It’s late.
There is a film over the full moon.
like a glaze over my eye.
The heat of summer coming
is seeping into spring nights
and makes thick the air tonight.
I want to walk.
I want to be over sidewalks
and under street lamps
and strolling without aim.
I want to talk.
about all the things that are,
and none of the things
that could be,
should be,
won’t be,
can’t be.
I want to feel steady in my pace again.
I want to practice, here in the dark -stepping strong steps-
so I might stride in the light.
I want to laugh.
at what you say
and how you say it.
I want to be silent.
and hear the things
we cannot say with words.
But I did not take that walk.
The night moves, still,
and into morning
and the humid hazed halo
turns into light dawn blue.
The heat will come with sun,
and the day brings too much duty,
and I’ll forget
perhaps
the sweet earth smells of peony and grass
that filled my senses when
I stood out there,
in the night,
alone,
and thought about the walk I’d like to take
What if there’s no such thing as “the jerk?” What if, in any given fight, disagreement, impasse, and standoff, there was actually no “wrong side?” What if it was all just malady caused by lack of understanding, fatigue, and an empty well from which to draw compassion.
IF that “what if” were the case, I think I could replace anger with deliberation, defense with inquisition, and flight with pause.
I’m sure I would still stand with soft knees and ready reflexes, in anticipation of a dash to the door or a quick escape back inside my garrison or trench. I’m sure I would guardedly stare into the eyes too long after words were spoken with the mouth, and try to discern, “did I really hear?” and “was I really heard?”
IF that “what if” were the case, maybe I could exchange detachment for a hand shake. Maybe there need not be a conversion to a “side” or convincing to a “win.”
Maybe we could just stand.
Stand, facing the jerks and the wrongs and the maladies without reaction, and wait. With fists down and gloves off. just. wait.
Did you let your crust rise for 1 to 3 days? It’s a fun little science experiment as the yeast activates slowly under a cold rise and you get little gremlin air pockets all over the skin of the dough…
We’re ready for baking day.
An hour before baking, take your dough out of the fridge and cut it into thirds. If you’re not planning to make all three pizzas, you can freeze a third or two-thirds for another night.*
With each of the three sections, gently form them into a ball with cupped hands. DON’T KNEAD the dough. You want as much air to remain in the crust as you can.
Cover them with oiled plastic wrap and let them rest.
Preheat your oven to 500°. If you have a pizza stone, put it in the oven prior to preheating.**
While you’re waiting, make whatever pizza ingredients need pre-cooking (i.e. sausage, ground beef, bacon, chicken, etc.); chop and prep the rest (veggies, etc).
After one hour, your oven should be good and hot, and your dough will have relaxed and come to room temperature. Lay a large square of parchment paper on the counter. Flour your hands, the parchment, and one ball of dough. Start expanding it into a circle.
You can do this in all sorts of ways:
For the less adventurous, place the mound on floured parchment paper and gently pull out the sides, using your fingertips to flatten and spread the dough, until you’ve reached your desired pizza circumference.
For the conservative risk-takers, you can pick the mound up, and constantly turn it like a steering wheel, gently pulling out as you spin.
Once it gets big enough, the dare-devils amongst you can do this:
Okaaaaay….
back to business.
Once your crust has met your desired circumference and thickness, it’s time to assemble.
For traditional flavored pizzas, these are my favorite store-bought sauces:
I also love a good pesto on a Margherita pizza, and have even been known to use mayo and ketchup as a base for a bacon cheeseburger pizza.
(yes, those ARE pickles on that pizza…)
Really, you can do ANYTHING here.
Assembly is generally in order: sauce, then cheese, then fixin’s.
Once assembled, slide the pizza (parchment and all) onto the hot stone or oven rack. Bake until it’s well browned and bubbly, around 8-10 minutes. Slice and enjoy!
This is a fig, prosciutto, and blue cheese pizza with raisin-shallot chutney and olive oil base.
SO GOOD!
*Once frozen, thaw in the fridge for a day before baking.
**I’ve heard of people grilling the pizza as well. If you try this, send details on what worked. I’ve never done it!
If you make this and come to realize how easy it is to make the best crust for any given pizza in your own kitchen, and also come to understand that because you make your own killer crust you can now make ANY flavor of pizza and create your most favorite, signature ‘za in all the world, I’m sorry.
You will have become addicted (as I am)
and will gain at least five pounds of gluten weight (as I have.)
Before getting started, don’t plan pizza night on the day you make the crust. It will rest in the fridge (at least a day) for a cold rise.
Shall we begin?
Ingredients:
(this will make 3 – 12″ pizza crusts…)
1 lb, 10 oz. bread flour (4 ½ cups)
3 teaspoons sugar
¾ teaspoons active yeast
1½ Tablespoon garlic infused olive oil (you can use plain EVOO, as well)
2 teaspoons, plus and a pinch of salt
Combine the flour, sugar, and yeast in a mixing bowl and slowly stir in 2 cups of ICE COLD water.
Stir it until no dry flour remains,
and then give it a quick knead to make it a solid lump.
Let it sit for 10 minutes.
Then add the olive oil and salt,
and knead it until it makes a satiny, silky, sticky ball of goodness.
Tips:
You can use a bread hook, but it usually just slides around the middle of the dough clump and annoys you by not incorporating the entire dough.
Throw a little olive oil on the counter while you knead or just rub a drop in your hands like lotion and it will prevent sticking.
Throw the kneaded dough into a large bowl with a lid or tightly covered with plastic wrap.
The smell of dirt in your nostrils and the feel of grit in your nails can solve just about any melancholy. Especially when the sun is just a little hotter than comfortable and the breeze comes quickly to your aid. So today, I planted. The pretty things. Not the eating things. The front porch baskets and the staircase urns. The green hibiscus that you bring in every fall, convinced you can overwinter, and throw out every spring, dried and brown.
I made sure to place them where I’ll see through windows, the things I’ve helped to grow.
It’s good to know you help things grow.
And when it was done – when the soil was swept, and the weeds wheelbarrowed, the hose wound round, and the petunias dead-headed – I grabbed myself a cider and sat, quiet and still, watching new petals play in sturdy draft.
Good things happen when you stop moving.
The first hummingbird I’ve seen this year came by to sample my new wares. The first thing you hear when a hummingbird pays you a visit is, well, the hum.
It’s a solid beating of air like a B-52 Bumblebee with a Bose Bluetooth.
The second thing you hear is the beep. (They beep if they like you.) And if they REALLY like you, they stare at you, midair and close, beeping and hovering like a freaky sentinel from The Matrix.
Yes, there is always the millisecond that I panic, thinking this little hummingbird is going to turn rabid and peck my eyes out, and I’ll be left groping for the front door, all Oedipus like and tainted.
But that soon passes and
I just try to hold as still as I can.
so he’ll stay a little while longer.
Eventually, my restrained smile forces it’s way out upon my lips and the hummingbird darts away at the change in expression. (Perhaps he knows he cannot peck my eyes out when I’m squinting in smile style, and he leaves defeated, ready to attack again another day…)
These are my good things today:
flowers on the front porch
cider in hand
didn’t die by proboscis impalement
The fear of losing LOSS as a companion is as real as rock. Loss does not require a person to strive. Loss does not ask anything of us. So we find comfort in loss. It becomes a friend. Loss sits with us like a mirror, and we can look into it with unceasing inquisition, and never get an answer. And never get peace.
Loss loves us like lust, and licks wounds that might otherwise heal if left out in the air.
We can sit in loss (of whatever):
friendship
love
money
career
faith
keys
like a wading pool.
And in a contented way, we might even presume that we’re technically still swimming.
But loss, like a rock, if held onto, becomes an weight that does not allow for gain.
And what could we gain?
friendship
love
money
career
faith
keys (actually, no. those are still lost.)
I admit, when I feel the cloud – the cover – of loss start to move away from me, there’s a part that panics. What if the light is too bright? Who am I without it? If loss does not define my depth, will happiness make me shallow?
And on and on
until I find
I’ve spent my days
pursuing the path of shadows…
There is a time
when loss should live beside us;
it is a field
to be plowed with sorrow, yes,
but (I believe)
must be sowed with hope in return,
lest it lay
shaded by clouds
and barren by choice.
Tonight, I drove home in a thunderstorm. When it’s very late (or early, as it were), and you get out of the city far enough, you’re eventually the only car on the road. You can drive for miles and it’s just you, and the dark, and whatever small bit of road your headlights illuminate in front of you. But tonight, the skies lit up and the rains came down, and I listened to this on repeat (I recommend LOUD and then just a little louder…):
If there was thunder outside,
I wouldn’t have heard it…
It was absolutely my good thing-of-the-day. It reminded me that if there’s a storm between you and whatever it is you call home, you can stay and let it pass over you,
you can drive head-on into it,
you can even try to outrun it,
but in the end,
Loneliness stands out to me today as an unavoidable side-effect of personal journey. You can be surrounded by people, never alone, and still feel isolation, like a ghost beside you. It’s a faithful hound that does not leave your knee.
I have thought on it’s remedy. For it’s not the donor of funds, nor the doer of deeds, nor the dinner-dropper-offer that alleviates this particular ailment. Please, don’t misunderstand, they are good and generous things, appreciated and valued, and are, at times, the best we can do for each other.
I remember a story a nurse friend of mine told me. He worked in pediatric intensive care. Most of the children had parents nearby and an entourage of doctors in constant rotation about them. There was one child though, not yet a toddler, who was being medically cared for but without parents frequently around. And this baby would cry. He was hooked up to a gad of gadgets, and IV’s, and what-nots, and he would cry all the time.
His “pain” was being managed. His medication was being administered. Attendants would come with balloons and puppet shows and cartoons and crayons, but this boy just cried.
One shift, my friend, he walked into this baby’s room and sat at the foot of his bed and just held his feet. That’s it. Just put palm-of-hands on soles-of-feet, and you know?
He stopped crying.
He wasn’t “fixed.”
He wasn’t “healed.”
He wasn’t anything different
than what he was
two minutes prior.
But he was better.
See, sometimes the moon is too thin and the clouds are too thick and we can miss without relief. And sometimes, just having a witness beside you is what makes it okay.
So today, my good thing is you. You’ve come here. You’ve read this far. You’ve listened to my story. Now I’ll listen to yours…
An imagination exercise:
Grab a cup of coffee (or tea).
Sit down.
I’ll sit beside you.
We can talk if you want to, or we can just be still.
You can cry and I won’t tell.
You can yell and I won’t run.
You can laugh, and laugh hard.
I’ll get water for the hiccups.
