melbell51

‘Tis a Wed-nes-day For Sure

I’ve never forgotten how to spell ‘Wednesday’, thanks to my very first English teacher, Father Patrick: Wed Nes Day. I still say it in my head whenever I write it out.

Clearly, today is a very Wed Nessy Day. It could be the way I slept. It could be the fact that my body is crying out for more yoga to stretch my poor teeny muscles and I refuse to satiate it because I can’t afford the thirty minute drive right now. It could be the mess in the kitchen, or the mess in the living room, or the mess in the bathroom. It could even be the fact that the sun is beaming down on me to the point of uncomfortable brightness.

Friends, I refuse to let my day become Wed Nessy! The sky is still so blue I could kiss it. And this morning, as an inaugural fall treat, I made oatmeal:

Fall Breakfast Oatmeal
Serves Two
One banana, thinly sliced
Two cups milk of your choice
One cup rolled oats
One cup canned pumpkin
Cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice
Pinch salt
Dried cranberries, mixed nuts, maple syrup

Place the milk in a saucepan along with the banana. Bring to a boil, continually stirring the banana so it breaks up into the milk. Once rolling with bubbles, add the oats and salt and continue to stir until the mixture reaches your preferred level of thickness (three to five minutes).

Remove from the heat, add the pumpkin and spices, and stir to incorporate. Top with cranberries, nuts, and maple syrup. If you need more salty crunch, serve with a dollop of peanut butter. Seriously.

With a bit of light reading 🙂

My internal calendar always starts to leap when I make the switch from fruit-and-yogurt to warm, creamy oatmeal. This means beautiful things like boots and scarves. You hear that, feet? Get ready!

As My Feet Move…

Written September 25

As my feet move, I am discernible. As my feet move, I shake my head. I’d forgotten what it felt to be barefoot. I’d forgotten how to move.
“Where ya going?” asks neighbor sir with the gardening hat and wheelbarrow in tow.
“To the lake,” I reply, a bit taken aback by his forward, defenseless bonhomie. I’ve been a resident of the south for twelve years now, and it still surprises me when people tip their hats and say ‘hello.’
“I thought you was going to town,” he chuckles.
Town? What town? We live in a subdivision off Highway 302 and I am barefoot with my jeans rolled up, carrying a journal and a book on Confession. Town?
It’s a nice thought. Oddly enough, the last real “town” I had been in was Lambertville, New Jersey, where everyone knew everyone by name and shouted their conversations across the street, which was about six feet wide or less.
Memphis was a place of hostility for me, void of the picture book Southern gentility I had come to expect from shows like Paula Deen’s Home Cooking. Looking back on it now, I suppose it was my own family’s problems, their and my inability to be satisfied with the now, that made life so exhausting.
I used to blame my problems on a self-diagnosed case of Seasonal Affect Disorder, but as I lay here in the ripe green grass under the shade of trees budding with acorns and a sky like the Caribbean sea, I know it’s not that. It’s me. It’s my head. I see things, all possible outcomes, the good, the horrible, the imagined and the impossible. They come and go too fast for me to even get them down on paper.
Even as I close my eyes and feel the breath of God on my cheek, I want to yell: at myself, for not being better. At my parents for not pushing me harder. At God, for not giving me a clearer reason to live.
There are lilac bushes planted on the base of my friend the tree, and they take me back to my first home, on the outskirts of Boston, where lilacs and morning glories bloomed along our fence, and buttercups roamed like fairies. I miss those days. I had my imagination back them.

I see four kids, I’d guess ten, playing in the basin by the lake. I wonder if they’ve been taught to worry yet, or if their parents guarded them against fruitless thought. Do they have a self conscious? If they are just “being kids” what will happen when the time comes to apply to colleges and they have nothing to write on a piece of paper that, whether they like it or not, will make an irreparable impact on their life? Do they know fear?

I’d forgotten what the feel of grass was against my skin. I’d forgotten how the sky looked from down here–vast and blue, like a soft blanket. The sky is always here. Can I spend all my time with the sky and the trees and the grass? I bet they get a lot of wayward wanderers appealing to them for help, or at the very least, comfort. I wish so badly that I lived in a time where people still made “house calls” and borrowed cups of sugar. Now the only thing that sees me more than my own mirror is my car on the way to SuperTarget.

I live a pitiful existence. And yet the grace and the ants disagree. The ants, perfectly content spending the days climbing up and down blades of grass, seem to really get it. Or maybe there’s just not even that much to get. Maybe there just is. Just blades of grass and acorn trees and blanket sky and clouds. Isn’t that nice?

Recipe for Enjoying a Weekday Afternoon, September Style

September is a fickle month in the Mid-South. Mother Nature can’t quite make up her mind whether the season is summer or fall. The air is crisp and clean and definitely open widow friendly, and yet the sun is still hot enough to make you yearn for a swim in your newly closed pool after a short jog.
In the midst of worrying my face off that I’ll never be accepted back in to school, I am learning to read again–for pleasure, for fun, for “staycation” sake.

Afternoon Coffee:

Serves one

One cup (a real cup, not the American oversized bathtub mugs that give you digestion problems) freshly brewed strong coffee (I use Seattle’s Best, level 5)

One or two splashes half and half

One peppermint candy

Combine ingredients in your reasonably sized mug. Serve with a book and a Grannamae cookie. Use as fuel for your newly rediscovered passion for writing:

Always, Always…

Always, always, bliss on paper. A book and a warm mint coffee? Nothing better. It used to be I could not read, I would not read. Reading merely passed time when I was not consciously doing something we like to call “productive.” My eyes would merely skim the words while my brain ran laps, thinking volatility of the tasks I had not yet completed, the people I had not yet impressed, the weight I had not yet lost. Now on temporary leave from school, after an hour of computer time I feel my energy drain away, so I quickly stand up to shake myself. What to do now? My “tasks” can only go so far in one day, so I decide to read for a few hours–outside I go, with my new friend Frances Mayes:

“How to quantify happiness? Any loved house you’ve personally slaved over feels like an extension of yourself. Many people have told me that when they arrived in Italy, they’ve surprised themselves by thinking, I’m home. I, too, had that sensation when I first came here. By now, that feeling has magnified. And, as for a loved one, I have that scarier feeling, I can’t be without you. Meanwhile, the house just stands here, indifferent, facing the changing light and weather.”

I smile, and I can’t stop smiling, because I love reading stories of triumph over self, of succumbing to the natural order of time and space. I love that I know that I am enough to be happy–to exist within the close confines of happiness. I close my eyes and drink in the clear sky above me, the sky I feel was made just for me today. I want to stay with it forever, under the Tuscan sun like Frances. I wish I could. I know I can’t, at least not yet–I am too young. I am ripe, and my duties in this world are numerous. I face years of overcoming challenges, meeting people, moving forward. I have degrees to earn, pictures to take, many tears to shed, cuts to bleed, God willing. And children to foster. That is just fine with me.

“This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…”

Breakfast Tomatoes with Basil

My great Italian mother once speculated that tomato sauce flows through my veins in place of blood. I still believe her. I can eat an entire pint of cherry tomatoes by myself, and have done so several times while walking home from the grocery store when I lived in Minneapolis. I.love.tomatoes!

These babies are lightly cooked with olive oil and garlic until soft, golden and melt-in-your-mouth fantastic. They are the perfect side item to a breakfast or brunch of scrambled eggs and cheese grits, which often grace our tables on Sunday afternoons.

Taken from Google, but aren’t they pretty?

Breakfast Tomatoes
Serves 4-6, or one with a Hobbit like obsession for the firey fruit
Four fresh roma tomatoes, sliced about one fourth inch thick
One large handful fresh basil
One large clove garlic, peeled
One to two tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper

Head a skillet on medium heat with one tablespoon olive oil and the garlic clove; swirl it around for a few seconds. When the oil is hot (sprinkle a few drops of water to test the heat level–it should sizzle), add the tomato slices (you will need to do this in batches). Cook for just a minute or two until they soften, sprinkle with salt and pepper, then flip and cook through. The color will brighten and the skin will just start to pull away from the flesh. Remove, place on a plate, and add the next batch of tomatoes with a little more oil if necessary. Repeat, remembering to season your fruit!

When all the tomatoes are cooked, rip the basil over them. Remove the garlic clove; mince finely, then sprinkle over the tomatoes and basil.