change is a comin'

S is for Sad......and for the mysterious appetite that often surges in us when our hearts seem to be breaking and our lives appear too bleakly empty. Like every other physical phenomenon, there is good reason for this hunger, if we will be blunt enough to recognize it."
--M. F. K. Fisher, An Alphabet for Gourmets

The most beautiful sound caused me to catch my breath as I scraped warm wax from a board this evening. A magical, simple pleasure that made my mind and heart travel back fifteen years to a time when that sound belonged to a much smaller incantation of the one I'd just heard. Back to the easy days of holding small hands crossing the street, catching 40 pound bodies as they plummet down the park slide and cutting crusts from peanut butter sandwiches. To a time when the tugs at the heart were associated with fleeting desires to have them stay this way forever-to never grow up and to continue to delight in the innocent pleasure of the sway of a lazy sprinkler on a hot summer day. The sound was so familiar to me that on many another day, with different tasks filling my minutes and engaging my brain, it has gone unnoticed-simply continuing its bounce off the wall and up the stairs to dissolve in the beeswax fumed air of my studio. But this evening it captured me. Grabbed my heart and filled my thoughts with smiles. A laugh: The free flowing, still innocent laugh of a child. Deeply resonating in its post-pubescent growth and full of presumed-self knowing that would daily be challenged by this worlds rough edges; the laugh was still mine- still his. Still held the timber of the three foot tall, chipmunk-cheeked youth slipping through spring-mud filled grass. It captured me now for the bittersweet warmth of its existence-soon to be gone. Soon to exist in the vacuous silence of my reminiscing alone. Exist only in the memory of its once innocent flutter from the sofa, up the stairs and to my concentrating ears and mommy heart. feed the hunger. in love. trish

Brian's favorite rhubarb berry crisp
'crisp':

1 c flour

1c brown sugar

1 c quick oats

1 t cinnamon

2 sticks butter, melted and cooled

Mix the crisp ingredients until crumbly. Press 1/2 the mixture into a greased baking dish. Spread 4-5 c chopped rhubarb and assorted seasonal berries over this base. In a saucepan blend

1 c sugar

3 T flour

1 t vanilla

1 1/2 c water

Cook this mixture until it thickens (about 5 minutes) then pour over the fruit. Spread the remaining 1/2 of the crisp over this layer and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Allow to cool and dig in. It only gets better with time~and a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream!

I make this for Brian, exclusively. He can eat a 10x14 dish of it in three days easy; that's if he's pacing himself.

pennies

'it's hard to love someone when you're preoccupied with holding your world firmly in place. loving someone requires a certain amount of malleability, a willingness to be pulled along, at least occasionally, by another person's will.

no one ever got laid because they scheduled it in their day planner.'

the brilliant musings of molly wizenberg, A Homemade Life

An ending happened for me today. I don't know of a single ending that doesn't hurt. Can anyone out there counter for me?! I felt it coming. I saw the signs and sensed the incoming tidal shift. (see posts 'getting better every time' and 'don't throw it away'-) But I rested on how right it had been. I held my breath through the glimpses of doubt, wanting to remain steadfast to the rightness on which it had been built. A foolish grasping by some assessments, but a potential worthwhile investment if the return swings in ones' favor. Not the case for my tender heart: And that is to where the source of pain can be traced-those first few moments of oh so wonderful rightness. So much was invested so quickly on what has now frittered away to so little. I kiss it goodbye, this ending, this loss, with a heartbreaking ache and bittersweet whimper-recognizing the necessity of end, wistfully aching for the gift that had been-yet reassured that, in its fleeting existence, this blessing still holds a place among the possible. In seeking, some things truly can be found. Let there be another penny. Let me pick it up. in love. trish.

don't throw it away

I could be referring to garbage, recycles, old clothes, piles in the attic, unused gadgets....but I admit it...I'm doing the 'mushy' and referring to love. Don't groan! You can survive this diatribe-love makes us fools, but love is beyond enriching as well. I'll get back to art and baking tomorrow-promise! I have three quiche, bruschetta, hummus and truffles to create as well as a bunch of boards ready to be plastered and burned! (make you curious?! hungry?!)

Love. Why is it so confusing? I've been debilitated by the sudden sucking absence of it in my days. There, then gone. It filled my every moment, then became a vacant hollow, absent of everything but ache. Surprised the heck out of me. Knocked the Brooks All Terrains right out from under me-The wax encrusted paint brush from my hand-The dough splattered wisk from my grasp.

I was fine before love became the waking force in each of my days. I was walking, talking and breathing independently and fully until it rapped on the latched door to my heart. 'I don't need this and will not let it in!' I professed. Oh fool that I be....I think if you were standing next to me at the time you could've heard the fateful 'woosh' of the latched door being torn from its' hinges.

Maybe I wouldn't be this way if I'd never spied what was knocking on the other side of that cracked door. But then I wouldn't have the knowledge of it's existence. I'd be plodding along in the oblivion of assumed existence. Assumed love is there somewhere. Assumed partners exist for everyone; somehow. Assumed God has a plan for my heart that will one day, some day, manifest.

But, that's not an option anymore. No more assumptions. I've touched it, I've felt it, I've tasted it. It exists in real time and I don't want it taken out with yesterday's table scraps. My heart is starved for the rich filling up that deep connection creates in my moments. I crave the sweet fulfillment the right person brings to everything I do, say, feel and create. Everything-that much more complete in the sharing. A vulnerability I've run from for 40+ years. Foolish girl. I run to it now. Open hearted seeking more. Don't throw it away. Love. Trish