Perhaps the strangest part of grief is the waves that it comes in. When it actually hits you, and the ways that it hits you. About eight months in, I've been struck with the strange notion that my phone is going to ring, and his face is going pop up on the display- the picture I took in Starbucks after my birthday dinner seven years ago. The idea fills me with a weird fear, bordering on a paranoia that's been mimicked in recent dreams. Is he still alive? Was this all some elaborate hoax, perhaps tax evasion? 'The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated?' ...Do I answer?
The last dream included the supposed footage of his last moments in life, involving a 20-30 years younger-than-he-actually-was-at-the-time self, walking down a highway in a black motorcycle jacket, with a stormy sky as a backdrop, and the overall tone of surveillance footage.
I can still hear his "Hi, Vaness" in my head, and on my computer, since I've hoarded the majority of his voicemails in their digital format. Due to a technical blip, I almost lost all of them recently, and when the customer service rep asked why I had so many stored on my phone (two out from the max), I had to bite back tears. I've since backed them up several times.
I've started doing that for everyone that I love.
I wonder if it's unhealthy.
Now, presently, or really about ten minutes ago, as I'm standing in the kitchen eating peanut butter swirled ice cream out of the carton, one of the first brands to offer a quart of the vegan stuff, I think: Dad would get a kick out of this. While I'm packing for my annual reprieve, I think about all of his comments on how he felt when I left for vacation on my own. I think about the 1/2 pound less of fudge I'll have to buy from our old favorite candy shop. I think about not having to scour the endless, sappy, inapplicable and disingenuous father's day cards to find just one that's right. It's not a relief. I think about his laugh when he was impressed. His use of 'be that as it may' to transition a conversation. How he'd repeat the same German potato salad story over and over. That insipid diner he insisted on going to when we'd visit; the old-people diner, with the jukeboxes in each booth and a glowing case full of desserts that looked so perfect and shiny as to be fake. How, later in life, he'd always ask 'Do they appreciate you?' about work, about a partner.
Grief is a living, breathing animal. It wraps itself around you like a snake, not maliciously, not with the intent to hurt or devour you, but never forget that it can; and if you let it, it will. As it sheds it skin, the feeling changes. You become angry, this was preventable, this didn't have to happen, it chokes you with the intensity. Other times,
its grip can be warm, comforting. That person is always with you, the
memories of them a light in the dark, a constant presence, even a
guardian. As time goes by, the grief becomes a specter itself. A shadow, lighter, ever changing and shifting, but still present. Whispering on the edge of your perception, sometimes encouraging and warm, and other times, quite frankly, a dick. It becomes part of you, this shadowy and moody appendage. It fluxes and it wanes, and it constantly reminds you that you can't change things, you can only change how you respond to them.
Sunday, June 11, 2017
Saturday, April 15, 2017
How a 7am Train Ride Got Me into Mycology
It's October 11th, 2008, at around 7 something AM on a Saturday morning and I'm on a train heading into the city. Two of these things are my favorite things (October, a Saturday) and two of these things sit more on the conflicting side of my temperament (Morning, the city) The early train is quiet, streaked with that cliched golden morning light that really does exist, as it turns out, and the car's persistent rocking is lulling me back into a dream-like state even as it rushes me towards the looming grey maw of New York.
I'm given the minimum of information. There's a society of sorts, they do this on the regular, there will be a large group, and people trained in its specifics. Obviously, I'm sold. Told only to bring five bucks, my own knife, and a brown paper bag, I'm worried about making it on time.
Somewhere in New Jersey just south of the city, in a rather unassuming park, a group of about forty enthusiasts descends, issuing tips on where to look, how to handle, and to never ever eat without clear and certain identification. They range from older hippie, to fresh-faced kindergartners, and a lot of flannel is involved. These are the members of the mycological society, a not-so-secret, but not exactly sought after group. On that fall morning, I began a strange journey that continued throughout the next almost decade. I've met some great people, I've eaten some weird things, and I've gotten an array of looks when I try to talk to other people about it. If we know each other, chances are you've given me one of those looks.
Mycology is, at its simplest, the study of fungi. It can also be so much more than that, food, medicine, environment, ecology, the answer to questions that weren't even asked. My experiences with it are largely in the dabbling range. There are mushroom walks, what I call 'hunts', that occur in your friendly neighborhood mycological association from Spring through Fall. If you're afraid of commitment, you don't need to join. If you're afraid of the expense, they are largely free. They are always welcoming, there's almost always food, it's almost always vegan, or at least vegetarian, and members love to share what they know and point out finds along the way.
That October morning, as we wandered through the park poking at old logs and looking under fallen leaves, we had no idea what to expect, and certainly no idea how to find anything. To this day, despite my passion for it, I remain one of the worst locators of wild mushrooms, unless Wholefoods counts. At the end of the afternoon, we had managed to scrounge up a few poisonous varieties, a pair of choice edible bluets, and a tiny nub of hen of the woods donated by a member that took pity on us. We placed our meager haul on a group table with everyone else, and the walk leader ran through what each one was, and what the choice edibles were.
I've mourned not taking the opportunity to stop the car and forage that same chicken of the woods variety I spotted on a tree during the commute to my old job, where I watched it grow from its vibrant orange to a dull and crumbled brown as the days passed. A matter of weeks later, I spotted a familiar orange glow from my desk at home, only to find a substantial growth of the mushroom in question in my own backyard. Sometimes we do get second chances, it would seem. I've had long conversations over cups of freshly brewed chaga, a process that I hear involves grinding the unwieldy chunks down and slowly bubbling it like a witches brew until it turns into a slightly thicker and darker-than-coffee elixir that tastes kind of like coffee and a lot like earth. There are a couple of chunks hiding in my cabinet now, I may be a bit daunted by that process, or worried that my spice grinder wouldn't be able to handle it. I've run through campgrounds in Rhode Island after a thunderstorm, taking pictures of countless mushrooms springing out of every conceivable surface. As I've mentioned, I've haunted a farmer's market with vendors that grow or forage wild varieties not usually found, like lion's mane, which, at a distance, look like puppies but are decidedly not puppies. That same market offers a chaga tincture, for those too wary to brew their own tea. I may or may not have a bottle of lion's mane tincture in my house now. Why, you may ask. Why not? I've even discovered that I can, in fact, kind of draw, if I'm drawing mushrooms. My expanded library contains several volumes of mushroom identification guides, a gorgeously illustrated coffee table book, and a weighty textbook on radical mycology to round it out.
I have a strange relationship with mycology. Out of context, it may sound crazy to run around with a group of strangers in the woods putting things that were just in the ground that morning into your mouth. There's a certain level of trust, or maybe blindness, that goes along with that activity. Additionally telling people those kinds of stories, and then encouraging them to join you on the next one, well that shows you who your friends really are. It's a strange, wonderful, vast and diverse field that means a lot of things to a lot of people. You don't even have to go far to find out what it means to you.
Sunday, April 2, 2017
What's wrong with being alone?
What do you do?
Excuse me?
What do you do when you're there?
I can feel the smile unfurling over my face before I even realize it
Nothing. I tell them. I do nothing.
I take a week
Every year
I go to the mountains
And I do nothing
it's glorious.
I rise early, I haunt the bookshop intricate enough to be a small town of its own, I fortify my stronghold at the back table of the coffee shop, as I've mentioned previously, I convince a marvelous chef/owner couple to cook me a multi course vegan meal as I get drunk very slowly on something gingery/bourbon-y, I avoid writing my book, I take pictures that usually involve levitation/skulls/or hair flipping, I go to the unrivaled farmers markets and geek out with vendors over lion's mane mushrooms because everyone has to have their passions and mycology is an amazing thing, I watch an awful lot of Star Trek: The Next Generation- or as I like to call it, Saturdays with Jean Luc. I go on literal and figurative tangents.
I do nothing.
The best kind of thing.
If I could stay a month, a season, a year, a lifetime, it wouldn't be enough.
Doing things like this, these miraculous nothings, can bring about a lot of questions, or a lot of statements disguised as questions. You're married, what does your husband think, but what do you do, is that safe, don't you get lonely, and why. Some people get kind of angry and that throws me off.
Honestly, I don't know why it isn't more of a thing. I don't understand why everyone doesn't do this, circumstances not withstanding. I know, I sell my soul for the majority of the year (re: I've worked in finance for twelve years, please send help) so that I can actually get away to do this. Working with that concept, even on a small scale, to take yourself out to dinner, take yourself out to a movie, to get to know who you are when no one else is around because it's critically important to understand yourself, and because it just feels good. Do it because suffering in your day-to-day is not a badge to be proudly displayed. Do it in the name of self care. Tell any naysayers that Vanessa told you to. You can blame me if you need to, I've got your back.
Typically, I go loaded up with books I've been meaning to read and art supplies I've been meaning to break into. I take all the things and projects that I look at in my daily life, lamenting for more time, and so I don't travel light. The other side of that coin is that I very rarely touch 90% of what I bring with me and often curse myself while schlepping it back. Instead, I immerse myself in my surroundings, finding new books to read, new ideas for pictures, new recipes to try, though I'm comforted by having the options I brought along with me if I decide to change my mind. I spend the weeks leading up to said vacation making lists of what I want to do, what I'll bring and questionably what I'll use, what pantry items I should take because it's a full condo for that immersive alone experience, and what books I've been looking forward to. Lists of even the senses of things I've been missing, the crunch of gravel beneath my feet, the smell of the wood, the vault of the sky that seems somehow unique to that place. I pick out the music I'll play in the car while I ride up, I look up the route in case I've forgotten it (I haven't), I'll stare longingly at the forecasts for the area, and I wait.
Despite the name, alone vacation isn't about the avoidance of people. Yes, I go up in the off season so it isn't crazy crowded, but there are the hushed crowds at the bookstore, the two old professors in the cafe talking about getting credits towards their teaching licenses and how that gets more difficult the older they get, the off beat teen in the top hat that may have something to prove or may be ahead of their time, the baristas that have started to recognize you, the kid in fatigues at the farmer's market who strikes up conversation with you as you listen to the fiddler and the cicadas (forever pronounced: Chi-ca-dahs), the antique vendor that helps you identify the skull you've taken a shine to, and the woman at the candy shop that gives you an extra quarter pound of the fudge you give as gifts upon your return. The sounds and sites and normalcy of life going on all around you, and the role you play within it, is a part of the experience. At the end of the day you can return to your fortress of solitude, comforted by the liquid baritone of your favorite starship captain, feast on some foraged mushrooms, and reflect on it all. You are the captain of your own ship, and the path you take is decided by you alone, and so is what you take from the experience. That freedom can be daunting, even in the most simple of tasks, but it is rewarding because it's yours.
Around March/April without fail, the dreams begin. Slightly heightened, as if something has turned up the volume, and over-saturated, I dream of the mountains, the roads to get there, and of never having to come back. Seeing my life from a birds-eye view, an actual map spread beneath me, full of high summits and deep water, and picking that one clear path I know is the answer. Like those damned Helvetica font faced trendy mugs or posters boasting the Muir quote "The mountains are calling, and I must go." The mountains do not gently beckon, they do not whisper, they roar, they echo, they demand, and each year, I heed. I would tell you to come with me, but that would defeat the purpose now, wouldn't it?
Doing things like this, these miraculous nothings, can bring about a lot of questions, or a lot of statements disguised as questions. You're married, what does your husband think, but what do you do, is that safe, don't you get lonely, and why. Some people get kind of angry and that throws me off.
Honestly, I don't know why it isn't more of a thing. I don't understand why everyone doesn't do this, circumstances not withstanding. I know, I sell my soul for the majority of the year (re: I've worked in finance for twelve years, please send help) so that I can actually get away to do this. Working with that concept, even on a small scale, to take yourself out to dinner, take yourself out to a movie, to get to know who you are when no one else is around because it's critically important to understand yourself, and because it just feels good. Do it because suffering in your day-to-day is not a badge to be proudly displayed. Do it in the name of self care. Tell any naysayers that Vanessa told you to. You can blame me if you need to, I've got your back.
Typically, I go loaded up with books I've been meaning to read and art supplies I've been meaning to break into. I take all the things and projects that I look at in my daily life, lamenting for more time, and so I don't travel light. The other side of that coin is that I very rarely touch 90% of what I bring with me and often curse myself while schlepping it back. Instead, I immerse myself in my surroundings, finding new books to read, new ideas for pictures, new recipes to try, though I'm comforted by having the options I brought along with me if I decide to change my mind. I spend the weeks leading up to said vacation making lists of what I want to do, what I'll bring and questionably what I'll use, what pantry items I should take because it's a full condo for that immersive alone experience, and what books I've been looking forward to. Lists of even the senses of things I've been missing, the crunch of gravel beneath my feet, the smell of the wood, the vault of the sky that seems somehow unique to that place. I pick out the music I'll play in the car while I ride up, I look up the route in case I've forgotten it (I haven't), I'll stare longingly at the forecasts for the area, and I wait.
Despite the name, alone vacation isn't about the avoidance of people. Yes, I go up in the off season so it isn't crazy crowded, but there are the hushed crowds at the bookstore, the two old professors in the cafe talking about getting credits towards their teaching licenses and how that gets more difficult the older they get, the off beat teen in the top hat that may have something to prove or may be ahead of their time, the baristas that have started to recognize you, the kid in fatigues at the farmer's market who strikes up conversation with you as you listen to the fiddler and the cicadas (forever pronounced: Chi-ca-dahs), the antique vendor that helps you identify the skull you've taken a shine to, and the woman at the candy shop that gives you an extra quarter pound of the fudge you give as gifts upon your return. The sounds and sites and normalcy of life going on all around you, and the role you play within it, is a part of the experience. At the end of the day you can return to your fortress of solitude, comforted by the liquid baritone of your favorite starship captain, feast on some foraged mushrooms, and reflect on it all. You are the captain of your own ship, and the path you take is decided by you alone, and so is what you take from the experience. That freedom can be daunting, even in the most simple of tasks, but it is rewarding because it's yours.
Around March/April without fail, the dreams begin. Slightly heightened, as if something has turned up the volume, and over-saturated, I dream of the mountains, the roads to get there, and of never having to come back. Seeing my life from a birds-eye view, an actual map spread beneath me, full of high summits and deep water, and picking that one clear path I know is the answer. Like those damned Helvetica font faced trendy mugs or posters boasting the Muir quote "The mountains are calling, and I must go." The mountains do not gently beckon, they do not whisper, they roar, they echo, they demand, and each year, I heed. I would tell you to come with me, but that would defeat the purpose now, wouldn't it?
Sunday, March 19, 2017
Flight
I started blogging, with both enthusiasm and cynicism, about food- which, for some reason, is a focal point of my life- Or should I say, which for some reason is not a focal point of everyone's life? This is confusing to me, the person who plans entire vacations around where her next meal will come from, and I know I'm not alone there. To view food as mere fuel and something that just needs to be done so that we can keep going, seems so alien. A cold and dystopian outlook, probably coming soon to theaters.
Food is to be revered, mocked, discovered, languished over, laughed over, snobbed about. Food is ritual. I still hold a special spot in my skeptical heart for writing about it. Hell, I did it for free for a few years- but I am not a chef, I'm not a prodigy, I have nothing new and revolutionary to show you. Even if I did, I would probably stodgily hoard the information until I take it with me to the grave, save for some illegible scribbles on post it notes and discordant notebooks with plenty of blanks, redaction, and cypher. I like to think I bake pretty well, a skill honed from the unrelenting forge of being a vegan and having only sweet teeth, but again, I'm not alone there.
At some point, I became lazy. That's not to say I lost my passion, but rather that I started handing over the reins to others. I explored new options in new places, I asked questions, I patched-worked meals together from options in the 'sides' section of menus. One time in particular, I inquired about meal options via email to an extraordinary place I had heard about, near to where I take my yearly hermitage. I had done this before with other restaurants, usually to no answer. I'm not sure how many restaurants check their emails, or rather, I am- it's not many- and I, not being the most eloquent of beasts, shy away from phones. I was surprised when I was promptly answered, and in turn, was asked a series of questions about what a vegan meal could or could not consist of. That one email started a tradition, now five years running, in which I formed an awkward (to reiterate, not the most eloquent of beasts) friendship with a chef/owner power couple that feed me on a yearly basis with extravagant and new combinations of dishes that I like to call, Indulgent Meal.
With the inception of Indulgent Meal, I truly let go of the reins and allow the chef to choose whatever the hell he feels like including that night. The property that the restaurant occupies and my timing allows for anything from fiddlehead ferns and morels, to a homemade smoked tomato jam and fresh garbanzos. I am still haunted, in the most lovingly of ways, by a soubise sauce with foraged mushrooms, fresh peas, and hand torn pasta.
Listen, sometimes I break the rules. It's been 18 years and very few fucks are given at this point.
It's still in me, it still drives me, fills me with strong opinions, and fuels one-sided rants at Food Network shows. If this so-called lazy path led me to a new tradition that I look forward to every year, then maybe it isn't so bad. I am still an avid hoarder cookbooks of all kinds, writing cryptic notes, making plans for that one day where I'm going to cook something more than 'red soup' (spoiler alert, everything in the soup is in the red/orange spectrum, but somehow there are no tomatoes involved) or kale and beans, and avidly read from my reliable food blog haunts. I still bake for the person that plows my driveway when they see me struggling with a shovel. I'll make new creations for friend's/family member's birthdays based loosely on their personalities, and make a variation of a hazelnut cake on my own. I'm still trying to find a way to make hot chocolate that I give a crap about that isn't straight ganache, not that there's anything wrong with that. Food sparks my interest and sometimes my creativity, so it seemed a fitting place to start. So pull up a chair, grab a hot beverage, stare at an unrelentingly blank screen, and see what happens.
Food is to be revered, mocked, discovered, languished over, laughed over, snobbed about. Food is ritual. I still hold a special spot in my skeptical heart for writing about it. Hell, I did it for free for a few years- but I am not a chef, I'm not a prodigy, I have nothing new and revolutionary to show you. Even if I did, I would probably stodgily hoard the information until I take it with me to the grave, save for some illegible scribbles on post it notes and discordant notebooks with plenty of blanks, redaction, and cypher. I like to think I bake pretty well, a skill honed from the unrelenting forge of being a vegan and having only sweet teeth, but again, I'm not alone there.
At some point, I became lazy. That's not to say I lost my passion, but rather that I started handing over the reins to others. I explored new options in new places, I asked questions, I patched-worked meals together from options in the 'sides' section of menus. One time in particular, I inquired about meal options via email to an extraordinary place I had heard about, near to where I take my yearly hermitage. I had done this before with other restaurants, usually to no answer. I'm not sure how many restaurants check their emails, or rather, I am- it's not many- and I, not being the most eloquent of beasts, shy away from phones. I was surprised when I was promptly answered, and in turn, was asked a series of questions about what a vegan meal could or could not consist of. That one email started a tradition, now five years running, in which I formed an awkward (to reiterate, not the most eloquent of beasts) friendship with a chef/owner power couple that feed me on a yearly basis with extravagant and new combinations of dishes that I like to call, Indulgent Meal.
With the inception of Indulgent Meal, I truly let go of the reins and allow the chef to choose whatever the hell he feels like including that night. The property that the restaurant occupies and my timing allows for anything from fiddlehead ferns and morels, to a homemade smoked tomato jam and fresh garbanzos. I am still haunted, in the most lovingly of ways, by a soubise sauce with foraged mushrooms, fresh peas, and hand torn pasta.
Listen, sometimes I break the rules. It's been 18 years and very few fucks are given at this point.
It's still in me, it still drives me, fills me with strong opinions, and fuels one-sided rants at Food Network shows. If this so-called lazy path led me to a new tradition that I look forward to every year, then maybe it isn't so bad. I am still an avid hoarder cookbooks of all kinds, writing cryptic notes, making plans for that one day where I'm going to cook something more than 'red soup' (spoiler alert, everything in the soup is in the red/orange spectrum, but somehow there are no tomatoes involved) or kale and beans, and avidly read from my reliable food blog haunts. I still bake for the person that plows my driveway when they see me struggling with a shovel. I'll make new creations for friend's/family member's birthdays based loosely on their personalities, and make a variation of a hazelnut cake on my own. I'm still trying to find a way to make hot chocolate that I give a crap about that isn't straight ganache, not that there's anything wrong with that. Food sparks my interest and sometimes my creativity, so it seemed a fitting place to start. So pull up a chair, grab a hot beverage, stare at an unrelentingly blank screen, and see what happens.
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