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Soul Food

7/15/2021

1 Comment

 
Navigating our isolated rafts through the swollen river of 2020/21, we were forced to get creative, orgo crazy.  Morale sank.  Anxiety soared.  Fear and confusion sloshed into our boats.  But creativity, and creative cooking-- came to our rescue again and again.
 
Some folks made music; some made art.  Some made gardens, some made babies.  Some built things, some made clothes, and some made money doing things they’d never imagined doing.  And most of us made food that got us through.  Sourdough bread became the new soul food-- and soul food became another way of saying survivalfood.   
 
Soul Food is often considered grits and greens, fried chicken and gravy, but in my view,soul foodis whatever fills us up, whatever gets us through, when times are hard, and spirits are ragged. 
 
Soul food is different for everyone, but I’m pretty sure it’s not salad. It couldbe, for some, but unless it had lots of croutons, bleu cheese, bacon and avocado, it wouldn’t be saving my sinking boat.  Plus, soul food might need to be made for you, by someone who loves you, to be most effective. You could make it for yourself, with the right attitude.
 
My Grandma madebuttermilk doughnuts for afternoon coffee several times a week.  If you stopped by around 3:00, you’d be greeted with a cup of coffee and a tin of warm donuts, still warm, smelling of nutmeg, and sparkling with sugar.  
 
Sitting around the old wooden table, my Grand-folks would ask all about life, and listen with such careful attention.   Hot coffee. Fresh doughnuts.   Careful attention. You can buydonuts and coffee, but when they’re homemade, served with love, that’s soul food.
  
Pizza with extra garlic, still hot, eaten in a pickup truck with a friend, is also soul food. A dear friend once drove hours through the rain, on dark, lonely roads to revive me from a college heartbreak. 
 
I was coaxed back to life by her friendship and extra garlic.  Even now, 40 years later, her voice on the phone reminds me that life is (mostly) survivable, with the right friends, and the right pizza.
 
Then, there’s that specialty that your parents made, whatever it is that haunts your memories, that also qualifies as soul food.  As newlyweds, my husband and I often made the long commute to visit my childhood home on weekends, exhausted from adulating all week long in the big, bad world. 
 
My Dad’s spaghetti sauce simmered on the stove. Mom’s sourdough French bread cooled on the counter. Dad would pour us a glass of red wine, while he tended his sauce.  Nothing ever seemed more reassuring than those spaghetti dinners with my parents.
 
 Until I met Juddi, a sassy, beautiful Texas writer, I was innocent of Pimento Cheese.I was a busy mom of three, wildly active little boys. I thought I had things more or less under control, until Juddi kindly observed, “You look like a woman who needs a retreat.  A silentretreat.”  I’d never heard of such a thing, and besides, who has time to retreatwhen you’re house is overflowing with Wild Things?
 
After three years(!) of persuasion, I finally agreed to a silent retreat.  I felt such guilt peeling off the three imps twined around my legs, like ivy, leaving them with my also-tired- and-bewildered husband.  
 
Juddi, tanned, serene, and wreathed in silver, turquoise, and coral, drove us to Santa Barbara.  She told stories in her sultry Texas drawl, and played in Zen Buddhist tapes, while I worried about what I’d gotten myself into. 
 
Finally, we arrived at the monastery high in the Santa Barbara hills. We set our bags in our spare, monastic rooms.  Our doors opened to a communal garden.  Outside, monks chanted on their way to vespers.  The only other sound was birds. Zero talking allowed.
 
Juddi unpacked her basket: baguettes, grapes, and a chilled bottle of wine. But it was the Pimento Cheesethat made me want to sing—only I had to sing silently.  Shredded cheddar, chopped green olives and pimentos, bound together with mayonnaise, served on a fresh baguette. Oh. My. Lord.  
 
I briefly considered becoming a nun and eating pimento cheese in peaceful silence for the rest of my days.  (Fortunately, the monks didn’t invite me, and after two days of silence I was ready to burst with things I wanted to say.  Also, the imprint of my little monkeys was far too deep and too dear.) 
 
By the time I gothome, I was a new woman: ready to take on my Wild Things with a refreshed heart and soul.
 
Clearly, silence with chanting padres, and ocean views aren’t always in the cards.  But bread, wine, and good cheese can be a soul-saving communion between you, and the God-you-call-out-to, when you finally remember to call out.
 
My Dad’s spaghetti sauce, and my Mom’s bread are only a memory now.  Mom’s hands are too painful to knead bread anymore, and Dad has passed on.  My Grandma and Juddi are gone too.  
 
Still, the memories sustain me.  Plus, I’ve got their recipes.   Better yet, my wild chimps have grown into the loveliest of human beings, and sometimes now cook for me!  
 
Our eldest made us a spaghetti dinner last night that rivaled his Grandpa’s sauce.   This created, for me, a new level Soul Food.  Recipes passed from one’s parents, down to one’s children, are, I think, Super Soul Foods.  They reassure us that life goes on-- and on, and that  the future has arrived, and we are still here.
 
The pandemic is thankfully receding, and we’re getting back to jogging and gyms and kale again. But we all know, for sure, the next set of rapids is just around the corner.  
 
 
This time, we’ll know what to do.  When life gets ragged and fraught, bring on the Soul Food.  Apply liberally, like plaster, to anyone who looks like they’re starting to crack, including your own good self.  And share, your  favorites, please, so we can all get spackled together.
 
Soul Food in my view is like prayer.  Offer it to your loved ones.  Accept it, when offered.  It never hurts, and almost always helps.  I think itisa kind of prayer, actually. The most delicious kind.   
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Imagination: in three small stories

2/16/2021

2 Comments

 

  
   ~     
One: 
All through grammar school,
I imagined I was a deer, like Bambi,
moving through the woods, unseen,
silent as a leaf falling. 
 
The shyest child ever,
and homely, too, with an impressive overbite, 
coke-bottle glasses, and ten thousand freckles 
I wanted nothing more than to be invisible...
So blending into the background 
seemed like a good idea, to me. 
It backfired, though. 
 
Looking as I did, all while walking like a deer,
on a schoolyard (of all places)
I was  noticed, all right;
 for all the wrong reasons. 
 
Imagination couldn’t make me invisible,
but it did, actually, save me.
When reality became difficult, 
I’d simply disappear into the woods of my imagination.
 
A funny thing happened inside that safe place.
I became a watcher.  And what I saw was this:
Everybody suffers.  Even the meanest people. 
Probably especially them.  Some just hide it better than others.
 
This truth jolted me out of my self-consciousness.  
We all struggle.  We are all imperfect.  Yet, we all belong.
I eventually quit trying to walk like a deer,
but sometimes, I still like to disappear in the woods.  
           
  ~   
Two: 
Once I had a job that my heart refused to go to.
I tried to sweeten the pot,
tried to bring more soul and cheer into my work,
because I did needto go,
but my heart would lag behind
like a lazy, old dog.
 
Eventually, a bridge showed up
in my imagination,
it looked to be woven of flowers and vines,
pretty, but not remotely safe.
It did, however, lead from where I was,
to where I longed to be.
 
Each time I took a step onto that bridge
it lurched and swayed.
Still, the image held
and I wobbled across 
one hesitant step at a time.
 
Sometimes, I look back and I wonder--
How can one cross an imaginary bridge?
 
I only know this--
now my heart wakes early, 
alert as a hunting dog
ready for work, 
every single day.

​
~

Three: 
Four long years, I ranted over a President
who disregarded all that I hold dear,
among other things, air, water, and wild creatures.  
 
Then came this year--epidemics, wildfires,
drought, sickness, isolation, and sorrow.
Politics grew more toxic by the day.
 
I felt scared, as well as angry. To keep the craziness at bay, 
I began imagining a garden in the raw, scarred place
Where Joel and I had cleared dry brush for fire season. 
I pictured it alive and blooming, filled with bees, and butterflies. 
 
I’ve dug and planted, watered and mulched.  And waited.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          It has been nearly a year now.  My “garden” looks like nothing much, at all. 
 
Green smudges strewn and huddled in the dirt. 
I suppose it is still winter, 
For my garden, for the world. 
 
But God, I think, takes interest in our struggles.
The rains arrived, at long last.
My first visitor too,   
a “Mourning cloak,” flitted through the willows,
chocolate-brown wings
edged with ivory and blue.
Butterflies:
transformation. Hope. Life.
 
Imagine.
 
 

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2 Comments

Talking to Nuts

10/7/2020

5 Comments

 
Closeups of Oak Leaves and Nuts
Yesterday I walked down the hill to feed my ancient, horse, brooding like a storm cloud, when an acorn slammed into the ground in front of me, missing my head by inches. These Valley Oak nuts are big, and they don’t just drop. They shoot out like a stone from a slingshot.

I know Oak trees probably hurl their nuts with such force to propel their offspring towards a fortuitous landing—but I like to think this tree wanted my attention. I just read “The Overstory” by Richard Powell, (amazing) and it clearly affected me.

But what could an old oak have to say to an aging, cranky woman, morose over a pandemic, corrupt leaders, and hot, smoke-filled California skies, day after miserable day?

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Plums

8/29/2020

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Plum
You probably all know the Zen story: the old monk gets chased over the edge of a cliff, by a tiger. As he dangles from a scrawny vine, he ponders the tiger above, and the jagged rocks below… where two more tigers lie in wait. Just when things can’t get any worse, a mouse pops out of the rocks and starts to gnaw at his vine.

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Looking Ahead

5/17/2020

2 Comments

 
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It’s a strange time to do anything– have a baby, get married, start a business – but I know people doing all these mind-boggling things. Meanwhile, I can barely make my breakfast.


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"Barn's burned down. Now I can see the moon."

4/7/2020

11 Comments

 
Picture“Barn’s burned down. Now I can see the moon.” — Mizuta Masahide (Japanese poet, 17thcentury)


This week, I took a hammer and tore into my old barn. It was a small barn, so small that a woman could tear it down, mostly alone. After awhile, my husband joined me, knocking down the heaviest beams, but for the most part, it was me alone. 


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Shelter

3/24/2020

9 Comments

 
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Shelter: Noun, a place providing temporary safety from bad weather or danger
 
As I sat down to write about my shelter experience, two bluebirds landed on the walnut tree outside my window, drying their wings from the rain. I always get excited about the return of my bluebirds, cleaning out their nesting boxes and adding new ones. Sometimes I worry that they won’t return, but then they do, bringing with them the promise of another spring. Today, though, I can only tell they’re bluebirds by their shape and size. Due to the gloomy weather this morning, they look like grey birds.

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Free Days and Sweet Dreams

12/29/2019

4 Comments

 
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​There’s something about the days between Christmas and New Years that are my favorite of all.  Not much real work happens.  Not much is expected of us. It’s a sort of limbo-land between the holy days of Christmas and the start of a new year.

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Shadows and Light

11/7/2019

3 Comments

 
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I haven’t posted for a while, because I was confused about my life, and I couldn’t seem to find the words.  I’m not sure I do now, but I’m giving it a stab.  I often write about water, because it interests me, how it’s both life-giving and life-changing, and the topics are endless.  In my last essay, I wrote about the muddy, swift and pretty damn cold water that was swirling around me.


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High Water

3/22/2019

5 Comments

 
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  “Help. Going under!”  This would be a good sign, like the sandwich-board kind, for many of us to wear, during times of daunting change.   Then, those on high ground could toss us a line, or shout encouragement from the shore. Life abounds with ways to try to sink us.  Strangely enough, others can’t usually tell we’re going under.  We look pretty good, even while gasping for air.

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    Welcome to Streamriffs.com, a place for fellow creek- walkers and nature lovers.  Lori Fisher Peelen lives in California with her family.

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