nancydrew's Blog

For a great many years I have been told what dish to bring for family events.  It is never anything I want to make but I make/bake/cook what I am told.  There is a hierarchy among 'farm women' and having grown up in that environment I respect this tradition in my in-laws.  My mother-in-law has a passel of sisters who have a passel of daughters and daughter in laws, it is in this hierarchy that I am considered a mid-level newbie.  There are three major events each year that require me to bring a predetermined dish to pass.  It is within these three events that we are judged.  When I say judged I mean really judged and sometimes rather harshly...never to your face but I've heard comments after someone has left that were down right snappy for these hard-core church going women.

A few years ago I was told to bring a dessert to Easter dinner.  Not the main dessert...heavens no but a side dessert, a simple, little dessert.   Dessert is major in the farm woman world of dish passing.  This was a big test and I knew it.  At this point I should mention that I cook and bake and feel quite confident in the kitchen.  I don't host the huge family events because as I have mentioned I am still a mid-level newbie but I do host all the immediate family events and I have proven I can lay down a damn fine good meal.

  Back to the simple dessert...I scoured my collection of old cookbooks for something old school but nothing popped out at me.  At the time Paula Dean's cooking show was first being shown on the Food-Channel.  There is something about her that reminds me so much of a dear friend that passed on(I have my theories about Paula but that's a whole other story) that I watched and on that episode she made this easy cheesecaky thing that was an old timey recipe of her Me-maw. This was a recipe I had never ran across before, so I copied it and decided to make that.  Totally old school, super easy, economical and obsure...perfect...perhaps I'll move up the food toting chain. 

Using muffin tins, paper liners and a vanilla wafer as a crust you make a standard Philly cream cheese batter and bake.  I used lovely vintage patterned paper liners, added aromatic lemon zest and a wee bit of food coloring giving each batch a pastel hue.  That morning before leaving I made from fresh cream whip cream and to that I also added lemon zest and in small batches dyed the whip cream to match each little cake.  I plated these pretty little things atop paper lace on an antique milk-glass three tier serving dish with fresh crocus petals placed about.  I thought it looked beautiful.

Easter is always held at the cabin.  We are always late and that year was no different, everyone was already nibbling and milling about.   The aunts were clustered around the table as they always are, eating and eying up the newbies offerings.  My offering, which I humbly held almost behind my back got a flat "Isn't that pretty... Put it in the laundry room out of the way, dear"   The time comes for dessert and people are eating mine, the younger people, not the aunts.  I received a few compliments which spurred the queen aunt to sample my wares.   BIG LAUGH..."Girls, try one.  Remember these?  How many of these things have you made an eaten over the years?  (more giggles and nods)  Honey, we use to make these back in the sixties for every pot-luck that came down the pike."  "Does anyone want the rest of mine?"  My pretty little dessert was being waved by chubby farm worn fingers like a rain soaked donut.  I didn't pass muster that year.

I have never given up.  Each event I bring as told and do my @^@#$^# best to win the favor of the aunts and move up the food toting chain.  I have watched other newbies move up the chain but I have yet to have my break out dish. 

This Easter I wasn't asked, I wasn't told, no one said anything to me.  When the kids asked what I was bringing and I told them I didn't know yet, I sort of began to worry, as did my daughters...they too know their future, their playing field and the level of the bar.  Maybe I've been cut. (gasp!)  Some have been, you know.  My sister-in-law can only be trusted to bring store bought buns and there is a cousin that can only bring butter and if it isn't soft she gets her cage rattled.  Then there is the well told story (witnessed by me, my first year of competition, which was the year I was told to bring crackers) of a girlfriend of a cousin who brought fruit pies without asking and bragged about them to boot.   The aunts deemed the pies way too sour and the crust pre-made and the rest of what was said I won't repeat, but what was said was pretty rough and let me in on how cut-throat dish passin can be.   All I know is never brag about your dish and never go up against an old farm woman with pre-made pie crust...in fact never bring a pie. Always lie and say they make the best pies and offer up something else.  You can't beat em so don't even try.    I don't know if it is just a coincident but that girlfriend didn't last.  So you see this is pretty serious stuff.

Knowing the story you all tell me...

At the ninth hour I get the call.  It's my mother in law with queen aunt in the background...she asks me about my youngest's size in clothing and other random Easter stuff.  Freaking that I am not going to be asked I ask.  "What should I bring Sunday?  Long pause, hand held over the phone, then "How about making those rolls you make?"   ROLLS?  Shit!  Those rolls that I make require a day for the dough to rise and would take me all night to bake off enough for the Easter crowd.  I am honest and tell her respectfully "At this late date I don't think I can pull it off.  At their best is right out of the oven and Spunky sings at church Sunday... I just don't have the time to bake them after church and get up to the cabin before we are getting yelled at late.  Is there anything else I can bring?"  Another long pause, more hand over the phone, and then I get this "You're the chef make whatever you want, that will be just fine."  I am then told what everyone else is bringing so my dish, whatever I choose, will compliment the rest of the meal's offerings  

I don't think I have bumped from mid-level newbie to aunt status, which is you call it, you bring it.  That kind of ladder jumping is unheard of.   I think this may be my final test or I am being set up to fail.  The stakes are huge, the bar has been raised.  I feel I have been challenged.   

The main course is ham, naturally and since this a German bunch there will be sausage, lots of sausage.  I have decided with confidence to make beans and cornbread.  Navy, pinto and black beans slow cooked with smoked ham hocks from the butcher, beer instead water, onion, leeks, parsley, garlic, butter, Old Bay and a wee bit of hot sauce.  A lucky find of fresh milled cornmeal, rich cream and farm fresh eggs should give my cornbread a good chance.  I'll add a bit of meat from the hock, sour cream and nibblet corn, cook it in a hot oven in my old cast iron pan.  I'll soak the beans overnight and finish them off slowly while at church.  The cornbread I'll throw in while we are at home changing clothes.   Learning my lesson from the wee cakes my presentation shouldn't be too flashy.  The beans will be in a four quart Corning Ware casserole dish that fits perfectly in this wire basket and the cornbread will remain in the old cast iron pan which I'll wrap in a vintage dish towel. 

I am open to suggestions.  This is a test.  I wanna pass.  It's been fifteen years. 

I have a butter lady and sometimes my butter lady has cream.  Wednesday I took a drive over to see her and on my way I stopped to snag a few pictures of this wet land area.  There were geese in the field making nests and I was anxious to see how close I could get.  Sometimes I am pretty lucky and can get some really good shots.

  I pulled Steve almost into the ditch on this narrow back road just in case someone else would drive down.   I was in the brush when I first saw this white blob rolling slowly down the hill towards Steve.  As it got closer I realized it was a small truck hauling a trailer way too large for it's size.  It was a piece of rust white Ford Ranger, tailgate almost dragging from the weight of the trailer and the whole thing was swaying and swinging.  They passed by me at a snails pace.  I thought to myself  " Wherever they're going they ain't gonna get there."

After they passed and are out of my view I hopped in Steve and headed over the other hill to my butter lady.  She had butter and cream that day.  In fact she had extra cream and ask me to please just take it off her hands.  I  really didn't want all that cream but I took it because she insisted and because she is sweet.  She put the butter in a small box and the cream she put in a milk pail with a tipsy lid.  She told me if I'd wedge it just right it shouldn't spill.  Gads!  The last thing I wanted is cream spilling in Steve.  I don't want to smell sour milk (gag) every time I open the door this summer.  The whole butter and cream deal took twenty minutes to go down and I was out of there thinking maybe I should dump some of the cream on the road instead of risking a spill.

Spacing while I am driving found me coming up on the piece of rust ranger and the too big swaying trailer.  I didn't want to get too close so I kept my distance.  I could see a big ass cow moving around in that trailer which was making everything shake and shimmy.  From the way the cow was moving around it appeared it wasn't tethered.  I started to get the feeling that this might be trouble.  I lagged back a bit more.  I pondered why farmer Joe was moving his cow when it occurred to me that that's no heifer in the trailer, that's a bull and farmer Joe is doing a little pimping for his stud.  Damn a bull.  I lagged back a wee bit more.

We were traveling on a very narrow road with a long upward grade.  Flying over the top of the grade comes a squad car, lights a flashing and the officer is motioning us to pull off the road.  Right after the squad car, driving just as fast, is a car with a large sign saying over-sized load.  By now farmer and the bull are in the gravel and I am about 40 yards behind them in the gravel.  The oversize load barreled over the hill, it is a semi hauling some huge bridge piece.  This rumbles and shakes and makes a vibrating whoosh as it flies by.  Then another one flies over and this time the bull trailer ahead of me is just rattling, like a pan of popping corn.  Somethings gonna happen, I could feel it, the hair on the back of my neck was standing up, I grabbed the steering wheel with one hand and had my other hand was on the shift.  BAMM!!!   Like a crack of thunder this crazy ass, spring horny bull comes busting out, whipping is head around, shaking his ass and snorting and grunting.  He stopped, looked right at at me and then plowed towards me at a full bull charge.  I slammed Steve into reverse and tromped on the gas.  With one eye on the bull and the other in the rear-view mirror I go like a bat out of hell, kicking up dust and freaking that I'm going have bull guts all over front of Steve or I am going to start picking off mailboxes.  All the bells and whistles are going off in Steve, my backing alarm sounds like it is screaming at me.  I can't deny it, I felt a thrill.  :)

The big, dumb, horny bull side winded itself into a slip and rolled down the ditch in an extremely ungraceful display.    I stopped, threw Steve in park and opened my door.  Farmer Joe was running as best as he could and a piece of my past compelled me to do the same.  Farmer Joe and I looked down the ditch.  The bull is fine.  The tumble took the piss and vinegar out of him.  Actually the spring horny bull looked a little embarrassed.  Farmer Joe has a rope and tells me once he gets him tied the bull will walk right into the trailer, then he gave me a creepy little twinkle and told me his bull loves the ladies.  Which sort of creeped me out.

I drove home feeling pretty darn satisfied with my stellar Starsky moves and believe it or not I didn't spill a lick of cream. 

Living in my wee village has it's draw backs.  Not everything you need is readily available.   Quite often simple errands require travel to other wee villages.  So I collect errands until it makes sense to travel over hill and dale.  Today it was the bank, the dry cleaners, the pharmacy for shoe laces, the post office and since I'd pass by it, this little country store that sells amazing locale cheeses.  These errands required 25 miles of driving, two villages, one town and a four way corner stop.

I'm not complaining, not in the least.  The roads I am blessed to travel hold such beauty.  I know them well, not by their names but by their landscape and my camera lens. 

I used the drive-up at the bank.  There are two lanes, one was occupied by a huge red suburban so I took the one next to the window.  The suburban's transaction was taking a long time and teller seemed flustered.  Waiting is a huge part of rural living so I settled into the view across the street.  Noting a brilliantly restored old ford truck I noticed this guy walking past it so with my eyes I followed him.  He was heading to a tire pile.  As he bent down to grab a tire the moon and all it's white ass glory came exploding into my view.  Thinking to myself..."God!  Can't they feel that their ass is hanging out?"  Mind you this isn't some kid with low slung jeans this is a considerably full and by full I mean full, grown man.  What is with guys and exposing butt crack?   Since staring at the teller would make her nervous and staring at the uber-bleached blond smacking her gum in the suburban would be worst, I watch biker dude's white ass.  He picked up and loaded 14 tires before it was my turn at the bank.  Staring at the moon isn't always advised.  I have no excuse accept maybe it's like looking at bad wreck on the road, you know you shouldn't yet...you do.

The village where our bank is also has a drive-in A&W root beer stand.  It was requested of me to find out if it was open.  Low and behold on it's dingy little sign, proclaimed in mismatched letters is that it opened Feb. 24 and also in case you're interested, shrimp and fries are $3.99.  After a winter closed I don't think I would be ordering their shrimp, but that's just me.  That settles that, dinner tonight is at the A&W...not the shrimp but a papa burger or a chili cheese dog...I have yet to decide.  My youngest daughter will be over the moon(no pun intended) knowing they're open.  Since you stay in your car and they bring you your food my daughter and sometimes myself, go in our jammies.  Such fun.  Really.  Plus I get to watch the people across the street in the laundry mat.  Also such fun.  Really.

I had to drive to village number two to take the dry cleaning in.   I don't really take them to an actual dry cleaners I take them to the pharmacy where the dry cleaning company picks them up and returns them two days later.  While there I can also get shoe strings for my older daughter's new tennis shoes that after a night in a dorm appeared to have vomit on them, which she explained away as junk from the dance floor.  Whatever.  I have learned sometimes it is best not to know.  They tell me the big stuff and the little stuff...well...I can still remember what it was like at that age.

  Up until recently we had our own Post office in the wee village but now you have to go to a near by town to mail packages.  This new post office sucks.  Gone is the quaint little structure and the smiles and hellos replaced instead by a cold, stark building and grumpy postal workers.  I make quick work of my task and leave feeling like I just left a prison.

The country store is a true country store.  No Crackle Barrel pretending here.  Old, unused for decades, gas pumps flank the huge concrete slab that makes up the front porch. An old squeaky screen door covers a heavy, signage laden door, worn perfectly where one pushes to open.  A little brass bell rings overhead as I entered and a hip guy dressed in a white apron, flannel and jeans greeted me.  This store has the basic run-out-of items and then like magic it has so much more.  Great cheeses, wonderful wines, artisan breads, fresh made hummus, fruits and veg when in season, and other surprises.  Each time I stop there is something new.   Today I settle for some venison jerky, a tart, sharp Cheddar and a mild farmer cheese.

Errands finished I take the swamp road home and snag some nice pictures of the melting ice sheet which appears like milk house glass...all greenish blue and thick.  I once had dream of this world.

 These ramblings should not be confused as those from a lonely soul but as a ramble from a soul blissfully alone.

Ah, Jeff Bridges...I dig his swagger! 

The thing about living is it seems to happen all at once or hardly at all.  You wake up one day and notice that you are neither here nor there.  There is no great plunge to the middle ground, it's a slow, glacier like crawl.

My Mother was and still tries to be a fastidious homemaker.  To say she is a neat-freak is a total understatement. You could perform open heart surgery on her garage floor with no worries, there is not one window in that huge, rambling house that doesn't just gleam...amazing when you think about it.  Anyway.   She has this kitchen drawer devoted to the housing of her Tupperware.  Neat and orderly...cover beneath bottom...perfection.  Between my Father, Brother and I this perfection never could be maintained.  It drove her crazy.  I remember countless occasions where my Mother would go off the freakin deep end over the disarray of her Tupperware drawer.  Slamming and banging Tupperware around calling us a pack of wolves and ranting about how we can't have nice things.  I would think to myself "What the fuck...it's God damn Tupperware...Are you crazy, woman?!"

I've have never bought Tupperware. It's not that I don't like the product, it's the Tupperware party thing I don't like.  I also don't have a Tupperware drawer.  I have a mish mash of plastic containers, maybe a few stray, hand-me-down Tupperware pieces and that Glad-ware stuff.  This collaboration of crap is stored on the kitchen side, underneath, in half of the breakfast island cabinets.  Usually when you open the cabinet door a oddly stacked plastic container Tower of Pisa comes tumbling out upon your feet.  Which usually elicits a quiet sigh from me and little more than that.

Not last night.  I snapped like an sharp ax through dry pine.  Totally   fucking   lost   it!  Accused the whole lot of them for throwing out bottoms and keeping tops.  Crawled inside the cupboard and pulled every stinking piece of crap out of there.  Bitchin under my breath all the while.  Did my family freak?  Did they wonder what's up with Mom?  Nope.  A few even had the nerve to come out and lean over, with me on the floor surrounded in plastic, to reach for cookies on the counter.  Imagine that!  Christ on a Stick!!!!

Today I have a nice, orderly, plastic container cabinet.  Neat and tidy.  Cover beneath bottom.  Perfection.

  All I can think as I stare at this glaring sense of order is "My God!  What has happened to me?"  I feel like a time traveler.  "This really can't be me, can it?"

 If you should happen read this, please feel free to slap the dust out of me.  I'm begging you.  Really.

Delicate notes of lyrical prose waft around my thoughts as I lay tummy to floor with my spring seed and garden catalogs strewn about the carpet before me.  Each opened to pages of interest.  Tummy crawling to each one, scooting with me a legal pad and pencil for taking notes and making stretches.  I feel cat lazy and I am diggin it.  The last few drops of morning sun filters through the pristine white sheers as I finish my morning cup.   Like a kid with the Christmas editions of the Montgomery Wards, Sears and Penny's catalogs, am free of censure...I daydream of the bountiful possibilities of the coming season. 

The house is tidy, toasty and peaceful.  The faint aroma of yeast as the bread begins it's rise reminds me of my Grandma.   Grandma was an excellent farm woman cook.  She was an amazing gardener.  Be it crop or the tenderest flower she had a way with growing things. She had a way with a great many things.  Within me, at times, is pieces of her way.  Today I feel that. 

By the afternoon the snow shall begin to fall and will continue to fall until tomorrow when at it's finish, ten fresh inches will cover the dull, dirty, old snow.  Perhaps for the last time of this season all shall be white again.  Chapel white landscapes that will beckon me to it's beauty and silence.  One last waltz with winter until the season's next dance.  

To me, snow after February isn't really snow snow...it is more like a spring shower that was caught and chilled before it landed.  March snow smells like rain and rain smells of promise and hope.

With spring on my mind and snow on the way I feel the tug and pull of the these two seasons in their struggle match.  I can help but marvel that my own internal struggle mirrors nature.  Dug in deep yet so ready to soar. 

Thinking of this and remembering Grandma I think it is a perfect afternoon to make Last Jar Soup.

Grandma's last jar soup

In a large pot,

1 large clove of garlic, diced.

1 large yellow onion, 2 stalks of celery, chopped coarse.

fry up in side pork, bacon or saved bacon fat.

Add whatever broth you have on hand

bring to almost boil

If you're adding a soup bone add it now

let the bone boil and simmer for a least two hours

If you're adding canned meat add it now

Add, the last of your put up potatoes, carrots, corn, green beans, peas and rutabagas and whatever else you have hiding in there.

Season with salt, pepper, a little white sugar and paprika

bring to boil then let simmer until all are tender.

Remove meat from bone add meat back to soup.

Leftovers will keep well for a week in the pot if placed in a cold spot in the cellar. 

We have always called this "Last jar soup"  This soup's duty is not only to feed and nourish, it also empties your pantry and frees up the last of your canning jars.  This soup was typically made around planting time. 

I add navy, black or both beans to mine and spinach at the very end.  I also season mine with a good palm full of Old Bay Seasoning.  A favorite old bowl, a little grated Parmesan cheese and some crusty bread and from my way of thinking...that's good eating....especially when the snow is falling.

Gosh the moon is splendid tonight.  While folding clothes I just happened to see it's rise from my bedroom window.  Summoned and drawn I abandon the clothes and run to see him rise over my silo.  My scamper across the yard kicks up several deer at the edge of the pines.  Startled...both the deer and I...they take tail and run and I trying to move out of their path slip and land on my ass... thankfully my ass is well padded.  I guess the seed corn I dumped for them is working out. 

Standing in the deer's well worn path in just crocs and flannel I am freezing yet mesmerized by the butterscotch disk half risen over my silo.  The penetrating blueness of dusk contrasting with the rich texture of the evergreens, the tar blackness of bare trees and his magnificent buttery glow is a pure escape from mind and body and the troubles brewing indoors. 

To linger here is my wish but it is cold and I'm not dressed and dinner needs to be made and clothes need to be folded and he needs to yell. 

Slowly, turning back frequently to the moon over my silo, I slump back to the house.  To feel so free in one moment and so tied in the next weakens my spirit.  I don't know how to do this any longer and in the same breath I don't know how not to do this any longer. 

I am stuck and here I'll stay.

With scenery right out of a Hamms beer sign, standing in deep snow on my tipy toes, binoculars in position and my chest pressed hard against the park green painted chain linked fence I watched bald eagles soar.  The sun's brilliance refracted tiny prisms off the steam turned to ice that clung to everything along the river.  The sky was a crisp cornflower blue.  The river with it's lucent depth of blue, bounced and morphed along the contrasting edges laced in glittering wind sculpted white.  It was indeed a moment of heaven on earth.

There were three bald eagles perched atop the scant trees on this wee island.  From this vantage point they could watch the open water for a meal.  The eagles come here at about the same time each year.  Along the big river there are few stretches of open water in the winter.  The hydro-electric dam affords the eagles this spot and affords the tourists that also flock some fantastic viewing of these great birds. 

 Having chose a day early in the week there were few people to contend with my viewing.  Still there were a couple of us braving the extreme chill for a glimpse.  An Asian man struck up a conversation with me remarking that he once had a camera like mine but that had been four cameras ago.  Saying this, he held up this massive black camera and huge lens as though he was holding a trophy fish.  Thus engaged he continued with his photo taking life story as we both remained fixed to the position of the eagles.  I think people are willing to say things they might not normally say when eye contact is not involved.  I learned a lot about this man's life.  More than I wanted.  Faining cold toes I wished him luck and headed towards my car.

At another viewing site, this one being a "Friends of the Eagle" man made precipice overlooking the river I was approached by a clearly over-avid bird watcher asking me if I wished to look through his mounted scope which was trained right upon a perching eagle.  So good was this scope that I could see the eagle ruffle his feathers, dart his tongue out of his iconic beak and see his strong talons curved around a branch that I wouldn't think could hold a bird of that size.  I learned that the scope I was looking through was not the best scope but it was the second best scope.  I listened to a lot of other things about scopes and was extremely thankful when the eagle left his perch thus abruptly ending my scope tutorial.  During the frantic re-scoping I thanked Mr. Scope and again fained cold toes as my exit excuse.

I couldn't help but think that men sure do like their equipment.

Actually I was cold.  Deciding the folded over ham salad sandwich and orange that I threw together at home was not going to warm me, I opted for lunch at a diner.  Secretly hoping for a soup I've been jonesing for but knowing damn well that no diner in this little town would have it, I entered the Blue Moon cafe.  The blue moon theme drowned you as you entered.  I was okay with that.  Taking a blue vinyl booth overlooking the river, the guy holding down the counter asked if I wouldn't mind sitting at the counter since I was the only customer.  Jumping up before I actually was seated I headed back to the counter.  A friendly guy.  Before I could even see a menu I knew that he and his friend, the cook and by the way he also cooks, were the owners.  They bought the place five years ago.  They renovated the outside, upgraded the inside but tried to keep the charm the place once had.  I told them, by this time, the cook (other owner) had his head hanging out the window, that I love places like theirs.  They both told me that if I was interested in soup for lunch they had a 'killer.'  LOBSTER BISQUE!   I literally squealed my delight and clapped wildly, as for them not thinking I was crazy I immediately explained how long I have been jonesing for a good lobster bisque and that just moments ago I was wishing this tiny town might have it and since the best I ever had was at Caesar's in Vegas what would be the odds of finding it here?  Telling me they would 'hook me up' they both rushed around like I mattered. Crazy eh? 

In moments I had a perfectly drawn pint of Spotted Cow in front of me with the explanation that it goes 'wicked good' with the bisque.  The bisque was served in a CRESCENT SHAPED BLUE MOON bowl.  Totally pissed that my camera was in the car, because I would have taken pictures!(I will upon my return)  Served along side was a homemade DILL roll.  Yes, I said dill roll!  Flaky and at the same time hard, it was a roll that you dream of accompanying soup.  The bisque hit your tongue like velvet.  Rich in real cream and butter, tomatoey, with chunks of tender lobster and a slight, ever so slight, bite of garlic and horseradish and a wee hint of citrus.  It was amazing, far surpassing Caesar's.    I was so taken with this bowl of heaven that I had to remind myself not to look like I was having sex with the soup as these two happy chefs looked on.  I did feel myself blush once or twice.  The Spotted Cow was the perfect wash.  It did not detract but enhanced the mouth festival that was occurring.  For dessert, Bill and Ted, (as I shall call them for the purpose of this blog, as that is who they looked like) suggested their peach cheesecake made with peaches they themselves canned.  How could I resist!  Light, creamy and delicately peachy served on a crust of crumbled shortbread.  That treat of peachy heaven melted in my mouth like moonbeams.  At my second bite I was served a steaming cup of rich espresso.  I was charmed.  Bill and Ted were charming.  At lunch end we three went out back for a smoke.  I spent the next two hours there in their wonderful little diner talking with them.  Finding we all had so much in common, the name of their restaurant, the soup and that we actually knew some of the same people was like providence.  At some point I showed them my tattoo which immediately made lunch on them which in turn gave me reason to treat and suggested an other smoke.  We exchanged emails, hugged and departed as good friends.  Wow!  What a nice lunch!

It didn't start out as a good day nor did it end as a good day but the middle of day fucking rocked.

I just move out of it.  Like an achingly slow ride on a dark night through thick, clingy fog...eventually, hardly realizing it, I seem to pass through it.  My path remains dark but I can see faintly what might be ahead of me.  This is what it is like for me as the hard bank of depression ebbs and the weary remains of battle linger and sting.

Mentally and emotionally it has been a difficult month.  Held hostage by the wolf has taken it's toll, as it always does.  Off my chest, then circling me like roadkill and now his hulking, hungry blackness follows me like a distant shadow.  Left to lick my wounds with him satiated yet contemplating his next strike I move cautiously, fearful of falling prey too soon to his inevitable future attack.

I feel unsharpened, out of touch and vacuous.  Am I lost or is it that I sense an impending loss? Why is it that I am so sad?  Why does everything feel so intense?  Why is it that a sunset, a moonrise, a scrap of handwriting on a package, my daughter's smile, will buckle my knees and make me weep as much as the most unimaginable pain?   I drift through my days forcing myself to go through the motions of living for the benefit and well-being of others but not for myself.  I can't quite hit the mark when it comes to me.  I am misfiring on all cylinders.  Something has changed.  Things I thought I knew feel unknown.  Pleasure is hard fought and extremely short lived.  Distractions are constant yet wavering when most needed.  Where is my well deserved high after the dankness of my low? 

  Alone, once my golden refuge now feels horribly endless and painfully lonely.

What pulled me from the clutches of the wolf was the thought that if I let any more time pass under his grip I would miss my marking of a moment.  Until the moment I entered that little shop on that memory laden street of my youthful decadence I was merely watching me going through  the motions from the perspective of the soul hungry wolf.  How can three hours and an idea dissolve a desert?  Magic.  Magical moments so perfectly tuned chased the wolf to the edge of woods and left a me with a symbol of courage, love, beauty, faith, infinite truths and dreams of blue moons. 

I know the wolf still lingers.  He has been a life long constant evil companion.  For now he can pace at the edge of living and I will try not to feed his hunger.

I left the darkness, the blue five o with nothing resolved.  I pulled together stands of far flung thoughts but have yet to begin the sort.  Three thoughts stick in my mind.  Satisfaction is the death of desire.   Expectations are fool hearty.  You teach others how you want to be treated.  I have failed two and the other seems certain to follow. 

I feel breakable.  Fragile.  Uncertain.  Alone.  A voice that is not my own tells me that I need to embrace some truths and let go of what isn't.

Snow has a way of making things better.  A clean layer of white to cover the bleak remains of fall's decay.  Clean and white, it's beauty gives a mind hope.  Snow is a free pass to forget about dark and gloom.  So...for the sake of snow, for the sake of the season, for now I am walking in the light.  I know the darkness looms, for the wolf has not begun to finish his bones with me. 

"Is wishing like having expectations?"  Yes Nancy, that is exactly what expectations are.

I feel a wee break in the storm.  In the distance dark clouds are still moving in but at this late night, medicated moment I feel more me than I have felt in days.   Could the purge of words, the fast, and endless trickle of tears be bringing me back to me?  Stripping and weakening the soul to rebuild.  Is that what I have been doing?  I feel racked with an intense emotional hang-over.  Weak, worried and weary.

My eyes are puffy and sting.  I've never known myself to cry so much.  Not a big vocal drama cry but tears.  Constant tears.  Quiet long suffering tears.  Pathetic tears for the sake of tears.  Tears of longing.  Tears of brutal sorrow.  Tears of heart held love.  Tears of gratitude.  Tears of disappointment.  Tears for what ends.  Tears for seeing what I was blind to.  Tears for loneliness.  Tears for the times I should have cried and couldn't.  Tears of self pity.  Tears of anger.  Tears of frustration.  Tears of fear. Tears for lost long held dreams.  Unstoppable tears that force you to feel as though you are going insane.

 I waved the white flag of surrender and took to my bed in a room shrouded and blinded from any daylight.  There I laid.  There I cried.  Neither alive nor dead but wishing desperately to be one or the other. That moment turned into a moment.  One long lingering moment of slap me crazy emotional struggle with a huge dose of self loathing.   One could argue I allowed the wolf in but I would counter with the wolf forced his way in.  I held that door closed with all I had until all I had was no longer enough.  The wolf sat on my chest for three days.  He battered my mind, body and spirit.  He took control.  I too weary to fight off his advances let him have his power.  That is until a few hours ago.  I woke from a half sleep to find the house empty and myself alone.  I have a long held comfort with alone.  I left my self imposed tomb.  I broke my fast.  I broke my raging thoughts with music.  I broke my silence with this.  The wolf is in the corner...waiting.  I know he is not done with me but I am thankful for his reprieve.  

  The moon, my almost full moon, plays hide and seek between the grey tulle of the late November night sky.  The bare maples cast shadows, their craggly black tendrils seem ready to tangle and capture the unsuspecting.  The night is whisper still, save for the occasional squawk from a discontented goose trying to ride out her night on the lake. 

I wonder where I fit in to all this?  When do I come in?  Have I missed my cue?  I feel stuck between here and now then and tomorrow.  Life just isn't long enough for all the some days.

I suspect these next few days to be real horrors.  It is not my intention to make it so, I merely know who I am and how these next few days will affect me.  God knows I have been preparing.  I am still uncertain of my course.  I mourn horribly the change of such long held plans but I am striving to still make the absolute most of what I have.  Disappointment is certain if I rely on others and I am trying hard not too but it is from others that I find the approval I have yet to give myself.   As the wolf watches I pray for strength. 

I seem to live in the dark.  The gray gloomy days fade early into thick darkness.  I wake at the ungodly hour when the night has yet to think of morning.  I put on a pot of coffee in the somber stillness of house deep in slumber.  In the faint, soft golden hued light streaming shadows spill into the living room and I silently move through my yoga.  Sufficiently stretched I pull on a slicker and shoes and head out into the dark pre-dawn mist.  The fog shrouds and surrounds my being.  Moving and morphing, shape shifting, it seems to be a living thing. Everything is obscured in a slick, damp, deep gray blue goo.  I move with purpose and thought.  Taking nothing of the moment for granted.  I feel the mist on my face.  I revel in the obscurity of the draping fog.  I note the divine beauty of the silence and give thanks that I am here.  From the dark shadows charcoal etchings of my surroundings come into focus.  There will be no sunrise today.  The deep blue purple of now will lighten ever so faintly with the chime of the clock and a cold pissing rain will slowly fall through out the day.

Thanks to Frito, I spent the weekend in the useful task of purging thoughts.  Her generous kindness opened a crack in the blue.  Thank you a thousand times over dear friend.  I filled 4 spiral notebooks with every spontaneous thought imaginable.  Crazy rantings, thoughtful prose, repetition of words, angry letters, screaming pleas and quiet hope.  The activity was a god send.  I can't thank Frito enough.  She sent me a life line. 

Along with my weekend of obsessive journaling I also tried to fill the unfillable void with food.  Packing it in like somehow I needed to pad the contents of my blue five o for shipping.  I curse the girl scouts and their damn crack cookies.  

Sunday came with a bloated tummy and a bloated mind.  I decided on a fast.  Fasting food and arbitrary thoughts.  I challenged myself to feed off moments.  To live in each tiny moment.  I sustained my hunger by chewing on thought.  I will continue this fast through the eating holiday as a lesson in want and control.  As with purging negative thought through radical writing I will also cleanse the body of negative behavior and the poison of a depressed spirit. 

Preparing a meal that you can not eat is a lesson in living in the moment.  I love to cook and even if I can't have what I made I still receive the pure pleasure of creating.  There is contentment and pleasure in knowing you can 'do' without 'having'.  There is a sense of power that wells up inside when your spirit makes tiny victories. 

I am struggling and striving to live each moment...slowly, with purpose and with contentment.  To that end I am moving and thinking with an ever present desire to feel the moment as the moment intended.  No multi-tasking, no clock watching, no stray thoughts, no teetering between what was and what shall be.  Now is all that matters.  Now is all I need to grasp.  Now is where it's at.  In the now I will find the answers to yesterday and in the now I will find tomorrow's dreams.  There is nothing but now. 

Living is a moment by moment perception of what is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMm6miWs6

I must appear as a caged animal to my family.  Tonight my oldest daughter kindly suggested that I take a walk out to my beloved mounds.  Reassuring me that she and her boyfriend (our 2nd son almost, I swear!) will make dinner for the youngest.  All this after they both took her to the zoo that afternoon and bought her a purple monkey.  Super kids!

Without batting an eye I take them up on a hour and half to march off some steam.  My pack contains some water, my camera, binoculars, IPOD, gum, chapstix, a lighter, smokie treats, extra batteries, band-aids, a cotton dish towel and a sturdy hankie.  Oh, and my keys.  Not that I'll need much of that stuff it sort of rides along just in case.

I read in my dentist office lobby a book that was dedicated to the weird things about my State.  Several really freaky things are within ten to twenty miles of where we live.  One of them being the Indian Mound where I find great solace in walking.  Apparently, according to research and this book's authors, after the builders of the mounds left, another tribe resided there.  This tribe killed and ate their enemies.  They practiced human sacrifice and buried hundreds of skulls in smaller mounds.  The crew that was here to 'get the story' became so ill and heard such ringing in their ears that they had to leave. 

I find it a sanctuary.  Blissful and calm.  I consider myself very intuitive and have never felt any other vibe but harmony.  I even been there at night, nothing but peace.

As often I am blessed with being alone at the mounds and tonight is no different.  I walk the river bed always on the look out for arrowheads.  It is a lifelong dream to find one.  Two cranes skim the tree tops, making their decent to the river and looking shockingly prehistoric as I stare in mouth gaping awe. This is the dark side of the mounds.  The woods, the dark river water, the abundant tree line, the downward slope, all seem to hold out the light.  Even here I feel nothing but peace.  

 One more mound until I can cross the field to reach the highest mound and from there I will see the setting sun.  As I climb the stairs made of old train track, the soft tendrils of this day's sun dance across me. 

The view from the top is perfect.  Not too showy, it is toned down in soft bruised blue hues, with a master painter's touch of the purest white.  The sun dangles above the hill holding up blue steeled clouds, their weight squish the sun's beams out sideways, spilling soft cream onto the horizon.   I take a least 40 pictures and for those moments I am lost to it.  But things creep back and there is no finding a place for them to rest while I enjoy this moment.

I lost my mojo.  Mojo gone.  I slid out of the groove of the record I was spinning on.