Spreading the love

Cough, cough, cough
cough, mommy, cough
yes sweetie
cough, can you snuggle me? cough
sure, baby

"What doesn't kill us makes us stronger."

It is 3 am and I am quoting Nietzsche. I am so weary of not being able to sleep. The rest of my family is sleeping so quietly. I stayed in bed listening to the rhythm of their breathing and finally got up.

Monday night Mikaela noticed that our chrysalis had turned black. The next morning we could see the orange color of the wings showing through. An hour later the monarch emerged, wet and crumbled. Over the next few hours we watched as its wings slowly expanded and dried. We released him on a butterfly bush near where we found him.

The two black dots on the lower wings tell us it is a male.

Really, how did that butterfly make its transformation? How did four inch wings unfold out of a one inch chrysalis?

I have the flu and everything hurts. Somehow it feels fitting to have my body hurt as much as my heart hurts. Last Sunday our agency called and told us to cancel our plane tickets. Although Yaebsira is legally our daughter, there are more complications and I do not know if I will ever see her again. I can’t believe I am having to write this. If any one told me a year ago what I would be facing this year, I would have said there is no way I could handle all that. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

Metamorphosis

Mikaela and I leave in 14 days for Ethiopia to pick up Yaebsira. Once again I am staring big change in the face and once again a caterpillar is my inspiration. On September 10th we plucked a monarch caterpillar from its happy home at Kathy’s pond and brought it to our house on a large stem of milkweed. Debbie donated a large pretzel container as a temporary home and Mikaela and I watched as it doubled in size every couple of days. Mikaela named her Milkweed. Every day she ate and ate and grew and grew.

This part of the change I would be very good at. It is the second part that I have trouble with. After a week of nonstop eating and a lot of frass production, she stopped. She spent the day crawling all over the container, trying out different locations. Finally she settled on the netting at the top of the pretzel jar and hung upside down in perfect ‘J’ formation ten minutes before Mikaela, Nigel and I were walking out the door for the day. We contemplated taking her with us. (We had already taken her vacationing in Ocean City) We were worried that she might not yet be anchored securely enough to travel. When we returned home we were happy to see her still hanging in her ‘J’ and not yet a chrysalis. We stayed up as late as we could watching her. In the morning she had transformed into a florescent green chrysalis. I guess change of this magnitude is a very private thing.

Here is a video that managed to capture this remarkable change.

This morning I got up and stared at Milkweed’s chrysalis. What is going on in there? I want to make a magnificent transformation in one week. I can’t help but think of Disney images. I want to be transformed into a princess. Okay, not really, but there is a part of me that would love to know what it feels like to be beautiful. I imagine stopping everything and only working on myself. Just the idea of curling up into a cocoon sounds wonderful, even if I came out the same after a few days of peace and quite. Is it like that or is it contained violence that is going on inside that chrysalis? The caterpillar’s mouth must change from one that is made to chomp on milkweed to one that has a delicate tongue for sipping sweet nectar. Just picturing those dental changes alone makes me cringe without even thinking about what would be required to create wings from a fat striped belly. I don’t think it is peaceful in there. Once, many years ago I stopped everything and did a Seshin at Zen Mountain Monastery in Mt. Tremper, New York. For seven days we made no eye contact with anyone, did not speak or read. For seven days we meditated in the zendo except for the few hours we slept each night. Although to an outsider, a room filled with meditating people might look peaceful our minds were anything but peaceful. It was scary in there at times! Imagine seven days inside your head with no escape or distraction. That turns into some serious monkey mind activity. It is wonderful to remember this. I haven’t thought about this in years. When Seshin was over, I was transformed in many ways. Watching Milkweed I am wondering how I can have a similar transformation while cleaning the house, packing for Ethiopia, working…

It is time to be very present.

Fire and Attitudes

Mikaela and I are lucky we have good noses. We were packing to head down to the shore for two days, a gift from my mother. This is our only family vacation for the year. I smell something burning. Something plastic, the bad scent of an electrical burn. I tell Michael. A few minutes later Mikaela tells me that something smells wrong. All packing stops. Michael heads down to the basement and Mikaela and I sniff around upstairs. In a 200 year old house it could be coming from anywhere. I imagine smoldering wiring in between the walls. Michael couldn’t find the problem and the smell was getting worse. I think we should call the fire department and Michael heads back down the basement where he finally finds the problem: melting wires inside the hot water heater. What causes a hot water heater to suddenly have a melt down? Michael turns off the circuit breaker and we begin to air out the house and eventually start packing again. We are so lucky this happened before we left. I imagine coming back from our mini vacation to find a smoldering ash pile.

We do eventually leave, many hours later than planned. I ask Michael countless times, Are you sure the circuit breaker is off? Driving down to the shore I keep thinking about fire and attitudes. M had a fire in her house, also caused by a faulty hot water heater. It was a traumatic fire. Everything in the laundry room and hallway burned and the thick smoke from the melted fiberglass washtub covered everything else in the house with a layer of plastic soot that could not be removed. It looked like someone poured black strap molasses over the whole house.The clean up took months but no one was hurt. For years afterwards (still to this day) M broke up her life into before the fire, and after the fire and would still make comments about inane things like gravy spoons- I lost that in the fire. Every holiday there were reminders of things lost. About the same time J also had a fire. We had plans to spend the day at Longwood Gardens. When I called her house to confirm the time she said she had lost her address book and was glad I had called so she could get my number. We spent a nice day at Longwood and it wasn’t until the end of the day, while relaying a story about something else, that she mentioned the fire that had destroyed her entire house less than two weeks before. Two people with very different outlooks.

At times my imagination can be the enemy. Mine is vivid and well used. I can imagine all sorts of catastrophes with lightening speed. It runs in the family. B can imagine impending storms ruining plans weeks before a weather report is available. There could be a cold front moving in… Lately, my imagination has needed to be tamed. Without warning I can suddenly travel down a path that sees continued health crises, financial doom, travel nightmares trying to bring my daughter home from Ethiopia and now fires that ignite without warning.

It is all a matter of attitude and outlook. The glass full or empty. We were lucky we were home when the melting started. We had a wonderful two days away, even though half of the time the weather was uncooperative. I love the beach. Nigel loved exploring the sand and the water. We ran into fellow OCers on the boardwalk and got to hang out together. We are so very lucky.

Now that we are home, the adventure continues. Michael is upstairs taking a very cold shower. I am sure he will be quite awake by the time he comes down. I put a pot of water on the stove for doing dishes. It feels a bit like Little House on the Prairie. A great history opportunity for Mikaela and me. Maybe we will turn out the lights too.

What Does the Future Hold?

I just deleted over 4000 emails. It is shocking that I received 4000 emails let alone had that many pile up in my email in box. I deleted thousands of emails prior to this so I am now curious about the number of emails I actually received in the past few years. Many of them I saved because they deserved more than a two second response. I thought I would have time to get back to them later. The time I imagine having later never arrives and more things pile up: work responsibilities, homeschooling commitments, emails, laundry, weeds, projects. Everything is moving so fast. How do I prepare myself for the future? How do I start preparing my children? What kind of pressures will they face at my age? What will the world look like? It is beyond my imagination. Sometimes I am so happy to be alive at this time in history, amazed that I can wonder about something and in two minutes time find the answer on the Internet, even with my slow outdated computer. (Debbie had told me the name for caterpillar poop and I couldn’t remember. A quick google search revealed the answer: frass.) As the world speeds up, everyday I dream of slowing down. I dream of chickens and gardening and craft projects- a simpler life. I downsize more and more. I buy less and less.

Today is the 8th anniversary of 9-11. I marvel that so much time has passed since I wore a hard hat in ground zero for months on end, stopping everything in my life except for the things that existed in the dusty world below Canal Street. The life I lead now bears no relation to the life I lived in Manhattan, before or after 9-11. As I prepare to leave for Ethiopia again I wonder, what will the next decade bring? Will I remain healthy enough to experience it? Today I went to the doctor hoping for the best, collected supplies to take with me for orphans in Ethiopia, watched Kipper (I love his voice), made another batch of Kombucha and watched a monarch caterpillar munch on milkweed. Mikaela built another steeplechase in the playroom and I watched the riders go neck and neck at the finish line as I held Nigel to keep him from stepping on all the spectators.






I thought about how much I love my children and my husband and how I want the best for all of us. I am humbled by the realization that I don’t know what the best is. Do I prepare my children for the technical world or shelter them from it? I am reading The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don't Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need--And What We Can Do About It by Tony Wagner. This book is an Open Connections staff recommendation. So how do we prepare for a world we know nothing about? Critical thinking, creativity, self-reliance and flexible thinking: the skills that will make a difference. And I will add, a sense of humor and a love for spontaneity.
Take a deep breath.
Here comes the future.

Cake, Birthdays and Memories

Yesterday was my mother’s 79th birthday. My sister and my family went to my mother’s to celebrate with Chinese food and homemade chocolate cake. Celebrations at my parent’s house don’t come easily these days; there is too much sadness around my father’s health. All in all we had a nice day. My friend, Elizabeth, got this recipe from her nutritionist. When I googled the title I came up with many similar recipes. Here is the one I made for my mother’s birthday. It was amazing. It made my mother smile.




Flourless, Chocolate Truffle Cake

This cake literally melts in your mouth. It has intense, full chocolate flavor without all the fat of the traditional chocolate cake. Serve with a dollop of organic cream and fresh ripe raspberries.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup finely chopped chocolate that is 60-70% cacao. (This can be from chopped chocolate chips or hand chipped from a bar of chocolate)
1 large egg white
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup of whole milk yogurt (cream layer mixed into the low fat layer)

1 cup of turbinate sugar
1 cup egg whites (approximately 6 eggs)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Oil a 9-inch spring form pan. Place chopped chocolate chips in a large bowl; set aside. In a small bowl, beat 1 egg white with cream of tartar until stiff peaks form; set aside.

In a medium saucepan, heat cocoa, sugar, and yogurt with a double boiler, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and pour over chocolate chips. Whisk in 1 cup egg whites, and then fold in beaten egg white.

Pour batter into prepared pan and set in another pan at least 2 inches wider and deeper. Add enough water to bottom pan to come two-thirds up the side of the cake pan. (This is so edges won't burn.) Bake 30 minutes. Chill in refrigerator 8 hours before serving.

Yield: Makes 10 to 12 servings

Getting my groove back

I didn't think about shooting this dish until I was about to eat it so I didn't style it. The pictures aren't great but it was too good not to share.


I just had three days of staff training where I didn't eat breakfast and barely had time for even a small bite of lunch after wrangling Nigel. I was ready for a really good meal. I am finally feeling better so I actually had enough energy to cook tonight. And I made a feast! Mikaela turned up her nose at it and the damn husband said the salmon was cooked well but shrugged off any other comments. Nigel and I loved it. I made miso-crusted salmon with fennel salad from Donna Hay's book, Cooking Off the Shelf and I partnered it with Double Broccoli Quinoa from Heidi's 101 Cookbook. I improvised on both a bit. On the quinoa I skipped the lemon juice and used a dash of milk instead of heavy cream. I topped it with fresh basil. The fennel salad called for fish oil which I was out of so I used a bit of hoisin sauce instead. They both came out great and I served them with mashed sweet potatoes. I can't wait to have the leftovers tomorrow. All this and I am up past 10pm too. Wow, I must be getting my groove back. It will be a long time before I take my health for granted.