12 Days of Crafty Christmas

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love made for me:  

12 (x 10) sugar cookies

eleven pipers piping

 

Ten pounds of fudge

 

Nine degrees Farenheit

 

Eight colored cards 

(drawn by your son and printed professionally as a school fundraiser that were too cute to pass up)

Seven small students singing 

(mostly sitting on stage)

 

Six hand knit Nepalese stockings by way of a little shop in Steamboat Springs that I had to order in a panic at the last minute because I couldn't find our stockings after traveling last Christmas and I love these cute knitted ones and wish I could knit this beautifully and I paid full price and expedited shipping for but S still has his from last year because we had to order him a new one since his old one was chewed on and nested in by a mouse....

(INHALE)

FIVE SWEET SMALL FINGERS!!

 

Four felt gnomes

 

Three wooden elves

 

Two knitted bears

 

And a green sweater with a red star!!!!!

(that I obsessively knitted for my eldest son so he'd have a holiday sweater since Grama couldn't find one for him and she found some for the younger ones!!!!!!!) 

Home Made Christmas Ornaments

Did you know that you can bake salt dough (ie, home made play dough) and it will harden enough to make a 3-dimensional sculpture...like an ornament?  I'm wondering how I have made it this far in life and just realized that.  We had a fun afternoon playing with the dough--free hand sculpting, rolling, cutting and molding.  My 7 year old made a snowman, Mary + Joseph and baby Jesus, then another 2 little baby Jesuses, a Christmas tree and a wreath.  They are adorable, very authentically his, and fun little secret santa presents.  The 4 year old wanted to make a pile of candy canes which will look almost planned out and cohesive on our tree.  I made a few big snowflakes and trees and will give them away as little presents.

We also used some extra cookie cutters and backed them with fun paper prints to make some ornaments.  The scissor work was slightly tricky, and the gluing/taping was kind of intricate.  But my 7 year old especially liked this.

Home Made Dough Ornaments
yield-dough for 5 dozen +/- ornaments
4 c all purpose flour
2 cups salt
1 1/2 cups water
1 t alum (we didn't have this;  it's a bitter preservative agent--I used ginger and cinnamon instead and the dough seemed fine.

Mix all ingredients thoroughly with hands.  Add water 1T at a time if to dry.  If desired tint dough with food dye by kneading in.  Cover (keep covered while working in dry climates);  can be refrigerated for up to 2 weeks.

Roll-1/8 inch thick and cut with cookie cutters.  If making ornaments use a straw or stick to make a hole near the top.

Mold-up to 1/2 inch thick.

Heat oven to 250 deg F.  Place decorations on ungreased cookie sheet and bake about 2 hours (until completely hard and dry).  Cool completely on wire rack.  Sand decorations lightly until smooth.  You can paint them with acrylic paint and seal if desired.

Advent-ures

Like the small voice of Cindy-Lou Hoo asking "Why, Santa?" I and so many parents fight a lopsided battle against the consumerism and commercialism of the Christmas Holiday.  We all remember that iconic story where the Grinch steals "The Stuff" and it doesn't matter--Christmas comes anyhow, and they sing and hold hands and share the love.  That sentiment really does hold true for most of us during the gifty winter holidays--it's the sharing and togetherness that is the richness.  But reigning in the desire is another thing altogether.  Everyday in the mail a pile of catalogs arrive:  the same company (and its sister companies) sends some publication every other day.  The kids see the direct advertisements with X-ray vision when I pull the stack of mail out of our box, and immediately ask to look at them.  I'll admit, handing them back for them to peruse buys me 3 minutes of silence between the mail box and our house.  But like the night in winter, the children's toy want lists grow longer.  Most of the catalogs we receive (in spite of multiple calls to various companies to cancel them, requesting that I be taken off mailing lists, etc.) have lovely natural toys, mostly made in the USA.  I am okay with most of what they see,  though they all create a false sense of need.  But a couple sneak through that show behemoth plastic multi-storied castles, rockets, dinosaur villages.  Even if I were inclined to buy these, we just would not have the room in our house.  As it is, I need to go through the boys' toys ASAP (all three of them share one room with toys and art and stuff for all three age ranges crammed into storage shelving in like an overstuffed pillow) and share some boy toy love (not that kind, ahem).

One way I keep the meaning of the season forefront is with the celebration of Advent.  This is something I've only started doing in the past few years, but it is a wonderful way to bring to life the stories (and I do include all of them--its a great opportunity for a comparative review of the world's religions) of this season and honor the solstice. It is a time of quiet anticipation, preparation, waiting.  Of course, it's mostly about the birth of Jesus, and we really have fun with it, celebrating little traditions the boys talk about all year long.   And we talk a lot about Jesus in his many contexts.  Most of our celebrations mirror those going on in the boys' Waldorf-inspired school, and the first thing to come is the Advent wreath.  It is simple--I just arranged ours on the kitchen table with some greens and five candles;  each of the four candles is to be lit on the four Sundays of Advent and the center one is for Christmas Day.  We light the first candle (I'll admit we were slightly late this year, still recovering from Turkey Day goings-on) and sing a few sweet little songs and talk about what is to come.  The first light of Advent is a time to think about the stones in our world--shells, minerals, bones, crystals.  All of that first week, I put one special little treasure in their advent stockings along that theme.  I set up the Creche on a separate table, starting with just the stable, and we add daily to the display with the little advent surprises.  Boys love rocks--they really like the first week.  Our advent "calendar" is a collection of 24 little stockings on a rope--a fun preview of the larger holiday to come.  Each week we move "up" the scale of complexity:  the second week is the light of the plants, the third week the light of the animals, and the fourth week the light of the people.  I put corresponding gifts (recycled from year to year-nothing fancy) in the stocking--a little wooden heart, a piece of petrified wood, some juniper berries;  then little wooden animals;  then little people, all of which go over to the manger scene.  Occasionally I'll be a fun mom and throw in a little chocolate coin or ball.  By the time it's Christmas, the Creche is full of stones, crystals, moss, evergreens, leaves, animals, and people awaiting the rival of the wee baby.

Okay.  I have to make a little confession: I almost put all of our stuff away the first day of advent because the older boys were fighting incessantly about who got what and when and all of that annoying stuff siblings fight about.  In anticipation of this, I had even planned it out ahead of time how it would go down in what I thought was a fair manner...but you know what happens to the best laid plans.  Ooh, was I mad.  I lectured them about how this was all supposed to be fun, reminded them of the "true meaning" of the season.  Blah blah blah.  Fortunately we all calmed down by the next day, and they are taking turns and playing nice.  I don't think making threats really goes along with the various messages of the season...but who's perfect? 

Back to the story:  the folks at the left here are Mary, Joseph and the Donkey.  This is one of the boys' favorite traditions.  They start out on their journey to the manger at the beginning of Advent.  I put the figures far away from their ultimate destination and each night they travel just a little on their way--the kids love to seek them out the next morning.  Some nights I forget to move them, and then have to make up explain that they just needed a rest day or a shopping day.  She is pregnant after all and it's hard to do anything in that state.  And then one year the cleaning lady took them home--supposedly on accident.  I'm not sure what you'd want to do with 3 very small wooden figurines like these, but she says they were on a windowsill and somehow they got in her cloth and she took them home and they went through the wash.  When they went missing did we ever have a panic.  My oldest one was concerned to the point of obsession.  I made up all kinds of stories about their travels--they had taken a very big detour.  Thankfully they made it back in time for her to give birth to the Lord right on schedule.

In honoring the quietness of Advent, bringing more light with each successive week as we approach the very darkest time of the year, and focusing in on the very basic elements of our environment, we can push away the overwhelming messages of unbridled consumption that come with Christmas.  My son's preschool does this in a most beautiful way, from the messages the teachers give, to the small surprises of Advent, to the presence of St. Nicolaus.  He comes not to ask the children what they want, but to recognize their strengths and encourage them to work on their not so strong points.  I witnessed this a few years ago when I very first visited the school, as a volunteer/good sport white-bearded man in a shabby red velvet suit with a beggar by his side (the real story of St. Nick) and a big special book spoke knowingly to each child in the class and offered a small gift--a golden walnut representing the hardship of life (getting into the nut) as well as the rewards for hard work (the nut meat).  The children were entranced;  it was pure magic.

This year, several of the moms in our class worked together to make this most beautiful felted woolen Advent calendar with pockets for little goodies--wee gnomes that appear one by one each day.  It's beautiful--a work of art.  The tapestry is brilliantly colored with strong tree roots at the bottom, a many-branched evergreen, and the majestic winter sun atop it all. 

Winter has fully hit us here with extreme cold and a gorgeous, clean white covering of snow.  The icicles hanging from the roof glisten in the morning sun.  We're settling into the countdown of Advent (we've all calmed down, and are taking turns and playing nice...mostly...at least with the Advent calendar), especially now that it looks like Christmas.  Tonight we get to light candles and place them in a spiral made of pine boughs followed by cookies and warm drinks at the school's Advent Spiral celebration.  I'm making biscochitos as we speak.  And though the catalogs are coming at lightening speed and voluminous quantity in the peak of shopping season, we can come home, build a fire (perhaps with the catalogs?), quiet down, light a candle and play with some rocks.  And, you know, be together while it's -4 degrees outside.  Because along with giving and sharing and kind deeds,  that's really what the season's all about:  figuring out how to live together inside while it's really cold and dark.

Gobble, gobble

Whew. With the dishes done several times over, cousins out the door at 5 am today to catch a flight, and leftovers nearly gone, I'm just about done with the turkey holiday...what a glorious time! I cooked for 15 people, children outnumbering adults by a hair.  We had an afternoon of exactly what Thanksgiving is meant to be--warmth, yummy food, reflection, cooperation, tradition, and love.  I spent several days staging the meal preparation so that I could enjoy my guests.  Inevitably there were some last minute crises that derailed my plan (such as the crying, under-napped, excited 19 month old)...but it was still good.  The fact that I would even dream of cooking a meal of this size and caliber is no small feat;  in fact, it has been many, many years in the making.

One of the gifts of children and living in the boonies is that it has stimulated me to learn how to cook.  As a child, food was fine and all.  I liked Oreos and Happy Meals.  No offense to my beloved mom, but dinner was more convenient than inspired.  She's going to read this and agree--I mean, there were four kids and a lot going on--and that was the mode of the day for the 1970's do-it-all woman.  My dad loved to cook (and was good at it) but this was a special event.  In my adolescence, I tightly controlled my food intake to have a sense of control over something in my life (read: eating disorder).  In college, living alone and being a vegetarian, I lived in Atkin's Hell on pasta and bagels.  Cooking for one, or occasionally two, is tricky and for someone wholly focused on school, well, eating was really just an inconvenience.  I dreamed of and actually think that I told someone that I'd rather eat a Jetson's-like nutrition pill and just be done with it so I had more time to study and work and do other important things.

I also was somehow miraculously surrounded by nurturing folk who did in fact love to cook (hmmm....coincidence?).  A particular friend who went on to become a professional chef fed me well for some time.  She was also a vegetarian but had the imagination and stimulation to actually look at recipes.  She made things like asparagus soup;  they were good.  I don't want to give the impression that I only ate white trash junk food...I could definitely appreciate more gourmet fare such as wild mushrooms and coq au vin (pre-veggie days).  I just had a sweet tooth and when you don't eat much, you get a lot of bang for your skimpy student income buck from a Reese's.  There was another dear family that fed me regularly through my 20's.  The mom was a phenomenal cook and had worked as a caterer in a previous life.  She could effortlessly put together a light and yummy, nourishing feast that we would consume in their garden, which she'd also nurtured to glorious fruition.  That family provided me with a lot of love and company.  These times were my first hint of a clue at the communal meaning of food and meals.  I hope that somehow, somewhere I have been able to return the favor to both of these folks.

In my late 20's I finished my training and entered my "Real Life."  I joined a practice and moved, with my boyfriend (now husband), into a home we purchased.  It's a remote location--rural and bordering on only a town-size locale.  Kinda out there.  We can't just run down the road to get take out or quick groceries.  In the first couple of years here, establishing my professional self, I worked very, very long hours and did a lot of call nights.  Still not so much time for cooking.  My guy got terribly tired of pasta, but at 8pm after a full day, that's about all you can muster.  It's funny, I never seemed to tire of it--I could eat the same thing every day, it was so low on my priority list. 

After we married and I immediately got pregnant--that's when the food relationship changed.  I was physically unable to cook at first with my nausea and exhaustion.  Then, I became ravenous for meat.  Then, I suddenly really, really cared about what I ate and passed along to my baby.  It wasn't immediate, but as I transformed into a mother, I learned to care about the world in a way that I'd only thought I'd understood before.  I'd always considered myself "an environmentalist" but when the possibility of my child suffering the consequences of my generation's missteps became real, I cared in an entirely different way.  I finally felt like I was part of the fabric of humanity.  I had thrown my genetic chips onto the table and was ready to really play.

Over time, between wrestling with my role as a mother, physician and wife, I began to feel very strongly about how and what my family ate.  We joined our local CSA and would receive a bag full of surprise veggies every week for half of the year.  I had to learn how to cook with chard, kale and kohlrabi, and began to love the challenge.  I learned to appreciate the process of eating locally--eating what your local environment can appropriately support, and eating seasonally, eating things your neighbors have grown (not things shipped from New Zealand).  That is really how we humans are supposed to eat.  And who wants mealy, pale pink tomatoes in January, anyhow?  I experimented with varying amounts of meats in our diet (I'd found between pregnancy and nursing that my vegetarian days were over, at least for the moment).  In my hyper-organized way, I planned out meals on a weekly basis and shopped with a list that was organized into the order of the grocery store where I shop.  I would challenge myself with new recipes, I subscribed to various homemaker magazines with many recipes (again, seasonally inspired), and rarely would duplicate a meal for some weird reason. 

Over the past eight years, since weaving myself and my family into the local community, I've become proficient at cooking.  I never, ever thought that I would, and occasionally my husband will teasingly ask me what my friends from past lives would think of me now (though with the magic of Facebook, I can figure it out pretty easily).  Just as sewing, knitting and other home crafts did not appeal to me, I viewed cooking in a purely utilitarian way and did not have time for it.  Then, as I grew a baby and fed it in utero and then from my very own milk, my relationship to food and nourishment changed entirely.  As I fed my children, I finally understood how people experience food as love--from day one, that is what a mother does, and that is one of our most basic human expressions of love and affection.  It grew to wanting to feed my extended family and our wonderful community of friends.  I was finally able to open myself to the incredible power of food--it connects us to one another, nourishing us both physically and soulfully.  And the joy of good food in the mouth is a wonder to behold.  Deliciousness experienced by our taste buds will quite literally change the chemistry in our brain.

This past week, I was delighted to cook for my husband's sister's family and some dear friends.  Proficient enough to not worry, experienced enough from Thanksgivings past that I could pick the recipes I knew and loved, organized enough to time the preparations, I got to make a meal that would fill my loved ones and our children.  I don't want to sound like I'm tooting my own horn, but I like the evolution of my relationship to food.  Maybe it's really just growing up.  We had a juicy roasted turkey (secret: brining) with local root vegetables, porcini mushroom, sausage and chestnut stuffing (locally collected and dried porcini), Big Martha's mashed potatoes (Ms. Stewart's mom's recipe, made with cream cheese), local green beans, home made crescent rolls, orange-cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and sweet potato pie.  Everyone but my sister-in-law, the baby and I went skiing for the day and we had plenty of time and space to cook.  At feast time, the kids played waiter and served the adults.  My son drew menus for everyone with their names and illustrations of the dinner.  The kids (all 8 of them) played together beautifully.  We said/sang 4 different versions of grace and/or blessing songs.  We went around the table and asked everyone what they were thankful for which was pure sweetness, then at the request of one four year old, we all said it together at the same time (my new favorite tradition).  After dinner, they played a modified cooperative team charades where they acted out something and all of the adults together guessed what they were (this was particularly hilarious and a great game for kids of varying ages). We didn't even turn on the TV--I saw no football.

My friend emailed me the following day and said that she felt "loved, adored, fed, comforted" by the holiday.  I could not have gotten a higher compliment.  Holidays, at their best, are opportunities for  tradition and rhythm that speak of creativity, enthusiasm for life and fun, as she told me.  I have also experienced Thanksgiving completely alone, searching for an cheap open restaurant (Thank God for The Frontier), serving the homeless donated food, working at the hospital, and with dysfunctional families.  I've had crazy and not fun times.  I much prefer this version, and hope to replay it again and again.  Thanks.

Helping Hands

Our deco motif this Thanksgiving: handprints.  They fit so nicely into the message of this season-- of lending a helping hand, working hard, giving thanks.  And they make great little turkeys.  Our table center pieces are seen here at the left and were a whole afternoon's worth of entertainment for the family.  Grama and the boys collected some gorgeous pinecones of varying sizes and then spent an afternoon tracing little hands and cutting them out of autumn shades of construction paper.  Some pipe cleaner feet, and these decorative toms were complete.  We made a whole fleet of them, though S (age 4) got tired of the enterprise.  Cutting out a hand is very hard work for a little guy--it's sort of intricate scissor work.  F, the baby, did his part by standing still for 7 seconds and permitting us to trace his chubby little hand.  C (age 7) worked hard at this activity for quite a while.  It had something for everyone (which can be tricky with this age spread)--a walk in the woods, gathering, drawing, cutting, gluing. 

We're also going to use our hand made and very wobbly (and partially nibbled on by curious teeth) beeswax candles on the table.  And C, my 7 year old, has literally spent hours making menus for each of our guests.  We are excited to have close friends and neighbors joining us, bringing authentic Southern sweet potato pie to share.  My husband's sister and her family are traveling here for the long weekend and C is already planning how he and his cousin can play waiters for the dinner.  His menus had adorable drawings of turkeys on the front and each attendee's name.  Inside was a list of the food and drawings of pies.  This was a very big deal for this boy who has struggled with writing skills, and though he's always loved to draw, the illustrations were identifiable.  I'm so proud of him, and pleased it was entirely his idea.  And the fact that he is planning on using his own helping hands for the holiday is just lovely.  We'll see how it actually turns out. 

On this pre-Turkey Day Sunday afternoon we made hand print turkey cookies.  I'll admit, they got the idea from the incessant PSA-type message between repeated episodes of The Wonder Pets on Nick Jr.  Why don't they show Yo Gabba Gabba all of the time?  And, it's easy to make 4 colors of frosting when someone else makes it for you.  But they were darn cute and the boys know how much I love to bake.  I try so very hard to share this activity with them, and really, as many activities in the kitchen as possible.  Baking, though, is like chemistry lab and requires a certain amount of precision.  I don't want to say I have to be in control, but I hate to waste ingredients (ie, throw away a pan of inedible cookies/bread/cake)...and it's a big mess to clean up flour sprinkled everywhere...and picking out eggshells from batter can be tricky.  I really do try to let go of all of my need to bake perfectly and let the boys go at it.  I would hate to damper kitchen enthusiasm, especially in a boy.  But boy, do I have to try.  And breathe a lot.

So I made some sugar cookie dough with the help of S.  He especially likes to be in the kitchen.  In fact, he loves to have a job and to be needed and useful.  I guess we all do, to some degree.  But whenever he is going astray by torturing his baby brother, licking the mud from the adobe walls, stealing special things, marking up his older brother's hand made Thanksgiving menus that took 5 hours to make, I know it's time to call him in to help me with a special chore.  It's our little way of bonding and re-setting into the right groove.  He, like all four year old's, has a hard time with impulse control.  Specifically the impulse to eat the raw dough of whatever we're making.  I've tried not to bog him down with the threat of salmonella, but he does know raw eggs are a no no, and he doesn't seem to particularly care.  So far, knock on wood, we've avoided any horrible dysenteric food-borne illnesses.

After a few hours of outside time and dough chillin' we were ready to make cookies.  We made a template with outlines of hands that we cut out and used on the dough to trace and cut.  A few minutes in the oven and we were ready for the fun part, the decoration.  These cookies could have turned out cuter if I'd made multiple shades of frosting, but I just wasn't up for it today.  We had orange and that was going to have to do.   A chocolate chip eye, a candy corn beak and some free form frosting work finished the birds. 

It was a fun way to spend the afternoon.  I have always loved to bake, from childhood--much more so than cooking (future post on that one in the pipe).  And taking the time to bake from scratch makes the reward that much sweeter.  I walk that tightrope of appropriate amounts of treats for my children, and it's a tricky one.  I fear if they are deprived that they will never learn their own limits on sugar intake.  But I don't want it around all of the time.  We don't buy packaged cookies, and baking together seems to be a nice compromise on the whole issue.  We get to have together time, use ingredients of our choosing, and see the work that goes into making a sweet.  Then we get to enjoy it--a treat on many levels.  It was my treat to see all three of their sweet little hands in cookie form.

I'm hoping to find someone to share these with, as the recipe made a lot of dough...and after we lost steam on the precision needed for free form hand carving, I used my fall cookie cutters to make oodles of pumpkins, leaves and acorns.  I or my husband will probably take them to work--that's what we usually do with our confectionary excesses.  People who work in hospitals need that kind of love sometimes.

I'm looking forward to the coming week, though there's much work-- cooking, baking, decorating--to do for the celebration.  I'm sure if I just let go a little, let things be a bit imperfect, take the gifts of many helping hands, a great time will indeed be had by all--including me.

From Mind Fullness to Mindfulness

Getting swallowed up in the quicksand of peripheral junk that comes with the holidays is dangerously easy:  the shopping, the lists, the menus, the parties, the school plays and concerts, the traveling.  It's all for a good cause but friends, let's keep it in perspective.  It's nearly Thanksgiving-- give some thanks.  And for those of you who tirelessly give to others--and you know who you are--be kind to yourself.  Every few days Oprah efficiently reminds me in email form to be grateful, to be mindful.   She's a ka-jillionaire and has an army of Deepak's and Oz's and trainers and cooks...easy for her to say.  But for us little people, there are actual scientific studies that show how mindfulness will lower blood pressure and have generally positive benefits on health and the like.  It's a simple moment of stopping thinking and checking in with your body.  If you have the time and/or patience, it can be extended into full on meditation.  And the practice of gratitude will keep things real.  Every time I work with patients I am given the gift of perspective--that the little things I can get upset about...compared to leukemia, not so big.  When I ask my little ones what they are thankful for, they say, "For being me!"  And what more basic thing do we have to be thankful for than existing as who we are on this earth!


I am a morning person...sometimes by choice and sometimes by crying baby alarm.  I love seeing the world at sunrise.  It's so quiet, still and the day is full of promise--that moment of anticipation that is sometimes sweeter than the moment itself.   I'm particularly inspired to capture these beautiful moments when the light is just emerging and holds amazing colors.  I am not good at taking pictures;  I love digital cameras as I can snap away and filter through for one or two good ones.  The fact that these photos turned out at all is due only to the natural beauty of this place.  I love the light here in Taos and can see why so many artists were drawn to this place.  You could make a pile of bear turds look good.  In these moments--sometimes captured, most just floating around in my sub-conscious--I am fully aware, and often quite thankful for just being in that very moment.  These pictures here I snapped over the past few weeks from my porch, as I've watched the season change from a lovely fall into a quiet early winter, in a few quiet spaces I've found.


When I get anxious, angry, short tempered, I look out my window.  And breathe.  This will work anywhere, really--not just in the foothills of the Rockies, though that definitely helps.  It's the change of scenery, the injection of physical perspective into a moment that will diffuse a stressful patch.  As a person ruled largely by the left hemisphere of the brain, I've only learned to appreciate beauty for it's own sake over the last ten years or so.  C, my 7 year old, will tell me at random moments to look out of the window--at home or in the car--to notice something, a cloud, a bird, the light.  These moments give my life an unbelievable richness.  The beauty that is around us all of the time is joy made manifest in physical form.  Both older boys will set the table and want it to look beautiful just for the pure enjoyment of it being beautiful.  It's amazing how quickly and easily we can wrap our minds into a tizzy about a to do list, an upcoming meeting, a child's temper tantrum, or my nemesis, being on time.  But when you step back, look out the window at the trees and mountains (or streets full of cars and people, which has its own, different beauty) and think about how incredible it is that we are all here; that somehow this little rock flying in orbit around the sun, spinning away, happens to have just the right combination of weather and water and vegetation to allow us to live here in relative harmony...it's almost overwhelming to consider.  Whether you believe God created it or it happened through a synchronicity of perfect conditions--well, either way it is nothing short of miraculous.  Sometimes when I think about it I have a little out of body moment and get quite literally lost and a little nauseated and frightened thinking about the universe and our place in it.

I'm writing this as much as a reminder to myself, as a plea to my wonderful friends and family.  These, like so many things in life, are a practice, and despite the saying, we will never make perfect of it.  So step away from your daily drudge and consider your body as a temple, an amazing machine.  Feel your bones and height and strength.  See your family as the anti-entropic drive of life's longing for itself.  Your home as sacred.  Your road, city, town, as an amazing complex of math and science and art and humanity all thrown together to drive cars, build houses and live together--with all that entails.  And when you stop and think about what you might be thankful for--it's the most basic things, right?  Family, health, friends.  It's not really the big fancy stuff.

Slow down for a moment in this crazy time and be mindful of your self and well being.  Break off an icicle and enjoy.  Stare in awe as a crescent moon rises along with the sun.  Stop cooking dinner and look at the sun setting, casting light through a snow squall.  Know that any little (and even most of the big) transgressions shall pass.  When in doubt, add more love.  Take moments to be grateful--remember how basic our needs really are and what we most want around us.  And be thankful that you are you.

On the Virtues of Knitting, Pt. I

The first time I seriously tried to knit as an adult was when I was being held prisoner.  I was early in my third trimester of my first pregnancy, breezily going about my business taking call every third night and working full time in a busy practice, waking up at 5 am to exercise by riding my bike on a stationary machine, planning on how I was going to quickly transition back to work after a really generous three month maternity leave.  I was in that really cute phase of pregnancy where you are very obviously pregnant but not yet a whale.  I suddenly started having regular contractions one night.  No, no, no.  This was not happening to me.  But it was, and I was scared.  In a calm and clinical way I spoke to my OB, she brought me for an evaluation, and there in seismographic ink like periodic earthquakes were regular contractions.  One heart-racing, tremor-inducing dose of terbutaline later, and they were gone.  And I was on bedrest.

An experienced mom of two would smile benignly and tell me to surrender.  I understood what she said only on a very superficial level at the time.  Pregnancy had brought out an extreme anxiety in me, as it does many women.  Having the somewhat unfortunate knowledge of the horrific things that can come (but thankfully mostly don't) with pregnancy, combined with the completely new sensation of vulnerability, left me worrying.  Worrying does nothing for anyone.  You fantasize about what may come, what might be, all of which--particularly when it comes to pregnancy and birth--means nothing.  I worried about miscarrying, knowing full well that there is very little that you can do to cause or prevent it;  in fact, most of those babes are not compatible with life, as we say in medicine.  Having had a miscarriage with my first pregnancy, I kept thinking that once I was through the first trimester, I'd be home free!!!  

How wrong was I!!!

That was just the nascent beginning of the worry that comes when you know you have a viable pregnancy--a growing actual person and soul in baby form--in there.  And then, oh, just the rest of their life.  I did okay through the second trimester, feeling a bit like superwoman/mother goddess as you do at that point.  I was confident I'd work as long as possible or until my due date.  I was exercising, determined to stay in shape and continue my mental health regimen as long as possible.  I even skied until somewhere around 25 weeks, at which time my completely unzipped snow pants became too tight and I could not bend down to buckle my boots.  We then passed the next milestone--24 weeks--the point at which a baby could survive if born.  And I'm thinking "I'm doing great!"

Somewhere around 26 weeks the regular contraction event happened and I was forced to bed to receive, as my OB ordered, "The Princess Treatment," getting up only to use the bathroom.  For this type-A mama to be, exercise was my anxiolytic;  it always had been.  It got me through 11 years of very stressful school/training without the use of antidepressants.  So there I was, worried about birthing a pre-me (and much, much worse), and trapped in bed.  My sweet hubby rented me a stack of movies (we had a TV but no reception).  I tried to read.  I could not settle.

I decided to try to knit something for the baby.  I'd been taught knitting as a kid but had never really done anything but a potholder.  It seemed so old fashioned and boring, I'd thought in my youth.  Both my mom and her mom knitted.  My Grandma knitted each of her grandchildren a blanket, customized to the child's color preference.  I had my green acrylic one for years, but I kick myself now for jettisoning it in college, along with many of my sentimental material attachments.  It was a kind of Buddhist, self-deprived period.  My mom knitted everyone in our family sweaters.  They were beautiful, I recognize now.  At the time a home made garment such as this seemed so uncool.  The pieces were "different", un-branded, and didn't fit into the late1970's little girl uniform (you know, Jordache or Chemin de Fur, rainbow shirt, leg warmers--ironically, none of which I had). 

Back in bed, my mom brought me some knitting needles and a pastel rainbow-ed neutral yarn suitable for a boy or girl (or hermaphrodite as I worried about--we didn't know what we were having).  She showed me how to cast on and do a basic stockinette stitch.  I went for it with my usual drive.   Unfortunately in my wound up state, I wound my stitches so tight that after a few rows, I couldn't even get the needle into a loop to knit it.   I ended up with a pale yellow-green-blue-pink tightly knit rectangle.

I went on to give birth ten days past my due date, to a healthy 9 lb 2 oz baby boy.  I didn't do much more knitting until I was pregnant for the second time.  In my eldest son's infancy and toddlerhood I tried to be supermom, working and mothering and wife-ing and everything.  I could go on volumes about that (maybe a later post) but suffice it to say that I finally and fully learned what my wise friend meant when she said "Surrender."  While pregnant with S, baby #2, I felt the knitting urge and went with it.  I think it had something to do with a nesting instinct.  Oh, that and being imprisoned yet again when I began to bleed early in my second trimester.  I bleed heavily for 3 weeks.  Major bummer.  I managed to knit some looser rectangles, and a little scarf for my older boy.   I think I've mastered the scarf, actually, having now made several for myself and for each of my kids.  The nice thing about the scarf is that it's easy, quick, you don't need a pattern and you can make it any size you want--it's a very long rectangle.  It is the way to start--a beginner can make it and have something organic and maybe even nice to wear at the end.

Over the past few years I've ended up coming back again and again to knitting.  It's a hobby that has evolved in slow motion.  It seems to be seasonal and I definitely feel inspired as the days grow shorter.  There's more inside time, more dark hours and it's cold so you can wear your woolen creations--a perfectly utilitarian and yet creative project!  For you fidgeters out there, and I count myself among you, knitting is a terrific thing to do while trying to watch a movie or news or The Daily Show.  You can be productive in a highly meditative way while unwinding.  How great is that?  If you have an OCD tendency to count things, such as stairs, steps--you know who you are--knitting would suit you well.  Knitting is portable.  It appeals to me in the same way running does--both require very little equipment and can be done anywhere.  Stuff it in your bag and while waiting at soccer or swim practice, knit away. 

This fall, I had to skip out on our latest bookclub read because of a meeting.  I took the hiatus as an opportunity to design my first big knitting project.  My son had won some hand dyed wool yarn and bamboo needles at a raffle.  I had bought some ivory alpaca skeins while visiting a nearby alpaca ranch, on a whim because it was so beautiful and soft even though I had no plan for it.  So I made a plan.  I thought:  poncho.  I looked though my knitting encyclopedia for ideas.  I visited knitty.com for patterns.  I came up with a hybrid design based on using what I had.  It was basically a big rectangle--I can do that!!--that was then folded in half and sewed up one end about 2/3 of the way, making a hole for the head.  I knitted away for weeks.  I learned the immense value of blocking your knitting.  I felt okay about pulling things apart and starting over, because, as an experienced knitter friend told me, you don't want to look at something you've worked long and hard on and be disappointed for eternity.  I learned how to crochet (even easier than knitting!) and made these cute little flowers that my mom just made up on the spot.  I sewed it all together and crocheted a little ruffle.  And, my friends, I made a poncho. 

The funny thing about working on something like that is that after a while you've looked at it for so long, you lose perspective on how it really looks.  Is it even cute?  I don't know.  Is it me?  Is it something I'd wear normally?  Is it something I'd buy?  How much?  And I've asked myself all of those questions and oddly enough I can't really answer them.  I love it and I've worn it and I don't even know how much I'd sell it for because I wouldn't sell it. 

I knitted it in the evenings.  I knitted it at soccer practice.  I knitted it while nursing my boy through the swine flu.  It kept my fidgety hands from being idle...because you know where that leads.  My poncho has the qualities that I now appreciate so much from the pieces made by my foremothers--hand made, considered, imperfect, with love.  The things I knit inevitably, inescapably are made with love.  When you take your hands and create something for someone else that you know and love (or even for yourself, as my husband teased me), your time and energy and thought and feeling goes into that piece and the love comes through.  The fact that you make it yourself, with your own two hands, investing your precious time, and thinking about someone else in what you create--that is love.  I gave a dear friend a scarf (of course) that I knitted for her birthday.  I got the yarn at the aforementioned alpaca ranch, and it was so soft and so beautifully eggplant purple.  I immediately thought of her.  And the shop gal gave me a pattern that used one skein of the stuff and created a beautiful ribbed and ruffled scarf--one of my friend's favorite accessories.  What I gave her wasn't perfect, but she thanked me for it and told me how she would feel enveloped with my love every time she put it on.  Exactly what I was hoping for.  And only now, 20 years too late do I wish I could have that dark and light green zig-zagged blanket back, ugly as it was, as a small thread linking my adult self back to my grandmother, my kids to their great-grandmother, and the time she loved me enough to knit me my very own blanket.

Martinmas

Largely celebrated in Europe, St. Martin's Day on November 11,  is one of those essentially religious holidays that holds a really nice message.  Martin was a Roman soldier who came upon a freezing beggar at night.  He took his cloak and cut it in half, saving a piece for himself and giving the other half to the beggar saving the beggars life by keeping him from freezing.  That night he had a dream where Jesus came to him and said something along the lines of, "As you have done to this beggar, you have done to me."  Martin went on to be baptised as an adult and lived his life as a monk, being sainted post-humously (as is required).

The celebrations in Europe tend to relate Martinmas as a day or night of feasting prior to the beginning of a forty day advent.  Many places also celebrate with a lantern walk in the night.   In my research I couldn't exactly find the link between lanterns and St. Martin's deeds;  perhaps it is another way to bring light into this dark time of year.  Our little school celebrates Martinmas with one such lantern walk.  In the days before the walk, each class makes it's own little paper lanterns for the children, ranging from simple painted cylinders to very ornate cut paper decorations on geometrically designed containers.  They mostly have a wire or pipe-cleaner attachment on top and a long stick for a handle, keeping little hands safely away from the flame.  The families then gather at a local park for a nighttime walk.  One year, the eighth grade had access to a horse and re-enacted the entire story in theatrical form.   Some years a teacher steps forward and tells Martin's short story.  In years past we have then strolled around the park and sang songs about light.

The lantern walk tends to occur on the Friday most conveniently near November 11, and we had our lantern walk last night.  It was a warm-ish (for November) and lovely clear night.  About 250 children and adults gathered in our little park, and this time we walked over to the plaza a couple of blocks away.  We even had a motorcycle police escort which was by far the highlight for my 4 year old and 19 month old.  The baby kept saying/growling "BIKE" over and over and over.  Then when we he moved on, "Bye, bye bike." 

After we returned to the park, yummy warm rolls that are just ever so slightly sweet and flavored with nutmeg were served along with hot cider.  It was warm enough that the kids all ran around in the dark around little pools of lantern light and had a great old time.  The lanterns are really beautiful and fun--we now have a little collection from all of the different years that my boys have attended the school.  They are simple but sturdy enough that they can be re-used, and are another lovely way to bring light to the darkness and to get oneself outside into the night in spite of the cold.  What I really hope, though, is that the true message of Martin and his generosity, selflessness and charity gets through some little tiny pore and lodges into my kids' brains.

Lantern Bread Recipe

Yield-3 dozen--a large group, but modifies well--I've cut it down and made it at Thanksgiving.

18-20 cups white wheat OR spelt flour

6 cups soy OR regular milk

1 1/2 cups honey

1 1/2 cups oil

6 pkg yeast

6 tsp vanilla

3 tsp grated nutmeg

3 tsp salt

In a very large mixing bowl, combine 10 cups of flour, yeas, nutmeg, and salt.  On top of stove, combine milk, honey, oil and vanilla and heat to 105-110 deg F.  Pour into dry ingredients and stir to combine.  Let rise 15 minutes to make sure yeast is active.

Add remaining 8-10 cups flour and knead together but don't overnknead.  Let rise 30-40 minutes til double.

Punch down and make into spiral rolls--either a simple spiral or an S-shape.  Let rest 15 minutes in a warm place until rolls puff up but don't lose their spiral shape.  Brush with mild to make rolls shiny.

Bake at 375 deg F for 15-20 minutes.

El Dia de los Muertos

I'm kind of thinking that the day after Halloween should be called "Day of the Dead Tired."  Actually, as I have gotten older and lost loved ones, I appreciate this holiday more and more. Every year I intend to make a beautiful shrine, but in the excitement of Halloween (see previous four posts) it's lost in the shuffle and then before I know it it's suddenly November 4th.  Even though El Dia ya ha pasado, the timing of this celebration makes total sense when you think about it.  Everything around us has died--fields are brown with formerly tall and waving grass stems now brittle and flattened.  Trees once green and supple, then recently beautifully yellowed and oranged are now bare skeletons, with dirty carpets of their recently departed leaves surrounding their trunks.  The last of the summer's harvest have been collected or are dead on the vine.  After the glory of summer and the blazing colors of early fall, it's all a little sad looking and stark now, especially before the real snow begins to fall and provide a clean white beginning.  The days are shortening with alarming speed, the pineal gland struggling to keep up with the invading night.  It all puts us in touch with death, with the cycle of life, with darkness.  It makes sense that the Celtic Pagans of centuries ago would feel a closeness to their dead at this time of year.  As various religions have done, especially Catholicism, this pagan celebration of the dead has been incorporated into their repertoire, and whether it's All Souls Day in France, El Dia de los Muertos in Latino cultures or All Saint's Day, it's time to have a wake on the day of the dead.

I love that we get to purposefully celebrate the dead on November 1st--feed them, nourish them, tease them, talk about them, celebrate them, care for them, make things beautiful for them...or really, for us. Instead of the memories of the dead sneaking up on you in an ambush at inopportune times as they are wont to do, you get to plan and consciously celebrate them.  I live in the Southwest in a predominantly Hispanic area, so the celebration of El Dia is forefront.  A dear friend of mine created the beautiful alter, pictured above, in her home.  The boys' school is celebrating El Dia in really sweet and age appropriate ways for each class.  The pre-K/kindergarten classes talk about Heavenly Birthdays and are invited to light candles and share about any losses.  The first grade related it to the life cycle of an insect, from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly--a transformation of body and form.  They made an altar in the class and the children brought in photos of lost ones and offerings, seen here to the right.

The decorating of sugar skulls, the dressing up of skeletons and putting them into lively situations, the vibrant hues of magenta and orange, the paper flowers and strands of dried marigolds, the tissue paper flags cut into skeletal designs and hung like prayer flags;  they are all so beautiful, fun and even a little daring.  The photos put onto the altars give the living permission to feel joy in remembering the dead when they were alive, upright, walking, eating, laughing.   It's a day to imagine the dead there in the living room or kitchen, drinking a cuppa, laughing at you, allowing them to haunt you just a little.  The comfort of an imagined conversation, some advice dispensed, a practical joke, even just a presence, relieve the loneliness ever so slightly.  That part in yourself made up of joy and life force that is chipped away when the permanence of death sinks in and you're left to just live the rest of your life without that beloved person, you get to forget about that part for just a little bit.  You get to focus on creating external beauty in the midst of death as well as create internal beauty within your soul in the remembrance.

As a doctor, I see people die.  You know, it's inevitable for us all.  It is an unsought honor, in a way, to shepard someone through death.  It can be a beautiful and spiritual experience, it can be gruesome and traumatic.  It is never a happy occasion, though sometimes it is a relief.  It is hardest, of course for those left behind.  I chose my specialty because I largely deal with adults, and seeing the elderly die is much, much easier than seeing pretty much anyone else die.  I found in my training that witnessing the death of a pregnant mother, a child, a teenaged boy, was really too much for my heart to bear and I could not draw boundaries that would protect my psyche.   But seeing a long suffering, elderly cancer patient who has finally lost the battle, and being able to relieve his suffering and be a midwife to a peaceful death gives me a sense of spiritual satisfaction.  I was fairly tender as an adolescent but my soft underbelly has softened further with the birth of my boys and motherhood, and I'm more glad than ever that I chose adult medicine.

Coincidentally, three weeks after the birth of my eldest (now aged 7), a series of deaths in my husband's and my circle of family and friends began that left us reeling and feeling not only profound grief but a heaviness that comes with truly growing up.  I'm starting to think that we've just entered "that phase" of life, the one where we begin to lose people on a regular basis.  In honor of those departed from us, I'd like to say a few words about our friends now gone.

Harriet, my mother's mother, was the one who kicked off the whole kicking off binge.  She was a ripe old 86 with multiple medical problems and it was not entirely unexpected though I'd been preoccupied with my first pregnancy, being 10 days overdue and recovering from an unexpected C-section.    I'd just had the most profound experience of my life in becoming a mother, and was in the nadir of a rapid exodus of estrogen from my brain.  Needless to say I did not handle it well.  She had been the unlikely, unsentimental rock in our family.  She was practical, kind of boring, reliable, thrifty, and judgmental--really a product of her Mid-Western, German upbringing through the Great Depression.  She lived to become a great-grandmother twice over.  By her 70's, she was so deaf she couldn't hear herself fart, which she did frequently and publicly.

Darren, my husband's beautiful 23 year old cousin was next.  He'd just graduated from college.  He was vacationing in Mexico with a group of friends and his girlfriend, was a blossoming young lovely man who played rugby and raced triathlons.  We still have no clear reason why he suddenly dropped dead in the middle of the night.  His mother's heart irreparably broke that day, and the golden unwritten book that lay unfolding before him slammed shut.  The cream of American youth, as my dad would say, spoiled.

Pat, one of my husband's dearest friends, died in one heckuva bizarre accident.  He was 41 and riding his bike which he crashed, knocking himself unconscious and landing in the unfortunate spot of 2 feet of ditch water, causing him to drown.  His two young sons and wife plow on, the wife now entering a PhD program in grad school, the eldest son now entering his freshman year of college, the youngest son now in high school.  He was a shaman, a wizard:  small-framed, bearded an long haired.  My husband used to attend mushroom conferences with this fellow ER doc, toxicologist,  and kindred spirit.  They would wander through the mountains for hours to see what they could find, identify and safely and tastily eat.  Pat used to call my husband "The Golden Boy."  You'd have to know my husband to understand it completely.

Mike, "Pops," my beloved father-in-law who died three and a half years ago, was next.  He'd been an immigrant from Ireland and built a life in California as a carpenter, raising five children.  He was 74 and ruptured an aortic aneurism.  Much better for him to have gone quickly, save for the fact we didn't get to say goodbye.  I could go on volumes about this one...he was by far the hardest to lose.  I think the loss of a parent shakes the very foundation upon which we walk.  In brief, he was a brilliant person, untethered by formal education.  He'd been a fallen man, a drunk, who redeemed himself and his life.  He was pure joy, and I loved him so.  He was quick with a quotable gem, such as "It's like trying to shove 10 pounds of shit into a 5 pound bag."  In fact most of his quotable gems would be bleeped by the FCC.

Father Bernard, the family priest went only 3 months later.  He'd done all of the family baptisms, many family weddings, and the funerals of Darren and Pops.  He was a hoot, and had devoted his life to not only the ministry but served the most outcast among us--those in prison.  He had a funny sounding voice for a priest, kind of whiney.  He thought all of our kids names unfortunately difficult to pronounce.

Tim, my sister's brother-in-law, died at 36 of a horrible traumatic crime.  It was one week after my second son was born and my sister had to rush home from her visit with her new nephew to attend to her family.  He was young, strong, beautiful.  We attended the funeral with our newborn and again, in a hormonal tumult, I was profoundly shaken.

Pablo, a little boy just days shy of his fourth birthday, died next, while I was pregnant with my youngest baby.  He had a brain tumor and died 3 months after it was diagnosed.  Again, in my hormonal, fragile and vulnerable state, this one hit me particularly hard.  But then who isn't hit hard by the death of a child?  He was a little boy at my son's school, his sister in my oldest boy's class, his dad a teacher at the school.  My two older sons were fully present and participatory for this passage and showed me beyond any doubt that young children are still in touch with the other side, having just recently come from there themselves.

Dave, just a few weeks ago, was a dear friend and local architect who was working on some plans for an addition to our home.  Just 58, with the sudden rupture of a cerebral aneurism, he left us quickly and way too soon.  He was a local activist and had a great sense of humor--always quick with a joke.

And these were just the people central in our lives who we lost.  There were also others, more peripheral.

So here today I build my little altar out of words for our dear departed.  I put here a pinwheel Christmas cookie and some spatzle for Harriet.  Here, I put a rugby ball and jersey, and a pint of Guiness for Darren.  Pat, here's a primo piggy, a King Bolete for you.  For Pops, a cup of coffee and though I know I shouldn't, a cigarette.  I mean, he's already dead, it's not going to hurt him.  Oh, and heck, he gets the full fry too.  Father Bernard I'll light the candle you gave me when you baptized our son.  Tim, I'll crack open a Bud Light.  Pablo, this donut is for you.  And Dave, here's a nice plate of spaghetti bolognese.  I lay here some brilliantly bright and colorful paper flowers.  I have a picture of each of you, really lovely ones, happy smiling ones, here in my mind.   I hear Pops singing away, cracking jokes and giggling.  What a lovely little party.  And next year...next year I'll make the time and space for a beautiful, visual, tactile altar to bring these folks back for another fiesta.