of the ocean in a conch shell.
Watching dawn and dusk close upon an infinitely spreading African plain. A prayer lifted for each cup of suffering spilled over Ugandan earth, bitter with the blood of past wars.
The pure belief of Lucy Pevensie, slipped into a dream-swept corner of Narnia. The lightpost lambent with mystery and adventure in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
My tears returned as salt into the Pacific ocean, where the Creator of its vastness spoke comfort to me from the ancient words of Psalm 81:
I am the LORD your God,
Who brought you out of the land of Egypt;
Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
The aroma of coriander in endless hours of watching hope rise and fall with the capacity of an organism as minute as yeast. A lesson of patience, yielding an edible reward.
Breath leaves my body slow in one long release--life just couldn't be, any more...
Saturday, November 13, 2010
"She thought"
How would it be if my life were a book? A moving piece of literature breathed in and out by an author who narrated the script of my mind and thoughts. A bore, a comedy, a life examined? I switched off the lamp next to my bed a few nights ago, only to be struck by the silliest narration of thought:
"And she would surrender to fatigue, but for thoughts that keep her away from sleep, which comes so voluntarily to most."
Me: Uh, hello? Imagination, was that you? A commentary on myself in the third person. Is that allowed?
Clearly, I've indulged in too much fiction.
Non-fiction has always seemed to carry the purest kind of truth. It's honest from the start: no shadowy characters to dechiper, plan and simple, traceable fact. I am a journalist for a reason.
As it turns out, with fiction I am lately enamored. Pages unfurl in beautifully crafted details and characters teeming with all the freedom of embellishment; my soul churning with a satisfaction that could only be met by fantasy.
I have settled into the idea that it is not fiction's job to define truth, rather, to exist because there is truth. Fiction is the counterpart to fact: the backlighting of reality. Shadow illuminates and enriches life, but does not tell the whole story.
Like the black and white prints of Ansel Adams, contrast provides meaning. It opens the mind for some truths readers are not ready to accept in plain sight. Such truths must be communicated with the guile of an active imagination. They must fly under the radar of our defense mechanisms and be weathered patiently with characters. Only then will the author accomplish his goal, to prod at our weaknesses and possibly reveal hidden strengths.
If ever the world were more than what we see, it is with fiction's help that the reader gains the "eyes to see." A temporary suspension of what we already know about things, to accept the possibility of something more.
Like all fiction has an author, so do I. Once just a plot before the lines were written, my days were as the Psalmist proclaims:
"And in your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them."
And He will be my author and perfector, the One who the grave could not hold. He who said "It is finished," will reserve those words for the heightened penstroke of my final breath.
Of His work in me the postscript will read: "Surely, Lauren, I have made new."
Should I think the narration of my thoughts so unbelievable after all? It is His breath I borrow, in His spirit I abide and the workmanship of His hand on which I tread.
He is the fact beyond the fiction of these shadowlands and dim-lit mirrors into which we discern truth. These things will pass away as promised, into the full light of eternity.
"There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever." Revelation 22:5
Until then, morning and night, sleeping and waking as my pages turn.
"And the next moment she knew of, dawn broke through her eyelids..."
"And she would surrender to fatigue, but for thoughts that keep her away from sleep, which comes so voluntarily to most."
Me: Uh, hello? Imagination, was that you? A commentary on myself in the third person. Is that allowed?
Clearly, I've indulged in too much fiction.
Non-fiction has always seemed to carry the purest kind of truth. It's honest from the start: no shadowy characters to dechiper, plan and simple, traceable fact. I am a journalist for a reason.
As it turns out, with fiction I am lately enamored. Pages unfurl in beautifully crafted details and characters teeming with all the freedom of embellishment; my soul churning with a satisfaction that could only be met by fantasy.
I have settled into the idea that it is not fiction's job to define truth, rather, to exist because there is truth. Fiction is the counterpart to fact: the backlighting of reality. Shadow illuminates and enriches life, but does not tell the whole story.
Like the black and white prints of Ansel Adams, contrast provides meaning. It opens the mind for some truths readers are not ready to accept in plain sight. Such truths must be communicated with the guile of an active imagination. They must fly under the radar of our defense mechanisms and be weathered patiently with characters. Only then will the author accomplish his goal, to prod at our weaknesses and possibly reveal hidden strengths.
If ever the world were more than what we see, it is with fiction's help that the reader gains the "eyes to see." A temporary suspension of what we already know about things, to accept the possibility of something more.
Like all fiction has an author, so do I. Once just a plot before the lines were written, my days were as the Psalmist proclaims:
"And in your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them."
And He will be my author and perfector, the One who the grave could not hold. He who said "It is finished," will reserve those words for the heightened penstroke of my final breath.
Of His work in me the postscript will read: "Surely, Lauren, I have made new."
Should I think the narration of my thoughts so unbelievable after all? It is His breath I borrow, in His spirit I abide and the workmanship of His hand on which I tread.
He is the fact beyond the fiction of these shadowlands and dim-lit mirrors into which we discern truth. These things will pass away as promised, into the full light of eternity.
"There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever." Revelation 22:5
Until then, morning and night, sleeping and waking as my pages turn.
"And the next moment she knew of, dawn broke through her eyelids..."
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Things I think about New York
I am experiencing an "Empire State of Mind". Skyscraping grandeur and population choked streets fill my thoughts, smeared with cabs and clothing I can't afford. However cliche this soundtrack may be to those who have visited, I know New York City only as Jay-Z and Alicia Keys collaboratively suggest.
My closest encounter with the Big Apple was secured from a safe distance in d.c. as I wishfully intercepted its urban energies. But at last in the new year, we shall meet, preferably in Central Park, scarf swaddled and holding hands with a handsome.....dream.
Speaking of dreams, I'll be a few months too late for participating in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade as I've long desired. If my d.c. address becomes a permanent one, I will make it happen. Either way, Miracle on 34th Street will soon be in my DVD player.
New York, your glamour is irresistible. Yet I sustain a reservation or two about your reputation. Hollywood's promises to the starry-eyed female journalist are peddled by nearly all attractive co-stars of Matthew Mccounaughey. Do your streets really steam when back lit by a couple in love? Do your columnists muse over fire escapes and at trendy sidewalk eateries? OK then.
Soho, Greenwich village, Times Square, Lady Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, street vendor hot dogs, dance schools and book stores. Meg Ryan, I am just as dwarfed in this city as your little Shop Around the Corner.
We will maintain our respective differences, New York and I. After all, I'm still getting used to the idea of musicals. And fielding unusual and at times inappropriate remarks from strangers still makes me blush. I own a Yankees hat and am not a fan. But I could be? I really don't watch baseball on T.V. But I do know about Derek Jeter....
Will your concrete streets make me feel brand new? Will your big lights inspire me? I have reason to think so.
My closest encounter with the Big Apple was secured from a safe distance in d.c. as I wishfully intercepted its urban energies. But at last in the new year, we shall meet, preferably in Central Park, scarf swaddled and holding hands with a handsome.....dream.
Speaking of dreams, I'll be a few months too late for participating in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade as I've long desired. If my d.c. address becomes a permanent one, I will make it happen. Either way, Miracle on 34th Street will soon be in my DVD player.
New York, your glamour is irresistible. Yet I sustain a reservation or two about your reputation. Hollywood's promises to the starry-eyed female journalist are peddled by nearly all attractive co-stars of Matthew Mccounaughey. Do your streets really steam when back lit by a couple in love? Do your columnists muse over fire escapes and at trendy sidewalk eateries? OK then.
Soho, Greenwich village, Times Square, Lady Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, street vendor hot dogs, dance schools and book stores. Meg Ryan, I am just as dwarfed in this city as your little Shop Around the Corner.
We will maintain our respective differences, New York and I. After all, I'm still getting used to the idea of musicals. And fielding unusual and at times inappropriate remarks from strangers still makes me blush. I own a Yankees hat and am not a fan. But I could be? I really don't watch baseball on T.V. But I do know about Derek Jeter....
Will your concrete streets make me feel brand new? Will your big lights inspire me? I have reason to think so.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Not for long, they'll fly away
The Northwest is at its gentle change of seasons. A curtain of rain is pulled over the valley, to ensure an immediate soaking of mild summer memories. Allspice and cardamom are readied at the whim of handy bakers.
Cloud banks part by wintery sky and cool like berry rivers of a homemade cobbler. Barefoot and hovering over the sink,I watch the sun burn away valley mist.
In September there are always suprises. There are perfect afternoons, temperate in beauty and impermanent as a leaf suspended in a spider's magic trick. The seasons promise us things that don't last and so with joy, we accept fall's transitional trance.
Bees feast in the caverns of grounded orchard pears. If only I could catch a few to make me honey. Would they stay in a home I hollowed out for them? My dad said, "Not for long, they'll fly away."
The promise of Hendrick's peaches on the corner lot made my skin itch at the memory of their fuzz just under my nose. The branches were bare this year. Maybe they forgot I would be expecting them...
Cloud banks part by wintery sky and cool like berry rivers of a homemade cobbler. Barefoot and hovering over the sink,I watch the sun burn away valley mist.
In September there are always suprises. There are perfect afternoons, temperate in beauty and impermanent as a leaf suspended in a spider's magic trick. The seasons promise us things that don't last and so with joy, we accept fall's transitional trance.
Bees feast in the caverns of grounded orchard pears. If only I could catch a few to make me honey. Would they stay in a home I hollowed out for them? My dad said, "Not for long, they'll fly away."
The promise of Hendrick's peaches on the corner lot made my skin itch at the memory of their fuzz just under my nose. The branches were bare this year. Maybe they forgot I would be expecting them...
To Kill A Mocking Bird
As I read To Kill A Mockingbird for the second time in a long time, I'm reminded of just how much I love it. Naive but wonderful observations and childhood questions are sealed within its pages. Sometimes hope is broken, but Harper Lee always makes it seem beautiful. Maycomb is a place to linger under the Camellias of a Southern summer I haven't lived, but am apt to feel a bit more like I did.
Childhood is a strange country. It's a place you can come from or go to—at least in your mind. For me, it has an endless, spellbound something in it that feels remote. It's a little like a sealed-vault country of cake breath and grass stains where what your do instead of work is spin until you get dizzy.—Lyall Bush
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)