There are a lot of choices I’m not making because I’m instead overwhelmed with a loud need for stillness. I used to get mad at myself for these moments until I relaxed into the idea that this is a cycle and for me it has always been this way. No sense fighting the need for stillness and quiet. No point in getting worked up about the nothing.
Maybe it’s a gift. In fact, I know it is. There were other, louder times in my life, where I felt like I couldn’t do anything about the noise and quiet was tear-stained impossible. When my children were tiny and would have screaming days. When my mother was drunkmad and slamming things into the sink. Living in shitty neighborhoods where I couldn’t sleep from loud parties or drunk neighbor fights. Living with old people who watched all the news, which then melded into some insanely loud Joyce Meyer Ministries or Little House on the Prairie. Tied to the phone, yelled at by mad idiots. Forced to hear Achy Breaky Heart at the grocery store. Stuck in boring meetings. Trapped in a classroom with the dumb squeaky teacher. Married to an idiot who followed me around for days demanding that I think back to the moment he was obviously right and admit anything I said after that was obviously wrong and we would need to non-stop talk about it until I could articulate words he could agree with. Quiet was what I wanted. I even made a medicine once, based on motherwort. I called it A Quiet Place to Stick Your Head. I rarely used it, but seeing in the bathroom cupboard was calming enough.
I remember when I was 17 and had just moved out of my parents house and in with a friend. I was sitting in what had become my room, a miracle of quiet space in the basement that also had its own attached bathroom. The walls were pink, which was weird but sort of calming. I had space to BE in. I was sitting still in it when I noticed my friend in the doorway, obviously annoyed. “What are you DOING?”, she asked me, emphasis on DOING, with a hint of disgust and disbelief. Nothing. I was doing nothing, and though I had no established obligation for my time in that moment, I traded calm for scorn and shamed myself for being lazy. Sitting still was tainted by that moment for a long time. At least when people are loud you can keep tabs on where they are. Too quiet might sneak up on you and catch you trying to be alone.
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I went and made coffee. Iced it. Mixed a can of sweetened condensed milk from the back of the cupboard, with some regular milk and a little vanilla. 50/50 mix and a shake makes perfectly lovely coffee creamer.
I cleaned the kitchen and made some couscous. Chopped a million tiny chunks of every color I could find and folded it in like confetti. Confetti cukes and tomatoes. Confetti parsley and mint. One straight chop on the wood and the mint would release from the tight little stack and poof out on the other side of my beautiful knife. The poof was so delightful I wished there was more mint to chop.
I rolled the lemons, zested them onto a white plate to dry for later, cut them in half and reamed out the juice. I strained out the pulp and seeds and poked my fingers around in the gel just because it’s such a neat substance and lemons smell incredible. I got lemon oil on my finger, which seemed to piss off the touch screen on my phone. Some of the lemon juice went into an ice cube tray to freeze for cooking later.
I chopped a mountain of ginger to freeze into a log. It makes it easy to add chopped ginger to pretty much anything. I still have a ton more. Some will be for juicing. Perhaps in the morning parsley, carrot, apple and ginger?
I added a bunch of veggie ends and bits to the gallon sized ziplock bag in my freezer. When it fills I will make veggie broth. I might throw in some bones if I have them. Homemade broth is my new favorite cooking thing that took too damn long to do (weird, because seriously, so good, so easy, so satisfying.) My other new favorite thing is a trick I just learned from my awesome boyfriend. Dry fried tofu. basically, drain some firm tofu (or don’t, I don’t know your life), slice it up like SPAM (haha, how did I sneak that terrible comparison in there?) and fry it without oil on a hot cast iron pan until it’s brown on both sides, then marinate however you want. It’s good on sandwiches or chopped up and added to things.
I made jasmine iced tea. I had a bunch of green onions that were starting to get weird on the outermost leaf tube, so I pulled those parts off and washed them. I left the roots attached, trimmed them on top and put them in a sweet square vase my sweetie got me for Mother’s Day. It fits in my windowsill and I can use it to keep my green onions growing. I’ve never done that before but it happens on its own sometimes in the fridge, so this way seems kind of logical and rad.
I also did all my dishes and a load of laundry. Cleaned the catbox. Scheduled some things for tomorrow. Wrote a little. Had some gin and tonic with mint. I did not leave the house. Not even for a second.
In the continuing lovely and intense strangeness that is a longtime long-distance relationship, Mike was just here and it was marvelous but now he isn’t and the struggle of that never really feels easy to me. For some reason, post goodbye day three seems to be the worst. I think the first day I am sad but I just saw him so it’s OK. Day two is full of the things I didn’t do while we were busy hanging on to each other. Having stuff to do is quite distracting in a mostly good way. Day three, the pressing distractions are tamed, the longing has room to unfurl and takes over. Ache gets in the cracks. Bed feels big, stupid hot and empty. The cat comes back to sleep on my head. When I wake up from a weird dream there is no one to tell, which helps me remember my dreams, which means when he is not here I have a harder time remembering. A shame because lately the ones I can recall are layered, absurd and charming to me and if sleep wants to hand me gifts I would like to be able to receive them all. Even sadder than that I don’t get to hear the warm deep rumble of him, half asleep reporting to me from the sidelines of his own strange trip. We wake enough with each shift to settle back against each yes. It’s the slowest dance. Tangled asleep is a recharge, the best stillness, the most contented quiet. A stupid pillow is no substitute.
