It was a good week in the kitchen, starting with Boyz Lunch, though we’re down to just two of us now. We toasted John with iced coffees then enjoyed philosophical conversation, homemade french fries and a herring salad sandwich on fresh rolls.
Later that day I went to the Arbol farmers market in Paonia which was a festival of color. I was specifically seeking mushrooms.
I came home with three kinds of mushrooms and a mushroom-honey liver tonic, four tomatoes, a dozen ears of corn, roasted green chilis, and a bowl full of Indian supper. The next day it was a plain and simple, delicious tomato sandwich for lunch.
Thursday it was time to make the long-anticipated Gourmet tuna-noodle casserole. I chopped up the brown oyster mushrooms and sautéed them with an onion, then added soy sauce and sherry.
For the topping, I used the last few slices of sourdough to make breadcrumbs and tossed them with grated cheddar and set it aside.
I cooked a quick roux for a white sauce, added one can of tuna and the mushroom mixture to it, tossed in the cooked noodles, spread the mix into the ceramic dish, and topped with the breadcrumb mix and baked it.
It was delicious, not exactly simple, and almost as much trouble as it was worth.
The next day, lunch was a smoked salmon club with refrigerator pickles and another market tomato.
Saturday was Zoom Cooking with Amy, and I had asked to make ravioli. She chose a recipe with mushroom filling, and I chose the Lion’s Mane for mine.
Sizzling butter just because.
Minced shallots in the butter, then the mushrooms, then a splash each of Vermouth and cream. We made our filling ahead, and mixed the pasta dough and rested it in the fridge, so when we got together in the evening all we had to do was make the raviolis and a simple sauce by simmering tomatoes in brown butter.
I’ve only used the pasta roller a couple of times but I’m so grateful for the gift of it. I think making pasta dough daunted me, but this recipe was so easy and worked so well, and it was so much fun, that I’ll be making a lot more fresh pasta.
I lacked the right tool for the job to cut the pasta—I was sure I had a pasta cutting wheel but couldn’t find it—but I found a reasonable facsimile in the potato crinkle cutter. I froze some, and the rest cooked in about four minutes. By the next time I try ravioli I’ll have the right tool for the job. Practice makes perfect, or close enough.
I only used half the dough last night, and probably should have frozen the rest but didn’t think about whether the raw egg in it would be ok overnight in the fridge. This evening I took a chance and rolled the remainder, then took the adventurous step of attaching the fettuccini cutter to the Kitchenaid. I’m grateful for the drying rack, too. Tomorrow I’ll bag up my dried noodles and figure out the best way to store them. I’m grateful for a great week in the kitchen.
Today’s post is a little different. It’s the transcript, essentially, of my final podcast, “Suffer Less with Mindfulness,” which aired last week. You can listen to all episodes for a few more weeks wherever you get your podcasts or on my website, before I cancel my subscription to the Captivate platform at which point it disappears forever from everywhere, except possibly Apple Podcasts, and maybe Insight Timer.
What’s your understanding of equanimity? Mine includes the idea that we can find balance under any conditions, and we aren’t constantly being jerked by our emotions or external circumstances or our own thoughts or other people’s actions from one extreme of joy and excitement and positivity to the other extreme of despair or rage or negativity; maintaining an even keel. It includes the idea of seeing all humans as having equal value, not judging people until we know them, and then using discernment, not snap judging. It includes the idea of not labeling, of being open to seeing, to understanding that each person is who they are, and they bring to each encounter all the causes and conditions of their life up to that moment, just like we do. It’s embodied in the idea that I’ve mentioned before, and we’ll swap out mindfulness for equanimity: “Equanimity is not about feeling better, it’s about getting better at not making things worse.” And it’s so much more than all these things.
One rich ground for equanimity practice is the fact that Death is certain, time of death uncertain. In some ways my whole life, my whole mindfulness practice since I began it 20 years ago, has been about learning to die. I’ve been afraid of death, afraid of dying, since I was a child and first learned of death. For the past year, I’ve been preparing to die. This last month, as part of that, I’ve been doing a life review, reading my old journals starting from the first one in high school. Partly so that I can burn them or send them to the dump so that they’re out of my house when I die; and partly to shift my perspective. I’m getting some resolution, some equanimity with who I was in the past. Who I am right now is not who I was even yesterday. I’m making peace with the process of growing and changing, and remembering that every moment I’m choosing ‘how do I wanna be?’ Equanimity can really help us make those choices with wisdom and compassion.
I’ve dipped into some of these journals through the years. Occasionally I’ve looked back at a certain event or a certain timeframe, and I’ve read it and been disgusted with myself, judging harshly: Same old patterns, same old complaints, same old, same old. This time I’m looking back on my life systematically with a different lens: the lens of compassion, which I’ve never used before.
‘How was it for younger Rita?’ Can I offer her kindness instead of judgment? Can I bring curiosity to reading these journals, to see what she might have been going through, get a healthier perspective on the conditions around her, and bring a sense of acceptance, equanimity, even gratitude, to the life I’ve lived so far?
I’ve found some tragically silly little love poems. I’ve read of my aspiration to be loving and kind repeatedly, yet also how I remained in vicious and constant judgement of others. I’ve recognized my tendencies of projection, labeling, exaggeration, and many more afflictions that mindfulness practice diminishes with awareness. I’ve seen myself back then from morning to night, bouncing from absolute giddiness to utter despair, from feeling really good about myself because some boy thought I was cute, to feeling worthless, to feeling high as a kite because of some fun party I went to or ice skating or a kiss, to feeling total confusion and contempt. External influences, mostly boys, swung me from one extreme to another emotionally with zero equanimity, though there were occasional insightful moments of awareness. I now recognize this as the condition of adolescence, puberty, being a hormone-addled teenager; I see my past self with tenderness instead of scorn, and see all teenagers now with compassion.
I’ve come across a few striking instances that illustrate the malleable nature of memory. I was stunned to read that I got the part of the pregnant girl in the local TV station PSA in sophomore year. All I’ve remembered for as long as I can remember was the humiliation of the audition. I sat in an empty classroom with my head on my arms pretending to cry. The scout team wanted actual tears. I went to great lengths to generate tears, pinching myself, recalling my cat’s death, even asking for a slice of raw onion from the cafeteria and breaking that up under my face. I didn’t get the part. Shame. Yet in my journal, I read that I got the part! I got my current crush to play my boyfriend, kids in the halls called me ‘movie star’ for weeks afterward, and I felt respected by the cool kids for awhile. Why did I take away, or reconstruct, a memory of failure?
I’ve been surprised also that through those years I found three instances where I describe almost verbatim a terrible pit in my stomach, a gnawing emptiness, a burning hole in my gut, clearly physical. What was that about?
One thing that helps us cultivate equanimity and also feeds equanimity is this idea of perspective, and the more we can exercise a flexible open mind, the more we gain a broader, more open-hearted perspective. Now, as I’m learning about the influences of being raised by immature parents, of growing up in a home with constant bickering, a father who was power hungry and a broken-hearted mother, and nervous system development, I have a lot more perspective. I’ve already found some closure, some resolution, some equanimity and compassion with who I was then. I just wanted to be seen and loved.
There are those whose opinions differ, but it seems painfully clear that the human species over the past 400 years or perhaps our entire evolution has set in motion the collapse of our planetary systems. Climate collapse is a no-brainer. I live in the US west where for the past decade average temperatures have been rising in all seasons, and concurrently wildfire season has grown from a few months in late summer to encompass more than half the year. There is really no time of year, where I live, that a random lightning strike couldn’t provoke a cataclysmic fire, except a few months in deep winter if there is adequate snow cover, which is no longer guaranteed.
The Gold Mountain fire 60 miles south of here that burned 38,000 acres, now they’re having flash floods as a result of the monsoon storms coming through and washing down the burnt bare hillsides, carrying rocks and mud and wiping away houses at the bottom that survived the fire. The Elk fire just a few miles east of that continues to grow, making it unhealthy or impossible to spend time outside. Spokane, Canada, Oregon, France, Spain, whoever is next… The planet is burning.
The planet is burning because of people’s choices. It’s largely been the choices of people in power in corporations and in certain countries. It’s systemic. We can’t solve this individually. They led us to believe that recycling would fix it, that solar panels would fix it. None of those things ever worked because they were intentionally deluding us all along, and we were letting ourselves be deluded. Meanwhile, they can’t quit blowing shit up.
Seeing reality clearly, can we acknowledge that this is a really hard time? The planet is burning. Cultural collapse seems imminent as evidenced in the decline in reading, the inability of younger generations to write in cursive, and measurably shorter attention spans in students. Loss of human contact is prevalent in the ascendance of AI, in the proliferation of self-checkout, in the tacit permission to be cruel in online trolling, in person now, and in our institutions. Loneliness is pandemic. Societal collapse is underway and all you need do to see it is look around you. These days I experience more and more moments where I feel compassion for the tragedy of the human condition rather than anger and resistance to the way we are as a species. What a seething mass of parasites we are on this planet, and the sad part is — we simply couldn’t help it.
Yes, it’s true that at other times in human history, in other parts of the world, there have been civilization collapses and ecological collapses, and it’s also true that there are many good people around the globe working hard in many ways to stem the tide, to improve conditions in very many ways. But this current poly-crisis planetary collapse is different in scale and in momentum.
How do we live in such a world? How do we bring equanimity, compassion, and kindness out into the world? It doesn’t hurt to start with a healthy comparison of myself with those suffering worse than I, like climate refugees, brutalized immigrants, all manner of oppressed people from BIPOC to trans and queer people to people living in poverty or without homes. This leads to a healthy appreciation of the current conditions of my life, despite its challenges. Next, remember to be kind. “It’s so easy to be nice,” said my friend Kathleen as we discussed this the other day. Why expend the energy to be hateful?
It is hard to have equanimity in this time that we find ourselves. It takes conscious effort. It takes intention, and it takes choosing where we place our attention. And this is why these four heart qualities, the Four Boundless Attitudes of Equanimity, Compassion, Kindness, and Appreciative Joy, are so important: because life on earth is just gonna get harder. The more we can find peace, equanimity, compassion, and wisdom in ourselves, the more we can be islands of strength and resilience in our lives and for the people around us. And then we can turn our strengths into actions in our groups and our communities, and make our voices heard, and vote right.
We can do all those things and more; but can we also practice equanimity in this very dicey time? Well, what are our options? We can suffer and be miserable and be scared, and every emotion is contagious. So if we are going around angry and scared, we’re gonna make other people angry and scared. If we can have even moments of peace in any situation, we can share that peace. We can calm and soothe others.
We find this capacity in ourselves through our mindfulness practice, and in whatever spiritual grounding we each have. We find equanimity not only internally, but also in the groups of people where we can share in this ‘seeing reality clearly,’ share our broken hearts, share the anger and fear, and share the commitment and the intention to keep practicing. Keep practicing.
I don’t expect to die any time soon, but … death is certain, time of death uncertain. In the past year I’ve experienced an unusual number of health challenges, some of which can be managed with medications or lifestyle adjustments, and the rest I can adapt to. These actually started piling on after I set the intention to prepare to die, and for awhile they eclipsed that aspiration. Now as I’ve tamed some of them, they serve as motivation to accelerate my preparation.
There are so many things I’ve left undone in my life, and it’s winding down. At best I’ll have another twenty or so productive years. At worst, I could go tomorrow. If I only get a few good years before my lungs are too compromised to remain at this elevation, I’d like to at least finish some of the domestic projects here at Mirador, like the series of five quilted, tropical-themed warm-window drapes begun twenty years ago to keep the sunroom warmer in winter, and now more essential to keep it cooler in climate-intensified summer heat.
That’s just one of dozens of undone creative projects. Not to mention PG&D: personal growth and development. I’m finally acknowledging that being raised by parents with narrow, rigid minds, functional alcoholics who were exemplary products of the military-industrial colonization culture, wasn’t just a mismatch for my sensitive temperament, it was a constant low-grade trauma to my nervous system. As a result, there’s a lot of healing to do before I die, so that I can live more fully in alignment with my values, bring more meaning to this fleeting existence, in the time left to me. I’m on the right track. In some ways I’ve always been on the right track. Because it’s always been the path that has opened before me, each remarkable step of the way. Now, navigating that path involves withdrawing some of my externally-oriented energies and turning inward even more deeply.
So, this is the last episode of this podcast for the foreseeable future. Mirador Eco-retreat is essentially a single-person business without much capital, and I can no longer afford to produce a podcast. The cost isn’t sustainable either financially or energetically. Thank you for listening, and I hope that you have derived some benefit from the lessons and meditations I’ve shared over the past four years. You can support my ongoing mindfulness work or join the Suffer Less with Mindfulness virtual sangha at this membership page: miradorecoretreat.org.
I’ve been delighted and horrified and everything in between as I read through my journals from the first one I started writing when I was fifteen. So far I’m up to age twenty-two, and reacquainting myself with me during those seven years a key finding is how unreliable my memory is. It’s comforting to know from memory science that it’s not just mine. Studies indicate that each time we recall a memory we overlay it with something of our current conditions, gradually shaping and shifting it into something that can be very different from the actual situation we think we remember. The journals are a gift as I unpack this phenomenon. I have written proof that I did not, in fact, do something that I years later memory-guilted myself over doing.
I was raised by republicans in the suburbs of DC and didn’t know any better. That’s my excuse for what my friend Wayne and I planned when candidate Jimmy Carter came to town. I was editor of the school newspaper, he was photo editor. We pinned Gerald Ford buttons inside our blazer lapels, and intended to flash them at Carter from our place in the front row as he came along greeting people.
I think of his smile now, which must have dazzled us back then but I don’t remember that. Some years after his legacy of compassionate integrity was cemented, I recalled with shame that youthful prank. It haunted me from time to time, popping up out of the blue when I heard his name as he built Habitat houses, unobtrusively and tirelessly worked for world peace, modeled a healthy marriage, and so much more. Imagine my delight to read that though we had intended to do it, we had restrained ourselves! I misremembered, colored my recollection of the event over time with the dark brush of the inner critic, the habit of creeping negativity bias.
It was a good week in the sandwich department. This one included farmstand tomato, smoked Gouda, refrigerator pickles, and pickled red onions. Dinners were also nourishing, which doesn’t happen every day. I got another three meals from the Aphid Kale, cutting the heat by serving with fried leftover parmesan-polenta, with or without cheese.
I notice ‘negativity bias’ more clearly in reviewing my life than I do in the present moment. It’s become habitual. Negativity bias is an evolutionary adaptation for survival which seems to make danger and aversion create stronger memories than pleasure. But we rarely need the protection from predators now as when we emerged from the forests onto the open plains, and most foods at our disposal we already know aren’t going to poison us. (Most, depending on where you get them.) I look forward to trying this malabar spinach when it grows a bit bigger, and thanks to Garden Buddy for the seeds of this edible leafy vine.
If this shift toward memory loss with aging is built in by evolution (and I’m not saying it is but these new studies may suggest it), then maybe it’s not all bad. Maybe it’s only our Type A-Grasping-Doing culture that sees forgetting with age as a flaw. Personally I’m thankful for some memory loss. Life gets easier with just a little bit of a blur. I’ve forgotten a lot of good things and people from my life, but as I age I am forgetting more and faster the unhappy, prickly, afflictive things that happen, and have happened. I used to be the queen of grudges, and I’m softer now. It could be that forgetting some things with age allows us to open in other ways, to become more compassionate and wise.
The week’s good sandwiches have also included tuna fish. ‘Tuna fish’, thinking about that redundant name, short for tuna fish salad, but why not just ‘tuna sandwich’? Because it could be confused with tuna prepared some other way than the standard mayo mush? I love it with celery, red onion, mayo, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, Penzeys Wauwatosa Village seasoning, and some pickle relish. It’s an infinitely versatile staple, and now that I’ve found Thrive Market sustainably caught skipjack tuna, I indulge in a couple of cans a month and get three servings per can. Next week I plan to branch out from the humble tuna fish sandwich to try a Gourmet tuna-noodle casserole. I used to love tuna fish casserole growing up (no, haven’t found it referred to yet in the journals) but it always seemed to suffer from an unjust stigma as ‘cheap’ food. I don’t remember the last time I had a good tuna fish casserole.
It’s been a joy to be able to eat outside again now that the smoke has dissipated, the nearby fires are largely under control, and it’s cooler than 98 degrees in the shade. We’re getting to enjoy sitting by the pond at either end of the day again, and sometimes even catch the lilies as they open. The summer chugs on by with its highs and lows, its holdings and releasings, and I’m grateful for awareness of Impermanence: When we’re in the midst of scalding, desiccating heat and my lungs burn with every breath, it can be hard to remember that this too shall pass. Whatever comes next, it won’t be like this someday. At least for awhile.
These two are not kissing. It’s a rare moment of domestic bliss when I can get them both in the same frame so I take it when I can get it. Wren is in her thunder shirt, which she half thinks brings the thunder but she actually does freak out a bit less if I can get it on her before a storm. This article on ‘The Death of the Kiss‘ makes me grateful I got so much kissing in as a youth. So much kissing! I don’t remember half the boys I kissed in high school but I’m glad I mentioned them in those journals. And oh, the giddiness of kissing. No wonder my mother called me “boy crazy” more than once. I’m surprised, too, by how little supervision I must have actually had, even though it felt oppressive at the time and created a crippling adult aversion to being scrutinized. I kissed a lot of men after high school, too, but it’s been a long time since I’ve experienced that particularly blissful physical surrender, since well before Covid. I wonder if the Covid Shift away from proximity and contact led to this tragic reported youthful self-consciousness, aversion to, and denial of the pleasures of kissing.
Everyone I know is grateful this week for cooler temperatures and more humidity. From Wednesday morning humidity in the single digits it was up to 42 by midday and 80 by evening. It never quite rained until after dark, but brought soothing clouds and a strong breeze. The house cooled down enough to finally bake granola, one of my favorite all-purpose anytime foods to keep on hand. So simple, so delicious!
I used a cup of raw pecans which I toasted with the oats and dressing to bake, then added a half cup each of roasted-salted pepitas and mini-chocolate chips, and even more craisins on top after the grain cooled. It was so satisfying to break up the sheet of toasted oats and crumble everything together before scooping it all into a half-gallon mason jar. In the morning, with a big dollop of Greek yogurt and a splash of organic milk I started the day right.
But before breakfast, the morning too cool and dewy to resist, Wren and I walked to the rim for the first time in more than a month. Piñon needles and juniper leaves sparkled with raindrops and the sagebrush smelled crisp and medicinal.
I practiced a lot of deep breathing at stops along the trail, and also while walking. I’ve been practicing several techniques to open my lungs, along with using the new COPD inhaler twice a day. But yesterday I may have ended up with too much of a good thing.
Lots of exercise, lots of deep breathing, lots of energy. I was also halfway through a ten day course of prednisone to finally knock out once and for all this ear condition that’s plagued me since March. I was warned that the prednisone might give me jitters like too much caffeine, and I was feeling some of that, but was more than compensated by feeling so much better than I have in over a year in so many other ways. No more mouth-face-ear-jaw pain, plenty of motivation and stamina, and a sense of awakening. That movie came to mind, a miracle drug drawing me out of a deep haze. I enjoyed a mindful supper on the patio, not a book in sight, just dinner with the hummingbirds, and a half-glass of wine mixed with cold sparkling water.
Another cool evening, another oven bake, this time a recipe off a King Arthur flour bag for Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars. I blame Philip for everything that happened afterward. Not saying any of it was his fault, just that I blame him. I wanted a special trade for him when he brought me groceries today and he loves this brownie-blondie kind of treat. Timing was perfect, baked to perfection early enough to let the house cool again before bedtime, and the bars cool overnight before cutting. “You might initially think these bars are underbaked, but once you let them cool completely (overnight is best), they’re wonderfully chewy and moist.” So concludes the recipe. About ten o’clock I took the last activated charcoal capsule in my dental-mercury-cleanse protocol. They’re big and hard to swallow, so I cut off a little corner of the cookie bars to help wash it down.
Within minutes, as I watched TV and knitted, my heart started racing. I wasn’t worried, considering all the aforementioned conditions. But it went on. So I made a cup of chamomile-mint tea, and sipping that over the next hour failed to settle it. I checked in with my pulse oximeter to see just how fast my heart was racing, and was not surprised to see it peaking around 142 bpm. What shocked me was that it skittered rapidly up and down, bottoming out occasionally at 48. Then I got a little worried. I checked it a couple more times over the next half hour, before deciding I should just go to bed. But I thought of Philip saying how he always checks out medical stuff with AI, and thought, Why not? Maybe it’s something serious since it’s not stopping. AI advised me to immediately go to the hospital. I was grateful for the equanimity that comes of practice. I didn’t panic, I calmly called 911 and told the calm, kind dispatcher “the nature of” my emergency. He sent an ambulance to check me out.
It took about half an hour. Waiting, I calmly put on more clothes than I’d been wearing, and settled Wren in her little nest in the laundry nook since dispatch had asked me to shut any pets in another room. But they didn’t even come in. I met them outside and they kindly took me into their tiny space, hooked me up, spoke calmly, did the things. A few minutes in another EMT arrived, a few questions later, they let me go. My heart was fine, BP a little high, pulse a little high but regular. I had already felt much better by the time they arrived than I had for the two hours before they came. Wren was a mess when I got in. She’d shredded the lower rubber door jamb and was bouncing off the door when I opened it. I cuddled and consoled her, swept up the mess, and calmly we wandered up to bed. I lay still, spent but not sleepy, meditated for half an hour, and eventually drifted off, floating on awareness of gratitude for Christopher, Caden, and the third EMT whose name I didn’t catch, compassionate volunteers who showed up to reassure me at midnight. Christopher explained the form I signed this way: “You’re saying you’ve refused transport to the hospital, but you’re also promising that if anything happens after we leave you’ll call again, any time. We’re here for you, and there’s no charge for us to come out, it doesn’t cost you a thing.”
Causes and conditions. Everything is causes and conditions that arise, come together, and change. Nothing ever remains the same, whether we want it to or not. I woke well rested and sublimely grateful for a new day in which to start living all over again. I confess that I took it easier today, practicing moderation in all things. I’ll finish off the prednisone but hold off on the inhaler which also contains a steroid until I’m not double dosing. I trained my energy on some light housecleaning instead of a brisk hike. Lunch was a simple plate with pickles, tomatoes, and a piece of toast lightly spread with a quick fromage fort I whipped up with four different cheese ends, garlic, salt&pepper, and a splash of dry vermouth. I had to get back on the horse, so for dessert I ate a small cookie bar just so I wouldn’t be afraid of them. Hours later and I’m feeling fine, kind of like a fever broke: calm, steady, good O2 saturation, a steady pulse, and a distinct pleasure in simply being alive.
I don’t know if that’s how you say “with aphids” in French, but it feels like it should be (except for the accent over the a, but it was all my keyboard offered). My kale was looking bushy but small, growing again after a summer lapse, and I thought it was insufficient water stunting it. I cut it all this morning down to an inch, and as I gathered it into the basket I realized it was completely infested with aphids. So I put it through four soaks and rinses, and cooked it down tonight. I got most of the aphids off, but I’m sure I ate a little extra protein for dinner.
The onions are coming in, smaller than I’d anticipated but every set I planted grew at least a little. The yellow onions are smallest, red next in size, and some of the white onions look almost as good as store-bought–and I know they’re clean. I sautéed the last grocery store onion half, and one small yellow from the garden, a homegrown shallot and garlic, with some dried herbs I’d harvested, and then threw in a little curry powder.
I almost forgot the ends of the sandwich tomatoes from the farm store, splashed in some red wine I chose to indulge in while cooking, and then added and tasted til I had it just right: salt, lemon, a dollop of maple syrup to counter the excess salt, a little more lemon juice, more curry powder, but it was still bland. So, a pinch of garam masala, a swipe of cumin, and because I have it and hadn’t tried it, a generous pinch of galangal, which I think perfected the dish, though it was hotter than I expected. As I played with my food, I kept muttering salt, fat, acid, heat, salt, fat, acid, heat. Samin would have appreciated my open-handed light-hearted approach.
My beautiful garlic harvest, probably the most successful crop of the season.
I’m so grateful for the cool, smoke-free evening that enabled me to eat outside as it cooled down with a clear breeze. I opened the house up before taking supper out, and when I came in after sunset it’s a very comfortable 80℉ and cooling. I could not have cooked this evening if it hadn’t been clear outside. The Elk fire got a little rain which tamed some of the blazes, and the wind is coming from the opposite direction, and our forecast for the next couple of weeks is cooler with a chance of precipitation, so I’m hopeful for a breather.
It’s the first morning in awhile that I’ve been able to enjoy coffee at the pond, and appreciate Wren’s concentration meditation. I don’t know how long she stared at the frog hidden in the rushes. I could breathe freely for the first time in over a month, between the clean air and an inhaler I’ve been using for a week. I could smell the moisture in the air as I sat by the pond, enjoying breathing deeply. I’m grateful for this especially easy day, wrapped up before dinner with our Grateful Gathering, seven of us from around the country, talking vulnerably and honestly about aging, discussing the wonderful resources provided by grateful.org, including this provocative video on staying young at heart.
A rare morning rainbow in the western sky last week.
With its apparent resilience, the monarch butterfly provides another apt metaphor. After a precipitous decline in population and a decades-long international collaboration to save the species, monarch numbers have increased in the past few years. They’ve followed more or less the same migratory pathways for 20 millennia, the science of tracking and protecting them has been going on for .0025% of that time by my calculation, and they could go extinct in the next fifty years.
I’m grateful that I got to visit Rosario in the late 80s as a guest of a research team under the direction of Dr. Lincoln Brower. The sanctuary had just been designated. During my week at the field camp, the weather was unseasonably cold and the last few days were blanketed in a rare snow. We drove down from the mountaintop to El Rosario and walked the dusty paths, but even there the monarchs were largely dormant. Nevertheless, I remember the miracle of being among their stunning multitude. I’m grateful they seem to be adapting to habitat loss.
But if we as a species don’t slam the brakes on climate chaos, those amazing butterflies don’t stand a chance. The world has “junked 45 climate pledges.” Under the current US regime, public lands including irreplaceable wilderness and cultural sites are being torn open to fossil fuel extraction. This is unconscionable. Killing two birds with one stone and the planet in the mix, destroying our public lands protected by our tax dollars for their value to our American lives, AND accelerating the climate catastrophe. We stand to lose not only the butterflies, but so many other natural wonders and cultural treasures. Call your representatives now.
As a society, we’re going to need all the resilience we can cultivate, given the insidious influences trying to shape the way we think, feel, and interact with our world. The Patriarchy may be in its death throes but it’s pulled out all the stops, as this insightful piece from The Atlantic illustrates. Can we support the men in our lives, young or old, in resisting this toxic masculinity scam? Can we help each other see reality clearly? Your wellbeing and happiness depend upon my wellbeing and happiness, as mine depend upon yours. We are interdependent. Can we hold on to this certainty in some way as nefarious forces continue trying to fracture us, both individually and collectively? Daily mindfulness practice helps me feel more resilient.
Doing my best most days to eat in a way that supports my health, I made a delicious golden mushroom soup last week, with portobellos, orzo, turmeric, and turkey stock. And a pat of butter, per the recipe.
And it’s not just the natural world this Republican regime is assaulting. Our health as individuals, communities, and a nation is at risk from the boneheads in charge of public health. This 23 minute talk Joyce Vance had with Dr. Vin Gupta lays out the threats pretty clearly, and offers us some resources since we can no longer count on the government websites to provide science.
The once bountiful garden is struggling with the heat, though it’s still providing about as many leafy greens as I can stomach. The ‘Mickey Maters’ started from Dog World seeds are not thriving. I don’t think they’re meant to be quite this small. I’m grateful for the few strawberries that have survived the chipmunks.
A friend brought me a nice organic zucchini a couple weeks ago, and the only thing I wanted to do with it was try again to make zucchini fries. This time I used a batter recipe Amy had sent, since the last time it was too thick and took so long to fry to golden that the zukes were just utter mush.
With this tempura-like batter they fried quickly and remained beautifully firm, almost crunchy. Maybe next time, with the oil a little hotter, they’ll do even better. It’s a great way to get a fried fix. For sauce this time, nothing fancy, just mayo, mustard, a squeeze of tomato paste because I had no ketchup, and a spoonful of sweet pickle relish.
Morning at the Bombay Wall. I did NOT empty all these bottles by myself, it was a community effort over two decades. They were just too pretty to throw away.
Speaking of blue beauty, the lazuli bunting has been a regular at the feeder and I was happy to get some good shots. I thought at first glance that he was wet from a rare rain, but on closer inspection recognized the tips of new feathers all over his head. He didn’t show up while he was molting—it might have alarmed me to see a bald-headed bunting, but I’d have remembered what I learned when Cousin Mel had a bald cardinal at her feeder. It’s not unusual to see bald songbirds occasionally during molting season.
This is my first ever journal, covering the last six weeks of freshman high school through the summer and the first few months of sophomore year. As part of my preparing-to-die work (no rush, don’t worry, just want to leave a little less stuff for others to deal with whenever it does happen) I’ve gathered all my old journals and am reading them in order, with several goals. One is to review my life with compassion for a change. Oh! The Drama! Also some good insights: I was more resilient then than I remember. And some perspective: Doodles and I pooled our money after a bike ride to town, and had to choose between buying a coke or a slurpee with our 16 cents!
Back then, I was only dimly aware of worldly concerns, but I do remember thinking that the grownups would save the ozone layer and solve global warming and tighten the growing income gap, so I ignored all those things for a few decades. Turns out, they all just kept getting worse.
Thanks to an infusion of new sourdough starter from the Bad Dogs, I got a proper rise to my boule last week.
Also in baking news, it was time for another birthday cake. I chose for Rosie a 7-Up cake, a retro Southern recipe which uses the lemon-lime pop as both liquid and leavening. The flavor is enhanced with lime zest and juice, but my limes were not organic and I won’t zest sprayed fruit. So I used lemons instead. It calls for a lemon glaze, but I knew she likes frosting so I made a lemon cream cheese buttercream—yum! I also tried to candy lemon slices for decoration, but I lost track of the process (twice!) resulting in a burnt mess. Oh well. I’ll try again some day.
Coffee at the pond this morning with a gentle doe.
Wren (like all my dogs) has always gotten last bite of everything I eat. I’ve found only a few things she won’t eat: raw celery, zucchini, and mushrooms. The other day I thought to offer her a spoonful of cinnamon foam after I finished my latté. She was so excited to try it! And she loved it, so now it’s another regular last bite treat.
Just a shout out to the Crawford Volunteer Fire Department: There was a spine jolting lightning strike in the neighborhood this evening. The ‘brave fire laddies’ (as the Colonel used to say) (and lassies, which he never said) were out in several vehicles in no time. I don’t know if there was a fire they put out, but they apparently patrolled the area for the duration of the dry lightning storm.
Our What’s App fire watch group responded to the strike over the next hour with observations from various perspectives. Some could track the patrol vehicles from their vantage points, at least one scouted the woods, one smelled smoke briefly, and I climbed the tower with binoculars. I know at least one person will sleep easier tonight for our community’s vigilance. I’m very grateful.
Sunset beyond the Grand Mesa last week, as smoke began to decrease here.
I’m grateful today that wildfire smoke in my little corner of the world has diminished, but watch with compassion and horror as Canada’s boreal forests burn out of control again this summer in climate chaos exacerbated wildfires, and thick smoke blankets southeastern Canada and the northeastern and mid-Atlantic US. There’s a great graphic in this Guardian article. The good news is that it’s likely to improve by Sunday in time for the World Cup final in New Jersey. Even better, the president told Canada it has to stop!
Sunrise through wildfire smoke beyond the Iwo Jima memorial outside Washington, D.C. That bird!from The Atlantic, Finn Gomez / Getty
“A 2024 study published in Science found that carbon emissions from wildfires had increased by 60 percent in the prior two decades. Fires in boreal forests such as Canada’s were the main reason. Another study, published in Nature, found that Canadian wildfires in 2023, when more than 43 million acres burned, generated more emissions than the burning of fossil fuels in all but the three most-polluting countries.”
I could do tonglen all day long for just the wildlife alone killed and displaced by these mega-fires. And how do we cope with the grief of losing so much of the natural, wild world to greed-induced climate chaos? Not well, it turns out. In modern western culture, we don’t even know how to mourn the deaths of beloved individuals very well, but even so we do it better than we grieve the death of nature. Our nervous systems weren’t designed (read, ‘evolved’) for the constant stress, duress, and distress that persistent grief over the degradation of our planet stirs in many of us. One Buddhist offers the model of palliative care to help us be with our planetary grief.
A friend shared this creative, low-impact alternative to July 4th fireworks: the photographer and friends used bubble blasters to celebrate–or is this AI? credit@luckyclover.5280
… Some Say in Ice
Meanwhile, the Colorado Sun sheds light on the true consequences across the state of last April’s catastrophic freeze in the North Fork Valley. After some reports recanted original estimates, it turns out the initial impression of 100% fruit loss was accurate. Fruitgrowers and related businesses that rely on harvests and fruit tourism have had to get creative this summer to stay afloat and support just some of their employees. Vendors and distributors across the state who rely on North Fork fruit, roughly 10% of Colorado’s harvest and most of its organic fruit, have also been hard hit.
Most of the fruit trees in the North Fork Valley, like my apricot, survived the freeze and have leafed out beautifully this summer without producing any fruit.
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Fire and Ice, Robert Frost
Some people’s worlds have already ended in ICE. Congress failed Americans again by authorizing another $70B last month for DHA, apparently giving ICE license to kill again. Speaking of corruption and perversion, Penzeys is having a great sale right now on all spices beginning with the letters E,P,S,T,E,I,N: the sale code for checkout is FILES. Whatever happened to those files, anyway? As always, action is the antidote to anxiety. If ICE horrifies you, or the Epstein Files upset you, find your local grassroots activists and join them in peaceful protests, get out the vote efforts, and the camaraderie of shared purpose.
I’m grateful for leftovers for lunch all this week, after a delightful fly-by visit last weekend from old dear friends Ed and Gabrielle, globe-trotting, super-computing astrophysicists from Wyoming. They picked up some fresh vegetables from the smoky Ridgway farmers’ market on their way here from New Mexico, and I made big batches of potato salad and three-bean salad. Smoke was light, and Wren gave them each kisses of approval.
Keeping cooking and baking to a minimum this week with continuing temperatures in the mid- to high nineties, I did use the skillet to cook up a mess of garden greens decorated with the second and final green pea harvest–what am I doing wrong? This morning I baked a loaf of sourdough early because I’ve missed having bread. I’m grateful for doing something right.
I’m grateful I can do some little things for some little people to make this hard life in a world in upheaval a little easier. This white-breasted nuthatch figured out a few weeks ago to drink from the ant moat above the hummingbird feeder. Soon I noticed other birds drinking from them as well, scrub jays, house finches, a Bullock’s oriole. Now I fill the ant guards with water more often than I fill the feeders with nectar.
All the grey flames on the map are a gratifying indication that many of the fires of the past weeks are essentially out. Colorado remains the epicenter, and some are horrifically huge. A couple of friends have asked me, “Why don’t you move?” I told that to Garden Buddy, and she replied, “No—-! Where would we go????”My thoughts exactly. Fortunately, after dense smoke for days, the winds shifted late this afternoon and I was able spend a little time in the yarden, and to harvest my blueberry crop.
The yield was a satisfying 200% larger than last year’s. The half that I enjoyed was very sweet and perfectly ripe. Though reluctant at first because it was so tiny she didn’t recognize it as a blueberry, Wren ultimately enjoyed her half.
Kathleen shared this amazing photo she took while cleaning her outside windowsills in Florida. It’s a mama scorpion carrying its live-birthed babies with the adorable name of scorplings. I’ve bookmarked the word to use in Scrabble.
Speaking of adorable, this grebe family is a photo Audubon Society shared on Instagram, and I still can’t get over the faces of those little piggy-backed chicks. Their Pa is feeding one of them a feather, which helps with their digestion.
My digestion was helped over the holiday with a red, white, and blue French toast bowl, using up the heel of the latest sourdough boule.
Some flowers I’ve tried and failed to cultivate several times are enjoying some semblance of success, including these sweetpeas that the Bad Dog boss started from seed and shared with me. May they survive the summer, overwinter well, and climb the fence next year.
Zoom Cooking With Amy on the 4th resulted in one of the most delicious meals ever, a simple caramelized onion pasta. We both used thin spaghetti, and Vidalia onions, which were more teary than I expected, but also sweeter after half an hour simmering on medium heat in olive oil and butter. Once the onions were done, we tossed in chopped garlic for a minute, then the cooked pasta, and alternately stirred in pasta water and grated Parmesan until a glossy sauce came together. The flavor was amazing with an unexpected quality of juiciness. The last of the leftovers held this quality through lunch today.
Even after intense mindfulness practice for more than five years (or maybe because of it) I feel like I’m just now learning to really listen.
A week ago wildfires started in Colorado. Off and on, the mountains to the east are entirely obscured by smoke from the convergence of wind currents blowing through the Gold Mountain fire to the south the Snyder fire northwest on the border with Utah. Grand Mesa to the north is also occasionally invisible, and the sun is a red disk setting.
At times the smoke is mild, reminiscent of a campfire at a site across the campground, only pervasive and persistent, not wafting and shifting. Other times it’s an acrid stench that stuns my lungs. I’m grateful the fires aren’t closer, grateful I’m still safe at home, still breathing.
The Air Quality Index has been fluctuating between the 50s on the best nights to as high as 185. During the day it’s been hovering around 90 give or take a dozen, depending on how the winds have been blowing the previous hour. I wear a dampened mask to go outside and fill bird feeders, shift hoses in the yarden. The poor little birds! Especially the hummingbirds with their tiny lungs and extravagant heartrates.
Unretouched photo of a sagebrush glowing at sunset.Smoke billows a few days ago from the Gold Mountain fire roughly 60 crow miles south of us.
This evening the West Elk mountains are under deep chiarascuro. It changes hour by hour, more or less dense, wind dependent. The good news is that the Snyder fire seems to have stalled at 30,000 acres and is now 95% contained per Watch Duty.
Last night’s moonrise
The bad news is, the Gold Mountain fire just north of Ouray has grown to 25,000 acres in six days. The 2500-acre Willow fire in the mountains above Aspen forced evacuation of an Outward Bound base camp where a friend’s son lives. He remains up in the mountains on an extended backpack with a group of teens and may not even know of the fire. Friends of a friend lost everything the other day in the explosive Aspen Acres fire southwest of Pueblo including their pets, and barely escaped alive. More than 11,000 humans have been displaced from that fire alone as of tonight. Hundreds of structures have burned. Fairgrounds around the state are open to house large animals evacuated from the paths of various wildfires.
Current Watch Duty map, at 9:21 pm MT July 3.
And there are a few more wildfires in Colorado. A week ago, there were none. Multiply every human that’s affected by these fires by pick-a-number, and guess how many other sentient beings have been killed or displaced. Most of these fires will be found to have been started by human activity, whether accidental or malicious. All of them are raging as wildly as they are because of human-caused climate chaos. Tomorrow will likely bring more fires across the region from idiots shooting off fireworks despite fire bans. Climate ignorance pervading the political sphere has only and will only exacerbate the threats to all beings.
And even in the midst of smoke and rage I’m doing my best to calm down and eat well. Here’s a creamy potato-cheddar soup I had for lunch the other day.
I’m furious about human stupidity. I’m grateful for the courageous individuals and teams who do their best to mitigate these disastrous consequences, from the local, state, and federal firefighters on the ground to the fired federal employees who got together to resurrect the Strump-shuttered climate.gov with a new website, climate.us, and everyone in between.
I’m gratified to see the desert willow in full gorgeous bloom just a few years after a freeze so hard I thought it was dead.
I’m grateful once again for Alexandra Petri, who writes about MAHA day at the Great American State Fair, an event which I’ve been only peripherally aware of with my limited intake of current events and what passes for news. I giggled all the way through, from her description of the Screamin’ Freedom energy drink to her interaction with a featured ‘legacy’ speaker who urged her to go topless. If you don’t laugh sometimes you’ll just cry.
Even though Amy and I swore off Instagram recipes, we both can’t stop. The other day I tried the rice-waffle with some leftover rice, mixed with a little rice vinegar and sesame oil. I used too much liquid since I fudged the recipe with only enough rice for one cake. It took forever to crisp up and didn’t hold together well, but it was tasty and fun enough that I’ll try it again with proper proportions. They topped theirs with sushi elements, but I just made an Asian tunafish salad based on this recipe with what I had on hand.
Also doing my best to savor the moments I’m able to be outside. The temperature this fiery week has been lovely, it’s just been too smoky to enjoy it except in small sweet snatches.
And when we can’t be outside, we make the most of being inside.
