Injera

Today, I'm making injera:
Or, more accurately, THIS WEEK I'm making injera.  It all began on a particularly autumnal day, perfectly suited for a big bowl of nice warm stew.  For some bizarre reason, I chose to make an Ethiopian Stew, Yemiser W'et, from this cookbook.  At the end of the recipe it said, "serve with injera (see page 525)."  As Minneapolis is a hub for many east African immigrants, I could run to just about any local grocery store and pick up a batch of injera (this recipe suggested 3 batches), but here was a recipe staring me in my face like a dare. Little did I know it was a double-dog dare.


I'd already started the stew.  I began to mix the injera.  Eight cups of flour in, I realized I'd need a bigger bowl.  And that was only the first ingredient.  I poured my dry ingredients into an even bigger bowl.  Now I needed to add 12 cups of warm water.  And the biggest bowl in our kitchen had about an inch remaining of unfilled space.  Hemm.  Hah.  What shall I do?!?!


Oh, look, Ruth's cake carrier:

Pour, pour, mix mix mix.
Read the recipe: "Let rise 3 days at room temperature."
3 days!?!?  I put the lid on.


I ate my stew sans injera.  It was deliciously perfect for the crisp autumn weather outside.


I washed my many dishes. I revisited my mysterious injera and realized that if it had to rise for 3 days(!),  even this upside-down cake carrier was not nearly capacious enough.  I fetched my freshly washed mixing bowls and filled each about half full with injera batter, covered them, and began to wait.


All the next day at work I worried about my injera.  Would I return home to find a dough explosion all over my kitchen?  How much would my roommates hate me, should that happen?  (Un)fortunately, when I returned home my injera hadn't risen much.  Was this due to the lack of heat in our house?  I worried about my cold toes; Evie, Ruth, and I brainstormed all the warmer places we could be while wearing our heavy jackets inside.  Quietly, I gave a slightly concerned thanks for my un-exploded injera.  Three days passed without tragedy.  


Bread is funny that way, how it needs to rest.


Today is my first vacation day since school started after Labor Day.  Big plans for the day: clean the Teachers' Shelves at school; shop for linens; rearrange my room; put on storm windows.  But first, there's a video lecture I've been waiting to watch.  Oh, and my injera is NOW about to explode.  So I take my laptop to the kitchen and begin to fry (?) up my injera, one quarter cup of batter at a time.  The first few resemble pancakes (they should look more like crepes).  Mmm! Pancake!  I take a pinch of one.  Not sweet. Not a pancake.

Injera in the pan

Four hours later, the injera batter and I have become friends.  Not one thing has gotten crossed off the mental to-do list I'd begun accumulating for this single day a month ago.  I've spent the morning in the kitchen sipping coffee and water, pouring quarter-cups full of injera batter into a pan, one at a time, waiting, and repeating.  I made a second batch of Ethiopian stew (a different recipe this time) and a quart of vegetable stock to freeze for winter.  I've watched foot traffic come and go from the garage sale across the street.  But mostly, I wait.  The injera has begun to speak to me.  It likes the burner set at 2 and its edges begin to pull away from the pan when it needs me to lift it from the pan.  But mostly, I wait.


Bread is funny that way, how it requires me to rest.

Intentions

I've been meaning to post for several days now.  I've got a good one (or at least I deem it as such, and I'm obviously not the most objective judge in the world) cooking itself up in my brain, astir in my soul.


Have I written about being ill?  I think I did, in my original post about prayer.  I had migraines every day this year from February 22 - June 5.  Every. Day.


Then I went on a bike trip.  On June 7 I mounted by sturdy bicycle and pedaled, one rotation at a time, to visit my sister & family in Nashville, TN.  My migraines dissipated.  This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip for the sole reason that when I sat down with my mom, who saw me through the worst of my migraines, to show her my trip pictures and we came to this one she exclaimed, "You look so healthy!"

Healthy.  Something I didn't feel for a long time, something for which I'd once given up hope.

I spent a blissful summer living delightfully slowly.  I didn't work.  I travelled when the spirit said "travel," I rested daily.  I prepared my own food with my own two hands.  I went to bed early and rose with the sun.  I read or didn't read.  I wrote.

In August I returned to work, to a job that I love and my migraines re-infested my skull.  Like the slight fluttering of angels' wings, I overheard a parent of a new student saying, "My dad used to get awful migraines and it turns out he is allergic to dairy.  He gave up dairy and he's been healthy since."

Good-bye, dairy.  I vowed to "give it a try," to avoid dairy completely for one month.  I'm not good at following rules, but I did it!  From September 1 - September 30, I didn't ingest dairy in any form.  My body felt so capable. So healthy.  I took up running.  School started and I worked 11 energetic hours daily.

It's October now.  I've eaten Macaroni & cheese and pizza and cookies.  I didn't check the ingredients in Sunday morning's bread.  I feel sick.

I can't summon the energy to create a coherent post about anything.  It's increasingly difficult to teach.  It's hard work to be healthy and annoying too.  But its a road I need to travel.

Dear Body,  teach me to listen.  Please be patient with me as I learn.

Surprise!

Have you ever surprised yourself?

Sometimes I surprise myself.  Most recently, this happened after I'd had one or two or three drinks (spread over more than that many hours, so don't get the idea that I was falling all over myself.  I wasn't.).

I sat, with my legs curled under me, in the corner of a friend's couch, talking about my then-upcoming weekend, which has become the present.  I am overnight nannying for a family I've known and cared for since the boy was in diapers.  The girl is in middle school now.  It is an honor to be invited into this home, into this family's life, time and time again over the years.  I clumsily explained why spending my weekend (off from teaching) with two kids appealed to me, a single-and-loving it twenty-something. 

"Sometimes I'm afraid of being forgotten."  The words dripped down my chin as I sat wide-eyed.  Did I hear that correctly?  Did that just happen?  The truth I didn't know hung in the air as I wished to reel them in, wipe the sticky truth off my face and return to innocent ignorance.

Thank you, friend, for being receptive.  For not batting an eyelash.  For letting me surprise myself then letting me shut myself up without requiring me so to do.  Thank you for being safe.

I'm living that upcoming weekend now.  It is simple, it is beautiful.  We know each other well and we are not forgotten.

Homecoming, Part 2

Sometimes coming home is hard to do.  It is awkward and uncomfortable.  You realize you don't quite fit the cavity you left behind.  What then?

I can only think of one solution:

Leave again and bravely plow your own path.

Prayer

 About a month ago, I wrote this post on prayer.


The temperature on this morning's bike commute hovered in the mid-30's.  As I rounded a corner a mile and a half into the commute, I found myself muttering "Sweet Jesus."  Then I remembered my fervent prayer ritual.  When people ask, "How do you do it?" in reference to winter biking, I only have a few responses:

• Long underwear, goggles, a balaklava, and lots of socks.
• Four-letter words
• I pray. A lot.

Sure enough.  Four blocks north of my school, I approach Christian Park.  As my bike glided across the intersection and I began to ride parallel to the park, I began to pray aloud the Hail Mary in Spanish. (It is a long, unfortunate tale as to how I learned this prayer.)  I do this everyday in the winter.  Somehow, it holds me through the last moments of the cold.

So I guess I do pray sometimes.

Homecoming

Most of the time, I don't know how I feel about religion or deity.


This weekend I visited my grandparents in southwestern Iowa to 'celebrate' my grandma's 91st Birthday! "How different my life could have been!" I marveled as we toured the countryside, seeing the homesteads of my grandparents now-passed peers.  My cousins still live in the same county where both grandparents have lived their entire lives, excepting a brief stint to serve in World War II.  My immediate family passed a couple chapters of our collective life there, too.  But we settled here, not there.


Yet on Sunday morning as we sidled into the "back pew of the front section" of my grandparents' church, I knew I wasn't too far off the mark.  Despite my frequent agnostic tendencies (or maybe I'm just a skeptic?), I was glad to see some familiar hymns listed in the bulletin and surprisingly glad to sing them.  I cherish the opportunity to sit next to my Buddy (grandpa) and Grandma and sing the songs we've all known since childhood, reassuring us of Divine Presence.


When I biked to Nashville this summer, I stayed one night with an amazingly hospitable woman named Ruth in Nauvoo, IL.  The morning after my arrival, she took me to see the sights of Historic Nauvoo, commemorating the original Mormon settlement.  In the Visitor's Center, we sat on a bench facing a very large Jesus sculpture who, at the poke of a button, spoke to us.  "What did you hear?" asked the young missionary staffing the site.  "Love," I said, "Over and over, he urged us to love.  Love is the Way, the only Way."  I felt very vulnerable and simultaneously very guarded.  Suddenly, despite frequent doubt, I wanted to cling to my "home religion."  Yet Love is something I felt we could hold in common, despite religious - or irreligious - tendencies.


I still have more questions than answers and I honestly prefer to live in the grey.  I don't ask my questions loudly.  But I do find great comfort in singing the hymns of my youth and of my grandparents' youth.  I like Jesus.  When I read the Bible erratically I often think "Yeah! I should read this more!"  But I don't.  I live like a pugnacious preteen.  Instead of channelling my Buddy's quiet religiosity, I cling to his orneriness.  I don't know where I am, but I do know I like the feeling of "coming home."


**Caution: this post was written in a state of great fatigue, and is completely unedited.  I can't remember where I began or whence I travelled in the meantime.  But if I don't publish now, I never will.  So here goes...**

Found object

Found this:


salamander in the desert.
farewell, nomadic life,
life on 2 wheels.
farewell adventure
new place to sleep each night
makeshift town triangles
anger, strife, and perseverance
farewell close travel companions
and distant friends.
you are all but a memory now
~growing fainter with each
passing day.
Farewell.


(and counter to my previous post, i drew a line drawing -- a doodle really.  i'm riding a bike in a circle, never leaving. Why?)