September

Yesterday I went on a chopping spree cutting weeds in our back yard with big scissor-like hedge shears. I ate a fresh tomato + basil sandwich. Then this morning I walked with Honey in the long shadows. September, finally, and remembering why I moved to New England; apples, cows, the scent of wood burning. Tonight we walked to the farmer's market next to Saint Ann's Church. On the way over we smelled ripe Concord grapes. Bill spotted them behind the insurance company parking lot. We picked and ate fistfuls, spitting out the seeds. My lips got itchy! At the farmer's market we bought a purple Sicilian eggplant shaped like a pumpkin, broccoli, zucchini, red onions, elephant garlic, corn, apples, and red potatoes that were magenta like I've never seen. I told the Moosup Valley farmer I liked vegetables more than ice cream."That's a first," he said, and accidentally dropped the broccoli. I said, "Don't worry, it comes from the ground!" He threw in another broccoli bunch for free.

Shades

The other day I was desperate for working sunglasses and I discovered a pair of Ray Bans that I had found under a lilac bush in a park in Boston over 13 years ago. I had stuffed them in the kitchen junk drawer and forgot all about them. Some part of me must have remembered them. They needed an arm attached, so I used an old Christmas ornament wire to thread the hinge. Then I polished up the lenses. They are heavy and I feel like a 1950's movie star when I wear them. I sewed a protective sleeve for them from a scrap of black denim. I want to be like Rita and Eugene and walk for miles and miles well into my old age.

Quotes of the Day

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their
dreams.

     - Eleanor Roosevelt

A work of love, no matter how small, spreads its own special light in the world.

     - Rod MacIver

Truth is not loved because it is better for us. We hunger and thirst for it.

     - Saul Bellow

Labor Day

I walked out to Wright's Dairy farm with Honey this morning. I went out back and the farmer told me the calf in the maternity barn was born only an hour ago. The momma cow was still licking her baby clean. I asked the farmer if I could have water for Honey. I told him we walked three miles and we have a three mile walk back home. He filled a five gallon pail and she drank some and then she stuck her paw in the water to cool off!

On the way home I stopped to chat with Rita & Gene. Eugene & Rita have walked the city every day for years, rain or shine, snow, wind, hail. When I first met them, they told me they were brother and sister, Rita 87, and Gene 84. Rita wore a leopard-skin shirt, and they both wore large sunglasses. So you've known each other for a while, I said! We all laughed. I told them that in my high school French class we got to pick new names for ourselves, and I had picked Rita! I asked them if all of this walking was the secret to their longevity. They said YES!

Holding Onto Time

It is a precious gift to feel the day. In summer camp I called it holding onto time. I'd stop and try to reflect on the now and be grateful for it, because time was moving so quickly. I'd sit on the end of my bed and hold onto the iron railing and meditate on the moment.

I've spent most of the summer in the house of low energy, feeling fear and vulnerability. I want to cry over the pains of the lives of my friends, my neighbors, the pains of the world, the poverty and agonies everywhere I look. But there is life, too, and there is humor. Make me laugh! Make me cry! Perhaps I am feeling cozy underneath what has been non-stop promoting and propelling of projects. I do believe in the healing powers of art, but can I really be a saleswoman? It seems everything requires a salesman to make it fly.

I am enjoying listening to the wind rustling the leaves. I am enjoying the quiet solitude. Sincerity is my path. It is how I can distinguish the true voice from the other voices in my head. Listen clearly, listen deeply, don't obstruct the vision. Come back home to your true voice and start plowing, planting, weeding, harvesting.

Toe Wiggler

Back in May I smacked my right pinky toe walking barefoot in the dark, banging into the leg of a table in the middle of the night. I had to take four ibuprofen! I was afraid I had broken it, but I was still able to wiggle the toe in isolation, something I used to practice on a regular basis when I was a kid; wiggling ears one at a time, flaring nostrils, lifting eyebrows one at a time, and wiggling each pinky toe. I was very isolated, so this was how I spent my time after school each day. Maybe this is why I enjoyed being a teacher every day, so the kids could have fun and be nourished and not just stay home wiggling their faces and toes in the mirror.

Big Yellow Corn Bread

I am a corn freak. I even had a cat that was a corn freak. He was an orange tabby stray we picked up because he rubbed noses with our dogs and was unafraid. We adopted him and named him OJ. As it turned out, he was really a dog in a cat's body. OJ would grab corn on the cob right out of the pot when we weren't looking and jump off the kitchen counter with a cob in his mouth. He would brazenly reach in and eat corn chips right out of the bag! Anything made from corn he would go wild over. On the other hand, our other cat Powie (named after Powhaten Street in Providence, where we found her as a stray kitten) loved raw kale. Powie was really a cat in a cat's body, but her fur was silky like a bunny. Go figure.

I love baking with cornmeal, and especially love pancakes with cornmeal and apples. The other day I made a big yellow cornbread in my gigantic cast-iron skillet. At the last minute I added four chopped-up Macintosh apples to the batter, keeping the red skins on. It came out great! The moist apples countered the dryness of the cornbread and added a pleasant texture, color, and sweetness. Then today I tried it again, but I had no apples so I used one gigantic chopped-up white onion. The cornbread was equally good with my morning coffee. Remember, onions get sweet when they cook.

The Clowning Arts

I first met David Shiner while he was performing for the Broadway show Fool Moon. My old pals from my North Carolina days, the Red Clay Ramblers, provided the music. David designed and directed a show for Cirque du Soleil called Kooza, which is showing in Hartford until the end of the month. This quote is from the website.

As a clown, your main responsibility is to be the biggest fool you can possibly be. You're an idiot, you're stupid and brainless, a misfit that's trying to fit in but always falls flat on your face. That makes us laugh, because life isn't easy, it's a struggle, and there's great beauty, great tragedy and suffering, and that's what the clown communicates. The more aware a clown is of the suffering of others and of his own suffering, the more laughter he can create.

     - David Shiner

Quotes of the Day

An artist should never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner
of style, prisoner of reputation, prisoner of success, etc.

     - Henri Matisse

One of the many distinctions between celebrity and hero is that one lives only for self while the other acts to redeem society.

     - Joseph Campbell, as told to Bill Moyers
       in The Power of Myth

I've been digging stones out of my heart such a long time, biting into each one to make sure I'm not throwing away gold.

     - Jimmy Santiago Baca, from Thirteen Mexicans

Music is a release from the tyranny of conscious thought.

     - Kevin Burke

Teaching in the Arts: A Muscular Metaphor

My dear friend Susan is a muscular therapist by trade, and she tells me that as people get their bodies worked on, their emotional "stuff" comes up. She explains that emotions live tucked into the body pains; shoulders, hips, face muscles, the body carries it all. These knots get loosened when Susan works on them, and the physical and emotional pain is released. She can't ignore or abandon what surfaces from her clients as she helps release the pain in their muscles. This emotional element is part of her work, whether she wants it or not, and sometimes what surfaces from a body is a torrent of grief, or anger.

This also happens to anyone painting, drawing, writing, acting, etc. The emotional stuff surfaces like rocks in the spring soil. We have to attend to it, and the creative and emotional work is all part of the whole person living, of a human who is building and making a life. Of course when our emotions are agitated and the drama is loud within ourselves, demanding all of our attention like a roomful of screaming infants being vaccinated, it can distract us from seeing that other people need healing too. This is why we must try to be clear and honest in our work, to brave the pain, so we can be accurate reflectors for those around us trying to see themselves through our help and example.

For me, teaching in the arts means helping kids develop life-long emotional rescue tools, so they can go to their notebooks and sketchbooks and write and draw to release their pain and to heal. They are struggling with more than we can even imagine; empowerment through these tools of expression is the best thing we can give them. An expressive society is a healthy society.

Being a Ziti

I call it being a ziti
when you let all the light
and love
and ideas
flow through you
and you are the channel,
you are not the sauce
or the noodle,
just the space the macaroni makes.
(4/8/08)

Angel

Last week Angel Quinonez was my guest at Beacon. He is an amazing painter and tattoo artist. He told the class that he grew up in Central Falls, getting in and out of trouble. He got a scholarship to Brown University and majored in religion and philosophy. He supported himself doing tattoos. Now he works at the AS220 Broad Street Studios and teaches at the juvenile training school. I wanted my boys especially to meet him, and they were enthralled! After class the principal offered Angel a free space for teaching after-school art at Beacon. It was an inspiring day for all of us! Angel loved Beacon and said it was the best reception he'd gotten! Good karma sparks all around!

The Winter Cactus

Forgive me that I am often so sad in April and May and June. I am a strange woman, one who blooms in winter, happiest with frozen ground. I am a winter cactus, a bright flower with thorns! A fire-and-ice picnic is my joy: being outside under the winter stars in December, playing instruments around an open hearth by the woods on the longest night!

Breathing in April, May, and June is often hard for me. The molds and mushrooms torment my neurotransmitters into a deep melancholia. I carry the canister of chemicals to open my lungs lest they shut down leaving me breathless. While the teens are kissing in the park, dancing in summer shorts and dresses, I am gloomy, wishing for the winter ice storms to return. But I can still swim the icy ponds in spring, before they warm up!

Quote of the Day

In writing, habit seems to be a much stronger force than either will power or inspiration. Consequentially, there must be some little quality of fierceness until the habit pattern of a certain number of words is established. There is no possibility of saying I'll do it if I feel like it. You start out putting words down and there are three things - you, the pen, and the page, then gradually the three things merge until they are one and you feel about the page as you do about your arm only you love it more than you love your arm.

     - John Steinbeck

Craving Spinach Pies

Today I am craving spinach pies from Jeanette's bakery on Branch Ave in Providence! How long does it take to bike to Branch Ave from Woonsocket? Maybe I can use the bike path; is it completed yet? Jeanette's sells out their fabulous garlic-and-black-olive-infused spinach pies by noon!! They are divine! Heck, maybe I should make them myself. Could Chef Nick over at Beacon sell me a few buckets of whole wheat flour to hold me until payday?

I'm off to walk Honey in the ice-cold sunshine. I've been having too much fun writing letters since the pink and blue dawn sky. Later I'll pedal off to teach ahhhhhhhhhhht for 90 minutes, then bicycle home to honk the long bari tones on Joni songs for our next show. Gotta post a few new recipes too.

St Paddy's Day

Saturday night we had band rehearsal in Ivoryton (named after the tusks brought to the old piano factory.) We cooked corned beef and cabbage and potatoes and parsnips and turnips in my two Presto pressure cookers and it was all so delicious! I gathered up the steaming juices left over and brought it home. The next day it was great heated up over Brussels sprouts and leftover buckwheat noodles! It made an instant gloopy yummy soup.

I also served up a loaf of whole wheat Irish soda bread, one of two loaves I had baked that morning. Bill and I ate most of the second loaf on the way home after rehearsal. Everyone going out of town was being stopped at a police road-check. The state policeman shined his flashlight into the car; "We're just checking everyone to make sure there's no liquor." I said "No, just Irish soda bread, want some?" I showed it to him, but he declined. I really wish he could've had a few bites.

At school on Monday all the kids wore green Mardi Gras beads (St Patrick's Day beads!) and plastic green bowlers. The girls had four-leaf-clover stickers under their right eyes. They are all so cute. I hope they know it. At home, I baked two more of my Irish soda breads, this time using my freshly-made yogurt. Then I pedaled over to Shaw's Meats to see if Jamie Sullivan had any corned beef left. He corns his own beef in the weeks leading up to St Patrick's day, filling barrels of brine with cuts of beef. He dyes the beef red by throwing in a couple of beets!

Simulating Ireland

This is a recipe for Whole Wheat Irish Soda Bread, adapted from Marion Cunningham's Fanny Farmer baking book. It's so simple and wholesome - we made two loaves, one to nibble on right away and one to bring to our band rehearsal supper. I like to bake using greased stoneware or greased cast iron but anything will work. Stir, then knead the ingredients for a minute. The dough will be sticky and lumpy but it all is part of the rustic charm. Shape the dough into a ball and squish it down flat and slash an x into it. The dough it will expand and rise in the oven - the baking soda and the tangy yogurt set off a fast chemical reaction like the quick-foaming baking-soda-vinegar volcanoes we all made in 4th grade!

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

4 cups whole wheat flour
two teaspoons Kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup milk +1 cup yogurt mixed (or two cups of buttermilk)
(optional - one cup raisins)

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes. Take the hot loaves off the stone when done and wrap them in a clean, slightly damp kitchen towel. Keep it wrapped for up to eight hours (but have bites as you wish!) As the bread cools, the dampness (apparently simulating Ireland) softens and seasons the bread.

Happy Holy Week!

I am happy because the light is back but the allergens are still dormant.

I am loving teaching the teens in this urban arts high school! The more troubled the kids the more I want to dive in and connect, which always turns them around! The principal is surprised that I want him to give me the most difficult kids. I told him I was looking into working at the prison before he hired me. Now I think I have found teaching as my new calling!

Today I got a gallon of skim milk from the dairy farm to culture my own yogurt in glass mason jars on our boiler, the only warm place in our home in winter. First I mix the milk with nonfat dry milk to boost the nutrition content, then I bring it to 180 degrees in a double boiler, then I cool it to 110 degrees and add the starter, a dollop of yogurt. You can make your own yogurt cheese, too. Pour a cup or two of yogurt into a coffee cone filter and let it drain overnight into a jar. Save the whey for soup or bread, or just drink it straight! Add herbs to the finished yogurt cheese if you like. It is like a healthy Boursin cheese.

Bread Substitute

Bill and I conducted a three-day Science of Bread workshop last week at Beacon. We were the substitutes for Ms Fox's junior science class while she was away. The students and I made a gigantic whole-wheat sourdough molasses cracked-rye cornmeal rolled-oats dough. Bill brought ingredients (for both bread and beer) for the students to see and taste, and we explained what flour is, where wheat comes from, what yeast is, and how fermentation works. We baked the bread in the school's oven, and filled the school with the aroma. Everyone got to have a baby bread the size of a grapefruit!

Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks

Thanks to James Dufficy for sending this. James has been a friend of mine since 4th grade, and is a poet living and writing in London.

All these fellows were there inside
when she entered, utterly naked.
They had been drinking, and began to spit at her.
Recently come from the river, she understood nothing.
She was a mermaid who had lost her way.
The taunts flowed over her glistening flesh.
Obscenities drenched her golden breasts.
A stranger to tears, she did not weep.
A stranger to clothes, she did not dress.
They pocked her with cigarette ends and with burnt corks,
and rolled on the tavern floor in raucous laughter.
She did not speak, since speech was unknown to her.
Her eyes were the colour of faraway love,
her arms were matching topazes.
Her lips moved soundlessly in coral light,
and ultimately, she left by that door.
Hardly had she entered the river than she was cleansed,
gleaming once more like a white stone in the rain;
and without a backward look, she swam once more,
swam towards nothingness, swam to her dying.

     - Pablo Neruda