This weekend I cried all Sunday morning.

I know! I know! What a confession. You don’t need to know that, yet here I am telling you.

I cried because I feel trapped and powerless and I’m not sure how to feel untrapped and not so powerless.

“No big deal,” I texted Em, the kiddo, when she asked how my day was going. I didn’t tell her why I cried, just that I cried.

“Um, that is big,” she texted back.

I don’t know. I just know that I feel as if I’m failing in things. I paused my Patreon. I don’t blog on my own site and I haven’t written on my own story for months and months. I don’t write Be Brave Fridays because I apparently don’t feel brave any more.

I don’t think those are the problems though. I think those are the symptoms of the problem. The problem isn’t necessarily that I’m sad. I’m not constantly sad at all. It’s more that I’m tired, maybe?

So, I stopped crying and cooked some root vegetables.

Here’s the recipe (It’s a gift article so you should be okay even thought it’s the NYT.). I didn’t make the burritos. I just made the filling. And I didn’t have mushrooms or a sweet potato, just beets and fennel.

Wait.

I didn’t follow the recipe at all. But it was good to do the manual aspects of peeling and cutting and roasting.

A POEM Theme In Yellow by Carl Sandburg

I spot the hills
With yellow balls in autumn.
I light the prairie cornfields
Orange and tawny gold clusters
And I am called pumpkins.
On the last of October
When dusk is fallen
Children join hands
And circle round me
Singing ghost songs
And love to the harvest moon;
I am a jack-o’-lantern
With terrible teeth
And the children know
I am fooling.

Thank you for being here with me. All the content is free, obviously. It happens every two weeks or so. It’s sort of just a Substack about me trying to find comfort or coziness or something that I’m longing for. And hanging out with you.

I’m always thankful for help buying dog treats.

Write Better Now and Living Happy are likely much more helpful places if you’re into that. I usually post 1-2 Living Happy posts a week and 1-2 Write Better Now posts. I’d love it if you joined with me there, too, but obviously, no pressure.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Share

In an article for the Wall Street Journal, Richard McNally writes of The Good Life: Lessons From the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness, by the psychiatrist Robert Waldinger and the clinical psychologist Marc Schulz.

In the book, the duo say that happiness is from health (mental and physical) and social fitness, connecting positively with other people is “as least as important as proper nutrition, physical exercise, adequate sleep and the avoidance of harmful habits such as smoking. Yet it is easy to take these relationships for granted in today’s individualistic and hyper-competitive societies.”

McNally reflects earlier thought of Eastern philosophers during his review, writing, “Happiness is not a destination, a goal to be achieved. It is not a state of being but a process of becoming. And the good life is not devoid of disappointments, failures and struggles.”

Happiness is about becoming.

Happiness is about kindness.

Happiness is about breathing.

Happiness is about not having wants.

Happiness is about lifting up community.

Happiness has a lot going on right there, doesn’t it? What do you think?

PORTUGUESE WHITE BEAN SOUP

This one is from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home. Yes, yes, I did just take a photo of it with my phone. So cool. I’m the ultimate in cool, obviously.

When I was a kid, this had a bunch of sausage style elements and something green. Maybe kale? Spinach? But I’m not into the whole meat thing, so this is a vegetarian version. If you need more of a kick, I would suggest giving it a kick in honor of my dad and his sisters (and to the intense regret of my mom). :)

Another adaptation is here.

THE POEM

I have shared this before, I think, but I needed it today. Maybe you do, too?

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver.

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Thank you for being here with me. All the content is free, obviously. It happens every two weeks or so. It’s sort of just a Substack about me trying to find comfort or coziness or something that I’m longing for. And hanging out with you.

I’m always thankful for help buying dog treats.

Write Better Now and Living Happy are likely much more helpful places if you’re into that. I usually post 1-2 Living Happy posts a week and 1-2 Write Better Now posts. I’d love it if you joined with me there, too, but obviously, no pressure.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Share

My cutie patootie daughter and her pups are sleeping over tonight. She is a grown-up (or as my husband Shaun would say ‘a grown-ass adult’), and I am so super excited and the problem is that I don’t know what we should have for dinner!

A soup?

A salad?

A childhood favorite?

I can’t decide! If you have any ideas, please let me know!

I’ve been thinking about moss lately and a trip to Iceland that Em (that grown-ass adult) and I took a couple years ago.

In that honor, I’m going to share this soup that none of us will probably be able to make unless we’re in Iceland (Hello, people in Iceland! You probably already know this recipe.).

It’s from an Icelandic cooking blog and from all the way back in 2007! How is that almost 20 years? Whoa.

THE PHOTO

I took this photo when I was with Em at a lovely garden at the Land and Garden Preserve. I’d gone there the week before thanks to a magical woman named Angie (Hi, Angie!) and I couldn’t resist the return and bring the Emster.

There’s just something about paths, right? Those liminal spaces, the combination of stone and moss and tree and life in big forms and little, hard forms and softer ones.

THE MOSS POEM

There are so many. This morning I picked this one to share.

QUICK NOTE

Thank you for being here with me. All the content is free, obviously. It happens every two weeks or so. It’s sort of just a Substack about me trying to find comfort or coziness or something that I’m longing for. And hanging out with you.

I’m always thankful for help buying dog treats.

Write Better Now and Living Happy are likely much more helpful places if you’re into that. I usually post 1-2 Living Happy posts a week and 1-2 Write Better Now posts. I’d love it if you joined with me there, too, but obviously, no pressure.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Share

This morning, we had to get up early to get our kiddo to a specialist’s appointment in Portland, Maine, which is approximately three hours away when the traffic is good.

To say this disrupted the typical order of my day would be such an understatement.

I couldn’t find my glasses. Jack did not want to eat his doggy breakfast. I couldn’t find my spare glasses. Jack still didn’t want to eat his doggy breakfast. I went to an event to take photos and it turned out my camera didn’t have its card reader in it.

On the police scanner (which I listen to all the time because of the paper), they were rescuing a person who was injured hiking. All these volunteers and staff working together to save someone who needed saving.

That put it all in perspective.

This afternoon, I made some baba ganoush (the Lebanese version for my relatives and because it’s what I grew up eating) and I sat and cried for a hot second because I felt so lucky to be alive.

There’s a great comfort in that sometimes.

Here’s a poem. I hope you all can find some comfort this week, too.

Thank you for being here with me. All the content is free, obviously. It happens every two weeks or so. It’s sort of just a Substack about me trying to find comfort or coziness or something that I’m longing for. And hanging out with you.

I’m always thankful for help buying dog treats.

Write Better Now and Living Happy are likely much more helpful places if you’re into that. I usually post 1-2 Living Happy posts a week and 1-2 Write Better Now posts. I’d love it if you joined with me there, too, but obviously, no pressure.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Share

Sunday afternoon after collapsing on the rug in the office to cuddle with Jack the Dog, I remembered just how much I loved poems.

And that I should start my previous practice of reading at least one a day and drafting one a day.

I’ve written before about my Grammy Barnard who would write poems that her offspring carefully spirited away and saved because she’d often destroy them in a fit of anger that they were not perfect.

We are never perfect, and that is where the perfection sits though, right?

Earlier this Sunday, my daughter Em told me that there’s an anti-millennial movement among younger generations for people being too outwardly positive.

“They call it cringe,” she said.

“Everything about me is cringe,” I told her.

“There’s nothing wrong with that—with being supportive or positive,” she said. “People will be judgey about anything and everything. They will hate what others celebrate. You have to let it go.”

Then someone accused my writing of being AI and all was lost. Lol. She and Shaun both were so angry. I’m one of the many, many authors whose work has been stolen by AI and used to train it. But I get much more upset, quite honestly, about AI being used for journalism, for news stories, when it comes to creating the content of the story. I’m fine with a good spell checker or an AI system like Fathom recording meetings and creating transcripts.

I’ve also played with AI enough to see how it skews things, get facts wrong, inserts biases.

And that’s why it’s good to flop on the rug that needs to be vacuumed and cuddle a dog.

It’s also a good reason to read wonderful poems and write crappy ones. It’s a good reason to embrace the imperfect, typo-heavy aspects of being a human witness, a human writer, a human being and allowing yourself to be.

My grandmother’s poems will never be AI poems and they would never be perfect to her standards, but what they were? They were hers. Hers.

That’s what matters.

Call it cringe, but whatever, just don’t call it AI. :)

A POEM BY E.B. WHITE

Dog Around the Block

Dog around the block, sniff,
Hydrant sniffing, corner, grating,
Sniffing, always, starting forward,
Backward, dragging, sniffing backward,
Leash at taut, leash at dangle,
Leash in people’s feet entangle—
Sniffing dog, apprised of smellings,
Love of life, and fronts of dwellings,
Meeting enemies,
Loving old acquaintance, sniff,
Sniffing hydrant for reminders,
Leg against the wall, raise,
Leaving grating, corner greeting,
Chance for meeting, sniff, meeting,
Meeting, telling, news of smelling,
Nose to tail, tail to nose,
Rigid, careful, pose,
Liking, partly liking, hating,
Then another hydrant, grating,
Leash at taut, leash at dangle,
Tangle, sniff, untangle,
Dog around the block, sniff.

This poem is in the public domain.

Thank you for being here with me. All the content is free, obviously. It happens every two weeks or so. It’s sort of just a Substack about me trying to find comfort or coziness or something that I’m longing for. And hanging out with you.

I’m always thankful for help buying dog treats.

Write Better Now and Living Happy are likely much more helpful places if you’re into that. I usually post 1-2 Living Happy posts a week and 1-2 Write Better Now posts. I’d love it if you joined with me there, too, but obviously, no pressure.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Share

Last week I received a few lovely and quite graphic death threats and I’m only writing about it quickly here to tell you how it’s interesting that when someone threatens violence, it only makes some of us feel a bit more strident about our goals and what we’re doing.

Has that ever happened to you?

Has someone trying to silence you ever just made you dig in your boots/heels/sandals and just said, “Nope. That just makes me want to do this more?”

Humans are such an interesting group of living beings, aren’t we?

On Sunday I got to report on the Marty Lyon’s Tournament, which is this really well done, three-fields at a time, snazzy uniforms and cool announcers ball tournament for kids under 12. That same afternoon, I headed across the island for the first ever kickball tournament where the adults had knee braces and the kids played barefoot/sandals/socks/Crocks and shoes.

They were both beautiful.

THE SOUP

As I was writing this, a fruit fly just tried to get into my nostril. I’m so sorry. That’s possibly something much more difficult for me to get over. Wow. That’s a weird feeling.

Also a weird feeling?

How much I want to make this Jalapeño Popper Soup by The Recipe Critic.

I have not made it because it is full of dairy and the man in my life is not in favor of dairy. Or tomatoes. Or cooked spinach. Or cucumbers or avocado or all the things I love, actually.

Also, harder to navigate than a death threat.

A POEM

This brilliant poem by James Baldwin is shared from the Poetry Foundation. It’s resonating with me a lot lately. Are there any poems resonating with you right now?

Baldwin was such a genius and such a great observer and truth relayer. He always amazes me.

RANDOM PHOTO

QUICK NOTE

Thank you for being here with me. All the content is free, obviously. It happens every two weeks or so. It’s sort of just a Substack about me trying to find comfort or coziness or something that I’m longing for. And hanging out with you.

I’m always thankful for help buying dog treats.

Write Better Now and Living Happy are likely much more helpful places if you’re into that. I usually post 1-2 Living Happy posts a week and 1-2 Write Better Now posts. I’d love it if you joined with me there, too, but obviously, no pressure.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Share

Someone asked me why I wrote this Substack which has all of four paid subscribers.

Gasp!

That’s not a metric you’re supposed to admit, and don’t worry, my other Substacks are doing much better and I can still feed the puppies.

But to this person that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I take time writing something that doesn’t make me money or increase my SEO or whatever.

“It’s a waste of your time,” he said.

Meh.

I explained that I don’t believe that the worthiness of our work is necessarily related to how much money you make or how big an audience you have.

He was not into this explanation.

Gasp again! :)

It’s about intrinsic value, maybe?

Apologies while I’m trying to filter though my thoughts here.

LifeDev writes, “Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Value: The Dance of Inherent Worth and Utility Our journey commences with an exploration of the core dichotomy in the perception of value – the intrinsic versus the extrinsic. When we talk of intrinsic value, we imply that an entity holds worth inherently, independent of its usefulness or desirability to others. This concept transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary, the transient into the timeless. Picture a magnificent sunset painting the sky with a riot of colors or the rich complexity of a piece of music that moves the soul. Their value isn’t derived from their potential to be used or owned; instead, they resonate with a worth that is inherent, non-utilitarian, and transcendent. The same applies to human life and dignity, which carries intrinsic value that goes beyond the scope of measurable attributes or external validations. This belief forms the bedrock of human rights and equality – the idea that every human, irrespective of their social status, race, or capabilities, carries an intrinsic and inalienable value.”

That’s a lot of words, isn’t it?

For me, part of what I think about is this: when we let our worth—or our art or book or column—be based on things outside ourselves there’s no stability there, right?

Who we are and the value of who we are stops being up to us and up to the world.

That’s not cool for our hearts.

But it also might make us (and all the people like us) start only doing things that get clicks, get money, get followers instead of following our own hearts and our own selves instead.

And then we end up doing things that don’t actually make our own heart sing. Like me no longer writing my crappy poems.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot as I try to juggle who I am and what I love with how to survive in a world that requires money to survive. Or we start to only do things that are easy or laudable as we try to keep from failing.

THE POEM

Robert Chute was a much loved science professor at Bate College. I spoke of him this weekend while having breakfast with a friend, who is a writer and teacher, who is visiting from Bridgton. That’s where he was born. This is via Bates College.

Heat Wave in Concord

By Robert Chute

“Dancing and laughing along the beach
came the twenty-ninth bather…”¹

I

Farmers working the fields quit early,
as much for ox or horse as for men –
one old man had already died; exhausted
by heat, wrung out, wrinkled
like dried fruit.

Their women, buttoned, laced, strapped
under petticoats, skirts, sleeves,
sit and work, work and sit
in the dim, dead heat
of parlor, kitchen, and shed.

But one, an exceptional one, in
a windowless storage room, stands,
naked and white in a wash tub’s cold ring.
Her cast off clothes spilled
like dried discarded flowers.

The tinned dipper lifts water, still cool
from the well, again and again. The water
passing over her body like
unseen fingers and back
to the tub again.

Perhaps one of them also dreams of the river,
of young men who float there,
pale bellies tempting the sun.

II

From houses on opposite sides
of the elm-roofed main street Henry
and Ellery, leaving dishes and scraps
of cold dinner behind,
meet, retreat to the river.

A man stands in a barn door, his shirt
stained with sweat, hat hanging slack
in his hand. A woman in the shed’s
dark cave churns the morning’s milk
the heat would soon sour.

They shake their heads. What beside envy
do they feel as these renegades slip away?
Do they imagine how it feels to peel
close, sweaty clothes away,
let the waters have their play?

At the river Henry explains that banks have
a gender, this one, for example, being
convex, alluvial, gradual, and
feminine; the opposite, concave,
undercut, and masculine.

Ellery makes some comments that
Henry’s Journal will never repeat.
They strip and wade in.

III

Soon, by the opposite, masculine, shore, up
to their chins, they face the current.
The heat of the day is carried
down, away. They wade upstream,
wearing their hats against the sun.

They hold their bundled clothing high.
From deep holes to shallows
the water falls, rises again.
Chest, ankle, knee, belly,
chest, and down again.

Rounding a bend they see the plank bridge.
Boys, their work done, race and strip
and plunge. Boys breaching
and splashing; marble boys riding
imaginary dolphins.

On the bank one boy sits, lifting a foot
to examine some bruise, fixed
in an instant as an engraving in
an antiquities book; but subtly
colored, sunburned, bare.

The two men put on shirts now, feeling the sting
of the sun. Bridge rails bleed pitch,
the planks shrink.

IV

The drying tails of their shirts stick
to their buttocks and thighs. Perhaps
because of the shirts they feel undressed,
retreat to the water. The water, like
unseen fingers, passes over them.

They wade on into a shaded, shallower reach
of late afternoon, hear the clang
of a distant bell. Some farmer’s wife
signaling an early supper. They climb out
on the feminine side.

They wait for the air to dry them. How long
this single mile of fluvial walk
has seemed, passing from present
to pastoral to classical,
back to the present again.

They dress, turn toward the world of women
where mother, sister, or wife waits. The day
slides toward evening and the moon.

Professor Emeritus of Biology Robert M. Chute is an award-winning Maine poet.

N.B.: Thoreau records his “fluvial walks” in the Journal for 1852. He read Whitman’s ‘Leaves of Grass,’ including, we assume, the song of the 29th bather in 1856.

Thoreau’s comment: “As for the sensuality in Whitman’s ‘Leaves of Grass,’ I do not so much wish it was not written, as that men and women were so pure that they could read it without harm.”

THE SOUP — CURRIED SPLIT PEA.

This is via Allrecipes.

Thank you for being here with me. All the content is free, obviously. It happens every two weeks or so. It’s sort of just a Substack about me trying to find comfort or coziness or something that I’m longing for. And hanging out with you.

I’m always thankful for help buying dog treats.

Write Better Now and Living Happy are likely much more helpful places if you’re into that. I usually post 1-2 Living Happy posts a week and 1-2 Write Better Now posts. I’d love it if you joined with me there, too, but obviously, no pressure.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Share

This weekend was a wild one in our town. There was a community celebration where thousands of people come here (like they do every year) to celebrate the Fourth of July with a parade, pancake breakfast, seafood festival, fireworks, photos with Santa, high school fundraisers, hospital fundraisers, music, arts and crafts, kids painting.

The list goes on and on.

The thing is that our island is only 10,000 or so year-round residents. Our town is just 5,000.

All those events require so much work, volunteers and staff and donations create this big beautiful celebration.

Simon Simek (an author/thinker who has done quite well for himself) says, “Leadership is not about being in charge. It is about taking care of those in your charge.”

And that’s the other thing, too, right?

When you live in a relatively small community and you have a hyper-local, digital newspaper, your community members are people you want to take care of. You want to put their needs first. You want them to trust you and feel safe with you, right? Sometimes, however, the needs don’t synch up and that creates tension.

We are usually asked to do stories by people who are scared or worried or confused or who know that the wrong information is getting out there. We know people will be annoyed at us about those stories sometimes. We still have to do them.

Or, if we try to post photos from each group in our parade and some of those groups are making political statements, people get incredibly mad at us for posting those.

But we still have to post them because to not post them would be erasure. I don’t want to be a part of that.

This obviously doesn’t just apply to journalism. It applies to everything in life.

Life is about taking care of the people in your charge.

It’s about holding the door open. It’s about giving hugs. It’s about writing notes to lift up rather than just social media comments to double down or assert that your way is the only way of looking at something. But it’s also about asking how you can help them to get to the best self they want to be and how you can be the best self you can be in order to do that.

So, here is a soup recipe and poem for you all today.

I hope you feel strong. I hope you feel good. I hope you lean into your why.

THE SOUP

This is a Finnish Summer Soup over on AllRecipes, which I kind of think is a sweet site because it’s so crowd sourced, you know? It’s sort of just wholesome that way.

THE POEM

I Hear America Singing

By Walt Whitman

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,

The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,

Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

Copyright Credit: Walt Whitman, “I Hear America Singing” from Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass: The Complete 1855 and 1891-92 Editions. New York: First Library of America Paperback Classic Edition, 1982, 2011.

Source: Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass: The Complete 1855 and 1891-92 Editions (First Library of America Paperback Classic Edition, 2011)

Via American Poetry Foundation.

QUICK NOTE

Thank you for being here with me. All the content is free, obviously. It happens every two weeks or so. It’s sort of just a Substack about me trying to find comfort or coziness or something that I’m longing for. And hanging out with you.

I’m always thankful for help buying dog treats.

Write Better Now and Living Happy are likely much more helpful places if you’re into that. I usually post 1-2 Living Happy posts a week and 1-2 Write Better Now posts. I’d love it if you joined with me there, too, but obviously, no pressure.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Share

When summer comes here, I actually leave the house. Gasp!

Part of being a newspaper person is that it requires me to actually leave the house during the summer months and interact with people.

I have a sort of stage fright about going out to things, but once I’m there, I tend to love it. I get my little hobbit dad’s love of humans doing human things, being kind to each other, hearing their stories.

This weekend, I paused for a really long time outside an event at a library on our island.

It’s sometimes awkward to walk into spaces holding a giant camera. To be fair, the camera also tends to give you an air of “I’m coming in no matter what,” which can be helpful.

Inside the library was someone lovely who I hadn’t seen in forever. And I got to see him thriving. THRIVING! This was a person I used to worry about. And here he was living his best life. I think I’m going to write a little bit about this over on LIVING HAPPY today too when I get time.

Anyway, this is why it’s sometimes good to leave your house and manifest your hobbit dad no matter how shy you’re feeling.

THE POEM (Via the Poetry Foundation)

Romance

By Václav Hrabě

Translated By C. E. Janecek

Romance(2 versions)

Translated from the Czech

Green fluorescents

pale the night sky

Swaying like a drunken preacher

And the stars

even at this distance smell

of pickling brine

The moon this handsome fellow

stuck two fingers down his throat

What a hunk And how he pukes!

Smiles life lessons odorless

beer

sorrow spiritus and soot in lashes

When he’s done I’ll drag him to bed

After all he never sleeps

And then comes

the golden spike of my program

Juggling bottles

inside them some water sand and sticky feathers

a queen of hearts

half drowned

I have to do it fast

so they at least resemble

fireworks

love’s vertigo

the white smiles of clowns

the tender pirouettes of cormorants and wild geese

the sparking spindly circle

of life

I have to do it fast

so it can’t be mimicked

So the polite cleanshaven man in the first row can’t stand

pat me fatherly on the shoulder

and say “Friend we can excuse your madness

but we know it’s all just the tiring work of able hands

So why the illusions friend

why the illusions?”

I have to do it so fast that no one can tell

how much my hands are shaking

and with a vigilance so vast

as vast as my fear

that these otherwise ordinary bottles

flying through the air yearning to echo

love fireworks people and birds

could break

Just like that

the slip of shaking hands

and earth’s gravity

I finish without applause

you’ll see me tomorrow

feeding the gulls above the river with my stories

and spitting at the sky making clouds

for the holy moon

he’s hungover

and someone needs to do it

before everyone else leaves for work

Source: Poetry (June 2026)

A SANDWICH FILLING AND NOT A SOUP!

Gasp!

I know! I know! What am I doing? Can I not even play by my own rules? Where is the soup, Carrie?

Spoiler: Nope. I can not play by my own Substack rules.

This is from Allrecipes.

CHICKPEA SANDWICH YUMMINESS

What goes in it.

• 1 (15.5 ounce) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

• 1 stalk celery, chopped

• ½ onion, chopped

• 1 tablespoon mayonnaise, or to taste

• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

• 1 teaspoon dried dill weed

• salt and pepper to taste

How to Make It

1. Gather all ingredients.

2. Mash chickpeas in a medium bowl with a fork.

3. Mix in celery, onion, mayonnaise, lemon juice, and dill until well combined. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Serve on bread and enjoy!

Recipe Tip

You can substitute any raw, chopped vegetable for the celery. You can use your favorite salad dressing instead of mayonnaise.

BONUS LINK

This link is about how we might abandon hobbies and how you shouldn’t pressure yourself about that.

Thanks for hanging out here with me in my totally no-pressure substack. It’s just a few of us here and I love that and I love you all very much.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

This weekend two couple friends and I had a crawfish (Crawdaddy? Crayfish? Crawdads? Mud bugs?) boil.

It required not using a fork and knife to eat.

Gasp!

This is completely out of my comfort zone. I also felt really bad for the crawfish. One husband put one on his ear like an earring. One dog had a great time trying to figure out what was going on.

One dog just wanted to eat it.

So did another one.

There was a lot to eat. It was too cold to eat outside like the real tradition, so we improvised.

A part of my heritage (I found out late in life) is Acadia, people expelled from Northeast Canada (mostly). Some of those people headed to Louisiana. Some came back to the Northeast. But I know next to nothing about this culture and the food and the traditions behind it. Same for my Dutch side and Québécois ancestors. It’s all a bit of a mystery to me, just like crawfish kind of are. And hushpuppies.

THE SOUP

This soup is from a website I just found. I will hopefully make it soon! Without the ham. :)

The website is adorable though. You should check it out if you have time! It’s a lovely woman named Sophie and her culinary adventures.

POEMS

The Poetry Foundation has a recording of “Some Lines Scrawled on the Door of a Vagabond's House,” by Don Blanding, which is quite full of energy.

This is SUGARING from the July 1920 issue of POETRY. It’s by Raymond Holden.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

The kiddo and I went to Northeast Harbor on Sunday afternoon for a belated Mother’s Day adventure and headed to these public gardens run by the Land and Garden Preserve that we used to go to when she was wee.

We did not take her favorite Gold Fish crackers this time.

But it was lovely and calm and full of things blooming.

It made me think a bit about how things can bloom and blossom so quietly all around us. Fruit trees flour and bud. Seedlings reach up from the dirt toward the sun. It’s all quiet moments.

Yet, so many of us make so much noise.

THE POEM

THE RECIPE

This is an amazing mushroom pot pie by Jesse Szewczyk from Bon Appetit. It’s a bit dramatic honestly because of the phyllo top, but it’s pretty much my favorite thing in the world right this second.

QUICK NOTE

Comforting usually comes out every two weeks now. Thank you for hanging out with me. I hope you are finding good, quiet, cozy things.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

This Sunday, as I write this, it’s a bit cold and super dreary for a May day. It feels a bit like October in Maine instead.

I’ve decided to embrace it. Two of my friends have too.

One texted a photo of her clam chowder.

“It’s a chowder kind of day,” she said.

The other texted that she’s making homemade macaroni and cheese and doing laundry. I was a little envious because Shaun (my husband) does not do well with the lactose, so we aren’t making either of those things. He does okay with some cheese, but not a ton of that even.

Anyway, there’s sort of a beautiful coziness in both being able to have enough money (and time) to make food and to step away from the hustle enough to do that.

My father was born in Staten Island, New York, during the Great Depression. When my grandmother talked about the city, she talked about longing for the art and the music but also about the smells. They were not good smells.

He would find such joy and wonder in a garden—the opposite of that city smell, right? He would marvel at a pumpkin, peas you could shell and eat right off the vine.

His dad was a stockbroker who watched his friends despair, one after another, in the market crash and he became very poor and he became a socialist/communist. I was just telling one of my friend’s husbands this story.

He’d have my sweet, young, dad pass out pamphlets for him on NYC street corners while he ran (very unsuccessfully) for governor. I think he got two votes?

My dad would tell the story of how people would spit on his little kid self, bawl up the pamphlets and throw them at him.

Horrible, right? How is this cozy?

Well, it made my dad so grateful for people’s kindness, for them willing to share thoughts with him, stories with him.

Having seen the mean that people can be, it made him lean into the joy of discovering the kind.

My mom was born in Manchester, New Hampshire. When she talked about her childhood, she talked about the joy of the milk man coming; this amazing joy from fighting with her brothers over the cream on the top of the bottle.

This was hysterical to me as a kind because my mom hated milk. Loved cheese. Hated milk.

I think maybe now that the ritual of jockeying over the best part of the milk bottle, the amazing taste of fresh, delivered-to-your-door milk back in the 1940s when she was a kid.

(I am not 100 years old. My parents just had me super late in life comparatively._

I grew up with a lot of stories of scarcity and gratitude. In our recent hustle-hustle-hustle culture, that’s a lot to unload, right?

My mom found so much joy in that milk and in being with her brothers. It didn’t matter that her mom was a single parent, scraping by, that they had to strive a lot to get to someplace that wasn’t poverty. She found joy in milk.

THE RECIPE

This is what we’re making tonight (no soup, sorry, and also no dairy). Here’s a link to the gift article.

THE POEM

I cautious scanned my little life (19)

Emily Dickinson

I cautious scanned my little life,
I winnowed what would fade
From what would last till heads like mine
Should be a-dreaming laid.

I put the latter in a barn,
The former blew away —
I went one winter morning,
And lo! my priceless hay

Was not upon the “‘scaffold”’,
Was not upon the “beam”,
And from a thriving farmer
A cynic I became.

Whether a thief did it —
Whether it was the wind —
Whether Deity ’s guiltless
My business is to find.

So I begin to ransack —
How is it, Heart, with thee?
Art thou within the little barn
Love provided thee?

From The Further Poems of Emily Dickinson (Little, Brown, and Company, 1929), edited by Martha Dickinson Bianchi and Alfred Leete Hampson. This poem is in the public domain.

Thank you for reading this and being here with me. I hope you find some joy this May Sunday (or whenever you’re reading it).

Share

Leave a comment

I think I should potentially have named this Substack “Coziness” instead of “Comforting.”

That was a mistake, wasn’t it?

The original name was “Finding Comfort in Poems and Soup, Damn It,” which was and still is my initial feeling. Or maybe it should just be called “Fighting the Ugh.”

I might go with that one today.

There’s this post on The Greater Good by Jill Suttie that doesn’t quite talk about The Ugh, but about how to let go of the little things that annoy you, which is a bit like fighting the ugh, right?

She talks about how every life has stress, but how it’s not helpful to take smaller ugh moments. It hurts us.

She writes:

“Feeling irritated sets off the release of stress hormones, like adrenaline and cortisol, that prepare our bodies to respond to danger. While not problematic in itself, a stress response than happens too frequently or doesn’t dissipate quickly can cause wear and tear on our bodies and exhaust us. That’s why daily annoyances may harm our well-being, lead to depression, worsen our long-term health, and decrease our overall life satisfaction.

“Less direct, but no less consequential, is how feelings of irritation can spill over into our relationships. If we’re stressed out by minor things, we may react badly, says Greenberg, by “saying the wrong thing or taking things the wrong way.”

“‘If we’re not calming to be around, people may not feel as close to us,’ she says, which could lessen the kind of social support we need for good health. Lashing out at others when we’re annoyed is more likely to backfire than help make an irritating situation better. It can even be dangerous, like when our inability to curb our frustration over a reckless driver turns into road rage.

“Not taking out our frustration directly on other people can have social consequences, too, though. For example, wallowing in a bad mood, muttering to ourselves, or slamming a door in frustration is bound to put the people around us on edge. Even those folks we don’t interact with much—like the barista at your coffee shop—may read our tense body language and behave differently, says Greenberg.

“‘We [humans] react to the way others respond to us. So, if we emanate a more chronically stressed-out vibe, I think we’ll get more stressed out or negative responses in return,’ says Greenberg.”

Her ways to fight it are pretty standard:

1. Practice gratitude and remind yourself of the good stuff.

2. Be compassionate to yourself too.

3. Practice empathy.

4. Practice mindful acceptance.

5. Reframe things.

It’s a lot, kind of. At least, it seems a lot when it’s in list form.

You can read her entire article at the link above, but I’m going to pull out her bit about reframing things because I know in my family we all tend to go into a doom spiral when bad things happen. That relates to this.

She writes:

“Part of the reason a minor hassle can become more upsetting is that we overlay it with harmful interpretations. For example, if I take my husband’s lapse as a sign that he doesn’t care about my feelings, I may become more upset than if I put it down to something innocuous, like fatigue and distraction. Not every annoyance, however it feels, is a personal affront.

“‘A lot of the stuff [couples] argue about is just stupid stuff,’ like replacing the toilet paper roll or how to load the dishwasher, says Greenberg. ‘But it takes on this huge significance because of how they’re seeing it as evidence that person doesn’t care about them or they’re not being heard.’

“Reframing is similar to a technique used in cognitive-behavioral therapy, where patients are taught to question their negative interpretation of events and consider alternate explanations. While reframing won’t change the annoying situation itself, it can help negative feelings dissipate more quickly.”

“Another way we can reframe our experience is by seeing an annoyance as just an unavoidable facet of life or small in the face of other concerns, says Greenberg. When triggered, she suggests asking ourselves, What’s the big picture here? How important is this, really, especially compared to everything going on in my life? Is this something I even have control over? Asking questions like these helps us see our situation more objectively, as a small blip that doesn’t need to hijack our mood.

“‘Trying to take a step back and broaden our view can help us be like a fly on the wall, giving us a more distanced [perspective],’ says Greenberg.”

THE SOUP FOR THIS WEEK

This is from Serious Eats, but you can find a similar recipe in all kinds of places.

You can sort of tell I’m longing for summer with a recipe that calls for fresh basil.

THE POEM

The Singers Change, the Music Goes On

By Linda Gregg

No one really dies in the myths.

No world is lost in the stories.

Everything is lost in the retelling,

in being wondered at. We grow up

and grow old in our land of grass

and blood moons, births and goneness.

We live our myth in the recurrence,

pretending we will return another day.

Like the morning coming every morning.

The truth is we come back as a choir.

Otherwise Eurydice would be forever

in the dark. Our singing brings her

back. Our dying keeps her alive.

This poem is part of the folio “Linda Gregg: Never Give Up Longing,” curated by David Semanki, and was published in Gregg’s 2008 new and selected volume, All of It Singing. I found it on the Poetry Foundation’s site.

QUICK NOTE

I put out this post every week or so. If you want to hang out with me here? That would be wonderful. No pressure though. You can sign up below.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

There are some lovely comforting things out there. Today, I’m going to share with you my favorites in case you need comfort some day and I’m not here any longer to share these resources with you.

COMFORTING MUSIC

FHE Health writes, “Music can have a powerful effect on emotions. Whether it’s in the background of movies, setting the tone for the environment of a workplace or enjoyed at a concert, it’s woven into nearly every part of society to express emotion, inspire change and entertain.

“Whether they’re consciously aware of it or not, many people use music to change their mood. An individual can scroll through the curated playlists on their favorite digital music service and find playlists for cleaning the house, going on a road trip or dealing with the loss of a relationship. Listening to music can trigger memories, bring feelings of happiness or help individuals work through feelings of grief and sadness.

“For some, the power of music can provide a temporary escape from stress, depression and sadness. While it isn’t a cure-all, it can be a vital part of someone’s mental health journey. For that reason, it’s a popular form of therapy to help individuals process their feelings, build connections with others and express themselves.”

First, there are a bunch of music channels on YouTube that sort of live in the comforting music space. Some are classical focused. Some are hygge focused. Some are like this one, which is sort of more chill meditative sounds.

It is hard to find any that don’t have AI-produced images and I am sorry for that.

This basically makes me fall asleep.

But what I also find super comforting music-wise is those troubadours of the Windham Hill era. Singer-songwriters like John Gorka and Cheryl Wheeler (she is very funny) and Cliff Eberhart and Lucy Kaplansky. And then pianist like Will Akerman and George Winston.

Sometimes my comfort comes from things a bit more “savage.”

Or, honestly, singing songs from my youth.

A POEM

Did you know that in April, the Academy of American Poets encourages us all to have a poem in our pocket for Poem in Your Pocket Day, April 10.

You place a poem in your pocket, you share it with the people you meet.

Here is the one I’m sharing with you, a little early.

A RECIPE.

This vegan carrot soup comes from A Taste of Home. You can go here to check it out and print it, too.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

There are weeks when the world feels like it has been set to “gentle simmer,” and weeks when it feels like someone cranked the heat on the burner, forgot the pot, and walked away from the stove.

This has been the second kind of week. The kind of week where your foot keeps betraying you—just a small misstep, a wrong angle, a sharp, humiliating reminder that your body is not, in fact, invincible—and suddenly everything slows down whether you like it or not.

I hurt my foot in the least glamorous way possible about six weeks ago and it’s slowly getting better. I talked about this a bit last week.

There’s no heroic tale that goes with this foot issue. I did not do this saving puppies or hiking in Portugal. There’s no slippery cliffside or dramatic rescue involved. Just a misjudged step while dancing salsa in the kitchen barefoot, a pain, and that awful, immediate knowing of: Oh. That’s going to be a problem (and obsessing over whether I have gout or not).

The thing about pain is that even the small, domestic kind basically rearranges your life. Not in big, cinematic ways, but in the quiet negotiations like how to get down the stairs. Is it worth standing long enough to cook? How many times you can forget something in another room before you just decide you didn’t need it that badly anyway? Should you buy new shoes or will the swelling eventually go down? Maybe? Sometime soon?

Enter: soup.

Soup is what you make when standing hurts but nurturing feels necessary, right? Soup is forgiving. It doesn’t mind if you lean heavily on the counter or sit down halfway through. It doesn’t rush you.

Writing 2-3 news stories a day on top of my other work often makes me feel super rushed. I am the opposite of soup.

There is something deeply reassuring about a pot of soup on the stove. The slow bubbling. The way the house begins to smell like you have your life together, even if you absolutely do not. You can throw in what you have—carrots going a little limp, onions that have seen better days, a handful of herbs you forgot you bought—and somehow it turns into something that feels like care.

I’ve been eating a lot of soup. Not in a sad way. In a deliberate, almost ceremonial way. Ladling it into a bowl like it’s medicine, like it’s a promise: You are going to be okay. Maybe not today. Maybe not even tomorrow. But eventually.

Because I am me, and because slowing down always reveals things I’d rather not notice, I’ve also been reading more poems.

Poems are the opposite of rushing. They refuse the hurry-hurry-hurry. You can’t skim a poem the way you skim an article or scroll through a feed. Well, you can, but it won’t give you anything. Poems demand that you sit with them. That you let a line land and then echo. That you feel slightly off-balance, the way you do when your foot hurts and you’re learning how to walk differently.

There’s a particular kind of comfort in poems that don’t try to fix anything. They don’t offer solutions. They just say: This is what it feels like to be here, in this body, in this moment, with this strange mix of ache and hope and boredom and longing. You can find meaning in the white space around the words, in the pauses.

Which, it turns out, is exactly what I needed.

Because a hurt foot is never just a hurt foot. It’s frustration and vulnerability and the quiet fear that things break more easily than we’d like to admit. It’s also, inconveniently, an invitation to slow down, to notice, and to sit still long enough to realize that maybe the world hasn’t ended just because you can’t move through it at your usual speed.

I’ve been sitting. Eating soup. Reading poems. Letting the days be smaller than I planned.

In those smaller days, there have been moments—tiny, almost forgettable ones—that feel like grace. The way steam curls up from a bowl. The exact right line in a poem that makes you stop and think, “Oh, someone else has felt this too. The strange, reluctant gratitude for a body that, even when it fails you a little, is still trying.”

I don’t recommend hurting your foot as a lifestyle choice. There are easier ways to learn these lessons. But if you find yourself slowed down, sidelined, stuck in a chair with an ice pack and a slightly bruised sense of dignity, I will say this:

Make soup.

Read a poem.

Let the world wait a little while because it will still be there when you’re ready to get a shoe on and go outside again.

LINKS FOR BETTER, COZIER THINGS:

Butternut Squash Chipotle Chili with Avocado from Cookie and Kate.

A cozy poem by Iain S. Thomas (with a lovely accent/voice).

A cozy quote: “Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for talk beside the fire; it is the time for home.” —Edith Sitwell

QUICK NOTE

Thanks for being here with me! If you’re new, this is just my Substack that comes out once a week. It is not journalism. It isn’t writing tips. It is probably barely helpful. It’s just me looking for comfort in a world that feels scary sometimes. Okay. A lot of the time. But it feels wondrous, too. And that’s what I try to hold onto.

Leave a comment

Share

Subscribe now

So, I hurt my foot.

And it has finally stopped being swollen so that I can put my foot in shoes and things.

This, let me tell you, is a big improvement. It’s sort of important to be able to wear shoes in Maine in winter.

Anyway, because I hurt my foot, I haven’t left the house for a month. I took a lot of Advil. I iced it. I did all the things. It didn’t get better very quickly.

What did I do to my foot?

I’m honestly not sure. I was dancing barefoot in the kitchen and it started hurting, sort of under my big toe on the bottom of my foot.

I danced through the pain.

Then it went kind of around the side.

I danced through that, too. It was salsa. I do not know how not to dance around the kitchen when there is salsa music playing.

Then at night, something moved in the bed—Pogie Dog was that something—and she jumped off—maybe off my foot? I was sleeping so it was hard for me to know. And I woke up in so much pain.

“IT IS GOUT!” I told Shaun. “I HAVE GOUT!”

He insists that I do not have gout. “It is mechanical. Your feet are weird. You have that EDS thing. You have psoriatic arthritis.”

“Gout and psoriatic arthritis are besties,” I said the next day.

“Baby, you do not have gout.”

The day after that, when I couldn’t walk, I showed him photos of inflamed feet because the internet is magic like that.

“IT IS GOUT!” I announced.

“It is not shiny or hot.”

“Whatever. I can never have seafood again!” I told him and gave him a list of all the things I can never ever eat or drink.

This was not comforting at all. I thought, honestly, that it was a disaster, but it turned out? I’m just eating like I did when I was 20, minus the instant Ramen noodles. Poor Shaun—he of the meat-loving/processed food love, he of the “GIVE ME FIERY HOT CHEETOS” taste buds—is enduring.

The man is very patient with me, honestly.

THE POEM

This is actually the poem of the day on the Academy of American Poets site. Bliss Carman was Canadian (born 1861), from New Brunswick, and really into Sappho. He was the poet laureate of the country, too, such a big deal, right? So cool.

Low Tide on Grand Pré

by Bliss Carman

The sun goes down, and over all
These barren reaches by the tide
Such unelusive glories fall,
I almost dream they yet will bide
Until the coming of the tide.

And yet I know that not for us,
By any ecstasy of dream,
He lingers to keep luminous
A little while the grievous stream,
Which frets, uncomforted of dream—

A grievous stream, that to and fro
Athrough the fields of Acadie
Goes wandering, as if to know
Why one beloved face should be
So long from home and Acadie.

Was it a year or lives ago
We took the grasses in our hands,
And caught the summer flying low
Over the waving meadow lands,
And held it there between our hands?

The while the river at our feet—
A drowsy inland meadow stream—
At set of sun the after-heat
Made running gold, and in the gleam
We freed our birch upon the stream.

There down along the elms at dusk
We lifted dripping blade to drift,
Through twilight scented fine like musk,
Where night and gloom awhile uplift,
Nor sunder soul and soul adrift.

And that we took into our hands
Spirit of life or subtler thing—
Breathed on us there, and loosed the bands
Of death, and taught us, whispering,
The secrets of some wonder-thing.

Then all your face grew light, and seemed
To hold the shadow of the sun;
The evening faltered, and I deemed
That time was ripe, and years had done
Their wheeling underneath the sun.

So all desire and all regret,
And fear and memory, were naught;
One to remember or forget
The keen delight our hands had caught;
Morrow and yesterday were naught.

The night has fallen, and the tide . . .
Now and again comes drifting home,
Across these aching barrens wide,
A sigh like driven wind or foam:
In grief the flood is bursting home.

This poem is in the public domain.

LINKS TO LEARN MORE

Love and Lemons.

More about Bliss.

I’m not linking to gout or foot injuries because I love you, not hate you. :)

QUICK NOTE

Thanks for being here with me! If you’re new, this is just my Substack that comes out once a week. It is not journalism. It isn’t writing tips. It is probably barely helpful. It’s just me looking for comfort in a world that feels scary sometimes. Okay. A lot of the time. But it feels wondrous, too. And that’s what I try to hold onto.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

I was looking at top-selling writers Substack newsletters (so this, but not this because this is the least top-selling thing ever). A couple of them hadn’t written in months. One guy wrote every single day like a really long and eloquent diary entry. This is very Anaïs Nin of him, really.

This, of course, sent me into a wormhole where I found this except from one of her diary’s.

“As June walked towards me from the darkness of the garden into the light of the door, I saw for the first time the most beautiful woman on earth. A startling white face, burning dark eyes, a face so alive I felt it would consume itself before my eyes. Years ago I tried to imagine true beauty; I created in my mind an image of just such a woman. I had never seen her until last night. Yet I knew long ago the phosphorescent color of her skin, her huntress profile, the evenness of her teeth. She is bizarre, fantastic, nervous, like someone in a high fever. Her beauty drowned me. As I sat before her, I felt I would do anything she asked of me. Henry suddenly faded. She was color and brilliance and strangeness. By the end of the evening I had extricated myself from her power. She killed my admiration by her talk. Her talk. The enormous ego, false, weak, posturing. She lacks the courage of her personality, which is sensual, heavy with experience. Her role alone preoccupies her. She invents dramas in which she always stars. I am sure she creates genuine dramas, genuine chaos and whirlpools of feelings, but I feel that her share in it is a pose. That night, in spite of my response to her, she sought to be whatever she felt I wanted her to be. She is an actress every moment. I cannot grasp the core of June. Everything Henry has said about her is true.

“I wanted to run out and kiss her fantastic beauty and say: ‘June, you have killed my sincerity too. I will never know again who I am, what I am, what I love, what I want. Your beauty has drowned me, the core of me. You carry away with you a part of me reflected in you. When your beauty struck me, it dissolved me. Deep down, I am not different from you. I dreamed you, I wished for your existence. You are the woman I want to be. I see in you that part of me which is you. I feel compassion for your childlike pride, for your trembling unsureness, your dramatization of events, your enhancing of the loves given to you. I surrender my sincerity because if I love you it means we share the same fantasies, the same madnesses.’”

There is so much to think about here. There are her words and her ability, of course, but then also the Junes that we create in our lives. And what it is to be an actress in every moment.

THE RECIPE

The link to that site herbivore.

BONUS COMFORT

I just found this and I thought I’d share it. I do not know if I’ll ever get the time to make faux moths, but it’s nice to think I might.

QUICK NOTE

Thanks for being here with me! If you’re new, this is just my Substack that comes out once a week. It is not journalism. It isn’t writing tips. It is probably barely helpful. It’s just me looking for comfort in a world that feels scary sometimes. Okay. A lot of the time. But it feels wondrous, too. And that’s what I try to hold onto.

Leave a comment

It is my birthday today!

Woot?

Noticing age is an interesting experience, really, how things need to stretch to survive the bumps and falls and incidents that you used to survive so well, right? The realization that moments really are these gorgeous precious things. The way your hair and skin transforms, and your heart and brain do too.

It’s the coolest experience.

Anyway, it is my birthday today and there are cute little squirrels gallivanting on the front deck. Jack the dog is not happy about this and he’s trying to talk to them. They prance along the rail to get to the bird feeder and completely blow him off the way squirrels do until they’ve had enough. It’s sent him pacing in circles through the house. Beyond the squirrels, the sky is gray, but it’s sort of a lovely gray because you know there is blue behind it. There are always things behind things, aren’t there? Days behind days. Skies behind skies.

And despite the fact that I’m trying not to eat much sugar (gasp!), Shaun is making me pancakes, which is adorable. He thinks I do not know. I know.

A BIRTHDAY POEM

Birthday Lights

By Calef Brown

Light bulbs on a birthday cake.

What a difference that would make!

Plug it in and make a wish,

then relax and flip a switch!

No more smoke

or waxy mess

to bother any birthday guests.

But Grampa says, “it’s not the same!

Where’s the magic?

Where’s the flame?

To get your wish without a doubt,

You need to blow some candles out!”

Copyright Credit: Calef Brown, “Birthday Lights” from Flamingos on the roof: poems and paintings. Copyright © 2006 by Calef Brown.

QUICK NOTE

Thanks for being here with me! If you’re new, this is just my Substack that comes out once a week. It is not journalism. It isn’t writing tips. It is probably barely helpful. It’s just me looking for comfort in a world that feels scary sometimes. Okay. A lot of the time. But it feels wondrous, too. And that’s what I try to hold onto.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

There is a blizzard alert today on the island where I live, which is pretty exciting. Hopefully, the power will stay on

When I was little, there was a blizzard on my 11th birthday party day. I wrote about that here.

In that post (all about my bonus dad trying to save my birthday party), I shared this quote and I like this quote a lot so here you go . . .

In a post on Psychology Today’s website, Nancy Collier speaks about ‘operating from love.’

Operating from love is to set our own ego aside long enough to listen to the experience of the other, to be courageous enough to be willing to try and understand what the other person is experiencing, no matter how radically different it is from what we intended to happen, think happened, or believe was the cause of what happened. It is to have the strength of heart to understand and open our heart to what the pain is that the other is skillfully or unskillfully trying to express. A response (not reaction) that comes from love is listening to the other’s upset as if we were just ears hearing, ears alone, not ears attached to a head, attached to an ego, attached to an identity, attached to a person intent on remaining intact and unchanged.

I hurt my foot last weekend it a rather spectacular way and I’ve spent the week pretty much laid up, which is not something I enjoy, but it’s allowed me to think a bit more about life and choices and pain and love and what it means to operate out of love, what it means to actively chose it.

So, I’m grateful for my injury and that I’ve had that time to recalibrate a bit.

THE POEM

This poem seems a fitting snow poem. It was at my sweet Uncle Dick’s funeral.

THE RECIPE

I am trying the new recipe cards which Substack now allows! I’m very scared about this, but hopefully it’ll look okay. Let me know if it’s weird. Also, I’m using a non-soup recipe from the olden days of 2022 for this first try.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Pepper makes me sneeze.

It’s not just that really.

Pepper makes me sneeze in these mad bursts… one, two, three, seventeen.

I thought it was only black pepper that did this, but this weekend I learned that it is also red pepper.

I learned this in a brilliant Carrie way where I leaned over ¼ cup of red pepper flakes and breathed in.

It was worth it though. We made a really simple spin of chile crisp, which is something I’ve loved since Sarah Yasutake since me some a few years ago.

It was a fast and easy falling in love for me.

It is spicy sort of. I mean, I’ve had spicier, but this would have killed my parents who thought El Paso Taco Seasoning (mild) was spicy and only used half the pack.

Here it is in process. So, yes, pepper makes me sneeze. I still love it.

THE POEM

This one is by Elizabeth Bishop via the Poetry Foundation. Do you know her? I was a bit in love with her when I was in college because she painted and traveled everywhere and she lived in Massachusetts and Nova Scotia which in my college-brain was a bit like New Hampshire and Maine and Ontario.

I could only dream of being as well traveled and talented as she was.

Anyway, here’s the poem.

The Armadillo

By Elizabeth Bishop

for Robert Lowell

This is the time of year

when almost every night

the frail, illegal fire balloons appear.

Climbing the mountain height,

rising toward a saint

still honored in these parts,

the paper chambers flush and fill with light

that comes and goes, like hearts.

Once up against the sky it’s hard

to tell them from the stars—

planets, that is—the tinted ones:

Venus going down, or Mars,

or the pale green one. With a wind,

they flare and falter, wobble and toss;

but if it’s still they steer between

the kite sticks of the Southern Cross,

receding, dwindling, solemnly

and steadily forsaking us,

or, in the downdraft from a peak,

suddenly turning dangerous.

Last night another big one fell.

It splattered like an egg of fire

against the cliff behind the house.

The flame ran down. We saw the pair

of owls who nest there flying up

and up, their whirling black-and-white

stained bright pink underneath, until

they shrieked up out of sight.

The ancient owls’ nest must have burned.

Hastily, all alone,

a glistening armadillo left the scene,

rose-flecked, head down, tail down,

and then a baby rabbit jumped out,

short-eared, to our surprise.

So soft!—a handful of intangible ash

with fixed, ignited eyes.

Too pretty, dreamlike mimicry!

O falling fire and piercing cry

and panic, and a weak mailed fist

clenched ignorant against the sky!

BONUS COMFORT

I’ve also in love with Lucy Kaplansky and especially this song.

QUICK NOTE

Thanks for being here with me! If you’re new, this is just my Substack that comes out once a week. It is not journalism. It is probably barely helpful. It’s just me looking for comfort in a world that feels scary sometimes.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment