I am the lady in the car with earbuds in, belting lyrics at the top of her voice with great, emotional vigor. Many of you know me to be a rather reserved and somewhat composed woman.
You have seen my seedy underbelly.
Some time ago, a friend sent me this song…
…and it made me want to go to war.
Not the kill-people, conquer-lands kind of war, but the break-bonds, aim-high kind of war.
I listen to it, sometimes multiple times a day, as a sort of Battle Song. It summons a strength in me to keep moving, and makes my progress swift. (Especially when it gets all dance-remixey and crazy-rhythm-cool about 2 minutes in.)
The song is in Gaelic. (I do not speak Gaelic, mind you, so the belting in the car is made abundantly more comical by my enthusiastic attempt to pronounce words that have no meaning to me.) I war cry the bejeezus out of it.
Here’s where it gets cool:
I finally decided to figure out what I was singing (or attempting to sing). This could be a song about terrorizing nations and slaughtering the masses and here I am, joining the parade… no good.
But here’s the first verse, in English:
“Hail, oh woman, who was so afflicted,
It was our ruin that you were in chains,
Our fine land in the possession of thieves…
While you were sold to the foreigners!
Oh-ro, welcome home
Oh-ro, welcome home
Oh-ro, welcome home
Now that summer’s coming!”
We can metaphor this to death, but I think it’s fairly obvious I now sing even louder.
What’s your Battle Song?
Have you heard your War Cry?
WAIT! Before you think this ridiculously trite and go back to Facebook, stay with me…
(It’s gonna be a long 540.5 days if you want heavy lifting in EVERY, single, one of them.)
Between my race-child-to-daycare, lunch-in-my-lap-while-driving-a-stick, yes-I-started-crying-because-I-wasn’t-moving morning (breath) and my more-coffee-should-help, stuck-in-traffic-and-crap-I’m-out-of-gas, every-night-is-spaghetti-night evening, (breath) one of my fellow actors did a funny thing:
It was nothing earth shattering nor worthy of a Night at the Apollo. In fact, it was just the way he said a single word. But it inspired this funny feeling in my stomach. A lightness. A bubble.
I had the option to have it rise up like an unexpected belch that I would immediately excuse and negate OR, let it ride. I did.
I let it ride.
And it came up and rippled. The edges of my mouth curled up a bit. My lips opened and my nose twitched. It was an official giggle. Not a laugh, mind you. A giggle. And the best part was, I was alone. Backstage, in the dark. Therefore, it was mine. It was just for me.
Look for giggle-opportunity.
I highly recommend it.
When the weight of days is heavier than I’d like, it sure did lighten the load.
I’m working up to belly-laughter. Expect that post around Day 115. It’ll most likely involve Proseco, Umeshu, and a couple of girlfriends.
I came across the YouTube video, “The Art of Being Yourself,” by Caroline McHugh. She absolutely floored me. She is now my newly adopted mother and I shall begin speaking in Scottish brogue from this point hence.
If being ourselves is an art form,
how many colors are left in our trays?
How many slabs of us go without shape?
If you actually watched it (sláinte!), let’s talk. If you didn’t, you can still check the highlight reel…
Discussion Point 1:
Revelation vs. Reassurance.
Which one are you looking for when you look in the mirror?
Discussion Point 2:
Eccentric vs. Authentic.
One has a negative connotation and the other, a positive accolade. I would argue they’re exactly the same and that “eccentric” is put upon the person whose authenticity is not widely accepted.
“You’re already different. Your job is to figure out how, and then be more of that.”
When we look at all the people who are “larger than life,” the leaders and wonder-kids and movers and shakers at work, “they glow; it’s like they swallowed the moon.”
See, I WANT that. I FEEL the moon in me. Don’t you feel it in you, too???
“When are you good at being yourself?”
I would add, in whose company are you unashamedly yourself?
In Day 2, I talked about these times of change as being “precious.” McHugh also says, they “lend themselves to change…and rock you back into the inner self,” and elegantly names them:
INTERVALS OF POSSIBILITY
They’re crazy scary! If I’m honest, my biggest fear is not losing the THINGS around me, but rather, losing myself in their midst.
Intervals in time, like in music, like in stories, (and definitely like in cardio workouts), are HARD. They burn because they’re short bursts of effort that only yield results if the effort is true and exerted. They take the next year, movement, chapter, (and your abs), to the next level.
But when you’re already tired, how do you go one more mile? And where are you headed, anyway? Would we put all that effort into circling back to where we left off? Or should we instead question, “If I were the person of my dreams, who would I be?” …and point our pedals in that direction.
So, before I go seeking Scottish citizenship, I leave you with this:
“Even on the stormiest of days, the sky is beautiful blue underneath. The sky just is. Because the sky sees the impermanence of the clouds and the impermanence of the rainbows; and YOU have to develop an inner state of mind that’s as impervious to all the good shit and bad shit that happens to you, as the sky is to the weather.”
More can be learned about Caroline McHugh’s work here.
Today, we bake bread. We bake because deep thinking works up an appetite, because Minnesota believes it’s still winter, because kneading works out the angry bits, and because the smell, touch, and taste of this loaf brings me to a place I find comfort and memory in. Maybe you can go there, too.
(I should note that occasionally, I’ll bake a loaf of bread, and some folks react as if I’ve invented the solar system or something. If you think this post is not for you because you’ve never done it before, I offer the following: This is not complicated. People have been making bread for quite sometime. I hear they even do it in Europe. Doubt not. We gonna knead together.)
Step one: Gear up.
Bread doesn’t take much working time, but you’ll need to leave hours for it to sit and rise, so start in the morning and make it when you’ll be at home watching movies or figuring out how wordpress works.
Get these things:
large mixing bowl
measuring utensils
spoon (wooden spoons are best for bread dough)
tin foil
2 loaf pans or baking pans (you could even use disposable, foil pans)
This recipe makes two loaves, so halve it if you only have one pan.
and these:
1 cup oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1 Tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
and throw them together in a large mixing bowl so they look like this:
Pour two cups of boiling hot water over them and set a timer for 10 minutes.
While you’re waiting,
get these measured out in a different bowl:
1 lb, 1 oz. (or 3 ¾ cups) bread flour (you can use unbleached, all-purpose in a pinch)
7 oz. (or 1 ½ cups) whole wheat flour
1 Tablespoon active yeast*
After 10 minutes, your melted ingredients should look like this:
and should be warm (not hot) to the touch.**
Then plop the flours and yeast on top of the melted ingredients.
Step two: We knead. O yes, yes, we do.
Start by mixing everything together with a wooden spoon. The flour will still be visible and it’ll get tough to stir. It should look like this:
Now, comes the fun part…
Stick your (washed) hand into the bowl and SQUEEZE. Do it again… a couple more times until everything sticks together.
Okay, now pick it up, stick it just under your nose, and inhale. Pause. This is when comfort and memory kick in for me…
Back to work: put it on the counter and start to knead. If you’ve never kneaded before, just think of it like folding the dough over and pushing it back down. I use my fingers to pull it up and the heel of my hand to push out and down. It’s a lovely, repetitive motion that begets profound thinking and promotes soul savoring.
…pull back…push out
Do this for 8 to 10 minutes. I’m not kidding. Work it. And use both hands; I had to take a picture with my left… (You can cheat and use a heavy stand mixer with a dough hook for 6 minutes, but make sure you give one additional hand kneaded minute at the end.)
It will be a sticky but silky ball of goodness. Now put it back in the mixing bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, set a timer for an hour and go away.
Step three: Things shape up.
Your dough should be about two times it’s original size, but don’t freak if it’s not super inflated; it’ll come.
Now you shape the dough and put it into whatever vessel you’ll bake it in.
Plop the dough ball onto the counter and cut it in half. (If you’ve halved your recipe, use the whole ball.)
If you’re making a loaf, I fold in the pointy ends and roll it into a sausage shape so it looks like this:
If you’re making rolls in a baking pan, I roll the clump into a sausage and cut it into pieces like this:
and arrange them in the pan:
Cover ‘em up with more plastic wrap, set the timer for another hour, and go away again. (This could take two hours-ish, so don’t plan your sandwich party just yet.***)
Step Four: Heat and Bake
Your bread should now be the shape you want to see come out of the oven.
Preheat the oven to 350º
Bake your uncovered bread in the middle of your oven for 25 minutes.****
After 25 minutes, put a piece of tin foil over the bread so it doesn’t get too dark, bake for 10 more minutes, and it’s done.
Yes. Yes. Yes. and Yes.
This bread makes a particularly amazing ham sammy with mayo, or strangely enough, rocks tuna salad and a pickle. But above all, toast. Just toast, butter, coffee. Magic.
We eat together,
and it makes a good day.
For the detail oriented:
*If you don’t think you’ll bake much bread, buy the 3-packet strips of yeast, rather than a jar. It’s cheaper and they’ll last longer.
**Two things that will quickly kill yeast and prevent your dough from rising are too much heat and letting the yeast come into contact with the salt before it’s had a chance to “come to life.” If you have an issue with that, try adding the salt just before kneading.
***Bread rises with warmth and moisture. In Minnesota, we have them in abundance or scarcity, so your rising time will fluctuate. In drier, cooler times, I set the bread on top of the oven while it preheats, where the heat rises out. You can even put a dry kitchen towel over the plastic wrap to incubate the loaves.
****Make sure your oven is fully heated before putting the bread in. I let it sit for at least 10 minutes at 350º before baking.
There are precious few times in our lives when things break open and split apart…
your work,
your marriage,
your health,
your faith,
your sense of self,
your heart
…and I won’t think these are “bad” times.
They are hard times, yes, but in them lie the maps and guideposts to new places. Without them, we’d circle ’round and ’round ourselves like unchained elephants, completely unaware of the reach in our height and the might in our steps.
In these times, we jolt into an awakened state where we can suddenly take new notice of things:
Things we’ve loved, but no longer like.
Things we’ve hated, but have begun to understand.
Things that don’t fit us, and maybe never did.
Things we’re surprised to want and
things that have no gift in keeping.
What shocks me most of all is the sedation that smallness brings to our lives. When we curl up inside ourselves, we fall asleep, and the slumber is deep.
Wake up. You’ll be amazed by the faces you see in the crowd.
Not everything is art,
but there is an art to everything.
When you’re building a house of cards,
it’s best to get out of the wind.
Everything I thought I couldn’t do, I disproved by doing anyway.
“Artists are people driven by the tension between the desire to communicate and the desire to hide.” ~ Donald Winnicott
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people that have come alive.” ~Howard Thurman
The advice I gave to my children on their first day back to school: Be present to all those you meet. They were set in your path for a reason. Look them in the eye and love them as they’ve been made. You will change the world by knowing who you share it with.
“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.” ~ Mary Oliver
“People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.” ~Emerson
“If we do not tend to our own process, our own journey, we risk denying the life forces which led to our incarnation and losing our sense of meaning. As long as we are on the high seas of the soul anyway, why not be as conscious and as courageous as possible?” ~ James Hollis
“Sometimes, emptiness is not vacancy, but rather a long gestation. Gestation by ego’s measure is most often too long. But, by soul’s measure, the length of the waiting and making within, before what is being created shows on the outside, is ever just right.” ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés
