Brief
Because I blogged about my dad remarrying this weekend, I feel obliged to provide some public follow-up. But the truth is that I can think of nothing to say on the subject that wouldn’t hurt someone. That’s been one of the most interesting, troubling, revelatory discoveries of this whole experience–I mean, the experience of my parents’ marriage breaking up–that sometimes there is no “right.” I think I’d always believed that a problem, any problem, if only given enough creative thought and attention, would eventually yield to a solution.
Well, maybe not.
I had great difficulty sleeping last night (of course, Murphy’s Law, baby CJ slept like a, well, baby, while I tossed and turned, then woke like a real baby the instant sleep arrived for me).
Will sign off for now.
What We Ate
Yesterday we had a feast. It was all about timing, and I did spend the better part of the day preparing food. Luckily, I realized, in the nick of time, that the pies would need to be baked before the chickens. Kevin’s sister helped whenever she passed through the kitchen–mashing potatoes, extracting cooked pumpkin from its shell, et cetera. But as evening approached, I began to panic that the children would, in their hunger and impatience, literally climb the living-room walls, waiting for the chickens to reach optimum cooking temperature. Chickens surpassed expectation, thermometer rose, and we had dinner on the table at six o’clock sharp. Baby CJ got to try mashed pumpkin (a so-so review, I’d say). The chicken was succulent; the stuffing delicious; the brussel sprouts edible (Kevin’s mom loved them, but I must say they could have been better–perhaps parboiled or roasted a tad longer); the salad of local bitter greens with honey-balsamic dressing and chopped apples and seeds stunning (am I allowed to say this about food I’ve prepared myself?), and the smashed potatoes with garlic very yummy indeed. Yams snuck onto the menu all by themselves–they were in amongst the potatoes from our CSA box, and were pale in colour, white when uncooked and a delicate yellow cooked, and I assumed them to be odd-shaped potatoes, overgrown fingerlings, and only upon chopping them realized they must be something else. Good old yams. At the last minute, I scrounged up a bag of frozen cranberries and cooked that down into a quick sauce with sugar and water. So easy, but it added the finishing touch–tang and colour.
Food, Not For Thought
Today’s our Thanksgiving feast. I’m keeping it simple. Right now, I’m roasting a whole smallish pumpkin (CSA) in the oven, because, gosh darnit, my kids want a pie, and I’m going to try. We also have two chickens, six pounds, and seven pounds, respectively, thawing in the fridge, which I plan to stuff with a traditional bread stuffing (chopped apples tossed in for fun), and roast according to my Joy of Cooking recipe. Lots of salt rubbed on the skin, shallow pan, breast up. It’s going to smell good in here. Additionally, I’m planning on boiling, then roasting some brussel sprouts, if Kevin finds some good local ones at the market. Boiled, smashed potatoes (CSA) with garlic and butter and mmm. Perhaps a balsamic-honey-dressed green salad, depends on what Kevin finds at the market; apparently “spring” mix is newly seasonal right now.
Am I forgetting something? The squash will be in the pie, assuming that works out.
Baby CJ got his six-month immunizations yesterday and has been ever so fussy. On top of his stuffed nose, he’s pretty miserable, poor bab. He spent the night cuddled in our bed, again, nursing off and on. This is beginning to take a toll on my dewy-fresh complexion … Yes, I’ll blame it on that.
Kevin’s family has arrived. Everyone is off to market, except for napping baby CJ and me (for some reason, he’s happy to nap in his crib during the day; it’s only at night that he wakes instantly and screams and hollers upon being extracted from a loving parent’s arms).
To offer an update on Nina’s buying club: It remains alive, popular, and subversive. Who knows, it may be a catalyst to change local food policy and by-laws in exciting ways in the coming months and years. Meantime, it sounds like we will continue to be able to buy at least some of our food through Nina, though today, for the first time in at least a month, we had our groceries delivered by Grocery Gateway (that sounds decadent, but hear me out: none other than George Monbiot, author of Heat, advocates online shopping and delivery, more efficient than each of us hopping into our individual vehicles and tooling around town picking up one item here, and one item there. The delivery cost is $10). Generally, I wait to make the Grocery Gateway order till some heavy things have piled up on my list, which would be difficult to transport all at once in the jogging stroller (aka my shopping cart/bundle buggy).
Thanks for your support re this weekend’s familial turmoil. An update on the subject may or may not be forthcoming, depending on how confessional my mood becomes. Today I’m focussed on cooking and hosting, good and occupying tasks. Just remembered what menu item I’d forgotten: YAMS! They didn’t arrive at buying club yesterday, and I neglected to add them to my market list. Too bad. Baby CJ probably could have tasted a smackerel too. Maybe I’ll save out a bit of pumpkin to mash and cool and serve to him. So far he’s eaten nothing but expressed breastmilk mixed with brown rice cereal. Pumpkin/squash is a pretty safe early food, right? Allergenically-speaking?
A Little Rain
This weekend is Thanksgiving here in Canada. But it’s also the weekend my dad is remarrying. My parents separated about a year and a half ago, and Dad got engaged this May, right around the time my parents’ settlement was finalized. To be brutally honest, it feels rushed, and I’m having difficulty reconciling my emotions with my dad’s desire to have a big happy church wedding with all the hoopla that goes along with that. Grief. Sadness. Loss. Emotions entirely at odds with celebration. I realize this is his wedding, not mine. He is obviously free to do whatever feels right to him. But, then, I should be free too. And that’s what I’m having a hard time figuring out. Is there any way to attend this event while remaining true to my real emotions? If I go, is it okay to cry, to express grief? I’m not planning on going, actually. None of my sibs are either. We just can’t seem to drag ourselves there, though perhaps we all have different reasons for not being able to. My own planned compromise was to attend the reception afterwards, but last night I broke down absolutely weeping at the thought of going, and having to relate, under the circumstances, to the other guests. I’m not a big weeper. In fact, I have never cried over my parents’ dissolved marriage–and you know, it felt really really good. It felt like my body was finally accepting what my head and mouth have been saying for awhile: This is SAD! This is HARD! This is COMPLICATED! And I felt my fear of expressing this sadness, of really feeling it, dissolve as I wept. It didn’t turn out to be something to be afraid of, after all. It felt clean, a clean pure emotion, and that was such a great relief. It actually made me feel like I could, after all, go through with the reception, that I could go with confidence, that I could go and be genuinely expressive of what I’m feeling, while there. If someone were to ask (as seems likely): how are you? I could reply with honesty. Surely it’s okay to step outside the socially acceptable bounds and admit that life doesn’t always fit with the rituals on display. I don’t mean I’m planning to turn into a bucket of tears over the hors d’oeuvres or something equally dramatic, I just mean I’ll be honest. I’ll be honest that my participation in this event is riven with emotions not generally considered appropriate for wedding receptions.
Our family has lost a lot in the past year and a half. I am in the midst of mourning all that has been broken, all that is not reparable. Some things cannot be put back together again. Some brokenness is permanent. Life is deeply deeply sad, sometimes. And it’s okay to feel that, to know that, and to express that. I’ve no interest in wallowing in it. Life goes on. But it feels like the right time to reflect on this sadness. This Thanksgiving I will be giving thanks for the human ability to grieve, to feel, to mourn, and also, as in the last post, to Move.
Writing Day
Dreamed all night about Nina’s buying club … which yesterday hit a snag with the city’s by-law officers. I was afraid this might happen, since anything to do with both food and business seems to grab the attention of authorities. But I’m struck by the absurdity of the situation: living in a city and buying local food, as directly from the farmers as possible, though without actually driving to each farm individually, is suddenly a subversive act. Travelling in a third world country, you’ll see a great mixture of urban and agriculture; chickens and pigs in back courtyards, for example. But we got so sophisticated in our cities that apparently we no longer wished to have any connection to the food we eat, so we legislated such practices out of existence. How bizarre. If the mass-market system of food production collapses, or at the very least is strained … what then? There are very few things we actually need for survival, and food is at the top of the list.