her able hands

I wake at sunrise and Chris pushes up on his elbow and asks what I was dreaming about. I squint at him and try to remember.

“You were yelling.”

“I was?” The shape of a dream begins to step out of the dense fog, a train ride, a strange man handing me two pieces of sharp glass that had been used to kill a young woman 150 years ago, an apartment by a harbor, a face in the window, a doll.

“Yeah. You were saying ‘fuck you. fuuuuuck you, you little whore. Fuuuuck you, you little shit.’ I tried to wake you up. I shook your arm and even pinched you a little bit.” He says and puts his head back on the pillow.

“You pinched me?” I see the doll’s eyes pop open and its arms wrapping around mine, pinching. I see it stretching its head, plastic mouth gaping wide as if to bite me. “I said all of that? That’s horrible. Lila didn’t hear me, did she?”

“No. You went on for a long time. Then you were like, speaking in tongues.”

I wait in bed for more to come clear, afraid to start my day this way, but then give up and start to giggle. Laughing helps.

After tea and breakfast of leftover vegetable soup, Lila and I hit the garden in the low morning sun. She wants to go back to the cul-de-sac behind our house to ride bikes but the kids aren’t out yet. I need to be in the dirt, not perched on the edge of a sidewalk watching tricycles make the rounds.

She helps me pull violets and wild carrot from the bed, claws the soil with her telescoping garden tool and jabbers a constant stream of like this? is this good mommy? can i dig here? Yes, Lila. Yes, Lila. Yes.

We set the Raspberry canes in the soft, sandy loam about one foot apart, with a Comfrey plant on each end. The rest of the bed gets the Rose Finn Apple Potatoes.

We have misplaced most of our hand tools over the winter, I grumble under my breath and into the soil about needing a garden shed right now, that the giant Oak tree isn’t proper shelter. I can’t shake off my grumpiness, it keeps gurgling up into my throat like a poorly digested meal. We find one bent hand trowel and Lila wants to do the digging. I want to be done, but she’s methodical, awkward, but such a teacher with her endless patience with each hole. Okay, is this enough? A little bit more?

It takes close to an hour, but we plant most of the three pound bag, me sneaking the trowel away from her for just a minute so I can have a turn with a few.

Chris returns from the shop and Lila streaks through the woods, her hair flying wild and glinting in the morning light, screaming You can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man!

I survey the other beds, all choked mess of violets and weeds. The mound of soil between the two rows of Asparagus planted last weekend beckons to me. Do I dare? We won’t harvest the Asparagus this year, and the digging is already done. The potato vines will need plenty of straw mulch, that will help keep down weeds for the growing Asparagus, too. When it’s time to dig the potatoes, I’ll have cut back the Asparagus for fall.

Done. Two pounds of German Butterball.

I start clearing out another bed with my pitchfork, stick, twist, stick, twist. Just loosening the soil enough to lift the weeds out and shake the dirt from the roots. Didn’t I do this last year? I work until my arms grow heavy and stop to drink from my mason jar of water and lime, then bend to the soil again. I picture my in-laws in their kitchen, grumbling at each other over breakfast, watching me work. I hear Dad’s voice in my head, at least she’s not lazy. Get out of my head old man. Get out. Can’t you see I’m trying to work here.

I’m bullshit with myself. Here I am in a patch of golden sun with my favorite garden tool in hand, doing what I love most in the world and all I can think about is whether or not my in-laws approve. They don’t approve of very much, at least not in my experience. I did this last summer, too. Held long conversations in my head with these people whose yard I’m digging up to plant vegetables. I straighten and look down the lawn to the house. The kitchen window is dark. Yes, it’s all in my head. I’m certifiable. I finish the task and go back to the house for a container of fertilizer, a stinky mix of granular vitamins and minerals. I hope they’ll help. I never did get manure.

The rest of the day I move from one task to the next, with constant interruptions from Lila and her new friend David. They make believe they are brother and sister with lots of dying and throwing themselves down on the ground, and rescues and running. And yelling. And begging for drinks. And popsicles. I help Tyler clean up the lawn so he can mow. I rake the grass and toss it on the windrow of leaves behind the perennial bed. The kids want to ride bikes and David’s Mom says she’ll sit on her front porch and watch them. I let her go and stop here and there to watch her screaming across the blacktop on her red tricycle. She’ll need a bigger bike this summer.

I rig the hoses for easier access to the gardens next door. An elaborate setup using five hoses, two wheeled hose carts and the balance of my patience. But I get it done and give the raspberries and the peas and radish a good soaking. Too much sand in this soil back here (I know, quit complaining, at least it’s not clay) but it drains so quickly. Must. Get. Manure. And straw.

The in-laws are sitting on chairs by the shed while Chris’ brother pulls things out and waits for instructions. Dad has decided to get rid of some things, a miracle. Most of the items have seen several yard sales and never sold. He won’t let go of an ancient tire. Arguing degenerates into much swearing. Mom comes over to me where I’m wrestling with the hose reel and asks if Chris is around. I say what I really feel. He’s over at the cul-de-sac with Lila, talking to the neighbors. I’ll get him if you want, but if it’s just so he can get pulled into the screaming that’s going on over there about a stupid tire, I’m not going to interrupt him.

She looks taken aback. I stand my ground and wait. Inside I’m sorry, but I won’t say it. Enough is enough. I’m tired of his shit. I’m sorry he’s dying, but I’m really tired of listening to his constant stream of shit. It has eaten up all of my sympathy.

I transplant some Hostas that got trampled in our walking path, then divide the red Lilies by the back porch and plant the Parsley, Rosemary and Oregano that I picked up at the grocery store, in the empty space.

Not the potager I had in mind, but herbs by the back door is a good thing. I shake loose soil over the rest of the first chicken tractor bed, the sound of Lila and David’s wheels screaming over the pavement joining the chorus of birds. It’s getting late, I need to think about dinner. And the terrific mess inside. I sprinkle carrot seed over the bed, then more soil on top of the seed, and give it a nice, long soak with the hose before heading inside.

While standing at the sink washing lettuce, I notice the alpine flowers cascading over the perennial border, the evening sun laying thick shadows across it. How did it come to sunset so quickly? Wasn’t it just moments ago I stood out in the morning light, the rays stretching across the yard from the other side? I grab the camera and step barefoot across the freshly mown lawn to capture the light and share it.

P.S. a hugely heartfelt thank you to all of you who left such encouraging, empathetic, kind comments on my food post. I want to take time to respond to each of you, but tonight I need to get a quickie post done and hit the shower, then collapse into my comfy bed and hopefully sleep undisturbed for seven hours. Dreamless, I pray.

Technorati Tags: garden, potatoes, carrots, herbs, planting, weekend

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I didn’t have enough energy to do much around the house today, just weak and tired all day. So I figured I’d do a little spring cleaning around here instead while the rain dibble, dibble, dopped on the roof.

Only problem is my images in posts are sized too narrow. No way am I going back in and resizing them all, that’s crazy talk. Time to dig around and see if I can adjust the column width instead.

I love this new look. Love. It.

ETA: if you can’t see it, you can empty your cache and refresh.

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This getting old stuff is for the birds. Well, it’s making me have to eat like a bird. I’m feeling discouraged today and wondering what my future holds for my gastronomic desires and habits because clearly things have to change. Hell, things have already changed quite a bit. For two weeks I’ve had no coffee (well, I took about five sips this morning and had a half of a short glass of iced last weekend) and no intentionally consumed wheat or gluten. Unfortunately the vegetable soup I got with my Fuji Apple Chicken Salad at Panera yesterday had tiny pasta in it (it might have been Pastene that I thought was red lentils). I didn’t really notice until I was 3/4 finished with the cup and by then, oops. Bloat. The night before, the wedding soup had meatballs in it, and the bread crumbs holding the meatballs together made my stomach blow up like a big ballOOn and turn rock hard.

Otherwise, it’s been light on the protein, heavy on the cooked vegetables and salads with a high-acid dressing, small portions of brown rice or Quinoi. Very light on dairy, small amounts of oat cereal, Greek yogurt and more water than I’m used to drinking. I’ve had no alcohol and I’m taking an enteric coated peppermint oil capsule twice a day, along with a couple of ounces of aloe juice and liver cleansing herbs and probiotics. I’m also drinking a ton of herbal tea (detox, and peppermint-fennel). The first week I felt better. Hopeful. This week, I’m back to bloating up and feeling like I have a giant rock in my stomach, super-low energy and mild depression/irritation at everyone and everything. In other words, f*ck this sh*t.

I know, it’s only been two weeks. I’m not going to turn around a lifetime of unconscious eating in two lousy weeks of eating simpler. I’m American like that. I want it now.

This morning another IBS attack (not officially diagnosed here yet, but this is my best guess) and spent 3 hours alternating between trying to get cleaning done and sitting on the least comfortable chair in the house (the cold one with the hole in the seat that makes your legs go numb after ten minutes). I’m not amused. Now I’m so drained I just want to sit and read all day, or write, or do nothing but stare out the window at the rain and embody the quiet (that doesn’t exist because duh, I have an almost 4-year old standing next to me asking me do you have to poop again, mommy?

So how long will it take for my dietary changes and supplements to relax my intestines enough that they can do their job on a daily basis, rather than saving it all up uncomfortably for 4 to 5 days and then forcing me to lose half a day or more when they try to turn me inside out and drop me on the floor like one of my son’s worn-out, holey socks?

Also, is it possible that corn chips can do this kind of damage to a body? We went out for our favorite Mexican last night and I thought I was being so good by not having the standard medium margarita rocks, with salt (I had water with lemon). I didn’t order the burrito with a flour tortilla, and instead got Enchiladas Verdes, made with shredded chicken in a light green sauce. I scraped off the cheese and only ate a few bites of the rice and beans. I did get a little carried away with the fresh corn chips and salsa, though and I had to go to bed shortly after we returned home. Every inch of my body hurt, my joints throbbed with pain and my muscles drooped in sheer exhaustion. I slept poorly and woke with a headache.

I’m really feeling confused about all of this. I’m willing to make the changes necessary to feel good, to improve my quality of life, to help me feel connected to myself again. But I seem to be missing the mark. I feel as if I take one tentative step into a dark room, feeling around for the light switch, only to be smacked in the head by something I can’t see clearly, just a dim outline of some blunt, solid object that stops me in my tracks. I’m keeping a food journal, I’m trying to eat simple, clean food (okay, I know the Mexican food was a gamble). I’m stretching, and working up to real exercise.

But I’m lost in my own kitchen. When I get home from work every night I stand in front of the open refrigerator hoping that by some miraculous order of events during my absence, the appliance has organized a healthful meal that will appeal to the picky preschooler, is hearty enough to satisfy the voracious teenager and the hard-working man, and will not make me sick. It hasn’t, of course, and I fear my family is beginning to starve because of my inability to figure this out.

I used to know instinctively what to cook. Sure, many nights I just didn’t feel like it. But then I’d let Chris make dinner (order Chinese, pizza or whatever takeout we felt like) and not give myself grief. I can’t eat that stuff anymore. So it’s back to me in front of the open refrigerator door saying, okay… sautéed greens without any garlic, broth with some carrots and more greens, brown rice. Every. Frickin’. Night. Are you bored yet? I sure am.

Meanwhile, I try to take a little time each day to read more about gluten and the problems it causes, to find out where it hides out and side-blinds a body who innocently consumes something thinking it doesn’t have any. I try to remain cheerful, but the food lover in me is losing her bloody mind. I look at half of the staples in my big cabinet and think, holy crap, I have to throw or give all of that away. Or cook two meals a night.

I think of what Kate has dealt with for years and wonder if this is just my karma coming back to bite me for buying cupcakes and making sourdough bread and eating them in front of her for so many years. Gawd. What a dickweed I’ve been. I refused to even look at it. Me? Give up my manna? La-la-la, I can’t hear you!

Okay. So I get it, my years of unconsciously stuffing myself full of yum is now standing at the door expecting payment. Proactive is the way, right? I have an appointment with a new (to me) doctor of osteopathy on the 18th of May. Time for some blood work. Time to get that nugget that hurts to the touch on my collarbone looked at. Time to find out if I’m on the right track here.

In the meantime, I spend much of my blog-reading time devouring the archives of Gluten-Free Girl (and am buying her book next pay period). Also on the blog reader is Gluten-Free Goddess and The Art of Gluten-Free Cooking with more to come, I’m sure, as I follow links. So far it’s just been for the story, to read about what it’s been like for other food lovers to find out that the food they love most is making them sick. Now I need to try recipes and get my passion for cooking back. The information is out there, I just need to assimilate it into my life, my monkey mind, my daily repertoire. Because my Frigidaire sure isn’t going to do it for me.

Technorati Tags: gluten, gluten-free, food sensitivity, IBS, food

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Yesterday was one of those days where I hear the words coming out of my mouth and want to clap my mouth shut on them, hold them back in, reel them back in, but can’t. The complaints a nonstop hemorrhage. But I arrived home to another thunderstorm rolling in from the southwest and the entire neighborhood so green and bursting with buds.

We had plans to meet another family at Ray’s Place for dinner at 7:30, so while Chris took a shower, and Ty chipped away at his homework, Lila and I took a walk around the property to check on progress.

This cheered me considerably:

I didn’t think the peas would come up at all, first because the seed was from 2004, and second because I planted them a month ago and we had those two weeks of freezing cold and snow. I figured they rotted in the ground. But look! So many sprouts pushing up beneath the branches! The radish are coming on strong, too. I want to get some lettuce planted this weekend so the harvest all comes together for an excellent salad.

Here’s the pile of Comfrey that I still have to plant. Aren’t the kitty litter containers so pretty?

Gawd. Chris saw this shot when I was uploading the camera and said he wants to spray paint all of the buckets so they don’t look so cheesy. He’s so cute. They’re truly indispensable buckets, and I use them all over the garden every year (after a thorough scrubbing, of course). The Comfrey looks so happy from the rains.

After we walked around saying hello to all of the plants in the yard, we headed down to the street to get some photos of the crab apples in bloom. Apparently this street used to be lined with healthy elms, but about 25 years ago, the city cut them all down and planted these scruffy trees that all of the old-timers in the hood hate, but truth be told, made me swoon last spring when we were putting an offer on the house. I mean, honestly, look at this…

Take a stroll under the blossoms South out the driveway…

or North past Grandma and Grandpa’s house. That’s their front lawn with the sign just visible past the hedge of Lilac and Laurel. The sign says “Support our Senior Citizens”.

I remember last spring so clearly. We drove into town several days a week for homeschool activities and I always rolled past the property, often pulling into the driveway if the owner wasn’t home, to sit and watch the greening going on, feeling the pull of yes please, this can be home.

She kept the place so immaculately neat. But her children were grown, so she didn’t have a yard full of toys and play equipment. Her garage was practically empty, just the car and a few tools, the lawnmower. Chris on the other hand has that building stuffed to the gills. There’s hardly room to walk around inside, and all of the stuff that we would normally store in a building is out on the lawn. It doesn’t look as nice and that makes me feel a little guilty, as if we haven’t held up our end of the bargain to take good care of the place she lived her entire adult life. But we’re getting there. The shed WILL go up this summer and we’ll clean things up more.

And when I walk around the neighborhood, I know that while maybe I don’t super-love living in Ohio, so far away from my birth family, I do love living here in this place so much more than I did out in the country. I’m beginning to make some connections, to feel like I belong. These pink blossoms overhead feel like a gift, a reminder to come back down to earth when I get home, to let go of the mental place of trying and striving and feeling not good enough. Shelter. I’m so fortunate to have such wonderful shelter. And place. And people. So, so fortunate.

So! Ohio! This is it for who knows how long. The Buckeye State. Last night it felt as if the Buckeye unfurled the red (er…green) carpet to welcome me home.

Technorati Tags: home, Ohio, neighborhood, garden, green

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I have spent the past half hour arguing with myself about seeds while perusing my blog reader and thinking about how nice it would be to take the day off. I can’t, however, and the seed argument is a losing battle (for the seeds) because it’s just too bloody late to start them. And by seeds, I mean Tomato, Pepper and Eggplant. I still have time to start things like lettuce and basil, but for those others, I’m going to have to plunk down my cash at the Crown Point Ecology Center Organic Plant Sale.

It’s actually on the weekend of my big 40th Birthday Bash. Did I tell you all about the party? Our friends Cheril & Greg have graciously offered the use of their property on the lake, just outside the city limits. A family we did a lot of homeschool activities with has a terrific band and they’re going to play, as is Cheril & Greg’s teenage son’s band. It’s a potluck-bonfire-rock-and-roll extravaganza. This is going to be too much fun. I’ll take lots of pictures. Forty! Can you even believe it? I can’t.

Anyhoo…back to the seeds and the guilt and the self-applied pressure. I really need to stop giving myself so much grief for not being able to meet the overachieving expectations I have for myself. I’m trying to accomplish the projects of a stay-at-home mother on a working mother’s schedule. Ain’t happening. I believe my seeds will keep for another year. At least, I hope they will. Chris got part of the fancy light stand assembled so I can do lettuce in another week. That roadblock won’t stand in my way next winter when it’s time to start those nightshades. Or, at least I won’t have that excuse to fall back on.

It’s just sinking in that I must make concessions to the lifestyle I now have. I mean, I’ve known it but am finally, due to the stress deteriorating my physical and mental health, understanding it enough that I catch myself in my moments of self-punishment. I can stop the tape and say enough woman. You do plenty. Give yourself a friggin’ break. The reality is, I’m gone most of the day. Sure, part of me wishes I was here, that I could work from home and make as much money as I am now and be able to get things done around here in between jobs. That’s not my reality right now. That’s not to say it can’t be at some point down the line. But that isn’t here right now. Right now I’m away from home close to 50 hours a week and I will put a smile of gratitude on my face and in my heart when I fork over the cash to the person who nurtured the seeds that will hopefully become my supper.

If I can make time to water them.

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