Ripening: 08.29.13

 It does not matter that the spring buds have opened and come to flower, now hanging limply from their stems. It does not matter that the chill of early fall has crept into my solitary nights, causing me to close the sliding glass door on the world outside before bed; the crickets' song no longer audible behind the thin sheet of glass. Sitting behind the sliding glass I see my reflection and the night outside at the same time, the darkness beckoning.

Although the hydrangeas arranged in a flowery gesture of an ill-timed attempt have long since wilted into the dirt driveway, the memory of them shouting their immature message are steadfast. Heartfelt hope sprouts anew in the knowledge that the wilting is still just part of the cycle and, when the time is right, there will be no question of them catching full bloom once again. It may have to wait another couple of seasons, but the beauty of truth in life's cyclical growth are worth the wait. 

Truth may be relative to some. As a ripened human, it seems compulsory; particularly where the undeniable truths of nature are concerned.  It is the place of openness where, imperfections included, the line between immature, perfect, and rotten all collide.  I can't help but see the beauty that comes with aging and growing to perfection, including each step along the way.  A fine wine must maintain a proper balance of environmental factors in order to ripen to its best version of itself. Were my taste buds, however, let to feel the dance of a young Rothschild or Opus One, would it not still be delicious? 

Like the golden chanterelles poking up beneath last year's dying leaves after a humid summer day's shower, growth and decomposition become synonymous. As the summer turns to Fall, the brown hedgehogs, black trumpets, gray maitake, and matsutake all in turn replace the orange and yellows of the midsummer sun's creation. But these find their most perfect moments well after all but the kale, onions and squash crops are in.

 Like a blue cheese that becomes more ugly as its pungent nuttiness ripens in a widening vein of mold, I may grow past my most physically beautiful only to become the most delectable version of myself in the Autumn of my years. After all, a banana that hasn't yet become tender enough to bruise has a chalky, flavorless way about it. Not until it has earned the age of bruising can it learn to provide its most knowledgable sugar content.

Ripening: 08.26.2013

Let yourself ripen in front of others. Be disgusting. Become unrecognizable, spotty, bumpy, tender. Blush; get all hot and heart racy. We are alive after all and we should let the dead know it. Teeter on the edge of foul, be indulgent in your expression. You will find the sweetness there. Perhaps, you will be digested too quickly, but you will give them a brilliant rush. Honest offerings are the most delicious nectar.

Little tomato, there are bruises welling up under your skin, like mini black bull’s-eyes right near the heart from where you were plucked. Little black bull’s-eyes attract attention of the fruit flies that hover, dipping their mouths around the shiny bits, they are hungering for the sugars that pulsate behind your ever thinning skin. Fruit flies fluttering their little wings around like lonely people ravenous for some kind of intimacy, like curious people eavesdropping on strangers (who are equally searching for intimacy).

Punctured tomato flesh, relaxed shapeless orb, juicy exhale, relief on an old wooden cutting board. Tomato seeds are drying in their jelly, the knife blade is speckled with guts. Smear a piece of cheese on the edge; the acid is balanced. Exposed and allowed its full ripening, the tomato is vulnerable, textured, concentrated.

 I like watching you shift color and weep a little from an unusually warm day. I want to witness transformation. I want the air to get a little sour with your perfume. I want to remember where you came from.  I will be on the look out for mold and try and make sure the plantains or the ginger or the peaches don't crush you, before you get a chance to show off.

If I stored you in the refrigerator, I would deny you your ability to get loose naturally. I would sterilize you and force your ripening to be partitioned off to a mealy making florescent corridor. Tomato, like body parts exposed to air conditioning, forced to produce some internalized relief-less sweat. Detached from nature, you become pale and restrained, limp and odorous, perfumed by half open condiments and poorly wrapped cheeses. You are no longer a declaration of yourself, an extension of the earth; you are drained, lifeless, and forgettable.

--------

Over there, I see piles of balled up receipts, scraps of white paper with indecipherable waitress scratch, hollowed out chapsticks, an oddly shaped safety pin, a purple bra draped over a white wooden chair, with red wine stains on the peeling paint. I see towels half mushed onto a bottom shelf, half pooled into a wrinkly heap on the bathroom floor. I see a multicolored rhinoceros drawing, from a boy named Evan, who was visiting San Francisco from New York City, and wanted me to remember him. I see driftwood and power cords, cards from old friends, and quotes that meant something to me at some point, but maybe not now. In the last moment, that was all okay, and in this moment, I am trying to make sense out of this strange arrangement of past choices, trying to disassemble, reorganize, give away, remember, and let go.

You are looking into the eyes of men you could’ve made a different life with. Imagining how differently you would smell together, how differently you would eat together, move through the world together. You are looking into the eyes of the man you are choosing to live your life with. You’ve grown up together, into different bodies together. You are curing and aging and unraveling into something better, together.

What’s the point of letting dreams hang out in your head until they cease to be dreamy anymore? I mustn't be so frightened of the ripening. Unattended and under nurtured dreams will rot. Many of my dreams have gone back to seed, because I didn’t harvest them in time. Maybe they'll sprout again when I'm ready. This ripening is really just beginning.

Quench: 08.20.2013

Her tiny hand reached up and grabbed a blueberry that looked on the verge of bursting. She immediately popped it into her mouth.

"It so yummy mommy!!!"

She had just turned three years old. She chose blueberry picking to celebrate. It was a beautiful August day, slightly cloudy, with just enough cover from the glaring summer sun. She chattered and giggled while winding through the rows of engorged bushes. Her tiny fingers flitting from blueberry to blueberry. Half of the harvest found it's way into her bucket while the other half found their way into her tummy. He purple stained teeth gleamed every time she grinned at me.

I couldn't believe she was three. It happened so quickly. I had been warned it would but this, this happened in warp speed. It feels like it was just recently that she depended on my for her sole source of nutrition. And now, today, she was feeding me her freshly picked berries.

"Here, mommy! They dee-licious!"

She popped another ripe berry into my mouth and went back to hunting down the bluest of the blueberries. I fought back tears. So bittersweet, watching her grow. Her baby years are over, her childhood ahead of us. She is so amazing.

We decided we had gathered enough for the day and headed back to the car, picking "just one more" as we walked. I lifted my face to the sun, silently giving thanks for this day, for all the days I have been given. Feeling gratitude for these moments. The moments that quench my soul.

Quench: 08.19.2013

Photo by Richard Lui

My Lover comes to me,
soft and fierce in rough and tumble gentle,
with liquid eyes

eyes that melt
melt pools in the divots of my belly.

I am the high desert mesa

drenched in summer storm

where water finds the path of least resistance.

My Lover is modest in all the true ways.

No need for disguises of convoluted extravagance.
Only unadorned, naked simplicity.

For are not the red rocks exposed each day without SPF 30?

The ocotillo, like upright seaweed, erect in a splendor all its own?

The velvet mesquite accepts its thorns and still offers its sweet pods
to coyote and human alike. 

(savoring shy tension

delicious anticipation

patient affection)

The night is warm,

the sky bejeweled in open expanse.

Here, there is only space--

a limit of forever.

This is the land we travel

resting in between

never reaching a destination

arriving Home in motion.

In this place,

in the secret sweetness of dark hours,

the streaks of ancient light

fling themselves off the edge of their last dance.

We marvel at this display of Time

and then enter and lose our way.

I believe in this happily ever aftermath...

Fire: 08.16.2013

The alarm. It was so loud. The elevator was deactivated so he headed for the stairs with a small crowd. All scrambling to find refuge on the ground, far away from the smoke and the fire and the eighth floor. Some of them pushing, some of them whimpering and grunting. It was flashes of memory looking back. He couldn’t decide if this was real or if the jet lag from his mini getaway was getting to him.

The alarm.....the group of escapees was growing in number each time they passed a level on the poorly lit back stair case.  Babies were crying. Some people were yelling for help. One guy had a white Persian cat....Its hard to tell which of the two were more traumatized, the freaked out cat or the scratched to hell guy.  The cadence of group’s feet became a cohesive beat as they all had the same goal in mind. To get to safety. To get out of the fiercely burning building.

He could hear the emergency responder’s sirens, and shouting from the outside of the building with each window he passed.  The shock of the event left his tongue quieted and his eyes wide. Fight or flight. Nature versus nurture. Whatever the hell it was....it kept him in a state of shock. The alarm. The time was not passing by. Time was not moving. Why was it taking so long to get to the bottom? The smoke was filling the stairwell. The smoke was filling his lungs. His heavy panting from running and confusion allowing gulps of smoke to fill his every air sac.

Finally, a burst of a door and people were pouring out of the burning apartment building like water from a pitcher. Just flowing out like the water they all desperately needed. His eyes reached up to the sky to confirm that his confinement was over and that he had reached refuge under the sun in the the oxygenated wind currents created by the tall buildings.

Whether it was adrenaline overdose, excessive smoke inhalation or just plain old exhaustion. He passed out......”The alarms” he thought as consciousness left him.....”The alarms”.

And as soon as he burst through the door was about as quick as she was on him. The crowds. The smoke. The sirens. The fire. The alarms. A perfect storm. A calculated perfect storm.

She scooped him up under his arm, hauled his arm pit over her head and headed across the street. With much haste she made way for the elevator, key in hand. Her world, his world were moving so fast. The chaos and confusion that surrounded them stopped as soon as the elevator door slid closed. She buckled her knees hoping that his weight would hold on her for a little longer. And in that 24 second elevator ride she was brought back to that brief moment back in her school days. Back to that toilet seat, back to the spoon, back to her first rush of lust and love and obsession. The smell of him intoxicating, the curve of his lips where they met in the corners, the mess of hair falling in perfect cascades over his strong brows....Sucking in each detail and cataloging them in to her memory files.

….......

The alarms......where were the alarms?  Where was outside? He looked around and could tell that he had just exchanged one crisis for another. His feet and arms were bound.....and he could see her... She was hunched over at a desk pulling her own flesh from her forearm with a wild look he had only seen in movies.....He let out a breath a little too loud.

Her head jerked over in his direction. She smiled over to him. She smiled over to him in the way you smile at someone you‘ve known for a long time. A comfortable smile. “Good morning sweetheart..........”

Fire: 08.15.13

I had fallen in love with ideas before, though none quite this hard. My mind raced to grasp the new concepts sparking light into my pot-addled laziness. Hiroshi, his name translates to "the great one" in English, had been giving his five students daily lectures on the science and spirituality of Natural Food cooking.

Baking, boiling, steaming, frying, and sautéing are the only five possible ways to cook food. These methods can be combined in any myriad of ways to produce various end results in the kitchen. What is most important is to understand how water contained in foods is heated to produce the effect of cooking. To do this, one must learn how to dance with heat as well as gain knowledge and control of fire, the most uncontrollable element and most necessary for cooking.

Hiroshi was an older man already, with over 40 years of kitchen work under his belt by the time I met him. His ability to dance with fire proved unmatched by any line cook I had ever seen before. His knowing of the proper size flame for each specific purpose puzzled us newer students. How could this old man so precisely predict the unpredictable? He had us mesmerized.

As I gained my own confidence around fire over the next year and a half of my life, I began to understand. The more you play with fire, the less you get burnt. Totally the opposite of what my parents taught me. Dancing in a commercial or professional kitchen, dancing with flames and steam and heat, knowing the flame and what it wants to do, all come with constant practice. This is the only way to overcome fear of getting burned. Hours stacked upon hours as he taught us.

High heat and giant flames are only necessary in Chinese cooking. Incredibly fast motions and forethought of my mise en place being the only way to keep up with the flames that produce such exquisite flavors only high heat can yield. Otherwise we generally practiced over medium to low flames, learning the dance slowly as we prepared ourselves to become proper cooks capable of handling the craziest of dinner service rushes. Time and practice are the only ways to gain this understanding. Knowledge and experience are the keys to wisdom.

The idea of controlling fire in the kitchen has helped me deal with heated situations in the outside world as well. Flammable situations are understood when one knows whether to apply or reduce the heat at a given time. This lesson is a constant even today, eleven years after I first met Hiroshi, and a year and a half since my mentor's passing. 

No matter how hot it got, Hiroshi taught us to deal with fire by showing that it can be done with speed, accuracy, and beauty even in times of crisis.

Fire: 8.12.2013

Slow dancing to Willie Nelson singing “Can I Sleep In Your Arms” in the kitchen, on a foggy Sunday afternoon. We are clutching each other in our pajamas, and swaying in a tight but imperfect circle, barefoot on the cold, black and white checkered tiles. The song’s last beat matches up with our last step, and I don’t think it gets any better than this.

The day is cool and overcast, but we are slathering warm jalapeno cornbread with chipotle butter, frothing almond milk for the tops of our espressos, and I’m wearing fire engine red lipstick.

At 7 years-old, I’m watching dad watch Bruce Springsteen’s video for “I’m on Fire” with complete reverence. Because he asks me to, I’m teaching him dance moves so he can be more like the Boss and gain more confidence. This is the same dad who looked at pictures of serial killers, said he had the power to make the thunder in the sky go boom, relied on his mom for his home perms, and let me set him up on a date in the middle of the cereal aisle at Kings Supermarket.

That time I secretly recorded my phone interview with the head of the radio program at my potential radio school. That part where he asked me if I had a fire in my belly to tell radio stories. He said that if I didn’t have the fire, I shouldn’t pay lots of money, leave my home in San Francisco for 15 weeks, just to live and breathe radio in Portland, Maine. He told me to only commit to radio if I had a real fire somewhere in there... I did... I do. 

Rosy inner thighs burning up on a winter day after snow shoeing up the side of a mountain with too many layers on.

Sitting in a sweat lodge as a teenager and releasing my towel just below my breasts for a few seconds in hopes that he caught a peak in the dim light.

Hot cheeks in pillow forts with hung and layered blankets and mountains of pillows for kissing lessons and assorted follow up dares.

Writing intentions for the new year on scraps of paper, while sitting on a thick piece of driftwood by the ocean at night. Lighting the paper on fire, watching it sear and crumble, and then coming across scattered single stem roses and an abandoned busted up boat freshly washed up on the shore. Hoping that this all meant that in the new year we were destined for surprise and wild adventure.

So much gossip at work last night, I began imagining all of our tongues singed at the tips.


After our field trip documenting nymphs and salamanders at Highland Pond, we nurtured our other side by pretending we were the pink ladies from Grease. We marched passed the boiler room into the girls bathroom and took turns looking thru the hole in the wall that lead to the boys bathroom, hoping we’d see Liam, Robby, or Soren.

Burning with dream residue every morning this week: Dreams of teeth falling out and wanting to string them into a necklace. Dreams of stealing expensive Italian earrings by accident from Barneys. Once realizing I left with them in my bag, I made up for it by asking the parking attendant at the parking garage if I could pay for multiple people’s parking spots for the week. Dreams of interviewing a hoarder with great taste for towels, about her son’s obsession with the apocalypse. Dreams of driving deep into a a big city somewhere in the south to get my favorite pea coat back from a greedy hotel owner who looked like Cleopatra. Dreams of driving thru the desert with some coworkers, and watching flying dinosaurs with dagger eyes scoop down to the freeway to swallow cars and people whole; I watched feeling unafraid and giddy.

Saunas in high school were in the old house with mineral rich well water that was viscous and smelled like sulfur, which always made her insecure and defensive. I always thought it was cool that her family had a well and baked their own bread. In the sauna we’d throw water on the hot rocks, breathe deep, and get lost in the steamy, sweaty cedar, and secret swapping. In the end, we’d release ourselves into dualing snow angels.

On a hot summer night in New England, for my parents 60th birthday party, we all hobbled down the dirt road with our cups of booze and fancy clothes, and made it to the harbor to watch an impressive fireworks show over the Cove. A bunch of friends, family, and strangers, woozy from dancing and pizza, just staring out at the fire in the sky and yelping with delight. We weren't talking about aging elders or what my sister will do when she gets back from her year in Australia. We weren't discussing when we were going to have babies, and if we were going to move back closer to family. We weren't talking about anything; we were just in it together, rapt in wonder.