Having A Pandemic Holiday

Posted on November 16, 2020 by Ann Lovejoy
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A Candle For Hope And Renewal

Sharing Gratitude and Hope

As winter approaches, millions of people are rethinking their usual holiday habits. With the pandemic picking up speed, with thousands of new cases announced daily, November is shaping to be the worst month yet. Worst of all, small indoor gatherings are being called out as major sources of infection. Just writing that makes me so sad; even my weekly gardening group, the intrepid Friday Tidies, has been told to step down for the duration. After some 22 years with very few missed weeks, we probably won’t stop gardening, but we will sadly work alone and forgo our usual masked and distanced check-ins.

This weekend, Washington State’s Governor Inslee called for a four week moratorium on gatherings, including meeting with extended family in our own homes. I doubt that many people were surprised, and indeed, most people I know had already made the decision not to celebrate winter holidays in person with family and friends. After a sunny summer when outdoor meetings felt safe, our little family bubbles are drawing in closer again. Like so many other folks, I’m talking with family about ways to stay connected while staying safely apart. Several friends have been meeting virtually for months now, whether weekly for lunch or even nightly for cocktails. I deeply enjoy Saturday morning tea with my ASOBI sisters (ASOBI stands for Aging Solo On Bainbridge Island. We talked about letting guys in but decided that they should start their own group and call it ADOBI for Aging Dudes…).

Holiday Table For One?

Over the years, I’ve spent quite a number of holidays alone, sometimes sadly, sometimes happily, sometimes with quiet relief. These days, my daughter and I are often the only ones at the holiday table, and we are both quite contented with our extremely low key revels. As I’ve aged, many of the lively traditions that felt wonderful to my younger self have been replaced by more contemplative practices. When scattered family made for ever-smaller gatherings, I found places to serve holiday meals to homeless folks instead. When decorating the house started to feel like a chore, my daughter and I chose our favorite items, offered boxes of holiday decor to family, and donated the rest to a local charitable thrift shop. I still enjoy making seasonal wreaths with garden gleanings, delighting in the brisk scents of pine and fir, rosemary and oregano. Some I share, while others remain outdoors as garden decorations, held together with clumps of moss instead of wire so they can be tossed into the compost or allowed to molder in place to nourish the garden soil.

Even when alone, I liked to observe at least a few of the traditional markers of the holidays. At my table for one, I’d set an empty chair for whatever unexpected guest might come along. Some families similarly reserve a chair at celebrations to honor those who have died, someone who might be estranged, or travelers who are far from home and family. I often set an extra plate as well, with a big beeswax candle on it. My daughter and I still do that now, and that flickering flame reminds us silently of our dear ones, distant or departed.

But What About Food?

For many (perhaps most) of us, holiday traditions center around beloved foods as much as specific activities. That concept can certainly stand to be re-examined in light of our current situation. If our gatherings are reduced to a handful or even fewer, cooking a huge turkey and masses of side dishes seems both daunting and a bit silly. What could underline the paucity of the guest list more than an over-abundance of food, especially when we know that so many families are struggling as jobs are limited or vanishing? It seems only sensible to consider serving game hens or a plump chicken instead. Even more to the point, it’s a good time to focus on having a few favorite dishes instead of the usual things considered obligatory by some traditional standard.

Now I can laugh at the memory of the first Thanksgiving after my husband died on Halloween night, but it sure wasn’t funny then. Still shocked by grief, I wasn’t up for cooking and planned to get a lovely meal for my mom from a local restaurant. At the last minute (as in Thursday morning), Mom decided that she NEEDED me to make the whole enormous traditional meal for the two of us plus my daughter. I found a fresh turkey, caramelized onions, made cranberry relish, mashed potatoes, made mushroom and bacon gravy, and steamed broccoli and green beans. I even made a pumpkin pie and whipped some cream. My daughter, who was caring for mom, helped me carry it all into her kitchen and get the table set. We sat down and I served everyone a full plate, at which my mom stared for a minute before saying, “Where’s the stuffing?”. I’m still proud that instead of replying, “Get stuffed,” I merely said, “Mom, want to try that again? And maybe start with ‘thank you’?”

We Gather More Or Less Together

This year, our celebration table will have an empty plate with a candle. When we sit, we’ll extinguish all the lights, have a moment of recollection for all we have lost, then light the candle to remind us of what we still have in abundance and what will remain when we ourselves are gone. For me, thanksgiving is really about sharing gratitude and celebrating belonging–to family, community, or the fellowship of humanity. I’m deeply grateful and relieved beyond measure to be able to look forward to a new team in the White House and a healthy, wholesome new direction for America. I’m grateful that I can talk to family and friends on the phone or make a zoom call and see their faces and hear beloved voices. I’m grateful for our modest home in a comfortable, accepting neighborhood. I’m even grateful to my mom for the many-layered stories she engendered and the deep lessons I learned. Onward, right?

Here are some scaled-down versions of recipes that were voted in this year, including my own favorite combination of roasted vegetables, a spritely salad, and an old fashioned, not-too-sweet pumpkin pie.

Roasted Cauliflower, Sweet Potato, & Cranberries

2 cups cauliflower florets
1 small sweet potato, peeled and sliced (1/4 inch)
1 tablespoon avocado or high temperature oil
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup raw cranberries, washed and picked over

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Toss vegetables with oil and spread in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt and roast for 20 minutes. Stir with a spatula, add cranberries and roast until well caramelized (15-20 minutes). Serves 2-3.

Sparkling Winter Salad

1 cup Savoy cabbage, finely chopped
1 cup Napa cabbage, finely shredded
1 cup shaved Florence fennel
1 small satsuma, sectioned
1 cup chopped Opal apple
1/3 cup pomegranate seeds (optional)
2 tablespoons stemmed cilantro
2 tablespoons roasted peanuts
1-2 teaspoons fruit vinegar (Plum or nectarine are nice)

Toss all ingredients and serve. Serves 2-3.

Andrew’s Pumpkin Pie

This dairy- and sugar-free version tastes rich and old fashioned, perhaps much like the early Thanksgiving pies made when sugar was scarce.

1/2 cup dark molasses or maple syrup
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon each cinnamon, coriander and ginger
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
2 large eggs, beaten
2 cups (or a 15-ounce can) cooked pumpkin pulp
1-1/4 cups plain almond, coconut, or hazelnut milk
1 unbaked crust

In a large bowl, combine all but crust and blend well. Spoon into unbaked crust and bake at 425 degrees F. for 15 minutes, reduce heat to 350 and bake until set (40-50 minutes). Let stand for an hour or more before serving. Serves at least one.

 

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Lessons From The Compost Heap

Posted on November 9, 2020 by Ann Lovejoy
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Bidens still going strong after our first frost

Time For Real Change

As the dust settles after the most explosive, contentious election of my lifetime, I find myself slowly unwinding, releasing tensions I wasn’t even aware of. After four years of fear and fury, anxiety and outrage, many of us have been tied up in knots so long that it may take a while for us to unfurl. I’m balancing daily meditations with stretching sessions that open up shoulders and chest, starting with gentle arm rotations and ending in the ancient posture of supplication called “orante.” Done sitting or standing, this involves tilting the head back and looking upward while reaching up with both arms outstretched, hands open and fingers spread to the sky. Once there, we can sway gently back and forth (listening to Grateful Dead tunes helps), opening the back and spine. Ahhhh. Letting go of the accumulated tension is a great start as we take a little time to relax, refresh and renew ourselves for the work ahead.

There is definitely work ahead and it’s not going to be easy or quickly done. For some 75 million Americans, the election outcome feels like a huge but costly victory; while it’s a tremendous relief to be poised to begin repairs for all the damage of the past four years, it is also horrifying to realize that at least 70 million of our family, friends and neighbors wanted another four years of the current regime. About 239 million Americans were eligible to vote this year, and about 160 million people did, which means around 79 million didn’t. By that reckoning, there are around 154 million of us who are not happy, or feeling disenfranchised or unrepresented, or perhaps not interested in participating in democracy. To me, that suggests that American is way overdue for an overhaul. We need not just to rebuild but to build anew, to make a new and very different country for ourselves, one where we all feel safe, welcome, and able to make a good life for ourselves and our families.

A Revolution Of Kindness

Getting to there from here looks like a high mountain to climb, but yesterday a friend made me think about the path in a new way. When I wondered how we would ever reach reconciliation, he pointed out that if each of us befriended one or two people with very different views from ours, we could help change their world and our own. That’s not just happy talk; there is solid research to prove that kindness can change minds and hearts and make friends out of enemies. Bill pints out that there’s little sense in seeking out a violent skinhead to woo, but plenty of opportunity to learn more about a co-worker or a neighbor. Getting to know one or two people isn’t that daunting a challenge; the current issue of YES Magazine offers a clever comic/primer showing how kindness can create positive, lasting change for you and the recipient:

Some Kind of Wonderful

Transformational Change

I am convinced transformational change is possible after reading Rising Out Of Hatred: The Awakening Of A Former White Nationalist by Eli Saslow. It’s the story of Derek Black, godson of David Duke and heir apparent to the nation’s largest white nationalist movement. When Black began classes at New College of Florida, his roommates engaged him socially and intellectually despite (or perhaps because of) having widely different world-views. To his own astonishment (and the horror of his family), within two years Black had a total change of mind. In a New York Times Op/Ed he wrote: “Several years ago, I began attending a liberal college where my presence prompted huge controversy. Through many talks with devoted and diverse people there — people who chose to invite me into their dorms and conversations rather than ostracize me — I began to realize the damage I had done. Ever since, I have been trying to make up for it.”

How could that even happen? “His transformation is so huge: to go from being the future heir to this movement to now being a rising anti-racist activist,” Saslow said. “Doing that in short form, it almost stretches believability. It’s hard…to do real justice to that transformation.” For me, that magnitude of change reminds me of what happens when we put the last of the slumping pumpkins, garden detritus, food scraps and slimy fallen leaves into the compost tumbler and give it a whirl. The first turn doesn’t do much, but over time-turn, turn, turn-everything gets mixed up. The heat of dissolution and the addition of fresh air turns sullen clumps of rotting glop into sweet smelling, fluffy compost. The rejected, festering materials are now rich in nutrients and ready to nurture plants and soil.

Transforming Pumpkins

The last of the jack-o-lanterns are on their way to becoming compost, but we still have a few baby sugar pumpkins left over. Baked or roasted, each yields about 2 cups of cooked pulp and despite the many savory meals to make with pumpkin mash, right now we all seem to be wanting soothing sweetness. Pumpkin bread was a family favorite for years, but when I started experimenting with pumpkin muffins, allegiance shifted definitively. The recipe I now use was developed when I ran out of All Purpose flour; fortunately, whole wheat pastry flour turned out to be a winner. With less gluten than AP flour, pastry flour creates a tender crumb and adds to the rich flavor of these intriguingly spicy treats, which is delicious when the muffins are warm and even better the next day. The whole neighborhood loves these muffins so they go like the wind, but they will keep and freeze very well.

Practically Perfect Pumpkin Muffins

1 cup cooked pumpkin pulp
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon each cinnamon, cardamom,
coriander and ginger
2 large eggs
1/2 cup avocado oil
1/2 cup buttermilk
1-2/3 cups whole wheat pastry flour (or AP)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup toasted pumpkin seeds (or chopped nuts)

Preheat oven to bake 350 degrees F and line a muffin pan with papers. In a bowl, stir together the pumpkin, brown sugar, maple syrup, eggs, oil, and buttermilk, set aside. Sift dry ingredients together and stir quickly into the pumpkin mixture. Stir in chocolate chips and pumpkin seeds and spoon into muffin cups, filling them 2/3 full. Bake until set and golden (about 20-25 minutes). Makes 12 standard muffins.

Trumpkin with a black eye

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Pumpkins Galore

Posted on November 2, 2020 by Ann Lovejoy
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Pie In The Sky By and By

Halloween Leftovers

Though Halloween was certainly quieter this year, with no happy gangs of children trick or treating, lots of folks went over the top with decorating, lighting up the early dusk with lanterns and lights and of course pumpkins galore. My grandkids had been carving and decorating pumpkins all month but as Halloween drew near, they switched over to costume making, one choosing to be a ghostly Nearly Headless Nick (from the Harry Potter stories), the other a plump little robot. In their small community, all the kiddos held a distanced costume parade, and every household cheered them on. I wished someone had organized a similar event on our local green, so everyone could celebrate the youngsters and their costume creativity. With guidance and leadership, this pandemic could teach us how to pull together as families, as communities, as a nation. Without that leadership, we are floundering in depressing and dangerous disarray.

Overwhelmed by the onslaught of news, I’ve been taking refuge in historical memoirs, written by pioneering women a century ago and more. Reading about lives lived fully, despite social isolation and complicated and slow communication of national and family news, I’m realizing how much those wanderers prized connection and community when they found it. It’s also remarkable how much people helped each other out with food or labor when they were far from towns or regular sources of supplies. Help was offered even when people weren’t home: Right up into the 1940s, leaving isolated houses and cabins unlocked was common from Maine to Alaska. If travelers happened by, they were welcome to help themselves to food and a warm fire, but expected to leave money or supplies in exchange, while always refilling the woodbox. These days, it seems that as a nation, we have locked each other out. Rather than reaching out with helping hands, we have traded our value for community for that of independence. Learning our collective way back from solitary selfishness to community building will be a long task but/and a worthy one, well worth any amount of effort.

Pumpkins To Pie For

Best Ever Pumpkin Pie

My porch still boasts quite a few fat little sugar pumpkins, so yesterday I split a few and roasted the pieces, along with some enormous beets that had been overlooked during my garden gleaning. I got a bit distracted and everything got slightly caramelized, which gave the resulting pumpkin pulp a deliciously complex flavor. Though field pumpkins are often stringy, pie pumpkins are more tender, easily mashed to soft, fluffy pulp. The roasted bits were not quite so conformable but my trusty stick immersion blender turned the charred slabs into sweet slush in a minute. There was enough for a pie and some spicy peanut pumpkin soup as well, both of which are perfect treats for chilly days and dark autumn nights.

Roasted Pumpkin Pie

1 unbaked pie crust (any kind)
2 cups pureed pumpkin pulp
2 eggs
1-1/2 cups milk (any kind)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon each of cinnamon, coriander,
cardamom and ginger

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Line a 9” pie dish with crust and crimp the edges, set aside. In a bowl, combine remaining ingredients and stir well (an immersion blender does an excellent job). Pour mixture into the pie shell (put any extra in a smaller baking dish for custard) and bake at 425 F for 15 minutes. Reduce oven to 350 F and bake until set (45-40 minutes). Serves at least one.

Roasted Pumpkin Peanut Soup

1 tablespoon cooking oil
1/2 teaspoon roasted sesame oil
1/2 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
2 medium yellow potatoes, chopped (about 2 cups)
2 cups chopped sweet peppers
2 cups cooked pumpkin pulp
4 cups broth (chicken or vegetable)
1/2 cup natural peanut butter (chunky)
2-3 tablespoons sweet Thai chilli sauce
1/2 cup roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped

Combine oils, onion and garlic over medium heat and cook until soft (3-5 minutes). Add salt, potatoes and peppers, cover pan and sweat vegetables for 5 minutes. Add broth, cover pan and simmer until potatoes are tender (15-20 minutes). Add pumpkin pulp and peanut butter, stir well and cook for 5 minutes. Season to taste with sweet chilli sauce and serve, garnished with chopped peanuts. Serves 4.

Candlelight Vigil

Tonight, our local downtown church is holding a candlelight vigil, bringing people together to pray for peace and unity on this momentous Election Eve. In many traditions, this is the day of recollection, a time set apart to remember friends and family who have died this year as well as our ancestors and others we hold dear. I’m also putting (solar) candles in our windows tonight. Though their soft, gentle light may be washed out by the waning moon, they’ll flicker on all through this long night, which will surely feel like the year’s longest. Onward, together, right? Onward, together.

 

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A Seasonal Offering Of Hope & Remembrance

Posted on October 26, 2020 by Ann Lovejoy
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Natural Ofrendas celebrate seasonal beauties

The Cycle Continues, The Pendulum Swings

As autumn tints the leaves to auburn and old gold, mahogany and wine, I’ve been gathering armfuls and carrying them home. Since childhood, I’ve been fascinated by leaves, from swelling bud to browning crispness to lacy skeleton. This year, I’m moved to make an outdoor ofrenda, an offering of seasonal beauty, more precious because so fleeting. In the past week, several old friends have died and other friends have lost dear ones, suddenly or slowly. This season of gentle decay seems such a suitable time for departure; darkening days and long, cold nights offer little enticement to linger. Even so, as I line beds and pathways with bright leaves and seedpods, I’m reminded of the swing of the seasons, as implicit in the seedpods as in dying leaves. I’m reminded too of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who was fond of saying, “The pendulum always swings.”

As election day draws near, I’m finding myself more anxious than I can ever recall being before. Not even when both my husband and my mother were both sliding down that slippery slope have I been so aware of the dread weighing down my spirit. Making calls, urging others to vote, carrying the ballots of elderly neighbors to the ballot box, all these feel hopeful. The early polls seem hopeful as well, yet the innumerable unknowns make me afraid to hope. That is a terrible feeling and one I hope I never feel again. To be afraid to hope, afraid to look forward to a juster, kinder, more equitable world is to lose more than I can afford. Right now, my greatest solace is in creating momentary beauties of color and form, natural paintings that brighten the day but fade or fly away in the night.

Undermining Obsession

A few weeks ago, out internet was knocked out and kind neighbors lent us their passwords so we could get online. Through various complications we are still offline without that generous help. Reception is best in our bedrooms and disappears entirely if we wander into other rooms. As a result, both my daughter and I have become keenly aware of being connected or not. I was shocked to notice how adrift I felt without the ability to get online and was even more astonished to discover that what I missed the most was the ability to check the weather frequently. If warm, sunny days are coming, I can plant bulbs, transplant shrubs, and divide perennials. When cold snaps are predicted, I can protect the more tender of my plants, including the gorgeous, shrubby Fuchsia Blutini, which may or may not be hardy way up here near Seattle. I also find myself checking the air quality as often as possible, even though the summer wildfires are almost entirely suppressed, and that feels like a symptom of yet another underlying anxiety.

What I don’t miss is the news. Like many gardeners, I tend to be just a tiny bit obsessive and this year, my focus has been first on the pandemic and then increasingly on social and political disasters. After two weeks without watching the news, I’m finding myself just as politically involved as ever but with a healthier, less intense attitude. What’s more, my blood pressure is lower and I’m sleeping better at night. When I get an itch to find out what fresh horrors have been unveiled, I go outside and gather more leaves, stringing them into glorious swags to thread between shrubs and trees.

Nurturing Peace

As I became aware that anxiety was making me ill, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, I decided to start a new practice of seeking solace wherever it may be glimpsed. This weekend, we had a rare overnight with my grandkids, whose parents only allow visits after they have been suitably isolated for at least a week. Before they settled into bed for a story, they lined the hallway into my bedroom with little solar-powered tea lights in case they woke in the night. The gentle flickering of those little lights felt as peaceful and comforting as firelight and I decided to keep some burning on our windowsills as the evenings draw in to cheer the hearts of our neighbors as well as ourselves.

Music can also be cheering and comforting, though our choices are often highly personal. When I start to feel edgy, I play a favorite recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, complex yet soothing music that I played when my kids were quarrelsome and now again when my grandkids get cranky. Played very quietly, it has an astonishing power to soothe the spirit. When I’m knitting keepsake comfort shawls, I speak a long litany of power words outloud, incorporating them into each stitch: Compassion. Loving Kindness. Release. Peace. Comfort. Serenity. Ease. Tranquility. Courage. Trust. Community. Reconciliation. Connection. Faith. Grace. Forgiveness. Understanding. Mercy. Wisdom. Clarity. Sometimes I add special wishes for the recipient: Sweetness of spirit. A merry heart. Good nature. It’s not exactly prayer, I suppose, but it feels like an invocation of goodness. Prayer has been difficult lately but I recently read an article that said the proper way to pray for your enemies is to ask that evildoers experience the full consequences of their behavior. Now that I can wholeheartedly do!

Light In The Night

Much as I enjoy making Halloween costumes, I’m more interested in celebrating All Souls Day, a link to more ancient festivals that celebrate both loss and light as darkness gathers. A few years ago, blogger Adrienne Maree Brown wrote something I’ve found helpful:

“Things are not getting worse
They’re getting revealed
We must hold each other tight and
Continue to pull back the veil.”

Pulling back the veil of illusion is extremely uncomfortable, much like ripping off a dressing stuck to a festering wound. However, if we ever hope to achieve cultural healing, it has to happen. The veil that hides patriarchal authoritarianism/racism/cruelty/inhumanity must be pulled away, forcibly or gently, over and over and over again, a little more each time. It’s difficult and often discouraging work, so it’s helpful to remember that in doing all we can to propel our country and our culture forward, we are actually working to bring human nature from adolescence to maturity. Though definitely necessary, altering genetic and cultural patterns that have been repeated for millennia is never easy. Onward, right?

 

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