Spark It Up: NaBloPoMo

Today is April 1st, and already I have been the victim of a very well-played practical joke by my friend Andrew Odom. Turns out, you can't actually believe everything you read on the internet.

I'd like to say that this is an April Fool's Joke, but what I am about to write is true and a bi-annual occurrence. In April and November, I commit myself to writing a blog a day for 30 days. Formally known as NaBloPoMo, the official span is just in November, but I think April is a great 30-day time to do it as well. I wrote my book in 30 days in April 2012 (took another year and a half to edit and publish), and every time I force myself to the discipline of keyboard and blogging, it tends to spark things up a bit, something that is necessary right about now.

I can say in all honesty that I am not even remotely excited for this at this point; everything about my being has tended to the sludge-like, the monotonous, the tedium of daily routine. I feel like molasses uphill in January; yoga has become a chore that I have to get through (and I always feel better after, but still), and although my mercenary writing life is fine, my personal projects have come to a standstill as I actively avoid looking at what I am supposed to be doing.

So I read Steinbeck's six tips on writing, and this is what stuck:

"Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised."

His rules mostly apply to his fiction, but there is extreme value in this rule. Abandon the hope of being done; writers know that a) it's never done, and b) even when it's finished it's still not "done." Just one piece of my own writing daily is my goal, even something beyond this blog. A paragraph. A line.

I am in a funk, no doubt, and 30 days, two more days than rehab, may be enough to get me out. At least until November.

Bloggers, won't you join me?

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Why Don't We Do What We Should?

As a former educator I have been thinking about persistence and motivation for twenty years. As a human, I suppose in some form or another I have been beating myself up with this topic my entire life.

Why don't we do what we should?

Take this blog, for instance. I haven't written a single entry in three weeks. It's not that I have nothing to say; what's in my head could fill an editorial calendar with daily blogs for months. So why don't I write?

And yoga. As I twist myself into pretzel-y shapes at yoga this morning, a class that I love but still had to drag myself to, I was even considering why it is so hard to push ourselves to do even the most basic of things we know we should do. Some of them, like folding laundry and putting away the clean dishes, are just mundane tasks that are no fun, but even those simple things take no time and yield small pleasures like clean clothes and eating utensils. In our house, we will sometimes nearly empty out the clean dishwasher by using the cups, plates, and spoons (always spoons), piling dishes in the sink until we can't take it anymore (which is a long time if you are a teenager, less long if you are her parent).

I don't think I will ever fully embrace folding laundry or emptying the dishwasher, but there are important things I am not doing. Knowing that yoga makes me feel better and writing is deeply satisfying, why is it still so hard to do it?

For me at least, this goes way beyond laziness or lack of motivation.

Reflecting on myself, The Teenager, other people around me, and the literally thousands of students I have taught, I have come to believe that it is a complicated mixture of fear and insecurity that keeps us from doing the things we love.

Fear

There has long been a theory that human behavior is motivated by two things: fear and love. Fear is a powerful block to pretty much anything in the world, just as love is a powerful motivator. When I don't write, or I don't throw myself fully into yoga teacher training, it's not love that is holding me back. It's fear. What if it doesn't work? Or *gasp* what if it actually does? What if all of my wildest dreams come true? Then what?

I can't turn this blog into a motivational speech. All I can do is speak for myself. If I actually do all of the things I say I want to do, the world will open up in ways both frightening and powerful. There are days when I am just not ready for that; I am not ready for the responsibility of living up to the life I say I want. Then there are days when I look around at the routine I have built for myself and shudder to think of me doing the same thing, 20 years from now. Both imaginings are rooted in fear, one of not living up to my own expectations and the other of  living up to my own expectations.

See how I did that?

Insecurity

Fear's bastard cousin is insecurity. This is the anti-cheerleader in my head, that bitch who follows me around chanting about how I can't possibly think that my writing is good enough and who do I think I am? It's the one that looks in the mirror and judges things others miss. It makes commentary on my walk, my voice, my face, my writing, my progress in yoga. It's judgmental and loud.

Insecurity is rooted in instability, in the idea that at any moment the world could change and things could be different. It's why we have bedtime routines for kids and take our dogs for walks at the same time every day; the routine is reassuring. But what happens when the routine is suddenly, violently changed and everything you knew to be true and planned for is swept away?

Get over it, right? It has been two years since Dane died. Move on, yeah?

Unless you have experienced a similar death, it is hard to understand what it feels like to have everything you planned for change in an instant. As to the stages of grief, I am still struggling with acceptance in that it is still very difficult to reconcile the life we had planned and the life we have now, especially as we are still not 100% settled and are still moving around a bit. Even becoming a mother was easier to adapt to; yes, I became a different person in many ways with different priorities, but at least there was planning and time to adapt. Even two years After The Crash the idea that everything could be gone is still ever-present.

Insecurity is also deeply tied to fear. As I get ready to send The Teenager to Paris for a week, I have had to work hard to not give in to every awful fear I have about what could happen.

So insecurity makes me clinging and grasping in some ways, holding on to what stability I have. It's like all of the balancing poses in yoga. First you have to hug into the center of yourself, and then when you feel stable you can expand outward. Like a turtle, I am not sure how stable I feel yet, and because of this it is very difficult to expand outward.

It has taken me three weeks to write this, which speaks to how hard it is to admit and to also put into words. Hello, everyone: I am a raging ball of fear and insecurity. Not necessarily a confident introduction.

But the first step is to admit you have a problem. Hi, my name is Suzannah, and I am deathly afraid of both success and failure and deeply worried about losing the tenuous grasp on reality that I have worked really hard to cultivate in the last two years, one month and 11 days.

Hi, Suzannah. Keep coming back.

I guess the plan is to keep coming back. The key is to feel the fear and insecurity and do it anyway (like sending The Teenager to Paris or writing this down). I spent the first year after Dane's death saying "yes," and that has changed; these days I have to force myself to go out of the house, to explore, to engage, to say "yes" when I just want to go home and take a nap. I am getting bogged down in the minutiae of daily living and find myself thinking if this is really it for the next ____ years until I am dead.

That, as they say in the parlance of the 12 Steps, is stinkin' thinkin'.

Still working on steps two through 12 on this path. Thoughts and suggestions? What works for you to move past whatever holds you back?

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Cream Cheese Tarts With Lemon Marmalade

It's winter. Not the depths of winter, technically, but we got seven inches of snow yesterday, so here in Baltimore, we are IN IT.

I love winter. It's annoyingly true. While others grumble about snow days and kids staying home, I like nothing better than to have The Teenager all to myself for the day. Yesterday at the height of the storm we hiked down to Golden West for the Lisa Marie (a pancake with a strip of bacon fried in it, topped with peanut butter butter - not a typo, a real thing -and served with maple syrup), plus hashbrowns for good measure. We let the dogs run up and down the alley, off leash, until they found a kitty and chased it, then we made snow angels in the middle of the road.

So snow days are my thing.

Especially when you have this just lying around in your cabinet:



This is a jar of epic, three-day organic lemon marmalade that I made last week. It is tart and sweet and faintly bitter from the pith that gives it the pectin to set up all by itself.

I have five of these. That's a lot for two people to eat, one of whom doesn't actually like lemon marmalade. Logical choice, for me, is a lemon cream cheese tart. Individual tarts because a whole tart is too much but maybe individual ones will be more manageable.

An easy, gluten-free pie crust, a luscious, creamy, whipped cream and cream cheese filling, and a thin layer of juicy lemon marmalade. Drizzling it with chocolate may be overkill, but I am going there.

Come with me.

Cream Cheese Tarts With Lemon Marmalade

Crust:

5 tablespoons butter (softened)

1/4 cup sugar

1 room temperature egg

1 cup AP flour (I used gluten-free)

1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions: Cream butter and sugar with a hand mixer until smooth. Add egg and incorporate thoroughly. Combine flour and salt in a small bowl and then add into the wet mixture a little at a time until it is just mixed. Shape dough into a ball, then wrap in plastic and flatten. Pop in the 'fridge and chill for an hour.

When it's chilled, remove from 'fridge and flour your work surface. Turn out dough and roll until it is between 1/8" and 1/4" thick (I use a wine bottle to roll, but I suppose a regular old rolling pin would work as well). For individual tarts, you could rush out and spend lots of cash on individual tart pans, or you could grab some wide-mouthed Mason jar lids and flip the lid so the metal faces up in the center of the ring (instead the white underside).



Place your tart dough in the lid, pressing lightly into and up the sides of the ring. Make sure you make your dough circles just a bit wider than the ring so that there is enough dough to go all the way up to the top of the metal ring.



This recipe made eight of the wide-mouthed lids and three of the regular lids. Perfect if you have small children who need an even smaller tart. Chill in the freezer for half an hour (wrap lightly in plastic wrap).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake mini crusts until lightly browned and dry, about 15 minutes (about 30 minutes for a full-sized tart). Keep an eye on them. If they start to bubble up, you can prick them lightly with a fork, or you can line each crust with aluminum foil and use pie weights to prevent bubbling (or just use rice. I use the same rice over and over. I let the rice cool after each use then store it in a jar for the next time. This lasts indefinitely, or until you move and decide to throw it out.). Your crust should be a lovely golden brown color. If you are using pie weights or rice, remove them in the last few minutes so the whole crust can brown.

Let crusts cool completely while you make the filling.

Filling:

1 8-ounce bar of cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup of sugar

1 cup of whipping cream, whipped until it forms peaks

optional: 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and one tablespoon of sugar to add to whipping cream

Directions: Cream the cream cheese and the sugar together until fully mixed. Whip the whipping cream (and optional sugar and vanilla extract) in a separate bowl until the cream forms stiff peaks. Beat the cream cheese and the whipped cream together. Spoon into cooled crusts and chill for at least an hour.



Top with your topping of choice and chill for another 30 minutes. I am using lemon marmalade, about a tablespoon per tart, but guess what? Jam of any sort would be delicious, or slather the tops with hot fudge sauce. If you do that, be sure and finish with a bit of fleur de sels.



To serve, unmold from the Mason jar rings. You should be able to slide the tart off the lid, but if not, serve it with a dollop of whipped cream, a smile, and a strong cup of black coffee.

Spring is just around the corner.

 

The Birth Month And Looking Forward

I love birthdays. I am a whole-hearted supporter of the Gala Birthday Week, at a minimum, and even support extending it to a Birth Month celebration. This does not mean I will necessarily treat you like a princess for the whole month, but if that's what floats your boat and you choose that vision, I am not going to stand in your way during your birthday month (maybe the others, but that's a whole other story).

I don't work on my birthday, and I don't do anything I don't want to do. Yes, this extends to cleaning up after myself, bathing, etc. For 24 hours I don't allow myself to feel obligation to anyone but my own frivolous whim. In past years, this has looked as mundane as cleaning horse shit out of a pasture and then sitting in the sun while my sweet horse laid her head on my shoulder and napped. It has also looked like swimming with whale sharks and spending all day in bed, utterly naked and drenched in sex (and crumbs from all meals eaten between the sheets, delivered to me by my beloved, of course).

It's like a mini break from reality. For 8,640 seconds, once a year, I just let myself be.

It seems pretty simple, no?

Unless, of course, you are me. Then you put a ton of pressure on yourself, thinking about so many things you could choose to do with your 8,640 seconds that it is exceptionally difficult to make a choice about any one of them. It isn't paralyzing, not yet anyway, but it does add a certain amount of stress to really identify what it is I want on that particular day. And it is hard to make plans because what if I make plans with people and then I wake up and don't want to do it and then feel bad for cancelling? I can't expect people to be at my beck-and-call on that day (although I have to say that I have an EXCEPTIONAL group of people in my life, and for many years, this has actually happened. While no one turns down something amazing if they are invited on my birthday in favor of sitting around, waiting in case I may or may not call to do something, for the most part, the people I have chosen to surround myself with have been very accommodating and have sort of stayed on standby for me. And I love them for that, more than they could ever know. Makes me feel like way less of a freak. But I digress).

So. This birthday, which is right around the corner (Pi Day, so I feel a special kinship with my man Albert Einstein who shares my birthday), I am going to shake things up a bit and actually make plans. Not so many plans that there isn't space in between for awesome non-plan things to arise, but enough so I have something to look forward to. I do believe that sometimes, in the absence of a steady stream of predictable joy, one must grab a bovine by the calcium deposits on the head and go ahead and schedule that shit. This is why people buy season tickets to sports teams or schedule a summer vacation in February. Having something to look forward to is the thing that helps when the joy evaporates and you are staring down the barrel of a crappy week or fighting with your spouse or hating your job or whatever. It allows you to look ahead to something better. Manufacture a little pre-paid joy.

This looking-forward-to-things is not particularly yogic. Yoga philosophy pushes mindfulness and being in the moment no matter what the moment is. There is some serious benefit to that. First, all of the emotions you have you get to really, truly feel. Love is lovier, joy is more joyful. Grief is griefier, but feeling it and letting it wash over you is better than shoving it in the Closet of Suppressed Emotions to burst forth at a later (and seriously inconvenient) time. And being mindful also cultivates gratitude and peace. You are neither reliving the past (depressing) or worrying about the future (anxiety-causing).

But MAN. Looking forward to something is plain old fun. And I am down for some plain old fun with a side of cocktail and food. Maybe some new duds. Definitely a pedicure for my seriously basic feet. Time to plan ahead and manufacture a little bit of joy.

What do you do for your birthday? 

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5 Reasons Why I Don't Belong In Yoga, And 5 Reasons Why That Makes Me A Good Teacher

Yoga teacher training (YTT) continues to inspire and befuddle me. There is so much wisdom in the teachings of yoga, but the language of yoga itself in many cases just bogs me down and makes me want to crack snarky jokes in the back of the studio while drinking whiskey and smoking a Marlboro red. It doesn't help that so many of my fellow teacher/students have clearly drank the Kool-Aid (and I mean that in the nicest way. They are truly some of the most interesting and lovely people I have ever met), which makes me feel like even more of a douche when I am giggling in my head at some of the stuff I just don't get.

Here, in no particular order, are five reasons why I don't belong in yoga class, followed by five reasons why the previous five reasons will actually make me a better teacher.

1. I can't get behind the terminology. With common phrases like "hug muscle to bone" and "energetically pull your legs into your hip sockets" and other various self-help sounding, capitalized references to Self and You, this type of terminology is difficult for me to hear with a straight face.

2. I don't believe that we should surrender to the idea that all life is suffering. This is a Buddhist idea that I have been mulling around for quite some time, and it is hard to wrap my head around the idea that we are put on earth to suffer.

3. I don't believe in denial. See what I did there? But I don't believe that giving up butter will make me an enlightened person. Same goes with cocktails, barbecue, and sex. Yet an "enlightened" person practices none of these things. We had an Ayurvedic workshop two months ago, and the teacher said that vata people should have sex once a month, pitta people once a week, and kappha people whenever they want.  Seems unfair to the vatas, no?

4. I don't love all of my fellow humans. In fact, as my daughter puts it, it's not that I don't like people; I just don't like strangers. This will be very difficult for a teacher who may see a student once. Especially if that teacher is clearly emanating an "I hate strangers" vibe.

5. I am horribly imperfect. Teachers, although human, should be exemplars, and yikes. Did you read the first four reasons? My friend Terri says she doesn't see all of this stuff I am trying to change about myself, but if she could only roll around in my head every now and then. It's a shitshow in there.

And now, the good news.

1. I have the potential to make yoga more accessible with different language. As a former teacher of middle school students, I am very familiar with the deconstruction of a concept to help build understanding. I don't have to talk to my potential future students in the same language of the classes I am currently taking. Albert Einstein said, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't know it well enough." My job is to know it well enough so that I can not only explain it simply but also in terms that make more sense.

2. Although I don't  believe all life is suffering, I have suffered. Empathy is a HUGE part of being a teacher. I don't mean sympathy, like feeling sorry for someone, which has its place, to be sure. Empathy is truly understanding and feeling what a person is going through. In my life I have lost a father, a house, a husband, and a baby. I have been foods-stamps broke and very flush (briefly, but still). I have moved quite a bit, experienced major depression and incredible joy. I taught public school for 13 years; I was a counselor for women in transitional housing. I was a drone in an office. For better or for worse, when you are going through something and I am near you, I quite literally feel your pain (or happiness). This is a positive thing for a yoga teacher because it makes it possible to teach a class with sensitivity and compassion, as opposed to just leading students through a sequence. Which class would you rather take?

3. I believe in balance. I am never going to advocate giving up what you love for yoga. You want to drink all night? Eat red meat? Smoke pot? Hey, man. That's okay by me. Truly. Maybe it makes you feel crappy the next day, maybe it doesn't. I just don't believe that giving up all sensual pleasures is a requirement of a beautiful yoga practice, and I don't think the public declaration of having done so makes you any better of a person than the drinker on the mat next to you. It's like competitive yoga, who can be the most pure, which is quite the opposite of what yoga is all about.

4. Strangers are friends you haven't met yet. HA. I don't believe this. What I do believe, though, is that my response to strangers is that of a mirror. When I see strangers as assholes, it is more about me than them (although, admittedly, sometimes it is about them. But that's a whole other blog). Lately I have been thinking a lot about the ripples in the pond. When I buy coffee for the car behind me, maybe that changes the course of that person's entire day. When I practice basic courtesy (holding open a door, smiling, saying "Thank you"), that enters into someone's day like light through a tiny crack in the door. I truly enjoy making that happen for other people. Maybe it's selfish to be kind because it makes me feel good, but this is the way I have been trying to deal with strangers, and if I can bring this into yoga class, attempting to shine a small sliver of light into the darkness, that will only make me a better teacher (and a better human!).

5. Yoga is a "practice," not a "perfect." This is key. I have entered into many anonymous Internet arguments of late about the image of yogis. I am sick and tired of seeing bendy white girls in their early 20s as the "face" of yoga. Only in Western yoga, friends. In the East, it's mostly grizzly, droopy, hairy Indian men. You don't have to be tall, willowy, white, and female to practice yoga, and I want everyone who comes into my future classes to understand this. There is no "perfect" yoga body or type or income level. Everyone starts at a different place, and everyone has a personal practice that is unique to them. As one of my former teachers said, "If you're feeling it, you're doing it."

Yoga teacher training is surely a journey filled with contradictions for me. Do you have any similar experiences where what makes something hard is also what makes it easy?

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Snow Day Zeppolis

So this happened:



Zeppolis. Pillowy little clouds of ricotta and lemon zest, fried and rolled in cinnamon sugar, then eaten warm. It's a classic, simple recipe.

These happen to be gluten free. You're welcome.

To start, you need three or four cups of oil for frying. I used canola, but coconut would probably also be divine. Start heating it while you make the dough. It needs to be 350 degrees to fry well. Hotter than that, though, they burn. Cooler and they soak up all of the oil. #Balance

In a small bowl, stir together: 

1 c. all-purpose flour (I used gluten free)

1 1/2 t. baking powder

1/4 t. salt

In a medium bowl whisk:

3 large eggs

3 T. sugar

(until frothy, but don't beat it half to death)

To the egg mixture, add:

1 c. ricotta

2 T. grated lemon zest (make it organic)

2 T. vanilla

(and mix until combined, but don't overmix)

Add flour to ricotta mixture and stir to combine.

Before you start frying, mix together 1 c. sugar and 1 t. cinnamon in a bowl. Better yet, a paper bag. You'll see why.

Drop by teaspoonfuls into the hot oil. They should only take a minute or two. Flip them over to brown evenly on both sides. If they are burning or cooked on the outside but raw on the inside, your oil is too hot.

When the zeppolis are done, use a spider to get them out of the oil and transfer to a plate lined with paper towels. Let drain briefly, then toss while still warm into the cinnamon-sugar.

Perfection. The zeppolis should be a contradiction: dense but pillowy, light but satisfying, soft but crunchy.

You could call these breakfast because EGGS and RICOTTA. Or you could make them as an after-snow snack with a cup of hot chocolate. They take almost no time to whip together.

What's your snow day go-to?

Productivity And The Narrative

(have you done anything today?)

In spite of myself and the snow day yesterday, I managed to be minorly productive, editing for a couple hours and finishing up a job that's due Friday.

And then the "t" on my laptop's keyboard went out.

It's still not really working, in fact. I have to press the hell out of it and then proofread very, very carefully. Turns out, there are a plethora of words that utilize a "t." And just like that, all of my happy feelings about being productive drained away and I started thinking about why when I have time and the urge I spend it on work for other people. After all, I have two perfectly wonderful book ideas, both of which are almost completely outlined and have been started.

I also happen to have quite a few handy excuses as to why I "can't" write them right now:

1. One of them requires a better kitchen and more tools than I have unpacked. 

While technically true, this excuse is rendered invalid by the fact that much can be done while my new, beautiful kitchen is being constructed.

2. I don't have a camera to take pictures.

Not even technically true. I have a camera (not a good one, but it exists) and an iPhone. Tammy Stroebel works almost entirely with her iPhone and has all sorts of great recommendations for cheap or free editing tools. Plus, any blog named "Rowdy Kittens" must be authoritative on the subject. I do have a lovely camera picked out, thanks to my lovely friend Mandy, but in the interim, learning how to use what I have can only benefit me.

3. That damn "t."

And we arrive at the only excuse that holds any water. It has taken me four times as long to type these 296 words because I have to slow down and make sure I have hit the "t" in the correct place. I have also been trying to limit my use of the letter, which is proving highly problematic. I would like to throw this computer at the wall and buy another. That may have to happen sooner rather than later (see also "Computer shutting off when I move it"), as we pay rent with the writing I actually get paid for.

The main issue with #3 for me, though, is not dropping the cheddar for a new computer. It's what I need for work, and it's tax deductible.

It's whether or not #3 is just another excuse to avoid my own writing, and, if it is, why. This past weekend at yoga teacher training (YTT) we talked about the stories we play in our heads, the ones that keep us from letting go and moving forward. Like the ones about what we deserve and what we are good at. Every time I sit down to write those stories fire up in my head, and I think what keeps me away from my own stuff is how bad they make me feel. My name for this voice is the Anti-Cheerleader, and she is a loud, bossy bitch. In YTT we went through several meditative ways to get past these voices to see our true nature, and one among us went through Byron Katie's process of The Work.

Boiled down, it is remarkably simple: figure out if the story you have about yourself is true or not. If not, let it go.

Ha. Joke's on everybody because letting go of the narrative we have about our lives and ourselves and the people around us is incredibly hard. That narrative is why we stay in the crappy job and the bad relationship. It's why we follow the herd out of high school into college and don't actually choose a path so much as allow it to be chosen for us by what others say and think we should do.

It's why even when I write 10,000 words a week and complete a huge editing job and manage a rehab and take four yoga classes and docent two museums tours and do two days of workstudy and parent a child in one week that I still feel guilty for taking a nap in the middle of the day sometimes.

This narrative is what stops me from leaping more into my own writing: maybe it's not good. Maybe I don't deserve the success it could bring. Maybe it will bring more pain. Maybe I don't deserve a new computer.

You have a narrative, too. Maybe it says if you don't make XX amount of money you aren't successful. Maybe your story deals with how you parent or what life is supposed to be like (versus what it actually is).

Letting go of the narrative is incredibly difficult, but as with any process, the first step is identifying your story. What is your narrative?

(Today's blog was brought to you by the letter "T," that sonuvabitch)