Fun Food

Frito pie, pigs in a blanket, green bean bacon wraps (with a brown sugar glaze!), Caramel Delite Girl Scout cookies, guacamole with pan-fried corn tortillas, hard ciders, kombucha and a sandwich cake. These are the indulgent components of a Super Bowl spread for two. I am not one of those two.

While I don’t care a whit about football, I do love an excuse for ritual around food and fellowship and the Super Bowl gives that gift to me each year. We always set aside the day for making some sort of indulgent meal full of what we call ‘fun food.’ Fun Food can be as simple as boxes from the freezer aisle (like frozen pizza for Benjamin and frozen gluten-free corndogs for me) or crockpot-pulled-pork nachos. It’s the kind of rich, indulgent fare that scratches the urge for junk food that we don’t usually make for ourselves.

Yesterday’s menu was decided on by Benjamin and his mom and shared between them. While they feasted on rich delicacies, I had to get creative about turning my regular fare into something a little more fun and exciting for the festive occasion. Since the end of June my digestive system’s been quite ill. With plenty of visits to the doctor over the course of 3 months, I got things stabilized by sticking to my prescribed diet, taking a few supplements as needed, and creating a rather extensive daily self-care routine. While it was harder to stick to specific parts of my diet and self-care once we hit the road, I modified things the best that I could to ensure I stayed on track. My goal was singular: to be healed enough to enjoy traditional Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners with family.

Thanksgiving went well, but Christmas (four of them) was much more indulgent and then my birthday followed just a week later. By the start of January my symptoms were returning. Stupidly, I stubbornly ignored them because I was in denial - naturally this only made things worse. In painful desperation I returned strictly to my prescribed diet two weeks ago and I haven’t looked back. Slowly I’m gaining ground, but it’s more of a lifestyle commitment than a quick fix and I absolutely can’t afford to make any compromises (the Denial ship has sailed and I am now fully on board with Acceptance of my situation!).

Still though, the ritual around fun food is a cherished one - so the question became ‘how can I make my prescribed diet feel more festive?’ Here’s what I can eat these days - for every lunch and dinner this is pretty much what I’ve eaten the last two weeks: baked fish, baked sweet potato, and this thing called ‘green composite’ in which I cook the heck out of leafy veggie greens for over an hour then puree them with a couple of other ingredients including a fresh, uncooked herbal kind of green. I use ghee and prescribed salt and herbs to season my food.

Another facet to my digestive woes is that I absolutely cannot go too long between meals under any circumstances or it will start to make me feel ill again. Luckily I’ve found that basic Lara bars (no chocolate) sit well enough with me if I eat them slowly. A bar can get me through an oncoming attack if I’m out running errands and can’t get a meal in my stomach right away. These days I don’t leave the house without a Lara Bar (or two) in my bag. The last component of my eating these days is almond milk. If I’m still feeling a little hungry after a snack, I’ll have a swig of unsweetened almond milk. It’s filling and it hasn’t upset my stomach.

So there was my challenge: how to make a festive, indulgent meal out of those items alone. I’m very pleased to say I totally pulled it off! I started by making a fresh green-composite. While I rotate my cooked veggie greens each time I make it, I’ve only found cilantro palatable for the fresh herbal green (parsley was just way too strong!). But there’s also delicious, tasty, beautiful basil. I love basil so much, I just don’t use it regularly because it’s so much more expensive than cilantro. But for a festive game-day meal, basil was the perfect indulgent component!

So with my fish, sweet-potato, and greens fortified with delicious basil I was left to solve the conundrum of drinks and dessert. For dessert I cut up the four Lara Bars that I can eat into small squares and heaped a bowl full of them. This allowed for the indulgence of a little something sweet, in tiny bite-sized pieces, with a mix of flavors (a surprise in every bite!) and I could just snack on a few (since I certainly didn’t need to eat a whole bar in addition to my meal). It worked out perfectly! It was also a dessert that others would enjoy. Contributing to the spread and sharing with others made me feel more like part of the party.

When we were traveling in southern California last November we pulled into a Whole Foods because I found myself in need of putting something in my stomach right away. While browsing for readymade food and drink that I could travel with I discovered individual-sized date-sweetened almond milk and I was filled with so much excitement and joy! When basically all I can drink is water, herbal tea, unsweetened almond milk, and aloe vera gel (and I’m so, so tired of water and herbal tea from drinking it so much) you can bet that finding a travel-sized serving of creamy almond milk that was made with legal ingredients was such an exciting highlight for me!

Yesterday, in a grocery store in west Texas, I walked by an end-cap full of kombucha and stopped to pick one out for Benjamin. There in the top, right corner was that same brand of Californian almond milk! I bought two of them and added them to my meal like I’d found the crowning glory to my festive feast (which, let’s be honest, I had).

After 6.5 hours of grocery shopping followed by crafting the festive contribution for others that was most certainly not on my diet, I heated up my fish and sweet-potatoes (baked the day before), added my fresh-made basil greens, chopped up my Lara Bars, and selected the most indulgent of the two almond milks and sat down to enjoy the final minutes of the football game.

I’m most delighted to say that I succeeded. The food was savory and delicious, the Lara Bars were a sweet treat, and the creamy golden almond milk was a chai-lover’s dream. I ate all the food on my plate, just a few of the Lara Bar pieces, and about 2/3 of the almond milk, and it all sat pretty decently in my tummy. Truly a massive success and one of which I’m most proud.

In the early weeks of January during my Denial period I kept eating the rich indulgent foods offered to me because I so badly wanted the delicious food and the fellowship that came with it. But it only made things worse. I’m much more satisfied by accepting the current situation and putting my creativity to the test to find a solution that makes me feel both indulgent and part of the fellowship all at the same time. As Benjamin often reminds me, ‘creativity likes constraints.’ It led me to a winning situation where my body, mind and heart were all nurtured and delighted.

The Stirring of Spring Yet to Come

Over the last year, I fell away from my spiritual practices. Anxiety, discouragement and disillusionment crafted a wedge to pull me away from people and practices that were once a source of light, strength and hope. This shadow phase did prove helpful in its own way (as shadow periods tend to do). It helped filter out voices that had grown too loud and influential in my life and got me back to the basic essentials for healthy spiritual practice.

But I sure have missed it - the introspection, celebration, and reflection that marks each seasonal turn of the year. Even the high holidays of Samhain and Yule went by last year with very little ritual, although I did find small ways to commemorate each day. Waking this morning on the eve of Imbolc, I felt the stirring of Spring yet to come. I felt a readiness to reconnect and root myself in spiritual practices again and I’m so grateful for it. My weariness is now replaced with hunger. I was weary and disillusioned with the [harmful] dismantling of systems and communities that I witnessed during the last year. Now I’m hungry to reconnect with the systems and communities who remain after the dismantling.

Several years ago when I first found this lovely, wandering path, I picked up the Llewellyn’s Sabbats Almanac to become better acquainted with each seasonal turn of the year. It was so helpful to me as I began to understand roots and contexts for observations, feelings and practices I’d long been observing already, some of them since childhood. After many months away from spiritual practice I find myself on the road, untethered from the ritual and routine that a home can provide. So once again I turned to the same book to help me step readily into the mindset of the season.

I’m grateful for books that I can download straight to my iPad and start reading right away, even as I’m far away from like-minded folk. I’m grateful that summarized compendiums such as these exist for beginners and regular spiritual practitioners alike. I’m grateful that my appetite for ritual and practice has returned, this time on more assured footing.

Because we are traveling tomorrow on Imbolc, I’m making the most of Imbolc Eve. I’m cleaning out the disorder from my current living space (a guest room) and wrapping up loose ends on some smaller unfinished projects to free up my energy for larger creative tasks that need my attention.

Tomorrow morning I’ll rise early for some straightening, ritual cleaning and small ceremony in our vehicle, our constant, homey companion over these last few months regardless of which guest rooms we frequent intermittently. I’m looking forward to spending that time with her and giving her that gift - she’s so much happier as a beloved, lived-in home than as only a vehicle for transport.

In addition to practical and ritual cleaning, I’m also letting go of unhealthy relationships and opening myself up to wholesome ones based on love, respect, acceptance and mutual trust. In all these ways I’m making way for the coming Spring - for light and life and growth. It feels good to be budding again.

Typewriters & Sleep-Wake Cycles

When night fell at the end of the day that I’d found Ollie I was much too excited to sleep. First, I couldn’t go to sleep because I was filled with ideas of essays to write about Maggie. Once I wrapped up all my writing and fell asleep in the wee hours of the morning, I couldn’t stay asleep because I was too excited to get up and playing with Ollie the next day. For those, and other reasons (we got up early one morning to look at Venus! She was gorgeous!), I kept having too many late nights and began running low on sleep that week.

A few nights later, Benjamin invited me to come to bed on time so I could catch up on some sleep - I dragged my feet, as is our usual routine. Then suddenly another typewriter essay came to mind that was insisting on being written. This made me quite eager to get into bed! Since we’ve been guests in others’ homes, I’ve been doing all of my writing late at night when the house is asleep and all is quiet and not distracting.

As he closed his book and turned out the light to go to sleep, he rolled over and gently encouraged me not to stay up too late. I told him I had writing to do! Instead, I ended up dawdling by reading all manner of things about typewriters online - a practice that’s become routine since we found Maggie at the end of November.

As I was putting all of my typewriter history questions to the internet and reading all sorts of interesting tidbits, it suddenly hit me: Benjamin said he’d do Maggie’s first photoshoot the next morning! Deciding I definitely wanted to be well-rested to enjoy the shoot to the maximum (brief though it would be), I went straight into business mode. I diligently set to the task of writing my latest essay so that I could get to bed, get good rest, and be ready to collaborate on Maggie’s photoshoot (I do so love being Benjamin’s photography assistant, regardless of the subject).

It amused me to realize that typewriters were both the reason I wasn’t sleeping (too excited! too much to read and learn! stories to write!) and also the only reason for putting myself to bed promptly to get good rest. In relaying this story to Benjamin the next morning, I let him know that typewriters have become a powerful motivator in my life right now, so if he needs anything done, all he has to do is tie it in with a typewriter somehow, and I’m on board!

A Reacquaintance

As Benjamin labored over Ollie at the little table in our guest room, I fell into a deep sleep before dinner. As I slept, the sun lowered behind the trees and the light grew dim outside our wall of windows. Benjamin abandoned his window-side post to seek the brighter artificial light at the kitchen table and continued his work on the typewriter. It was Friday and Ollie had only come home with us the Sunday before, but Benjamin still expected to have Ollie finished by the end of the weekend.

Later, Benjamin came into our room to gently rouse me from my sleepy state and announce that dinner was ready. Knowing my proclivity for dawdling when waking up, he whispered excitedly to me ‘…and there’s a surprise waiting for you.” My interest thus piqued, I groggily made my way into the kitchen to find Ollie sitting in my chair at the dinner table. It took Benjamin five weeks (of a rather patchy work schedule) to get Maggie in good working order so it seemed much too soon for him to be finished with Ollie already.

Yet there he sat, polished and gleaming. He was ready for his first test-run!

After dinner, we pulled Ollie onto the kitchen table and loaded his feeder with paper. While Maggie takes some finesse to load up, Ollie takes paper like a champ. Benjamin warned me that some of the keys were still a smidge sticky, but that he expected them to work their way loose with the repetition of use. As with Maggie, my first ever letter on Ollie was a thank-you letter to my grandmother - the benefactor of both typewriters. Benjamin stood behind me and looked on as I typed, watching for any sticky points so that he’d know what to focus on during future tune-ups.

While there were some sluggish, sticky keys, the most surprising development was that the carriage and key lock would activate itself seemingly at random! The keys and carriage auto-locked no less than 6 times on a 1-page letter! It was easy to decide to go ahead and permanently disable the feature, which is actually how we found the typewriter to begin with. While we assumed it had come loose (although we couldn’t tell how) the debacle certainly made me wonder if my grandfather deactivated it years ago to permanently solve the problem himself!

Besides the randomized auto-lock feature, Ollie definitely loosened up as we went along. It was a treat to reacquaint myself with his familiar feel and sounds. Other features were new to me - having only used him as a curious toy when my brother and I were kids, I’d never properly learned about all he had to offer.

With the first letter successfully behind me (despite the hiccups) Benjamin settled in on working out some of the finer details while I brought Maggie and my letter-writing box in to make the kitchen table letter-writing central. There I lingered late into the night, flanked by my two typewriters, listening to chill music, and keeping all of my favorite snail-mail supplies close at hand. Ollie will need a little more TLC at some point (he’s still not operating as smoothly as Maggie), but for now he’s more than serviceable. We’re getting on swimmingly and enjoying each others company. It’s great to be back in the company of an old friend.

Finding Ollie

Two years ago I was in a salvage store in Northwest Seattle when I came across an old, familiar face. It was weathered and its condition was questionable at best, especially for the price. It was difficult to justify bringing it home with my limited knowledge about its state and what it would need to regain its health, so I left it there on the small table near the aisle where it sat. But I called my dad soon after and asked: did my grandmother still have the old West German Olympia typewriter that my brother and I played with when we were kids? After checking with her he let me know that the typewriter was long-gone. This was disappointing news although not entirely unsurprising. Why keep a typewriter that no one’s used in a few decades?

During the Christmas and New Year holidays my brother sat next to me at the kitchen table on the first evening of my acquaintance with Maggie. I mentioned to him that part of my joy in discovering this beautiful girl was that I’d asked before about the old Olympia only to be told that it was gone. He flatly refused to believe it and told me he didn’t think that could possibly be true. While I saw his point, what reason did I have to think my grandmother was mistaken? I’d already given into disappointment about it two years back, but he wasn’t so easily convinced.

Days later I found myself back in my old bedroom hunting for a mystery suitcase that my grandmother had a vague notion might be in there but she couldn’t be sure. The only place I hadn’t looked that could hold something suitcase sized was behind the door of a child-sized wardrobe. When I opened it to peer inside, I couldn’t believe my eyes. There, stored with an old board game and other items that didn’t even register (I was too excited to take much else in), was the old Olympia - the one I’d been told was long since gone!

With my breath caught in my throat I squeezed to lean into the tiny wardrobe. An old board-game sat atop it and I removed it and set it aside. It took some doing to lift the heavy typewriter out from the odd angle at which I’d approached the wardrobe, but soon I had it in my arms. With the board-game re-situated where I’d found it and everything else in its place, I delightedly carried the typewriter from the room and happily announced my discovery to my grandmother and Benjamin.

Although I explained to each of them that this is the typewriter that taught me to love typewriters, I still suspect that neither really understand the love I feel for these machines - all the hope and possibility they contain and the soundtrack of cadence and rhythm that creates the backdrop against which to work. It’s the feel of pressing the keys and pushing the bar back and forth. Sounds of hammering strokes and dinging bells. To be sure, I’m grateful for my little laptop - it does everything I ask of it - but sometimes only a typewriter will do. Typewriters scratch an itch that laptops can’t hope to reach.

Hidden Treasure

There were baubles and beads of all colors. One large piece of pink, studded costume jewelry seemed like quite too much for anyone to wear but when I tried it on we were surprised that it actually had its own unique charm. Many of the earrings were ear-screws (my very favorite kind earring) and an orange pair with plenty of beaded dangles made delightful rustling noises beneath my ears as I shook my head. Some of the pieces are in need of repair, including the three-strand, black, beaded choker that fell apart in my lap as I attempted to fasten it around my neck. The old, brittle thread snapped at my touch. We made plans with Benjamin, who joined us midway through our jeweled affair, to repair a couple of pieces.

No one considers me much of a wearer of jewelry, which is fair since I’m not often seen sporting it. But I do very much enjoy costume jewelry and it always catches my eye in antique stores. My traditional favorites, the ones I always look for in local shops, are brooches. But as I slipped an extravagantly long strand of orange glass beads over my head, and wound it around my neck a time or two, I was reminded of how much my inner kid loves the weight and clinking movement of a strand of beads swinging from my neck.

Two pairs of costume earrings with emerald green and clear sparklers attracted a decent amount of our attention. One pair was round while the other was rectangular in shape. We pre-assessed them in favor of the rectangles but upon trying them on discovered that the round ones were actually a better fit for my face. Of all the items I browsed through, these are not ones that I would wear, but of course I thought of St. Patrick’s Day. It wasn’t long before my grandmother commented how perfect they would be for St. Patrick’s Day-so I hatched up an idea! What if we each wore a pair of the complimentary earrings on St. Patrick’s day and then exchanged pictures with each other?! She was game and we divvied up the green sparkling earrings accordingly.

Despite my overly casual, thrift-store, comfort-oriented style, I am now in possession of earrings (which I haven’t worn in probably 10 years) including some dangly ones! There’s also a few brooches, including some wildly sparkly ones, beads, and a bracelet befitting a mermaid. I will wear them when I dress up and when I dress down. Basically I will wear them when I feel like it, just for fun, or when I need a bit of an emotional boost. One doesn’t need to dress up or dress well to enjoy wearing great-grandmother’s jewelry.

As we finished looking at the jewelry, trying it on, and laughing together, she told me she thought there might be some more jewelry in a suitcase in the same bedroom, although she wasn’t sure where the suitcase might be or if there even was one. She suggested I go looking for it. I returned to the small room and began to look around. In a small space it didn’t seem likely that there were many places a suitcase could hide. There was one suitcase in the room and it didn’t contain any jewelry. The closet was suitcase-free. The only other spot that could hold a suitcase was in the door of a child-sized wardrobe. I opened it up and didn’t find a suitcase full of costume jewels, but a truly wonderful treasure nonetheless.

Playing Dress Up

According to my father, January 6th, Epiphany, is the last reasonable day to have a Christmas tree in one’s home. The liturgical calendar, from Advent to Epiphany, was our only argument against his humbuggery each year. Although he enjoyed seeing the tree lit up with all the family ornaments adorning it, he was always the last one ready to put up the tree and the first one ready to take it down.

So, in keeping with our traditional arrangement, I knew the day had come for me to take down the decorations that I’d taken responsibility for this year on my family’s humble estate. I started with my grandmother’s house, with its simple decor of wreath, nativity, and a few other seasonal sundries. Even with the small smattering of items, I was finished much more quickly than expected. I still had ample time before lunch, so I asked her if she wanted to play with her mother’s jewelry.

When I’d pulled out the Christmas decorations out of my old bedroom a few weeks before, I’d noticed a box of jewelry on the bed and I asked her about it. It was natural that it caught my eye right away because I have so many fond memories of sitting with my grandmother at her vanity and playing with her jewelry when I was a girl. I wondered if this jewelry was hers or my great-grandmother’s. She confirmed that it was her mother’s and mentioned that she almost donated it to a local garage sale once since it wasn’t getting used, but decided she couldn’t part with it.

After thinking about it for a couple of days I mentioned to her that the thought of the jewelry winding up in a garage sale left me feeling rather sad. I let her know that if she ever thought about garage selling it again that I’d like a chance to look through it first; she encouraged me to do so. This is what led to us sitting together in her living room, on January 6th, playing with jewelry together like we did when I was a kid; she at 90 and me at 36, trying on jewelry and talking about each piece as we pulled it out of the box.

Maggie's Past Lives

Maggie had an interesting life long before she came to me. She lived in Arizona before arriving in west Texas with her recently relocated mistress around 1946. At the time, my grandparents were newly married and owned a local cafe in town and chain letters were all the rage. With the cafe being centrally located and typewriters being scarce in most households, my 18 year-old grandmother identified a business opportunity. She purchased Maggie for $25, about the same amount they paid in rent for their apartment each month, and began typing copies of chain-letters for customers in the cafe. She charged 25¢ per page and was able to recover the cost of the typewriter in no time.

My mom remembers my grandfather using Maggie often enough and my mom used her for a time as well before Maggie fell into disuse. During the hot west Texas summers, their home was cooled by a swamp-cooler. Over time, the damp air caused Maggie’s case to start smelling musty so at some point my grandmother moved her out to the garage where she waited patiently for me to find her.

At the end of 2018, 91 years after she was manufactured and about 72 years after she came to live with my grandmother, she was given fresh life thanks to my love and wanting of her, Benjamin’s diligent work to restore her, and a new name for her new life: Maggie Underwood - the typewriter I’d long hoped for who was there all along just waiting to meet me.

Meet Maggie

The name search started with a list of the top baby names for girls in 1927. Once I had a shortlist of names that might suit her, I considered the nicknames one could derive from each of them. Naturally, we (my brother and sis-in-law helped) tried the candidates with her surname, Underwood, to make sure it had a nice ring to it. ‘Margaret’ made the short list but wasn’t one of my favorites. ‘Maggie’ seemed nice though. It didn’t take long for me to derive ‘Magpie’ from Maggie and then I knew I had a strong candidacy for a name and nickname pairing!

One of my early reading books featured a magpie. As a result I’ve long enjoyed magpies themselves as well as how the word feels on my tongue. Magpie was a nice fit because she’s black, has some shiny bits (magpies are reportedly attracted to shiny things, a misnomer as it turns out, but still a pervasive stereotype), and (as my brother dryly pointed out) she’s very noisy! The more I thought about Magpies (their intelligence, curiosity, and chatty nature) the more I liked it - but I decided I’d better sleep on it.

The next morning Benjamin and I were talking about her and he mentioned something about slugs. I stopped him. Slugs? He informed me that ‘slugs’ are the metal-bits that strike the page with each keystroke. I stopped him again and whipped out my phone for a quick internet search. Are slugs part of a magpie’s diet? They are. That’s when I knew I had it. She’s black, shiny, chatty, and has a belly full of slugs!

This is my Maggie, my Magpie, my new-old friend. I’m anticipating so many wonderful adventures with her. I can’t wait to keep spending time together generating all sorts of creative and wonderful things to bless others with and make the world a little bit better place, one typed page at a time.

The Right One

Benjamin and I arrived in Texas a couple of days before Thanksgiving. The following week, we found ourselves tackling my grandmother’s garage. A whole wall of shelving was coming loose from the wall and things were leaning uncomfortably close to the car. It was time to pull everything off for sorting and deal with those precarious shelves. As we were removing items from the shelves I lifted a faded, hard-sided, black box and was surprised to discover that it was heavy for its size. I sat it down on the garage floor near the other items and warned Benjamin that I didn’t know what it was but that it was rather heavy. He looked over at it with a glance and told me it was a typewriter.

In my memory, I swear time stood still because that’s how monumental the moment felt. But in actuality, I think I probably got really animated and excited instead; I was ready to open it right away! We opened the case and inside was the most beautiful, old, black typewriter. I couldn’t believe it. We sat it aside to continue our work, but my wheels were already turning. What condition was it in? Could it be made to work again? Where did it come from?! I couldn’t wait to find out more about it.

Admittedly, I was baffled to find it. In my last post I described all of the glorious treasures we had to play with when we visited our grandparents and I assure you that I availed myself of them. I’ve always taken great delight in exploring, rooting through, and uncovering treasures. I like to see the storage rooms, drawers, closets and other such tucked away places where imagination and wonder can hide. Because the items at my grandparents’ house were so novel and exciting, due to their unique interests and work, the payoff was consistently quite high - so I snooped, explored and treasure-hunted around there a lot. This is why my surprise was so great upon finding something I’d never seen before. How had this typewriter never once come across my exploratory path?!

In the days that followed we had plenty of time to learn more about it. Benjamin identified it as a 1927(!) Underwood Portable 4-Bank. He began working on it and painstakingly, scrubbed, cleaned, oiled, polished, and restored every inch of the beautiful machine and its case over the course of the next five weeks. The typewriter itself was dirty with age but generally in good working order. The case, however, looked so rough and faded that I was unsure if much could be done for it. Instead, Benjamin stunned me by restoring the deep black color by moisturizing the dry fabric with some shoe-polish wax. He glued down the edges and seams that were coming up and trimmed loose threads. He polished the metal pieces and y’all, he even crafted a new leather handle to replace the one that was long-since missing.

She is a vision of beauty and a gift of love. I typed my first letters on her on January 4th and I’m itching to type so many more! The first couple of rounds on her were a little rough. It took some time to adjust to her feel, find where the keys are, and intuit how she handles, but I’m learning her. Just one day later I was already so much speedier and more assured. I’ve named her Maggie, which is short for Magpie.

A Love of Typewriters

Many weekends of my childhood were spent at my grandparents’ house. They lived about 20 minutes outside of town in a smaller town in the small house where my mother grew up. Their home and surrounding property were a treasure-trove of things waiting to be discovered.

My grandfather was a tinkerer and collected all manner of parts and pieces of things. He had a small workshop, a detached garage, and a fenced-in area we called the ‘junk pile.’ There were random pieces of lumber for building things with, mechanical parts for tinkering with, and recycling materials for imagining with. With the lumber pieces he built us rubber-band guns, bows with arrows, sling-shots and tree-houses. With wheels and a handle from an old push mower he built a go-kart. An empty 2-liter coke bottle (with the side cut out just right and mounted on some wood) became a bathtub for my Barbie. Once, an empty refrigerator box became our rocket-ship.

Old linens from my grandmother also contributed to our endless imaginative play. Forgotten child-sized rusted bed-springs covered with old pillows were our trampoline out in the yard. Old blankets hung from the clothesline were our fort. An old nylon tablecloth spread out across the grass with the sprinkler running was our homemade slip-n-slide. The pecans that covered the ground underneath poked through at our knees, but we had too much fun to really care.

My grandmother worked at the local bank in their small town and my grandfather did some maintenance work there off and on. Over the years, they’d collected an interesting assortment of bank detritus - so my brother and I grew up playing with old lock-boxes, ledger sheets, deposit slips, coin counters and other odd things. They also had the usual accumulation of a lifetime’s worth of household items, having lived in the same place for just about all of their married lives.

I loved the adventurous nature of the place. There was never a shortage of opportunity for imaginative play both indoors and out. My childhood was richer because of this homestead and the small town it sat in where we could roam freely.

One (of many) of the lasting impacts that these experiences gave to me was a love of typewriters. I grew up playing with a West German Olympia SM9 Portable Typewriter. As a result, typewriters became both familiar and beloved to me. I love the feel of the keys as you strike them, the sound of the slugs hitting the page, the clicking sound as you rotate the paper in through the platen, the bell that dings at the end of each line, and the smooth feel of sliding the carriage back across to start another row.

For about 8 years now I’ve low-key been looking at typewriters. I never could pull the trigger because refurbished typewriters are expensive and I didn’t feel like I had enough knowledge to gamble on a non-refurbished one without knowing if I could get it working. Once, about 6 or 7 years ago I got a cheap typewriter off of Craigslist, but the feel of it was all wrong. We just didn’t click and I didn’t keep it.

Two years ago I came across an Olympia in a salvage store. My face lit up at the joyful reunion with an old, familiar friend. But it was in really rough shape for the price and once again, without knowing anything about typewriter refurbishment, I walked away. It prompted a phone call to my dad though, to ask about the old Olympia. Did my grandmother still have it? He checked in with her and told me that she thought it was long-gone. I was disappointed but not surprised. No one had used it in years. Sporadically, I continued to look at typewriters online every now and then without ever finding the right one.

Low Key Optimism for the New Year

The best way to describe my approach to 2019, and the summation of my feels about it, is “low-key optimism.” When 2018 rolled around, I made all sorts of lofty goals and declarations. They were all well-intended, things I value, and reasonable (I thought). But just one month into the year everything fell apart. It wasn’t just my goals that fell to the wayside, all of my thoughts about the future started turning on their head.

By the beginning of February 2018, I was having chronic arm pain in my writing arm. So my plans for sending letters on a regular basis were put on hold. By the end of February 2018, we started asking ourselves the tough questions: what were we doing and why? We weren’t headed quite in the direction that we wanted to be going, our apartment would be ejecting us in some upcoming month yet to be determined for a remodel (and subsequent rent hike), and for the past two years we’d talked about leaving Seattle but hadn’t made any concrete plans. It became apparent that the time had come to make those plans.

The challenge was that we hadn’t settled on where we wanted to move yet. Despite spending two years traveling to neighboring communities to seek out the place where we might like to make our new home, not a one felt like the right fit. So we kept staying in Seattle. But by the first quarter of 2018, I was asking: “if not now, then when?” We’d been looking for two years without a lead and yet we were ready to move on, so where did that leave us?

We decided the time had come to leave anyway. So we made plans to go on a quest to learn more about what our future path could look like. As ideas began to emerge it was decided that we would hit the open road and put our belongings into storage, taking only what we needed for extended travel. From March through October we worked on executing a plan that often unfolded itself as we went, with plenty of twists we couldn’t have anticipated.

By May, after 2 months of research and discussion, we’d bought a vehicle and secured a storage unit. By June we’d moved into our storage unit and secured temporary housing to bridge the gap between our terminated lease and our scheduled departure. We began demolition on our vehicle’s interior and over the course of the next few months, Benjamin crafted a beautiful buildout using what we already had: a handsaw, a jigsaw, and a drill. He did all of the work himself, curbside, in whatever parallel parking spot he could find in the neighborhood.

On the first weekend in August we took our vehicle out for her first overnight. We back-country camped in the North Cascades. She had a floor installed by then, but no walls, ceiling, or built-in storage. That trip helped us problem-solve not only ideas for the rest of the buildout, but also safety and preparedness.

By the time September rolled around we were entering our final stages of preparing for our long travels. We were tying up all manner of loose ends and finishing up all the details of our buildout and prep. One night we pulled an almost-all-nighter as we sewed all of the curtains we’d need for privacy in our vehicle. The first season of Queer Eye kept us cheerful and awake as we worked into the night.

On October 21, eight months after our initial assessment and decision to leave the city, we turned in the keys to our micro-unit, dropped the last stuff off at the storage unit, put our plants in foster-care with friends and left the city with a general direction in mind but no idea where we’d stop to sleep for the night.

Since then we’ve traveled through six states and seen a long list of beautiful natural wonders. We’ve enjoyed even more time with family than we’d originally planned or hoped for, with more to come. We’ve celebrated holidays with friends and family and have both reconnected with each other’s families for the first time in a few years. We’re indulging in creative problem-solving projects that have presented themselves to us that were inaccessible to us in Seattle (helping out on our families’ properties and a few refurbishing projects Benjamin’s taken on to name a couple). We’re savoring a winter interspersed with warmer days and lots of sunlight and for the first time in years we’re entering the new year without low-key seasonal depression.

But all of these blessings we’ve savored these last couple of months came at a cost. Not only did we carefully plan, work really hard, and save our finances for a full year to make all of this possible, but we also endured terrible bouts of debilitating anxiety, fear, and stress. (I say we, because when those things engage with me and my brain, it most definitely affects both of us). It was a very difficult year for me. All of the change, the unknowns and unanswerable questions, the living on faith, the lack of routine, the unknowns (yes, they’re worth mentioning twice), the necessary and ongoing changing of plans, moving out of two apartments in the span of four months… well, it was a lot. And I didn’t handle it well at all. It got to me so deeply that I spent July-October working with my doctor on restoring balance to my body, which was messed up with stress related illness. I’m still dealing with that fallout now as I enter the new year and currently find myself relapsing with symptoms.

There’s no way I could have predicted any of that. I never dreamed I’d leave Seattle without a concrete plan for my future next-steps. I never dreamed of all the change and uncertainty that would come my way during the year. I couldn’t have predicted all of the stress and stress-related illness that would manifest for me and throw me into the necessary reality of being diligently focused on long-term healing. Through it all I couldn’t find my voice to write about any of it. Everything in my life felt like a tossed salad and I had no perspective whatsoever. It was an all-consuming year of life transition that I never saw coming until I was in it but then found myself actively planning for on an ongoing basis.

It was a messy, painful, empowering, frightening, exciting, exhausting, hopeful year and it was nothing at all like what I expected for 2018 as I entered into the year last January.

So this year, I’m entering 2019 exhausted, relieved, and grateful. I don’t have the gall to make even one plan for this year because there is too much uncertainty afoot. We’ll be on the road through March? Or June? We don’t really know. We’re figuring things out as we go. We’ll settle in a new home that’s yet to be determined by this summer perhaps? Maybe? We’ll live as frugally as we can on the savings we have and find work to earn more as we need to and trust that we’ll have what we need when we need it. 2019 is all about flexibility and faith.

So that’s why I have low-key optimism. We’re birthing something really exciting. There’s no way we’ll remain unchanged after all of the work we put into shifting things in 2018. We are in the process of being transformed and we’re still waiting to find out what that might look like on the other side. I’m hopeful and optimistic about what’s to come, but I don’t really have an idea of what it might be. So I’m staying low-key, not over-thinking or over-planning anything and learning how to lean in and let it be. It’s a valuable life-lesson for this gal who likes to over-control everything, have a plan, and have all the answers. Perhaps it’s precisely because I’ve always been wound up tight in those areas that these life lessons found me and are teaching me to live with more uncertainty and ease.

This year, in all honesty, my hope is for peace, joy, and health. Because after a year like 2018 where I was full of unrest, fear, and subsequently waning health… my priorities have majorly shifted away from task-oriented goals or resolutions. In that vein, my focuses for the year will be on gentle exercise, art, baking, and writing. Through exercise I will treat my body tenderly and compassionately with movement. With my art I will prioritize my creative self to live my greatest dream which is to grow as an artist. Baking, especially at holidays, is a self-care ritual for me that soothes my mental-health. Writing helps me make sense of the world and has lately also been integral to practicing gratitude.

Even as I’m grateful for all that 2018 taught me, I’m so grateful to have it fully behind me. i’m ready to watch 2019 unfold with a tempered hope. May each of you reading this also find peace, joy, health and hope in the new year, in whatever ways those things manifest for you.

We celebrated Samhain with shrimp soup and a lovely fire.

Reflections at Age 36

Yesterday, on the day of my birthday, I asked my parents and grandmother what they remembered about 36.

When my dad was 36 I was one and still an only child. We lived in east Texas and money was tight enough that he kept careful track of the finances. When my mom was 36 I started Kindergarten and my brother was two. She described how the whole family had to adjust to the new routine of a kid starting school. By then we were in west Texas in the home where I would spend most of my childhood. It hadn’t been painted yet, so the interior walls were all still goldenrod yellow from the previous owners. I remember how goldenly garish that house was all too well! At 36, my grandmother had a 12 year-old daughter (my mom) and a 10 year-old son. She was commuting into town to work at Kresge’s department store at the old (now long-abandoned) mall and my grandfather was working in the oil field.

It was a gift to hear from my elders about where they were at my age, what they were doing, and what they were worried about or adjusting to in that phase of life. Hearing that my dad was still watching his paychecks carefully at that age gives me hope that maybe my finances aren’t so out of wack after all and that I can still build a better financial future for myself. Learning that my mom was still settling into the home I would grow up in gives me hope that it’s okay that I haven’t settled into my long-term home yet. That even if I still don’t for sometime that it’s okay. It takes time to build a home and a community. Knowing that my grandmother was a commuting working mother raising two kids reminds me that however stressed I might feel sometimes that my life is always manageable because she juggled work and kids, which I won’t ever have to do.

I’ve loved growing older each year. With each passing year I feel more at home in myself. However, I still manage to put quite a lot of pressure on myself to be more and do more. I worry that I am not as far ahead as I think I should be with all the goals I set for myself. By interviewing my elders, I gained the gift of perspective. It was a potent reminder that I’m right on track and right where I need to be. While my journey is my own and won’t look like any of theirs, I can still savor the glimpse into their younger selves and also know how wonderfully life’s turned out for them since then. Because I can see myself in them, I gain hope that my life is turning out wonderfully too.

Things to Remember About my BiRthDaY!

Yesterday was my birthday! I woke up late after a late night of game playing. Mysteriously, Benjamin knew when I awoke, because shortly thereafter he came into the room with a big poster he made from recycled wrapping paper that said “HAPPY BIRTHDAY HILARY!” on it. I loved it so much. Upon seeing it I said to him, “Yes! I will marry you again!”

As I got dressed, I braced myself for an unlit tree. I’ve never lived with anyone who remembers to turn on the tree  each day and my biggest Christmas peeve is an unlit tree. I always give them a hard time and fuss that people who don’t turn on the tree obviously hate Christmas. I wondered if anyone would have made an effort since it is my birthday, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

I walked into the living room and Benjamin, my brother, and dad were already there. My brother jumped up from the couch and ran across the room. Was he coming for me? It seemed uncharacteristic. No, he was headed past me towards the Christmas tree to turn the lights on! He saw my usual trajectory to head over to light the tree, intercepted me, and plugged the lights in for me for my birthday! He declared with relief “whew! I barely made it!” We all got a good laugh out of it. And I felt really loved!

With the world icy and slippery outside, we all enjoyed a quiet day indoors. Unfortunately I’ve not been feeling too great for the last few days, so the quiet day was appreciated (although I wish I’d felt well enough to enjoy my birthday with more flair!).

The next highlight of my day occurred when my mom brought the phone to me for my grandmother to give her birthday salutations. She told me of her memory of driving across the state through thick fog when I was born. They arrived a day later than planned because of the fog, having to stopover for the night instead of driving on through. They stayed about a week and she got to help take care of me during that time. I’d never heard that story before (that I could remember) so it was very special to hear.

After lunch I walked down to see her and to take her a birthday cupcake. I sat with her for a good long while and she shared stories about my great grandparents and answered questions about them. I relish these stories because she’s my last grandparent and I know these stories will end when she goes from us. Sometimes I think I’ll write notes down about them, but they’re so not the same as hearing her tell them herself. So instead of worrying about what will be lost in the someday future, I focus on savoring our precious time in the present. My visit with her was one of the two best things about my birthday.

The other best thing about my birthday was the thoughtful presents that Benjamin surprised me with. He got me a 4D Model Snail and I spent the rest of the afternoon examining the different body parts, assembling the snail, and reading and researching about snail organs and how they work. It was the perfect low-key activity for this introvert who wasn’t feeling too well to still get to feel celebratory while also getting to relax. I loved it so much. I’ve learned a lot from my time with the snail yesterday and I’ve been savoring it’s company on my bedside table ever since.

He also got me some modeling clay and wrote up some project ideas for me to do with the clay. Last year I realized for the first time how limited my exposure to art education had been during my upbringing. It helped me understand why I gave up on certain aspects of my creativity at a young age, believing some things to be impossibly out of reach for me. Having gained an understanding around that, I’ve felt bolder about tackling art skills that I want to learn.

Benjamin’s upbringing was very much the opposite. There was never a time when art education wasn’t emphasized in some way, which culminated in him going to an art school for his college education. He was stunned to realize how unique his opportunities were and became eager to share exercises with me that he had the privilege of doing throughout his early art education. The clay is part of that desire of his. He’s given me a chance to get my fingers messy and play around with no expectations about being ‘good enough’ but instead to just enjoy creating while trying a new medium. He took the guesswork out of me having to know what to do with the clay by giving me assignments he know I would enjoy. It was a very thoughtful gift and an investment in my dreams as a growing artist.

As is the usual way of things in my family, my birthday was accompanied by the retelling of the story of the day I was born. These are other stories I treasure. How my mom didn’t eat all day because she knew the baby was coming and they told her not to have a full tummy when in labor. How by dinner she was starving and said she wouldn’t make it through the delivery without some energy so my dad made meatloaf, potatoes, and green beans. How she delayed calling the hospital because she was worried that she’d have the doctor she didn’t like. Once she called she was relieved to learn that her preferred doctor was on call that night instead. She waited at home until the contractions were the right amount apart to head for the hospital and I was born that night, two hours later. The nurse asked my dad if he’d like to carry me down to the nursery. He did and when he got there they offered him a rocker to sit in with me for a while. He sat and rocked me and sang to me my first lullabies before handing me over into the nurses’ care.

Usually this story gets told at night, at the stroke of my birth time (and since I’ve left home, I always call home at the right moment so as to keep the tradition intact). This year we did it after presents instead. So we were all sitting quietly together, each working on our own projects or playing handheld games when my birth time came to pass. I’d been watching the clock and announced to everyone when the time had come. My family all wished me a happy birthday and then I stated that my first act as a thirty-six year old would be to go to bed and I happily excused myself, said goodnight, and enjoyed a great night’s sleep! :)

Things to Remember About the New Year

On the 30th, we spent the whole afternoon (and into the night) with my oldest dear friend, Shanna. She took us around the town to show us some really wonderful ways my hometown (and hers) has evolved over the years since we’ve been gone. She low-key sold us on all the town has to offer and I have to admit, one could make a lovely (and affordable) life here. After seeing the children’s storybook gardens we sat in a great local coffee shop and visited. Then we went to a local spot for dinner and visited even more. It’s the first time in years that the three of us have gotten to hang out together (since I always travel home alone, she and I catch up annually without Benjamin). I was so glad to have us all three in the same place at the same time!

On New Years Eve, we went into town with my brother and sis-in-law (SIL) to run some errands together. In addition to running actual errands we also lingered on the LEGO aisle at Target for a while and looked at various games and puzzles we could play with. After dinner together, we met up with Shanna and a couple of her friends for a screening of the movie “Big” at the local historic Paramount Theatre. Thirty years ago she and I were ballerinas together at that old theatre and it was so good to be back in that grand space, especially with someone who shares similar cherished memories. We enjoyed reminiscing together.

During intermission a pianist came out and filled the theater with live music. My brother and I were absolutely floored that it was the same piano player that always played at the town’s best pizza joint back when we were kids! In a world that feels like it’s always changing so quickly (rampant development in Seattle with skyrocketing rents along with plenty of development in the country town my mom grew up in) it was deeply comforting to see that some things stay the same. 💛

We savored coffee and visiting after the movie then came home to watch the New Years Eve broadcasts on TV, which has become a tradition for me and my SIL to do together.

My brother 110% won this round and also made me laugh. Playing possum has always been one of my favorite things to do. And still is!

New Years Day is also SIL’s birthday! She and I baked lemon cupcakes together that we topped with chocolate icing and a cherry. The four of us kids (me, Benjamin, brother and SIL) played Forbidden Island (it’s my favorite game. It was the first time we played with more than two players and it was much more of a challenge! It was so fun.) Then we played Telestrations (this time with the parents) followed by three hours of Apples to Apples! We all laughed so much and enjoyed the many hours of games together. It was a great way to celebrate her birthday.

Tomorrow is my birthday and I am ready for it. I’m not feeling very well, which I’m rather discouraged about. But still, I’m looking forward to the day. I hope I’m not too tired from staying up so late playing games this evening. :)