Vacation Envy

Sunday. Today after church, a friend, a mother of five kids, a five-month-old in her arms, the rest racing around the lawn, told us she has vacation envy. They didn’t get one this summer and it seems like everyone else we know is texting, Face Booking, and talking about where they’ve been. It was a great rant one I understood too well. I stood there thinking – from Nantucket to Provence everyone in the world is hiking sensational mountain ranges, biking through fields of leaping lambs, eating Gruyere, and sleeping within the sound of whippoorwills. Except for us.

She went on to say she’d just finished reading Ecclesiastes “and that’s where I am, ‘everything is vanity.’” She roller her eyes and grimaced. Then she concluded God must be at work because her attitude shifted when she thought of a “stupid old 70s song* – ‘if you can’t be with the one you love, then love the one you’re with’ I’m trying to do that she said, if I can’t take a vacation then I’m trying to be where we are and somehow love it.

I wrote something similar to a friend. “I’m doing okay. A bit tired. Okay, maybe a lot tired. Am looking for some sweet spots in the Lord in the midst of these weeks. I know they are there. Hoping not to miss them because I’m feeling sorry for myself.”

One sweet spot had to be our youngest granddaughter sitting next to me reading her favorite book: Max & Ruby. We’ve read it so many times she has it memorized or “rememberized” as she puts it. Her ways delight my soul. After hearing it so many times she understands “Grocer” – a word not commonly used anymore, but the context has taught her without me explaining. The ways of children both delight and instruct. Her honesty. Can I have this book, she asks? No. I want it to be here so when you come back we can look forward to reading it together. When I die you can have it. I will leave it to you in my will. What’s a will?… and on we go.

Another sweet spot. I made two jars of naturally fermented pickles. It’s the way they used to make them long ago. You don’t need vinegar. You just put the cucumbers in a jar water and salt, garlic and dill, leave it on the counter and in three to five days a wonderful, crisp tart pickle. It worked! Love them.

 

Garlic Dills naturally fermented.

Please don’t stop telling me what wonderful times you’ve had. You need times away from the crush of stress. You need times of pure refreshment and joy. God will get us (me) to where we need to be. Eventually.

Our next week will bring its stresses. Some of them we know. Some we anticipate. Others are still unknown. When Denis and I talk about our days, we have a tendency to stew about the future. The words of Jesus echo in my head. Words I heard growing up about not worrying about tomorrow because tomorrow will worry about itself. The Message translation gives it a different punch:  “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” (Mt. 6:34) 

*Stephen Stills “Love the One You’re With” 1970.

February Blues

We waited weeks for six days last October when we could spend time at a quiet place on the north shore of Lake Superior. Finding time to rest, taking time to come apart for renewal and refreshment has been one of my long-winded topics. I tire of too much muchness. I don’t think it is just me, I suspect many of us suffer want in this area. Sometimes we need to be way away.

Back of Morning Light

We have been at this place before and I long for it. Long to be away from the busyness of my life. Selfishly, in the days preceding, I hold my breath and pray that no one will die, forcing me to cancel plans. We arrived at “Morning Light” late in the day and turned down the track that winds through birch and bracken, scattered black spruce and fir, tawny grasses growing thigh-high right up to the car doors and up to the back of the simple cabin which is all dark and closed. The air is filled with the resinous scent of pines and poplar trees that have dropped their leaves in drifts. Only one small window shows on the second floor, but when you walk through the back door, through the darkened entry hall, it opens to a view of the entire horizon from east to west. Light floods from skylights and the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows across the front. Even gray days cannot staunch the light.

Morning is breaking

The first morning, as I woke, from our bed I could see a faint, faint line of light on the other side of the world and quietly moved to a living room chair with a cup of hot tea to wait for dawn. The morning stars were still visible. How to describe this, this pre-historic daily show with colors that flare and spread? If you name them they sound commercial. Artificial. Yet they pre-date the earth. God-made lemon-yellows and melons began pushing against the dark-violet sky. They stain and slowly creep up the sky like water-color paint seeping across paper. Then, suddenly fire appears – the bright oranges and reds of a blast furnace burns under the line until the round globe of sun springs above it. It’s rays blaze my retinas. I close my eyes and still see it clearly. Now it touches my face and how is it that it does not burn but only comforts?

 

Lake Superior is cold and empty. This is its appeal. Nothing. Nothing. No boats, no yachts, no humans, only an eagle drifting and a few low-flying ducks pumping past inches above the waves. Sky and water framed by a tortured spruce and the shoreline of boulders and rock cliffs. No distractions, just the endless rollers, breaking, breaking, breaking. My mind and heart feel scrubbed. Scoured. Cleansed.

Warmed by the sun

 

That night a storm blew in and the next morning I couldn’t see beyond the white foam of the first breakers. The wind blew and rain beat against the windows. God, tracking me through storms. I could stay here forever. I think.

Gluten/Dairy Free Cilantro Lime Sauce

Tomorrow we are leaving for the cabin for a few days. Some of our family will be joining us and we are really looking forward to seeing them. Since the cabin is about 30 miles from town we plan food ahead and hope we don’t have to resort to eating bony little crappies and burdock roots. So I am doing some make-ahead recipes. Denis wants to do an antipasto plate and asked me make this cool sauce to go with it.

Seems like more and more people, well at least ones I know, (our family included) have food issues, like needing to be gluten-free or dairy-free. Two reasons to like this sauce. Plus it goes well with grilled chicken or fish or fresh vegetable sticks or even chips. Gasp.

I was surprised to find it in Food & Wine Magazine (May Issue) in a column about chefs’ favorite off-the-path cafes. One of them mentioned Brasa in St. Paul and I recognized it, more surprise, surprise. That’s a big no-no for me. That I would not only recognize, but have eaten at a place they recommend? I love to hate that publication because they can make an idolatry out of pig bellies, and of course wouldn’t allow me to enter their precious establishments because I wear Land’s End sandals. Anyway, Brasa’s is a place we’ve often eaten at because it’s affordable, and we like their faux Caribbean menu and rotisserie chicken that comes with a sauce accompaniment. So what do you know, they publish the recipe for the sauce! And now I have to temper my judgment. Sorry. Sorry.

Creamy Cilantro Lime Sauce is quick and easy to make. You can cut back on the heat by getting milder peppers or reducing the amount. Last time I made it, it was so hot we had to cut the heat by adding more mayonnaise. And what is weird? Denis LIKES it even though he HATES cilantro. 

Creamy Cilantro Lime Sauce

2 large jalapenos, seeded and chopped (I cut back on this. Too many Scandinavians around here.)

2 large garlic cloves, smashed

2 T minced fresh ginger

2 T minced onion

1 T fresh lime juice

¼ c. water

1 c. mayonnaise

1.4 c. finely chopped cilantro

Salt

In a blender, puree the peppers, garlic, ginger, onion, lime juice and water until smooth.Add the moy and cilantro and pulse a few times. Season with salt. Serve. Will keep in refrigerator for several days. I can’t say how long. Mine has kept a week. It also makes a good salad dressing.

A Beaver’s miscalculation

 

My grandfather, Pete Frolander, was a carpenter, who built wooden boats, log cabins, and the kind of furniture you might find today in faux-rustic condos. With a dusting of sawdust on his cap and a pencil behind his ear, he smelled good to me – like pine trees and lake water. While he worked and I was a little girl underfoot and not interested in dolls, he allowed me to hammer nails into scrap lumber. When I was done he proudly displayed them in a corner of his shop the same way I now tape my grandchildren’s colored works of art on my refrigerator. My hours of pounding, bending nails, dinging up the board, no rhythm or pattern – just spikey works of juvenile miscalculation and effort.

I’m not sure why finding a large poplar tree felled toward the shore of Pike Fish Lake in Superior National Forest reminded me of him. Until I walked over to it, I assumed the wind had taken it down. As I examined it, I had a smack-the-forehead moment. There were incisor marks on the stump and piles of chips all around it. This was the work of a beaver. After looking at it I realized this rodent woodcutter had neglected to stand back and see that a picnic table was going to be very much in the way of his project. Still, I was impressed; it was almost a work of art.

I guess that’s when I thought of Grandpa who often said “Measure twice cut once.” There’ve been countless times when I thought I had everything measured and under control and pressed send or pulled the trigger only to learn, no, it wasn’t quite right. It all landed on the picnic table not in the water. But he also said to be a good carpenter you can’t be a perfectionist. You always need to be fudging, repurposing, working the angles, and saving this or that up as extra for another day. No longer being a child did not necessarily reduced the number of mistakes I made, which could be a downer until, and even to this day, I go ahead and remind myself that most of them are not cause for panic and they might even have an upside such as an increase in patience with both myself and my environment. More on this later. (I’ve been on vacation.)

Breathing

Yesterday was first full day of vacation at cabin on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Last night’s supper menu: Half a smoked whitefish. Rice crackers. Carrot sticks. I think I can top that tonight without too much strain.

All day I did nothing, unless absolutely necessary, like going to the bathroom. Didn’t make the bed or cook or wash a single dish all day. Denis did – not the cooking; the other stuff.  I did manage to fling the head with its sunken eyes, skins and fins attached down to the rocks at the water’s edge. We timed it to see how long before the gulls found it. They love carrion, you know. There wasn’t a single one in sight. 12 minutes. Five of them showed. today. Trying not to hurry much. Or at all. This morning saw a big buck lying in the woods just outside. His antlers were framed by bracken and tall grass. A bald eagle flew past the window. Nice.

The Hudson

Today our plans were ruined by Ahmadinejad. Well sort of. Circle Line must have known as we headed up the Hudson past the Statue, Ground Zero toward the UN Building that we’d be turned back by the Coast Guard because of high security. We had decided to take the three hour harbor cruise around the island of Manhattan. I liked that. Getting the Big Picture. Well, Big-ger. Sometimes I’m handicapped by little parts. I like Big Pictures, that’s why when we see a Miramax movie, I always poke Denis and say, I like that when the skyline of Manhattan lights up.

I’ve never been close to the Statue and like a lot of things in real life she’s bigger and more beautiful. As we approached the United Nations we could see that all along the river the East highway had been shut down, and then a smallish boat with a gun mounted on its bow approached to turn us back. I said she didn’t look very threatening could we just go on, but John pointed out she had a lot of friends with bigger guns who could be there in seconds and who were. Capable of. To get in our three hours of paid tour the captain back-tracked and took us the other way up to the north end of Manhattan where, due to the Rockefellers having purchased all the land, you can get an idea of the green hills and palisades that used to exist that Henry Hudson fell in love with centuries ago. We also passed the Little Red Lighthouse under the George Washington Bridge and John told us that his grandmother used to live just up the hill and swam there as a young woman.

John just looked up Ahmadinejad’s speech and if you didn’t have a context for him and his words, you could agree with quite a bit of it.Very weird.

On belay

I dribbled dressing on my clean white shirt. Comment has asked me to write more columns. John has made deviled eggs. Even piped in the filling! Denis brought me a pillow. The dog laid her head on my lap and licked my face. We have a new granddaughter. Kelly sent a beautiful poem by Lucy Shaw. Everything is making me cry. And am sorry I haven’t posted more. I think I need this vacation.