Our selves, our souls and bodies

On Friday morning at the crack of dawn, my husband dropped me off at the bridge at Swatara Gap (PA), the northernmost point (at that point) in my PA trek on the Appalachian Trail. I’ve hiked most of the AT in CT (save 6 miles) with my daughter Emma (a.k.a. “Fern”) and going southbound, I’ve covered the trail to the southern end of the Shenandoah National Park in VA. I have a mission to “connect the dots” of my hikes on the AT and have been chipping away at it in short 4 and 5 day outings for a couple of years, now. There’s plenty of trail yet to cover (about 1,500 miles of it, still…) and, if nothing else, this will keep me out of trouble when I retire.

Friday – Monday of the first week in August promised some beautiful weather with chilly nights and temperate days and high clouds. Perfect for hiking. The elevation for this section of the trail (Swatara Gap to Port Clinton, PA) is basically flat, once you’ve climbed out of the Gap and gotten up on the ridge. Shelters and campsites along the way offer places to gather at night with other hikers, and the water table has been so high this summer that the springs and brooks have been flowing well.

I’ve worked pretty hard to whittle down the weight of my pack. I still carry some “luxury items:” a slim literary magazine to read at night, an overly large battery pack to charge my phone, an inflatable pillow… but other than that, I’ve gone to measures to trim ounces off of items that I carry -like repackaging dehydrated meals into freezer ziplock bags, carrying the tiniest toothbrush, and committing to carrying only one pair of one nylon shorts and tee to sleep in, besides the clothes on my back. Even then, fully loaded with food and water, my pack weighs in at about 28 pounds.

On this trip, I spent four days hiking and three nights camping. I’m only good for about 10 miles per day and, as I discovered the terrain on this section of the hike, I was happy for having planned for these “short” days. (most thru-hikers will cover twice that distance in a day.)

Different states on the AT have earned nicknames because of specific characteristics that mark the trail in their location. Vermont is called “Ver-Mud.” Virginia (because the trail there goes on for 500 miles) has earned the named “Virginia Blues” because of the tedium of staying in one state for so long, New Jersey is called the “deli state” for its numerous opportunities to grab a sub sandwich near the trail, and Pennsylvania…wait for it… is called “Rocksylvania.”

I’ve heard about the rocks in Pennsylvania. I had a preview of them in Maryland (they have a few, too) and, hiking north of Duncannon, (PA) there is a section of the trail that is mostly rocks and home to many rattlesnake dens, but rocks upon rocks, for miles upon miles? This section beginning at Swatara Gap was my first taste of sustained rock hiking. (Apparently the last 50 miles before the Delaware Water Gap are the worst so…I’ve still got about 25 miles to go before I hit the prime time rocks.). These were bad enough.

Now, it’s not all rocks. Really. There are some lovely soft sections:

And there are forests filled with ferns.

But the rocks win the day for capturing one’s attention. Every step – whether hopping from one large rock to another, or stepping between “shark fins” (little rocks that point up from the ground, just waiting to twist your ankle)- demands unflagging concentration. Younger hikers dance across these rocks. It’s a beautiful thing to watch. Almost 67-year-old hikers who don’t want to break a leg are more measured in their approach and give thanks to God on a regular basis for the invention of hiking poles which add two more points of contact for the sake of balance and staying upright.

One of the best parts of backpacking is the sense of independence that one feels and the detachment that comes with worrying only about where to place each step, which shelter to aim towards for the evening’s rest, and which dehydrated meal to choose for dinner that night. (The backpacker’s diet deserves its own blog post, but suffice it to say that the focus is on calories and protein. This isn’t as essential for a section hiker like me who isn’t at risk of losing critical body mass in just 4 days… but pop tarts, peanut butter crackers and Snickers bars are among the most common of items in a backpacker’s food bag.)

I love sleeping in my tent. I love falling asleep to the song of cicadas, and the chill of the fresh morning air that makes you want to snuggle down in your sleeping bag for just a few more minutes. I love the sound of the early morning birds, and often, while hiking, I will just stop and listen- to nothing. The quiet of the deep forest is a gift.

On one morning I had a steep climb out of a holler where I had camped. Most campsites and shelters are located down in a gap (a low area between mountains or ridges) because that’s where the water is. And so it’s not unusual to be faced with a hike uphill, first thing. I like to get an early start (around 7:30 AM) and so I also spend this early morning climb thinking that I might encounter a bear at any turn. (In my mind, bears are mostly out and about in the night and early morning.) My “remedy” for this- to avoid surprising a bear- is to make myself known by singing, talking out loud, and reciting the canticles of Morning Prayer as I make my ascent. The “Venite,” in fact, is a glorious canticle to recite: ” The Lord is a great God, and a great king above all gods. In his hands are the caverns of the earth, and the heights of the hills are his, also. The sea is his for he made it, and his hands have molded the dry land.” (“But why did God have to mold this dry land into this never ending hill,” I wondered?). I encountered no bears in my climb. I sang “Oh what a beautiful morning” (from “Oklahoma”) to the mountain laurel, and the rocks were prayed over mightily with the General Thanksgiving, the Lord’s Prayer, the Prayer of St. Chrysostom and my favorite collect for “The Renewal of Life” that has this priceless line: “…guide our feet into the way of peace that, having done your will with cheerfulness during the day, we may, when night comes, rejoice to give you thanks.”

I met some lovely people along the way. Two dads and their three little boys who were on their first overnight in the woods. A “trail angel,” a retired guy who hikes back and forth on the same 20 miles of trail each week with a backpack full of cold beer to offer to hot hikers along with sage advice about “his” section of the trail. (I met him at 9 AM, a little early to take him up on his offer of a cold one.) I spent the night with two hikers in their mid 20s- one was a guy who works as an outdoor expedition leader in Yellowstone who was taking the summer off to hike the AT, and a woman who just finished her master’s in physics and was spending the summer hiking before taking a job as a research scientist. Mostly, I kept to myself, but it is nice, after a day of talking to the ferns and rocks to sit around a campfire and talk to others who find themselves drawn to the woods. One one occasion, when some hikers asked about my “day job,” we got into a tender conversation about salvation and redemption and hell (I was talking to two former catholics in their twenties who had some deep questions) and so, on that occasion we broke the unwritten rule of “no politics and no religion” on the AT and carried on for a few minutes.

“Hiker midnight” is about 7:30 PM. That’s when people clean up from dinner, hang their food bags high in the trees away from the bears, and get into their tents and sleeping bags. The sound of soft snoring is evident around the camp, we sleep like the dead, readying our bodies for another day of rock hopping.

Glenn picked me up on Monday afternoon in Port Clinton, PA. When I got home, I stood in a hot shower for a long time.

Here are a few more pics:

About ten days ago, gearing up for my final “post surgical appointment” six months out, I developed a little bit of tenderness in my foot. Then I developed a bit of swelling. Then a lot of swelling. Hmmm.

I’d been doing so well- back to walking in the morning at least three or four miles- and even some gentle hiking on fairly flat terrain. And then- this.

Turns out I have a “stress reaction-” likely a stress fracture in my foot thanks to the orthotics that I’ve been wearing which were customized for me at a PT place. See, I walk on the sides of my feet (or I used to walk on the sides of my feet) and so a nice lady at a PT place half an hour from my house did a fancy gait analysis on me by sticking sensors in my shoes and hooking me up to a computer… and then she made me some cool orthotics with some added bumps fused to the bottom of the inserts to encourage my foot to roll inwards, “correcting” my gait. I wore them faithfully for 4 months changing them out every time I changed my shoes.

Well, my gait is corrected now. I walk good and straight now. The problem is, that in the “correcting,” the little bump aggravated my foot and I developed a crack in the bone just above where the bump made contact with my foot. (At least that’s my doc’s best guess.)

So now I’m on some medication to stop the swelling and I’m wearing orthopedic shoes (they look just as bad as they sound) and I have some new bump-free inserts. There is the spectre of returning to the dreaded “boot,” too, if a few weeks of wearing black leather cement blocks doesn’t allow for the healing to happen.

Now… that I’ve been eating every carb that isn’t nailed down for the last six months and have gained some “post surgical weight due to inactivity…” that probably doesn’t help either. Every pound I can lose (and there are 20 extra ones on my frame right now) will make the load on my poor foot a little lighter so I suppose that as we approach the Season of Feasting (the Great 50 Days of Easter after a long Lenten fast) that… I’ll be flipping the script and going back to salads and lean protein.

In a world in which people are being locked up in El Salvadorian prisons on the mere suspicion of their belonging to gangs or being terrorists… and fully legal immigrants with real visas are being pulled by men in black masks out of their homes and workplaces and off the streets and disappearing, and where trade wars have escalated to ridiculous limits and the cost of groceries has soared, curtailing the ability for the average family to provide nourishing meals for their children…. this seems (it is) a little self indulgent.

And, in the week in which we walk with Jesus to the cross and watch as the Captain of our Salvation is executed… this might feel “off.”

So, apologies. And…I’m in all of it. Writing letters to my senators and speaking at rallies at the Capitol for better gun laws to reduce violence and killing in our Commonwealth.. and praying with the headlines and working to encourage those in the diocese who are caring for the lost, lonely and vulnerable among us…and presiding at services that mark the holiest season of our Christian year. I’m walking towards Easter (albeit in ugly shoes) with all of you and look forward, in just 3 days time when we can say, “Welcome Happy Morning.”

It would be great if I could promise that this is the final word on my recovery from surgery in November in these pages (it’s tiresome, isn’t it?) but since I’ve been told that the “full recovery” for my surgery of foot reconstruction can take up to a year, that’s not a promise that I can make.  So, as always, scroll on, if you can’t manage another missal from the sickbed.

I am much better.  Seven weeks out, now, I’ve been given the green light to begin walking and driving!  That was a little shocking since I went from a doctor’s appointment at 4 weeks telling me that I was still non-weight bearing and could only put my foot (in a boot) down on the floor to steady myself…to my 6-week x-rays that showed complete healing of my bones and the doctor’s proclamation to “do some work and start walking…”. Wow.  In one appointment the cumbersome boot that had been my constant (unwelcome) companion and my silver scooter that was my only mode of ambulation was traded in for a sock, extra-large sneaker and a crutch under one arm to steady me!

I haven’t tossed my crutches to the side yet, though.  I’m still waiting for my Lourdes moment.  In a particularly low moment of discouragement two weeks ago I anointed myself with healing oil in the bathroom.  It felt strange and I had an insight into the need for community for sacramental efficacy.

In the path of this recovery, I have stumbled upon (pun intended) some allies online among my community on social media who, for one reason or another, disclosed that they, too, were going through recovery from surgery that had affected their ambulation.  And, another friend had surgery recently and has been texting with me.    There has been a tender connection for me with these friends.  We haven’t shared lots of details (well, one of them swapped some best practices on how to reduce swelling) but it’s just been nice to know that there are others who are accustomed to leading an active lifestyle who are equally frustrated by being sidelined for a few months.  A fellowship of frailty, if you will.  It has included prayer. And, it has been a gift.

I am approaching the age where there is the temptation to discuss health at every social gathering and I pray that I can resist that.  (Apparently the governor on that temptation does not extend to my blogging habits.)

For now, I am measuring my return to health in literal tiny steps.  Today I have a plan to drive to the bottom of the driveway (it’s too steep for me to negotiate with crutches) and to “walk” (crutch) a bit down our street.  My morning routine used to include a 4-5 mile walk every morning and even if I can only get 50 feet and turn around again, it will be a beginning …

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”  (Chinese proverb)

Do you want to read a self-indulgent essay on how being consigned to three – four months in an orthopedic boot has changed my life? (PS, I’m only at the beginning of Week Three.)

Do you really care about: 

• the new difficulty of my putting a casserole dish in the oven without risking life and limb?
• my growing affection for a good “grab bar” in a handicapped bathroom?
• the fact that I have poured coffee on my new living room rug twice now, because pouring from the thermos that fits in my scooter basket into the coffee cup that I prefer to drink from in my “recovery bed” is a drippy proposition and the coffee ends up running down my arm and onto the new beige Berber carpet?

(I care, but you shouldn’t.)

Are you sick of my 

• whinging about a temporary affliction that I brought on by myself with elective surgery?
• hearing about how many days (or weeks, now) it’s been since I’ve taken a shower?
• looking at my forlorn, sad face pressed up against the window to see the Supermoon or hearing about the way that I wheel over to the back door and crack it open to inhale the fecund aroma of wet leaves in the autumn that I am “missing?”

(I’m sick of it, and you should be, too.)

Instead, here are some second level things to think about:

1. My doctoral degree in the “Theology of Disability” has taken on a new meaning for me in these past few weeks.  Years ago, I pursued an advanced degree in Congregational Development but ended up taking a side road into the world of Differing Abilities when my ministerial work found me working with young people on the Autism Spectrum. I cared about how children and their families were embraced (or not) by the church which, for the most part, did not accommodate different learning styles and neurological divergence.  With a partner in Christian Education, we created a program called Rhythms of Grace which used a format of “reverse inclusion”:  the worship service that we designed was oriented to support many different learning styles and allowed for therapeutic intervention in the context of a Christian community as well as formation and sacramental nurture.  We told bible stories in interactive ways. We used felt boards and sand tables and the dramatic arts. We used modelling clay and large tubs of dried beans and small trampolines to encourage kinesthetic awareness.  We had a tiny pup tent set up in the corner of the room each time we gathered. The pup tent was filled with dolls and blankets and soft toys for times when our parishioners needed to just get a way for a moment, to self soothe or to watch from a safe distance.  We sat on the floor around an upturned apple crate and celebrated the holiest of communion services with gentle words, familiar songs, and apple juice and rice crackers. God was made manifest to us.  Parents felt included and supported. Children were welcomed.  A community was born.

These were profound years in my own spiritual development, and I loved the ministry of Rhythms of Grace.

Today, though my malady is purely physical, I am able to understand just a tiny bit better about the anxiety of wondering about welcome and accessibility and if I will be able to “do the thing” that I want to do in the space that has been established before my arrival.  Temporary physical disability is much different than negotiating culture with neurodivergence, but I have had just a taste of my own anxiety about fitting in which, I can imagine, for parents of neurodivergent children considering attending a traditional church service, they must feel in spades.

2. Mary Oliver has a poem in which she writes about the “soft animal of your body.” The poem, “Wild Geese” is about turning away from self-centered focus on one’s one problems and suffering and, instead, to marvel in the grandeur of creation and to be lifted up by the liberation of “loving what we love” and not agonizing over what is not or what we “should” be.( Note to self: the poem has a good message for me right now) but that phrase: “the soft animal of your body” has resonance for me in these days of my minor infirmity.

My body and I: it is a complicated thing, our relationship.  I revel in being hale and hearty.  I have always agonized over the size and shape of my body. This process of surgery has made me feel vulnerable, has exposed elements of my aging that, while “normal” have been alarming to confront (loss of muscle mass, the need to pay attention to my blood pressure for the first time in my life, the natural decline of balance and dexterity which comes with aging but can be treacherous when navigating on crutches…). All of this has been so much.  I don’t want to be infirm.

I am used to hiking with a 30-pound backpack for hours.  I can live in the woods for days. I don’t take pills. I eat well.  I walk miles and miles and breathe in wholeness in nature.  This “soft animal of my body” is now old and tired and weak.  I hate that.

I did some chair yoga last night.  I’m not ready to submit. 

3. I am struggling with performing my “role” (doing my job) from a compromised physical state.  I serve at the top of my “organization” (church diocese) as the “CEO” (bishop) and carry with me a great deal of authority (much of it given to me by my parishioners, some of it given to me through the canons) when I enter a room. I preach the Word of God from a pulpit, choosing my words carefully for impact, using gestures to support my words, and working to share something that we call “Good News” that is for our very salvation.  It is hard to do that sitting down.

We bishops wear robes, and pointy hats, and carry symbolic sticks (croziers) that show our call as pastors to care for our people.   Those sticks, when used by real shepherds, pull sheep out of tricky places, prod them along to where they need to be, and fend off the enemy.  I feel disempowered to care for others when I myself am in such need. I can’t even carry the stick while maneuvering my scooter (not to mention the ungainly way that I have to fold up my long robe so it doesn’t become, literally, wrapped around the axle.) I am questioning hard- and not for the first time- the efficacy of these (silly) symbols.

As a woman, I experience already a certain cultural pressure to be at the top of my game all the time- to be whole and just and level-headed and non-anxious in my leadership of my staff and our diocesan system.  It’s hard to feel centered, emotionally and on my leadership game when I am physically weakened. That soft animal of my body.

4. A praying person- by nature and in discipline- I am surprised by the shift in my spiritual wellbeing.  I am abandoned to such base needs- moving from one place to another, planning minutes in advance to hobble to the bathroom, strategizing something as basic as making a cup of tea and carrying it to my chair- that my formal devotions are on hold.  I haven’t read Morning Prayer. I haven’t wanted to read Morning Prayer. It is usually my foundation for the day.  I have lost discipline in spiritual things while managing things earthly.  I will discipline myself to “begin again” (Benedict) in Advent.

And so, for now, I pray by looking at the stars out of the window as I wake, it seems, on the hour.  I pray listening to the owls carrying on their nighttime woodland conversation. I pray in thanksgiving for the distraction of books and podcasts, of the Great British Baking Show, and of the endless supply of email that makes me feel, even though I am sitting still, that I am actually doing something.

Second level lessons, I suppose.

How many levels are there, I wonder?

Vacation 2024.

This year, like most years, I traveled on vacation with my husband to Maine to visit with family. Glenn and I saw children and grandchildren, siblings, nieces and nephews, cousins and a few old family friends. We went to take the seaside cure of inky waters and cerulean skies, to draw in the healing scent of salt-seaweed-mud-balsam-cedar air, and to willingly submerge our bodies in the frigid waters of Maine. On our first week, we were immersed in the bosom of family in a house on the mainland. On the second week, the two of us traveled to Monhegan.

Our holiday began in a shared house filled to the brim with people whom we love from ages 2 and up, weaving a week of laughter, wine, big meals eaten on the deck, story time on the sofa, bright sun on the beach, low tide walks across sandbars, kites in the air, croquet on the lawn, hours of play with puppets-dolls-action figures-toy cars and Legos, sand in the bottom of the bathtub, and understandably a few exhausted toddler meltdowns when the milk was poured too generously (or not generously enough) in the bowl of cereal for the youngest’s early dinner after a day of hard play and no naps. Imagine being a two and a half foot human among a dozen loud, big people. I loved being a grandma in the middle of it all…love, love, loved it. There is a special kinship in the grandchild-grandparent relationship that, in one’s pre-grandparenting days, you hear about: “Oh, just you wait… you’ll love it. There’s nothing like it. You’ll see.” Well, “they” are right. The love is deep and strong. Becoming a grandparent brings back the fond memories of one’s own early days of parenting, instills such a pride that one’s own offspring are now engaging the game with strength and compassion, and delivers an amazement at the wonder of creation and how genetic traits are so persistent- the almond shaped eyes of the Scanlans, the tilt of his Everett’s head that unwittingly mimics his father’s same gesture, the uncanny resemblance of Alice to her Grandma Jody, and the fiery independence that is all Alice and that is all her mom at the same age… It’s remarkable. Being a grandparent is more than that old joke of “… and at the end of the day you get to go home…” It is about being “once-removed” in the chain of command and discipline that allows for imaginative play, drawing and painting and playing with Play-do for as long as you want, reading stories on the sofa, and making a detour to the ice cream store on the way home from an errand. There’s a connection that feels a little subterranean; you can’t put your finger on it, but you know that you belong to each other. It is tender and strong.

At the start of vacation, there is a process of moving away from … and coming into oneself.

I shed the skin of bishop-administrator-arbiter of problems-preacher-priest. I unzipped the magenta shirt-black skirt-tight white collar and heavy cross and left it at home. I stepped into the khaki shorts-white button-down uniform that has suited me for many years and felt a shift, a returning to another me.

On the drive Down East, we took two cars to allow for some flexibility in our schedules at the end of our holiday. Coming off of a busy week in which I had worked hard to clear my metaphorical desk, I looked forward to the quiet drive to allow my head to catch up with the external shift that revealed knobby winter-white knees poking out of my shorts. I played James Taylor and Joni Mitchell, Little Feat and Bonnie Raitt. I noted places along the way that have marked this trip for more than half a century out the car window: Charlton Plaza, the long stretch up 495, Portsmouth Circle and the crossing over the Piscataquah River Bridge that tells you, on the other side, that you have arrived in Maine: “Vacationland,” where life is “as it should be” (bad, overly prescriptive state slogan).

It takes time for me to ease out of work and into vacation. The “away message” on my computer tells folks that I am unavailable, will not be checking email regularly and to refer urgent matters to my Executive Assistant; it belied the number of times that I peeked anyway, in the first week, unable to shake the habit of keeping abreast of e-mails and to cater to my slightly OCD love of a neatly managed inbox. It took a ferry ride to an island with a sketchy cell signal to really get me to lay it down.

Monhegan is an island ten miles off the coast of Maine. There we hiked miles of coastline, testing our knees- now in their seventh decade- on the endless ups and downs over jagged rocks that line the perimeter of the island. Each circumnavigation of the island (it takes us about 4 hours so… one circumnavigation per day) ended with a cold beer at the brewery on the island. On day two, a basket of fried clams made their way to our table, too, as an afternoon snack. The feeling of being hot, sweaty, appropriately tired and then refreshed with a beer and clams? Cannot. Be. Beat.

Each evening on Monhegan there is a lovely dinner in the candlelit dining room. Fresh fish, risotto, veggies from the garden in the backyard, blueberry crumble. It feels so good after a big day to shower off, put on some clean clothes and, as my mother would say, “feel human again.” We eat early on the island so we can make the hike up to the lighthouse to watch the sunset. We are not alone- a whole crew gathers- and we watch in silence as the sun slips below the horizon, leaving the sky with its kiss of orange-peach-pink.

Here, I feel singularly myself. I am not a boss, a mother, an administrator, a grandmother, a cook or a preacher. Oh, all those other things are such important parts of me that I cherish but here, I am at my most core self…. the self upon which all of those other identities are layered. This core self is important. It is strong and it supports all the other parts of my being that call me into different roles and functions. Oh, I am “wife” or “partner” here, too. After 40 years (44 if you count from our first meeting), that bit is almost inseparable from my core. We do the things of old married couples- you know, completing each other’s sentences, knowing instinctively on a trip when a nap is better than another walk, and when to offer a comment… and when to keep quiet. After 40 years the lines of me-thee are happily blurred.

But that core self. What is it? There is strength (I thank my mother for that), honesty, loyalty, leadership, faith, practicality, and not a small amount of self doubt and self criticism. These last two don’t help, particularly, but they are me.

Standing in the breeze of an offshore wind, slightly sunburned, tired, the edges softened by the day, I stand firmly and fully in myself. And it is good.

I hope that you get some vacation and a chance to be restored.

It’s that time of year. The kids next door to us went back to school today. Their photo on Facebook showed neatly pressed khakis, matching blue polo shirts and scrunchies, new lunch boxes, sneakers and backpacks. As they were headed out, full of promise and excitement for the new school year, I was still in bed, musing about the day that stretched ahead. See, I’m not quite ready for “back to school,” or “back to work…” I’ve still got to shake that “little bit feral” that I picked up over the past three months of sabbatical followed by a month of vacation.

I had a glorious time in the wild this summer. I enjoyed four long backpacking trips on the Appalachian Trail. My section hikes were challenging and each one delivered just the right amount of sweat, scraped shins and dirt rings around the top of my socks to satisfy my grubby inner biophilic. It’s hard to explain, really, but the appeal of climbing tall rocky grades, wandering under the canopy of the summer’s leafy trees, splashing my hot face in cold pools of water, and falling asleep in my tent to the thrum of cicadas and the conversation of owls gives me a thrill. I also spent many hours sequestered away in “Viriditas,” my prayer shack in the woods. This micro cabin with its tiny wood stove offered me a comfortable but rustic sanctuary to sit and reflect. Outside of each window there were nothing but green leaves, and the occasional falling acorn or scampering squirrel on the metal roof kept me from wandering off too far into my own thoughts. I wrote, rested, and prayed my way through most mornings in the prayer shack on the days that I was home. Back up at the “big house,” I also cooked delicious meals and enjoyed a slower pace of life.

I got a lot done- lots of downsizing and “Swedish death cleaning” going on in our house- and, sorting through the last seven decades, I managed to commit several ideas and stories to paper (or laptop). I did a remarkable amount of writing, but I did it on my schedule and, most importantly, in shorts and t-shirts. If I had to put shoes on, I reached for my camo crocs. Yeah, feral. Maybe more than a little bit.

Now, there were a few breaks that required me to be shod and run a comb through my hair: I had a trip to Mexico with our girls and my niece, which was followed a month later by the wedding-to-end-all-weddings at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco where our daughter Harriet and her now husband Ryan were married. That trip alone stretched my fashion sensibilities: in one 48 hour period I had 4 costume outfit changes requiring different shoes for each event. I was surrounded by lithe, glowing, dewy, young women. I was agog at the beauty.

I went shopping this afternoon. In spite of the fact that I spent many days climbing up and down mountains and sweating through every pore, the “throw-caution-to-the-wind” and summer-long enjoyment of cookies, ice cream, gin and tonics and sauvignon blanc at any and every opportunity seems to have caught up with me (or at least my waistline). And so, I found a few things today to get me back in the grown up groove as I head back to work next week.

One of my friends from my Canon-days in the Episcopal Church in Connecticut used to subscribe to a hard and fast rule for her “back to school” (or “back to work after the summer”) period of time: No Open Toed Shoes or Sandals after Labor Day. Wow. She meant business!

I don’t think I’ll show up in my crocs and I’ll likely to comb my hair, but for now, that’s the most I can promise.

See you very soon.

Since January- more than half a year ago- I’ve been working at it. I’ve been working with a new mindset, a new focus, a new direction.  Unlike other New Year’s resolutions, this one has stuck, and more than halfway through the calendar year, I feel like I’ve embraced my new attitude of buying less, sifting and sorting, and letting go of a lot of literal baggage that I’ve been carrying around for decades.

Now, don’t be fooled- our 2,838  sq. ft. home is still amply filled with all the stuff of modern living-  a big dining room with a long table, hutch, and six chairs; two different living room areas with sofas, overstuffed chairs, occasional tables and brick fireplaces (two!); two office spaces- his and hers; a sun porch for reading and dining; a big bedroom; a guest room; a kitchen that is perhaps a little aged, but still very functional, and a big two-bay garage… Our not-so-little-cabin is filled with nice things. Not expensive things, but nice things. Our “style” is not formal, and our furnishings reflect our tendency towards simple things, but, hey, there’s a lot of it.  A lot: The six-foot oak library table that we bought at an antiques store because it “spoke to us,” the lovely but rickety tea cart that was my grandmother’s, a piano that we don’t play often enough, a small pine bookcase built by my father, a 500-pound skate sharpening whetstone wheel that was once an item used faithfully each week, a heavy workbench in the “shop” that belonged to my husband’s father, and paintings- pictures of places that we have loved and created by people whom we love- hanging on the walls of each room.  I recognize our privilege reflected in the bounty of our stuff in this suburban cabin- and I am grateful.

This year’s quest for minimalism has really been about two things:  Not acquiring more stuff that I don’t need… and … getting rid of stuff that will not serve me in the future.  The first part hasn’t been too hard (though the frequency with which the Amazon truck still pulls into the driveway is alarmingly too often) but it’s the second part- getting rid of stuff- that has been challenging.  I’ve done it- but in some instances it has been nothing less than soul-wrenching.

Take yesterday’s neighborhood Yard Sale, for example.  Ummmm.  It was rough.

I had spent seven months sorting through the storage section of our basement and deciding which items I could put out in the yard for folks to purchase.  Eight margarita glasses.  Six champagne flutes. An oblong fish poacher that I use every other year.  A trifle dish. Fondue pot. Chafing dish liners and a big heavy circular brazier with lid.  These items- most of them related to my (former) life of catering and hosting big parties- were no-brainers. Into the yard sale pile they went.  Dozens of wine glasses. Several old chairs. Arts and Crafts materials, beads, and reams of beautiful colored, heavy weight paper. Empty sketch books. Vases. Platters. A travel case with room for a projector, laptop, markers, and flip chart stand from my “traveling canon” days.  Again, no brainers.  Out to the driveway with florescent pink price tags noting deep discounts!  But there were some things that had strings still attached to my heart:  an antique 40-piece set of ruby red glasses with crystal stems, tin cookie cutters from my days of baking at Christmas with our kids, a green fluted candy dish, a pewter tray that we got 39 years ago as a wedding gift, a domed terrarium that, in spite of the fact that I could never keep anything growing in it, still reminded me of the priest-friend who gave it to me.  These were hard things to sell.

But then, the day of the sale arrived.  I’d been away all week on a backpacking trip and arrived home the night before- tired, dirty and worn-out,  the sign of a successful backpacking adventure.  The garage was filled with all the yard sale items.  They were all priced.  All I had to do on Saturday was get up early and, with the help of my husband, drag them out for display on tables and a few large mats that we laid down in the driveway.

The sale was to begin at 8 AM.  Neighbors up and down the street were also preparing their goods for sale in their driveways.  I began setting up at 6 AM.  By 6:15 the first car drove up our (somewhat long and somewhat steep) drive and a man jumped out asking for video games.  Nope. None of those. Sorry. By the way, you are an hour and 45 minutes early.  At 6:30 another man wandered into the side yard, surprising me, (he approached by our neighbor’s driveway) and he started poking around.  Not yet through my first cup of coffee, I told him to come back at 7:00.  By 7:00 the yard was filled with people, there were cars parked up and down the street and, apparently, the sale had begun. It didn’t matter whether I’d finished my coffee or not.  Many of our items went fast.  They were priced to sell: Most things were one or two dollars.   But, despite the prices, folks wanted to bargain.  One box held a collection of art materials- all unused and in pristine condition- that, all together, was worth about $100.00. I was hoping for a classroom teacher to buy it. The price was $5.00.  A nice guy- but not the teacher I had in mind- offered me $3.00.  I swallowed hard.  I countered with $4.00.  He said he’d take it to his church. That made me feel better.  And so, off it went.  While I was loading it into his car, he picked up the fish poacher.  Wait. Did he pay me for that?  Ugh.  I waved them goodbye as they backed out of the drive.

There were folks who asked to pull their cars around on our (rain softened yard). No.  One man called out- as he trampled on the hostas planted under the pine trees in the front yard- that he remembered walking under these pines as a boy when the whole neighborhood was a pine grove. Hmm.   It was a bit of a mad-rush that was a little overwhelming, but it was the scrutinizing of my stuff, my goods, my life… that was hard.  Okay, maybe that’s projection, but I didn’t think that it would be so difficult to have people pick up, turn over, appraise, barter and/or reject stuff that I claimed as part of me. It was, perhaps, the flotsam and jetsam of my life, but still, it was mine.  

Who knew it would be so hard?  Maybe I don’t have the stomach- or heart- for this kind of downsizing.

At the end of the day, we had sold about 2/3rds of our stuff and made a whopping $125.00- these days, about the cost of a quick trip to the grocery store.  We loaded up most of the leftovers and took them to Goodwill.  

The antique ruby stemware did not sell.  I’m a little bit glad for that. It’s back in the house, taking up space.

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For a long time I’ve said that cooking is a spiritual practice for me. For a while- before it was cool and a real art form-  I had a food blog (www.prayerkitchen.wordpress.com), now inactive. I’ve always loved sharing the different stories from my kitchen. Cooking is an important creative outlet for me. I love flavors from around the world and prefer the taste of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean menus to our typical American fare. Thanks to Buddhist monk Edward Espe Brown from the Tassajara Zen Center in California and his wonderful cookbooks, I have learned how to slow down in the kitchen and to offer thanks for the ingredients before me, as I work to prepare nourishing meals.

There are stories about my father as an adventurous cook. Though he died when I was a toddler and my memories of him are dim, my mother talked about some of his more creative culinary exploits:  a whole roasted suckling pig that barely fit in the oven, venison roasts from deer that he had hunted, and Baked Alaska burst into dramatic flame at the tableside.  (There are other non-food stories about my father that express his adventurous spirit, like the time he and my mother covered their faces in Vaseline and then gobbed on plaster of Paris to make harlequin masks of themselves which they then swapped and wore to a New Year’s Eve costume ball.  I like to think that I got my father’s creative spirit in the kitchen.  My mother was a good cook, but she did not enjoy it much, and she had a large family to cook for every night in the kitchen of our 17th c. home; now, we did have a refrigerator and stove, but no lovely granite countertop prep areas like the spacious kitchens of today! Our kitchen was small and dark, with a low, antique pine table next to the stove as the sole space to prepare anything.  My mother created menus that allowed her to do the bulk of preparation during the day when we were out from underfoot, and so we ate many casseroles and roasted meats and vegetables.  This “make it ahead” style also allowed my mother to have a civilized cocktail and conversation hour with my stepfather when he got home before launching into dinner.  Some of my favorite dishes today are things that my mother made- for sentimental reasons, I know:  chicken divan, beef stew, and her corned beef hash casserole.  My mom always had a salad at her end of the table- as a child I could not stand the bitter greens- kale, chicory and endive- that she favored.  Today, I am the Queen of Kale.

When I was growing up we ate in the dining room by candlelight with full table settings of china and sterling flatware.  We weren’t trying to be fancy- it was just what we did.  For several years, there were 8 of us gathered each evening at the table:  my twin stepsisters, my two brothers, my sister, and my parents. (My other siblings were older and making their own households.) My mother sat at the kitchen end of the table (a custom I follow for myself, still today) and my stepfather sat at the opposite end, serving up the evening’s entrée onto a big stack of plates before him.  We said grace. My father’s grace: “Bless, O Lord, this food to our use and our lives to your loving service.”  My mother’s grace: “We thank thee, O Lord, for these provisions. Bless us, guide us, keep us, save us, for Jesus’ sake, Amen.” 

We had dessert on the weekends, as I remember.  Certainly not every night.  On occasion, my mother would try to get away with serving canned peaches for dessert.  No thank you.

My mother was tall and slim.  Until I was an adult and struggling with some of my own food issues, I didn’t understand that she felt pressure to “maintain her figure.”  In those days (the ‘60s and ‘70s) the approach to staying thin was to skip meals, drink lots of black coffee, smoke cigarettes, eschew certain food groups (my mother didn’t eat many potatoes or much bread) and buy chewable meal replacements/appetite suppressants at the drug store.  I think that this was typical for the time and place (upper middle class, white suburbia) where we lived.  

When I grew up and became a mother myself and sat at the end of my own dining room table- at the kitchen end- I kept a lot of our family traditions:  Regular mealtimes. Grace. Candles. Meat, Veg and Starch on most nights, and some more bold flavors at least once or twice a week in the form of “international” cuisines. We expected napkins to be in laps, elbows to be off the table and for the children to ask permission to be excused.  We weren’t draconian about table etiquette, but I’m glad that we created some sort of decorum for our children as they grew.  Many nights we listened to music as we ate, and on Sunday nights we’d listen to a local Compline service that was broadcast on the radio by two Episcopal priests. I think that I cooked a good variety of food for our family with an emphasis on “whole” and “clean” foods.  Our children had adventurous palettes which I credited to feeding them just about any and everything that I could, as soon as they had teeth.

Today, as a household of “empty nesters,” not much has changed.  I still love to cook. I don’t get paid for it anymore (I spent about 10 years in college and post-college working as a chef,) and these days we eat dinner on our laps while watching Jeopardy! –  but the basics are the same:  I love to play with recipes from other cuisines- Thai, Mexican, Asian, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern foods to name a few- and I find it to be a primary source of connection for me to God’s creation and the good stewardship of our health and bodies.  There is no small amount of irony, of course, how this great joy has also been at the center of my own quest to achieve self-worth and a positive body image.  I’m about 50/50 over the course of my lifetime, I think, in achieving a healthy attitude about it all.  Beginning with some painful episodes from a chubby childhood that I won’t recount here but will save for another time, I have had a lifetime of a dysfunctional and disordered relationship with food.  Interesting, isn’t it, that the thing that brings me so much joy has also been, in different seasons of my life, also my greatest nemesis?  These days, as I am learning to live with a body that is mid-way into its seventh decade, I’m discovering new things about how a body “settles,” what its limits are, and how it is important to press at those limits gently in order to stay well (a summer experience of persistent tendinitis is teaching me that lesson).

And so.

I’ve done a bit of an exercise this week examining some menus from the past year or two. It’s been my custom for at least two decades, now, to create a weekly menu on my day off- Monday- and to shop and cook for the week ahead, all on one day. I have stuck the menu portion of my shopping list into the kitchen bookcase at week’s end, and this week, as I’ve been sorting through my bookcase, I discovered these many slips of paper- culinary artifacts, of a sort. I decided to do an inventory of our recent menus to see what kind of trends, if any, I could discover.  Now, the whole thing is skewed for a few reasons that would toss this “experiment” out the window of any statistics class: 1) There are only 41 weeks’ worth of menus for a period that I know to be more than a year. 2) Most menus only feature 4 or 5 days of food (I plan on leftover nights) and 3) this doesn’t account for “pizza nights,” “Chinese and/or Indian takeout nights,” or dinners out with friends or for work, or for vacations.  But this sampling- random, I guess, would be the best statistical assignation- will still give a look at what’s on our table, night by night. 

Some of the old favorites are there:  Chicken pot pie, Falafel in pita pockets, Lasagna, Fish Chowder, Mujadara and Dal… and there are some things that only appear once:  Pho, tuna casserole, steak with chimichurri sauce.  Now, this isn’t to say that we don’t like Pho, tuna casserole or steak enough to have it more often, but it is interesting that in this “random sampling” of a couple of years’ menus, that there isn’t more repetition…. Except for… beans.  Wow. We eat a lot of beans.  White beans, baked beans, bean salads, beans in casseroles and tacos and a million different ways.  Having been vegan for a year, I guess that shouldn’t come as a surprise.

The data showed that in 41 weeks of menus, I planned for 196 meals. That’s somewhere between 4-5 meals per week which makes sense for my pattern:  plan for the weekdays, eat leftovers on Saturday (or get takeout) and shop separately for Sunday. Sunday dinner has always been a bigger, or nicer meal for us- with dessert!-  and I just can’t think that far ahead on Monday to plan six days out…

Of those 196 meals, it turns out that the greatest number of them (83%) were Vegan, 16% of them featured chicken as a main ingredient, 10% beef, 10% pork, 8% fish, and a smattering of lamb and turkey.  Broccoli seems to be my “go to” veg. What this tells me (and as I look at the menus) is that more often than not- even when it wasn’t our dedicated (2002) “Vegan Year,” we prefer plant-based meals. Over the course of our culinary lifetimes? No, but in the recent past, yes.

When I broke the menus down by nationalities or ethnicities, only 28% of the food was “American” (ie: chicken pot pie, fish chowder, meatloaf made with beef and pork), 14% was Mediterranean, 9% Indian, 8% Asian, 8% Mexican, and a smattering of Middle Eastern, French, African, Thai, and Vietnamese.  There is another category that came in second, actually, at 16%: it’s a category that I’ve made up: “Hippie.”  You know: brown rice, veggies, tempeh… or Buddha bowls, or other non-specific ethnic, whole grain, crunchy, granola-seeds-nuts-berries kind of food.  I guess other than American, that’s my next-best-favorite.

These results surprise me a little bit because, for someone who loves Middle Eastern food (give me a pita with feta cheese and ground lamb, black olives and currants, please!)… there was precious little of it. Again, random sampling.

If you are still hanging in there with this post, I’d love to know what your favorites are.  What do you love to cook? What do you love to eat?  What are your family food traditions?

As for me, it’s lunchtime.  Cheers.