Walk in the Park

When I was in San Diego last week, my favorite moments were the ones when I walked/ran with my friend C and her 3yo daughter around Balboa Park. We'd meet in the morning and take turns pushing the red Baby Jogger down the arched corridors, across the light-strung El Prado bridge, through gardens, and around fountains and museums. Being fairly flat, the park is the perfect place to run while burdened with a 50lb stroller. C and I would traverse the outdoor space, moving through sun and shadow, making easy conversation about things like our kids or delving into deeper topics about things like vocation and community. Often we'd run for stretches in silence, our feet marking a tandem rhythm.

On our last walk, we decided to eschew the level and paved terrain of the park proper and headed down into the canyon trails that run along the 163. These trails are magical. In an instant, you can leave behind an entire city, becoming sequestered under tall oaks and rust-colored hills, before unexpectedly popping out in the middle of Hillcrest right next to a coffee shop. The trails are steep, rocky, and full of ruts and runnels from the recent rain, with the surrounding foliage glowing an impossibly vivid green. Our route took us up and down and around hills, under boughs and bridges, over the 163, and up to Hillcrest city streets and a well-deserved cup of coffee.

Because the trails were so steep at times, C and I took turns pushing the stroller, laughing at the burning in our legs, encouraging each other to push just a little further, then taking the burdensome stroller from the exhausted pusher just at the right time. In at least two places on the trail, neither of us could push the stroller alone, and so both of us grabbed a side of the handle and used our combined force to get the stroller over or down the current obstacle. At one point, we jointly reached the summit a particularly steep incline before realizing that we needed to take a different trail. Instead of lamenting the energy we'd just expended as wasted, we grinned at each other--acknowledging the duo accomplishment we'd made in getting up the hill in the first place. Then we each took a firm grip on a side of the stroller handle and, with bent knees, our torsos arching back to offset the pull of gravity, we eased the stroller back down the hill and to the correct trail.

This trek embodied community: together, C and I shared a burden without judgement and with joy and grace and love, helping and encouraging the other as needed. We didn't keep score of who pushed the stroller more--it didn't matter that her daughter was in the stroller; we both knew it could just as easily be my son.

And more importantly, we knew that ultimately the exact nature of the burden didn't matter.

What mattered was that we were in it together. That we set out committed to walking a certain path and to help each other finish it. The point wasn't to be done--or even to always be on the right trail so that we wouldn't waste any energy or time. The point was to do it together. There was no need to get resentful while pushing the stroller up a steep hill when C was four feet ahead and stroller-free because the whole time, she was looking back with encouragement and love. Further, she would--when I needed it most--meet me and take the burden on herself so that I could rest. There was no need to be frustrated if after a difficult part, we found we had gone the wrong way because, as long as we stayed in community, there was no wrong way.

At the end of our walk, scalding coffee in our left hands and both our rights directing the stroller through the side streets of Hillcrest, C walked me by some of the places she'd lived in San Diego. It was a moment of such familial and familiar friendship. Sharing with her the joy of her past, the control and direction of the present embodied in her daughter in the stroller, and the infinite possibilities of the future together in community.

Thank you, C. Love you.

Quality Time

Small son goes into the bathroom. He's there a suspicious amount of time. I wander in to see him sitting on the pot with the empty dispenser of Kandoo in his hands. He's staring intently at the open lid. I assess the situation and assume

a) (correctly) he's out of wipes
b) (incorrectly) that he needs more and wants me to finish wiping him.

He's really too old for that, and we both know it. But sometimes the mom thing of a toddler still kicks in and I just act. Often, much to his and my embarrassment.

All business, I grab a refill of Kandoo, take the Kandoo dispenser out of his hands, bend him over, and do a quick and unnecessary wipe.

"MOM!!!" He shrieks. "You just interrupted my Internet browsing! You took away my computer and now I lost my web page."

Apparently, he was done with the actual cleaning post poo part and was using his "quality time" on the pot to check his Twitter on his Kandoo laptop.

It's started. Be suspicious of every Tweet from Tinyman from now on.

Soup is my Soup-er Power

So, I make soup a lot. Like three times a week. And they are awesome (usually, sometimes they look like my garbage disposal backed up, and I served bowls of the fluid that is sitting in my sink--but only sometimes).

Here is the soup I made tonight because
a) it kicks ass so much that it is WAY,
b) I made it up myself, and
c) it is vegan so if you eat it you will be better than everyone else (like the super power of an evil ex)


Celeriac, Apple, and Fennel Bisque
Ingredients:

olive oil
4 leeks, cleaned and sliced (white and pale green parts)
6 parsnips, peeled and sliced
2 celeriac thingies, peeled and cubed
4 stalks celery, cleaned and sliced
5 apples (maybe Fuji, but really whatever you want), peeled and cubed
2 TBS fennel

no-chicken broth or any non-tomato veggie broth(2 cups + more for thinning if needed)
3/4 c raw cashews

Salt and pepper to taste
Truffle oil (optional)

In a stock pot, heat olive oil. Add leeks, parsnips, celeriac, celery, apple, and fennel. Saute until tender making sure nothing gets brown or burnt. While that is going on, take 2 cups of stock and blend with the cashews until creamy like milk (could take a minute or so). Add cashew milk to the pot. Add a bit more stock to an appropriate amount. Simmer until everything is super soft. Blend until super velvety (again, patience, this could take a minute or so). Salt and pepper to taste. Simmer a bit more until it is the temperature you want.

Serve in bowls with the truffle oil drizzled over the top.

Oh wow. So good.
Make it!
Do it!
Now!

Burn After Reading

So, at the beginning of 2010, a friend asked me what the most influencial book I'd read in 2009 was. I really thought hard about that question, but the problem was that I couldn't only remember the books that I had read in the past few months and none earlier in the year. So for 2010, I decided to take a picture of every book I read and post a blog about them.

Well, I did take many pictures. The blogs . . . maybe that'll be my goal for 2011.

Here's a link to all of my books (my other goal was to read at least 60 books in the year). I know there are a few I don't have pictures of (like The Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake) but this will have to do. Now that I know what I read, I still need to think about which was the most memorable.

Enjoy.

Anything Better?

Than an unexpected afternoon to yourself. No fussing about homework or folding laundry or getting dinner done exactly by 6pm.

No.

There is only the reward of sun and wine and books and written-by-hand correspondences after a long morning of writing about microbes and metabolism with maybe a little immune maturity thrown in for good measure.

Yes.

Then a sudden flurry of effort to quickly organize and evaluate a friend's poetry, reveling in her sheer talent at putting the words in such a way that they snap into focus. Into an image that you have never seen or envisioned before but still seems so completely familiar.

Hope, Feels Like

The other day, as I was finishing up my run, I had the fortuitous moment of having Tiesto's "Adagio for Strings" reach the point of heartbreaking strings just as I was cresting my last hill.

Below, where the bay usually glistens grey and blue, lay a shining silver lake of clouds. A giant tsunami wave of molten white cumuli rose from this lake as if it were going to crash against my hill, sweeping me away in its glory.

It was the perfect moment of music, light, and release from the physical exertion of running up hill. It stole my breath.

It was hope embodied.

Oh My, Oh Bounty