Rain Dries Mud
And other things to learn, eat, bake, appreciate, watch and listen to, from my February to yours.
Mud season is here early and that’s not a surprise because it’s been an unusually warm winter. When mud happens, the couple miles of dirt road that lead to our home turn into semifreddo. They become treacherous. Sliding off into ditches and getting stuck in deepening ruts happens to even the best of the locals. On our neighborhood listserv the other rainy day, someone asked if the roads had improved because of the rain. Huh? I had to look this one up. A Vermont source on the science of mud confirmed that it’s true. “Rain actually draws the frost out and doesn’t create mud…it’s weird but rain dries a muddy road.” Drive these roads only in your highest clearance vehicle until this too shall pass.
Meanwhile, here are a few things that I’m enjoying as I dig into some somatic practices to quiet the recoils of a triggered nervous system. If you too, or anyone you know suffers from trauma, the book The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk is like a lifeline - a science-based salve of insights and affirmations. You’re not alone.
Onward…
• Fire Dog Breads in Keene, NH is a bakery that’s a study in the simplest things like my new favorite, the bressane, a brioche bun topped with Swedish sugar and dotted with unsalted butter. Fire Dog bakes with regionally grown, whole-grain stone-ground flours. Online ordering opens at 4pm the day before.
• The documentary: Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song is currently showing on Netflix. It depicts this artist’s life intertwined with writing one song’s lyrics. I am left with wondering again; does a song (or any creative work) choose us or do we choose it?
• My Hallelujah is k.d. lang’s version on her record Hymns From the 49th Parallel which brings me to my knees every time. I think we need that sometimes. If you’re feeling it, give a listen to her live version from Tower of Song: A Memorial Tribute to Leonard Cohen.
• I’m baking these Pani Popo Samoan Coconut Buns on repeat. It’s another simple and reliable King Arthur recipe which works perfectly in a 9x13 pan. The dough is light, yeasty and quick-rise, baked in a coconut milk sauce that you can sweeten to taste. They’re as good as donuts, delicious warm out of the oven and still so for a day or two after. I use Ground Up Grain's AP flour.
• Cake. Meat. Tableware. It’s no wonder why I’m great admirer of artist Carrie Mae Smith whose solo exhibition Four Plates and Four Forks just opened at the Lowell Ryan Project in LA, a show that Art Forum deemed a #mustsee. Congratulations Dear Carrie!
• The Peecyclers of the Rich Earth Institute (REI) in Brattleboro, Vermont recently made it into the New York Times about composting human waste into a safe, nutritive, viable soil amendment. But when it comes down to it, it’s about local and state policies - who gets to compost their human waste, how, and then what. Watch REI’s Vermont Compost Toilet Legislation Webinar. It’s an informative 30 min. presentation/discussion whether you live in Vermont or not, and because we all pee and poop somewhere, our accumulation impacts the environment one way or the other.
• My nerves have been out of whack. Bad sleep, off-appetite, disorientation, habitual thinking and spiraling negative narratives, none of which are true but are nonetheless juicy and addictive. An early question I try to ask myself when I get triggered is: Am I in actual danger or am I just extremely uncomfortable? It helps quell the initial wildfire of fight, flight, freeze, fawn.
My digestive system, I’ve learned the hard way, is where my fear, rage, resentment and anxiety go to smolder when I don’t attend to them. But there’s reprieve in kindness towards self - as a human being work in progress, stumbling along like everyone else. Emotional weather reports and all, I’m learning to deal with my own sh*t and no longer drink alcohol to numb any of it out.
If just one iota of this sounds familiar and you want some ways to give yourself a break + be kind to yourself - check out this home-based advice from HealthLine.com. It’s been a help to me.
On this Sunday morning, I’m closing and opening by revisiting the On Being episode with Joanna Macy, a philosopher of ecology and Buddhist teacher. Her books include Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in Without Going Crazy.
Thanks for reading. I’m glad we’re here together.
~ ali
Lots of great stuff here Ali, thank you. And that gut! Why it insists on being the center of chaos I’ll never know!
Love hearing your thoughts, ideas, and good shares Ali. Appreciate having you in my life from afar all these years later, mother of men and sistah sagittarius xox