Pie

"In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."

--Isaac Asimov

"When he began to eat pie, he wished he had eaten nothing else."

--Laura Ingalls Wilder, from Farmer Boy

EDITORIAL
New York Times, 1902
"It is utterly insufficient (to eat pie only twice a week), as anyone who knows the secret of our strength as a nation and the foundation of our industrial supremacy must admit. Pie is the American synonym of prosperity, and its varying contents the calendar of the changing seasons. Pie is the food of the heroic. No pie-eating people can ever be permanently vanquished."

In response to an Englishman’s suggestion that Americans should reduce their daily pie eating to two days per week.

Today, I finally asked the waitress at Paul's Place, the local diner, if we'd hit the pie happy hour or something, as again, our slices of pie were only $1.15. I'd been afraid to ask before, in case it was some kind of luck of the draw occurrence, and I'd spoil my luck by asking. She said that it was a special they run every Sunday-Wednesday after 8 PM. Suddenly, all my depression about living in Merced (that had reared up after my trip to the Pacific Northwest) lifted. I live in a town with a Pie Happy Hour. Why is the place not packed after 8 PM every night.

When I'm depressed, as I have been while transitioning from awesome kayak vacation to normal life, I sometimes browse the internet for possible other lives I could live. I found a job in Chicago (one of the places I fantasize about moving to) for a pie-maker for Hoosier Mama Pie Company. They make the kinds of pies I'm interested in making! Old-style dinner pie with artisan crusts and high-quality ingredients. As it's a new restaurant and some of my readers may be in Chicago, I'm going to paste their website here:

http://www.hoosiermamapie.com/

In all cases, a theme is appearing in my attempts to find joy. And one of my joy-alleys seems to be pie. I bake pie, when I have time, as Sweetie Pie the baker. My pies have even had some national publicity, thanks to my very good publicist:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/margie-goldsmith/six-of-americas-best-appl_b_739644.html

Though there's a new bakery opening in town, there is not a pie and coffee shop anywhere in town. Though my bakery has been called House of Butter in my dreams for the longest time:

www.houseofbutter.com

I'm ready for a new name for a restaurant. I had a dream I was preparing a meal for a queen. The meal was simple with a rich red sauce on top of spaghetti and a salad with sauteed corn and feta cheese.

The name Pie Alley is sticking in my mind, but I'm up for suggestions.

Sometimes, I take two bites of pie and am complete with that.

Sometimes, I daydream about how to make a cake that has a full pie within it, crust and all.

These are the types of things I like to think about--the way flavors and textures meet and mix, like a perfect dance partner. And we're sashaying our way down pie alley. Won't you join us?

Kayaking with Killer Whales: Saying Yes to Orcas & Awe

From August 15-19, I was kayaking around the San Juan Islands. This blog is adapted from the third and fourth journal entry from that trip. I've pasted a link to a video about the expedition company I travelled with during this time. I didn't bother to take photos of the orcas because in the moment, I didn't want to mess with a camera.

http://www.sea-quest-kayak.com/photos-kayaking-pictures/video-killer-whale-kayaking-tours-san-juan-islands

"We owe it to our children to be better stewards of the environment. The alternative? - a world without whales. It's too terrible to imagine."

Pierce Brosnan

"He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it."

Hermann Melville.

8/17/11

Today, we rose early on Jones Island to eat breakfast because we had to get out boats in the water by 8 AM to meet the best currents, but that was delayed by a major, close in orca sighting. It was amazing. There were at least two dozen moving through the San Juan Channel (a rare appearance in that pathway, according to our guide). We observed them doing all sorts of things in the hour or so we watched them. I was NOT distracted by memories of the past while watching the whales. I had no frame of reference for this awesome sight. They are enormous and beautiful. I was in awe and humbled. My depression was immediately floored by the gift of the moment.

When I was in my 20s, I had some dreams about orcas--one in which I swam with a whale and the other in which one rose up out of the sea and walked along the shoreline with me. For many years, through many moves, I kept a mobile with three orcas hanging from it above my bed. This real life sighting was like the fruition of that dream.

8/18/11

Today, we left Reid Harbor on Stuart Island around 8:15 AM. Halfway to our next campsite, after paddling through Mosquito Pass, Evan saw all these boats lined up out on the strait, like paparazzi, which alerted us the orcas were coming, so he invited us to take a detour with the hope we'd see them. We paddled out a ways, and then started spotting the whales in the distance, so we moved out boats together, holding on each to each, so we made a giant raft, and floated there and waited and watched. Eventually, it got to the point that every direction we looked in, there were orcas--we were surrounded! Some were a mere 25 yards away! Some looked to be turned to swim directly under us. This is one of those situations were I'm short on words because of the intensity of the present moment.

Finally, after the orcas left our sight completely, we paddled back, with renewed energy, to our last campsite on San Juan Island. Evelyn, my paddling partner, and I were making jokes and laughing so hard about the stupidest things. I was laughing so hard sometimes, I couldn't paddle.

As I write this, everyone is reading their books while lying in the grass and resting. . .

Yes

I just returned from five days kayaking around the San Juan Islands in Washington and then visiting Port Townsend, Washington after that. This blog is adapted from the first of four journal entries I made on the trip. I will post the rest of the entries over the course of the next few days.

8/15

“. . . it's worth recognizing that there is no such thing as an overnight success. You will do well to cultivate the resources in yourself that bring you happiness outside of success or failure. The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. At that time, we turn around and say, yes, this is obviously where I was going all along. It's a good idea to try to enjoy the scenery on the detours, because you'll probably take a few.” --Bill Watterson

“Every choice moves us closer to or farther away from something. Where are your choices taking your life? What do your behaviors demonstrate that you are saying yes or no to in life?”

--Eric Allenbaugh

Today, I embarked on a guided five-day kayak expedition that I book the day after X-man and I split up. We've landed at our first camp site after a rather light day of paddling--three or so hours, 7ish miles. We're in two-person boats, and I'm the only one of the crew who came on her own. I get to share the boat with a lovely seventeen year-old Portland, Oregon high school senior who plays basketball and who's traveling with her father and younger sister. She's amazing. She has traveled to New Orleans and to Oakland to build houses for Habitat for Humanity and has designs to grown up to be an anchorperson. She's also volunteered to be a guest star in the children's television show I'm currently developing, which I had the chance to animatedly talk about while paddling, reminding me that I have a strong connection to a project not yet in full swing. The show has thus far been a public interactive performance in which I teach science to kids through baking and cooking. Sweetie Pie's House of Butter is the name of the show and I am Sweetie Pie.

There's a new bakery opening in Merced and if I get fired for missing Friday's faculty meeting because I'm on the water, I will make a bid to work at the bakery full time, training to do fancy design cakes and revealing my pie secrets. I've always wanted to design and build high-end wedding cakes, so maybe everything will push me finally into that direction. It's not that the job I have now is bad--it affords me plenty of vacation time and is wrought with purpose. But my knees don't tremble in anticipation and I'm not filled with a joyful heart as I prepare to go to work, which was the case when I was working as a baker. Add designing and building edible, whimsical, and gorgeous sculptures to the mix, and I might grow wings and float up to the clouds on my way to the workstation.

But all these mental meanderings are a long way from the shore of Posey Island, where we've set up camp for the night. Posey is one of the smaller of the San Juan Islands and we have the whole of it to ourselves.

When one books an intense trip like this the day after a shattering break up, a relationship that ended with the realization that the bulk of the weeks were full of misleading words and actions on the part of the other person, one is not in her right mind. She doesn't know why, she hasn't thought, "I've always wanted to go on a five-day kayak trip." One is reacting. However, this trip is magical--we spotted a pod of orcas right before our first launch and there's been plenty of harbor seals, weaving their playful bodies up and below the water's surface. We rode some waves created by a big cargo ship and we floated in a thick kelp bed and had a lesson on kelp and were invited to taste it. It tastes like plastic.

But this trip does not heal all wounds--it's a whole lot of work, paddling for hours a day, and a little bit lonely to be away from home while the others on the expedition are here with friends, partners, or family members. But I hope it will help me find my yeses, to hear the strength in them, in the hollow of my heart, and to remember who I am and to begin the birthing process of all I might be. . .

Endurance

I just returned from five days kayaking around the San Juan Islands in Washington and then visiting Port Townsend, Washington after that. This blog is adapted from the second of four journal entries I made on the trip.

“A fight is not won by one punch or kick. Either learn to endure or hire a bodyguard.” --Bruce Lee

"Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second." --William James

"Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes." -- Buddha

8/16/11

The trip doesn't require as many hours as paddling as I thought, yet it's still a yes to endurance. I'm not in the greatest shape and we are on the water over three hours a day. Don't get me wrong, I love being on the water, in the water, near the water. I was born in San Diego, near the ocean and any body of water feels like home to me. I found myself craving getting back on the water this morning after camping. We spent part of the morning tidepooling, waiting for the currents to shift before we launched, and I found I was a bit impatient at first. Also, the tidepooling kind of made me nostalgic and nostalgia for me is always more painful than pleasurable because I spent most of my life trapped in the loneliness within my own head, making do with my imagination, and in retrospect, this coping strategy makes me feel a bit sad. Also, I had trouble staying present in the tidepools because I kept composing lines of poetry in my mind--lines that combined the morning's pop of rockweed kelp under our feet, turkish towels, six-pointed (also called brooding) and larger purple sea stars--all this present discovery I mixed with thick memories of childhood tidepooling at the La Jolla Cove. Memories of childhood are more and more painful--even if at the time I felt they were positive experiences, my sense of confinement in the space of my mind, that retreat, was due to some perceived outside danger: people felt dangerous. I suppose I feel reminded of that again recently because of how the relationship with X-man, who'd been a good friend for a couple of years before we dated, revealed itself to be a kind of web of deception, and I'm not sure what of his words were true. So I'm suddenly returned to a world in which people are generally not to be wholly trusted.

So right now I'm enduring being pushed physically, which I welcome, and I'm necessarily enduring emotional pain, recalled from childhood. Mostly, I'm enduring grief, and disappointment, in the ending of what had felt like a joyful, though brief, relationship with X-man. Most of me wants to crawl, in this moment, into my bed at home, and stay there for months tucked up in solitude, but currently, I'm traveling with eight other people, all of whom are interesting and wonderful, so I will endure--even if I am not as social with them as I might be under better circumstances. I will endure paddle-stroke after paddle-stroke, and I will endure the loveliness of the sea and its creatures--harbor seals, sea lions, and porpoises--and this endurance will be an antidote to grief.

Gratitude

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. ~Thornton Wilder

Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all. ~William Faulkner

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. ~G.K. Chesterton

You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink. ~G.K. Chesterton

Today, I made some final travel arrangements for a very special holiday--I will be spending five days on a kayak expedition around the San Juan Islands in Washington and then land a few days after that in Port Townsend, WA, to decompress, before flying back to start the fall semester teaching again at the University of California, Merced. This trip will have to act as a kind of rehab for the recent tumult of spirit--as it felt like what happened was a kind of love addiction bottom.

The thing is, 5 years ago, I was so sick, I didn't think I could do anything--and the idea of kayaking for five days, let alone one, was beyond my imagination. So, this morning, as I was calling the last of the hotels where I'm staying after my trip, and phoning Sea Quest, the expedition company, and even now as I report the advent of this adventure, I find myself near tears. 6 years ago--I should've been dead. 5 years ago, I had another wake-up call, and then this summer, I battled with a dark depression that threatened to take me out. Grateful? I'll say.

Today, also, I handed a thank you card to X-man. I owed him some money from a trip we took to Arcata earlier in the summer and I had to return his house key. The thank you was for floating me the loan for the trip for the summer. The card, check, and key were all in an envelope ready to take to the post office, but I happened to run into him this morning, so I handed it to him in person and apologized for taking so long to get the key back to him. I felt honestly that I wished him well, as I had signed the card, and I felt grateful that I could have a conversation with him and feel calm in my heart and hold my own strength.

Certain things are considered to become addictions when we become powerless over them--some may think we make a substance or a person a substitute for a higher power and when we do this with a finite thing--we'll never actually be full of what we need. This is why many recovery programs urge a spiritual solution to addiction, so people with addictions can find an infinite source of power as a substitute for the thing/substance/behavior that was crippling them.

I felt that source with me today as I packed my bags for the trip, as I bought my first digital camera, as I booked a hotel room with a jacuzzi, as I imagined climbing in my first kayak and floating out to sea with 8 other adventurers next Monday morning. I felt that source--God--with me today--as I handed this man I'd spent some time with and then ached over losing, a thank you card.

I am thanking God. I am grateful for the willingness to be changed. I'm grateful for the miracle of my life, that I am alive, that I have survived a few different life-threatening diagnoses. I'm grateful for shoes, a full belly, my fists, my wonderful opposable thumbs. I'm grateful for friends, for holidays, for work, for second chances. I'm grateful for you, dear readers. I can't wait to share stories from the waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca with you. I'm grateful to X-man for catalyzing my no's into yeses.

Forgiveness

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." --Gandhi

"Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it." --Mark Twain

"Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk. If you twist it into something it was never meant to be, it can make you a doormat or an insufferable manipulator. Forgiving seems almost unnatural. Our sense of fairness tells us people should pay for the wrong they do. But forgiving is love's power to break nature's rule."~Lewis B. Smedes

Nearly 6 years ago, I made a commitment to a daily spiritual practice which I hoped would change my life. It has; it has freed me from so much, and has given me a life which I never thought possible. Some days, my practice of the path has been sparser than others, but there is always a seed planted, a prayer said, whether in front of an altar, on bended knee, while jogging down a creek, while agonizing over a relationship, or while driving hastily to work. The prayer always fundamentally asks God to guide my every move and to help me be more helpful in the world.

I did not commit to this way of life because I wanted to be good, though I suppose I always had designs for goodness. I committed to this way of life because I was quite literally dying, and I was told by others who had survived the disease I had, that these were the things I would have to practice in order to survive.

It's always been clear to me that any negative ranting, whether in my head or out loud, is not helpful for others or the planet. But, as my aim is, admittedly, and perhaps selfishly, personal survival, I cannot afford to harbor resentment. It has the power to kill me. So lately, since falling into a spell of resentment towards X-man, I've had to pray harder and more heartily. It's a matter of life and death for me. I'm not supposed to pray for selfish things, but I believe letting go of resentment makes me more present for those around me, so I pray daily to be alleviated from my resentment, and I've added the St. Francis Prayer to my morning routine, which, line by line, asks us to sacrifice being right for being with God, asks us to sacrifice ego for truth and forgiveness.

So, this morning, I said my prayers, rattling some familiar words off without thinking too much about them, and pressing some words out of my mouth as if I was begging God for relief, praying to near tears as I ran down Bear Creek on my morning jog. Then, I switched Pandora on and when Jack Johnson's "Better Together" came on, I felt my heart burst open--not because I suddenly fell in love with X-man or someone else, but because of the music, the melody, and the playful upbeat nature of the song. These got into my body and popped me out of my gloom.

I'm sure the fervent prayers allowed me room for this opening. I felt near joy, something that's felt a bit distant lately--as if I allow myself joy, I'll forget that my heart was broken and it will happen--all of a sudden, again, and I'll be made a fool. But I rather risk being a fool again and again than live with that dark corroding thread that was sewing through my insides.

By the end of the day, I found myself earnestly wishing X-man well. I didn't phone him or anything, but I felt that I wanted whatever was best for him to come his way. Part of my prayer practice when I'm harboring resentment is to pray that whatever I want for myself is granted to the person I'm resentful at. I can't believe how good it feels to be wishing him well. This is the kind of love I've been after when I say the second line of the St. Francis prayer, "Where there is hatred, let me sow love." This is a garden beyond my imagination--the most beautiful harvest is on the horizon.

Singing at the Top of My Lungs

O, she will sing the savageness out of a bear! ~William Shakespeare

Sometimes it feels like there's a small girl in me, a small me in me, full of terror, and she's screaming at the top of her lungs, her eyes wide and trembling. But sometimes someone holds the body the small girl lives inside, holds my body, and rocks me with his words, as if words were a sling, and the little one is eased out, as if on a small parachute from a rickety plane, into the sun, into a field of suns, of sunflowers reaching high above her head and full of the promise of dark yellow and food, and she lifts her head to the sky and the screams become song. Once, I heard a child crying, and as he was crying he was running lightly down an alleyway out my window. I couldn't see him, I could only hear his voice and his small feet moving his body down towards, I guess, home. As he ran, each step interrupted the crying, the wails, and soon he started to notice his voice and he started, instead of crying, playing with his voice, the way it could go up and down the notes, like a ladder, and he could start and stop his voice at will and his crying became song, like water. And the little girl inside me lifts her face to the sky and her open mouth spouts out song instead of screams and the song is a fountain that falls at the feet of the sunflowers, watering them as if with much-needed rain, shaking them at their feet, and as they shake, their seeds rattle, and I'm singing to the rhythm of the sunflowers--loud enough for the whole sky to hear me, loud enough to reach the sun, whose life-giving attention I so desperately need.

Some days there won't be a song in your heart. Sing anyway. ~Emory Austin

I don't sing because I'm happy; I'm happy because I sing. ~William James

God respects me when I work; but God loves me when I sing. ~Rabindranath Tagore

As long as we live, there is never enough singing. ~Martin Luther