A Girl and This Turkey-The Finale

            Incredibly bleary and with a bit of a white-flag “we’ll get the rest done in the morning,” the husband and I got ready for bed on Christmas Eve. “What do you need me to do for the turkey in the morning? My mom used to get up at the crack of dawn to make the turkey, and I know I’ll wake up before you will,” he kindly offered. I asked him merely to set the bird out to come to room temperature. “As long as I have it in the oven by nine a.m., we’ll be just fine,” I said with all the assurance of someone exhausted who has been shown their deliciously fluffy pillow for the night. And if you are just counting prep and cook time, I was right. Completely right.

            But I was wrong. I was wrong, because I forgot to calculate on the sideshow of errors that inevitably ensued. Now, lest you get anxious, dear reader, I reassure you: Christmas dinner was only twenty minutes later than I thought it would be. The lateness was not even noticed. But the errors are worth the telling. 

            I rose to slather the turkey: Butter, poultry seasoning (eternally useful), pepper, salt, and additional rosemary were my choices. But as I went to take the giblets out of the cavity, there was ice. ICE! I was indignant. I knew I had consulted the Butterball website correctly for the proper refrigeration defrost time. It was like a slap in the face, like I’d been irresponsible or something. I imperiously commanded my husband to get the blue bowl out of the dishwasher; I was going to fill it and the turkey with warm water while I prepped the spices. He pulled out a clean but shallow serving bowl, claiming that he could not find the mixing bowl. I frantically gazed around the kitchen… nothing. Looking again, he pulled out the required bowl. As the water warmed, my hand froze, pulling out frozen ice chunks, giblets, and the neck. GROSS! (I also got the gravy bag out of the other side, Cousin Brenda; thanks!) I begged for a moment of warm water for my hand while he cleaned out a side of the sink (I told you we left some things for morning, right?), I can’t remember the last time any part of me was as cold as that hand drawn from the turkey. Jim reminded me that he likes to keep our fridge very cold, “And you’ve even warmed it some since you moved in!” And then I remembered all the weeks of frozen salad and greens during my newlywed days. I HAD warmed up the temp of the fridge, but it obviously is still very cold, exhibit A: the turkey, exhibit B: the condensation the underside of a container lid that I pulled out today, total ice. 

            At any rate, I was exonerated in my mind from having been ill prepared. An outrageously cold refrigerator means I did defrost according to the directions I was given. 

            As the hot water mixing bowl was asked to do its magic, I blended the spices into the butter. I finished preparing the trimmings I would add for flavor: To celery and carrots, I added onion and sliced apples. A perfect flavor profile! I got the roasting pan ready to go. 

            Drying the turkey, slathering it, stuffing it, and then nestling it on its bed of remaining vegetables and fruit went well. However, as I placed the turkey in the oven, the turkey bag was bumping the top rack, which I had moved to the top possible point, I worried that the bag would burst. With kindness and might, Jim removed the 325-degree top rack to the back porch for a couple of hours until it was needed for the side dishes. By that time, the trimmings were cooked down enough that the turkey did not bump. 

            As I drew the turkey out of the oven, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the butter had browned the skin even though it was in a bag. I resolved to do a more thorough buttering if I use this method or ever cook a whole turkey again. 

            I must now take a break to confide in you. I am basically a three-year-old when it comes to how finicky I am about food. I don’t like to eat meat with bones in it; I prefer never to see a bone. In my soul, I am probably vegetarian. I definitely choose to act like meat is not an animal but rather some kind of exotic root vegetable you can make gravy from. 

            So the turkey rests, sitting ominously on the stove until the fated time has come to pass: time to carve the turk. Neither Jim nor I had ever carved a turkey before. I had watched a video on how to carve a spatchcocked turkey, but it’s different with the backbone still intact. 

            Well. There are no words. For this bone loathing vegetarian-at-heart, it was a macabre dismemberment. I functioned as the (not-too-sharp) brains, and Jim as the brawn as we hacked our way to Christmas dinner. I know at one point we mangled a thigh not only beyond recognition, but also in a way that we never really found it again. I wondered how I would ever be able to eat that bird! I hope that in the end, all I remember is to have the turkey show you where its joints are and then make the cuts at those points, rather than trying pre-feast orthopedic surgery. 

            But here is the great and wonderful joke of it all: I have dreaded making a full turkey my entire life. I only set out on this adventure to give my eldest stepson the validation of having brought a man-sized provision home from his first man-job. And it worked!!! Despite all of the misadventures, all of the freezing and mangling, the turkey was incredibly tender and almost, I say almost, delightfully flavorful! 

            I am so grateful that this turkey turned out well. I am thankful to my kind, patient, and brawny husband (we really showed that thigh, didn’t we???), and I am so grateful to be able to give. To give what effort I can into the life of the man-child who I love so much. 

            And in giving, I received. It’s a great blessing to be useful, to give flavor and nourishment, to give a feast. Merry Christmas to all!

            And God bless us, every one. 

A Girl and This Turkey: Difficult, Fiddly Bird

            My life took a break for some kind of double-punch upper respiratory thing that made me want to die. Blech. It’s Christmas Eve now, I feel I’ve turned a corner, so its time for me to get back to my turkeysicle in the fridge. 

            When I read the recommended Bobby Flay recipe, I adored the flavor profile; parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. But I could see immediately from the amount of broth used in cooking that this is not a recipe compatible with a turkey bag. I’m enough of a foodie that someday I probably will devote a day to basting, but this is not that year. My husband only has one day off work, one shot at actual Christmas, and it won’t do to have all my time, attention, and anxiety inside an oven. 

            How to keep the flavor profile, but not baste? I’ve read dozens of recipes and vacillated between ideas, and here’s the thing: Everyone has their strategy. Everyone gives helpful ideas. This is because turkey is an awful meat! It’s a difficult, fiddly bird that has the propensity to both dry out AND be flavorless. Everyone has their fool-proof method as to how to solve this problem, but the true fools are us, the ones who continue to try to cook this meat year after year. People have struggled with it for generations, and here’s the proof: poultry seasoning! When I went to my cupboard, I realized the answer to parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme is poultry seasoning. Turkey has plagued home chefs for so long that this is just a standard seasoning. 

            So, I have decided to bow to the wisdom of my elders and use butter, salt, pepper, poultry seasoning, carrot, celery, onion, and maybe even an apple for taste. 

            However, in my research, two methods have come to the fore: a turkey bag (I thought over using a paper bag, as friend suggested, but the Reynolds bag was already in the online shopping cart, so there you go). I also have been pondering spatchcocking. 

            Spatchcocking is taking the wishbone and backbone out of a turkey, laying it flat, and roasting. Advantages: It takes less time to cook, and the skin will turn out much more browned and crispy than can ever happen in a bag. Disadvantages: It takes up more room in the oven, obliterating my hope of making Curried Fruit, and let’s face it: I’ve never done a full turkey before. Spatchcocking at this point seems a little too AP, getting above my station, risky. 

            I have until tomorrow morning to keep researching, reconsidering. The amount of thought I have already put into this bird could power a few tiny towns throughout the Christmas break, I’m sure. 

            Until then, I will work on the pies and the sides, plotting my own fool-proof recipe for this unworthy, fiddly bird. 

A Girl and This Turkey: Commitment

I got married for the first time at the ripe old age of forty-one. I make commitments, but slowly, methodically. 

            There’s this turkey. My stepson has brought it. My husband wonders if I will roast it for Christmas dinner. And I want to, I really do have the desire to make it happen. But desire and commitment have nothing to do with each other. Ask my mid-30s self! 

            I polled my teaching colleagues on the playground: Turkey? How hard is it? Easy, they said. You can do this, they said. Use a turkey bag, Katherine said. They make the turkey self-basting. Use Bobby Flay’s recipe, Lori said. It’s amazingly delicious! Turkey is not my favorite thing: it can be bland and the danger of it being dry seems high. Combining the recommended recipe with a turkey bag seems the way to go. 

            Yesterday, I got my Christmas shopping and shipping done. Ready or not, it’s time to make the Christmas menu and shopping list. 

I know nothing about roasting turkey, and I know nothing about THIS turkey. Okay. So, time to get acquainted, to see if I can commit to it. 

I do know that the defrosting and roasting time of a turkey all depend upon how many pounds the turkey is. The packaging the turkey is in gives no clues to the poundage. 

So this morning, I do it. I get out the bathroom scale. I weigh myself. 

Weighing oneself before preparing a holiday dinner seems counterintuitive, if not downright masochistic, right??? Thanksgiving has already happened! I’m in the midst of the fattest season of the year! The indignity. No one tells you in Home Ec in junior high that cooking will involve such debasement, but there it is. 

I weigh myself in order to get to know my turkey better: I know of no other way to find out how much heweighs than to weigh myself and then weigh myself with him. Math will light the way. Subtraction. 

He’s fifteen pounds, my turkey is. I quickly look up defrosting times on the Butterball website: Do I have time for a full refrigerator defrost? YES! From Friday morning to Tuesday will give me the time he needs to thaw. 

I grab the jellyroll pan, place him breast side up on it in the fridge. 

A fifteen-pound defrosting turkey is a serious thing. A poultry iceberg is changing states. There’s no turning back. There’s no time for hemming and hawing anymore. The desire has become commitment. The commitment has been made. 

This turkey will be the centerpiece of our Christmas feast. 

             

A Girl and This Turkey: The Beginning

            One of the many dubious accomplishments of my life thus far is that I have managed to not have to roast an actual turkey. Turkey breast, I can do. I prep it with white wine, garlic, butter, and broth; I cook it in the crock-pot. Tender, flavorful… safe. No bones. No giblets. It works for me!

            On Thanksgiving, my oldest stepson walked through the front door with an honest-to-God full turkey. Frozen. With bones. With giblets (I assume). He got it at his manufacturing job as a Thanksgiving gift. Job well done! 

            About a week ago, while I was still in the throes of getting grade cards finished and entertaining first graders peacefully until break, my husband asked me if I was planning to make this turkey for Christmas. Christmas, of all things! The Super Bowl of dinners, the biggest (or maybe second-biggest) meal of the year. Only Thanksgiving competes, when I have cleverly crabstepped my way out of real turkey for years. 

            Here’s the thing: I’m terrified. I’ve read so much about all the different ways to cook turkey, all the opinions. The brining. The deep frying. The basting. The palette of which spices should be used. One of my favorite seasonal children’s books is Thanksgiving at the Tappletons, which highlights a turkey disaster involving skidding across the floor and into a lightly frozen pond. A Christmas Story, another holiday favorite, ends with a turkey calamity involving joyfully slavering hounds.

            But I dearly love my stepson. As scared as I am, I want this for him. If I can get out of the way of my fear, it will be the first time that his provision has created a festive meal. He’s come a long way lately. He’s growing by leaps and bounds. If he can manage to earn a turkey, I will do this. I will make him The Founder of the Feast this year. 

            And so, I begin. 

Time, Incarnate: A Musing on Food

            This week, I have not cooked as much, nor felt like I had as much time or energy. In this, I realize that part of what I like about cooking is the time it takes and the locationality it requires. 

You can’t cook a good meal while you are driving down Kellogg with your hair on fire to do 10,000 errands. Cooking takes the time it will take. Cooking is a scientific endeavor; cutting foods and heating them in various ways to certain temperatures, carmelization, the blending together of flavors… the science demands the time for the process to occur. 

Cooking also requires so much equipment, SO many different things that it can’t be done on the fly. It has to be done in a certain space, and it helps to have that space be one that is fully stocked with all the equipment needed. Home. 

Cooking requires time and home-ness. 

I love and need time and home-ness. This is part of what cooking gives me. This is part of what I loved so very much about making the mujadara; it took excessive amounts of time to cook that many onions down into a caramelized thing of beauty that just sang. 

I loved the mujadara because of the adventure of trying to cook something new, the comforting blend of sweet and salty flavors, and the process it took to get the onions, lentils, and rice to make their beautiful symphony. 

Cooking is time, incarnate. 

This is part of the heresy of convenience foods. People always complain about fast food and convenience food because of the amount of sodium or lack of vitamins, the sheer amount of fat and sugar that it takes to keep modern American tastebuds coming back for more. And those are all valid criticisms. 

But an even more egregious offense of the modern food industry—just the phrase “food industry” says it—is that it removes us from the scientific time it takes to prepare nourishment, and it removes us from home, or gives us less requisite time there. 

I have not spent enough time at home, cooking, to begin to explore the myriad gifts that I believe are here for me, for anyone who will take the interior journey. But I believe there are gifts to be had. 

As the winter begins, the dark and cold call me to shelter. May I spend this winter taking time in my home, making it my primary locationality, cooking. May I begin to find the gifts of time, incarnate. 

The Pleasures of Thanksgiving

            Cornbread stuffing with savory turkey gravy. Yams and apricots drizzled with buttery cinnamon glaze, topped with raisins and walnuts. The good ‘ol green bean casserole that I would pledge my allegiance to as much as any flag—forget turkey—I love the side dishes of Thanksgiving!

            Thanksgiving is simply my favorite non-church holiday, by far. I get immense joy out of cooking, and it’s as if the entire nation has conspired to say, “Here, take a few days off! Kick back and do your favorite creative endeavor for awhile.” 

            My anticipation of Thanksgiving is even higher this year, because my mom has moved to town. We will spend a couple of days cooking, she and I. This woman who taught me how to cook. Who taught me the art, the craft of cooking. I look forward to time with her in my kitchen, a time-honored, sacred space if there ever was one. 

            When there is good food around, cheerfulness abounds in these silly boys that I have come to love. Because someone has come before them with love to create for them, to nourish them, they will sit around a home-cooked meal talking much longer than a pre-prepared, microwave one. It’s unconscious and intuitive. Home cooking creates cheerfulness; this is another pleasure of Thanksgiving.

            Often after a big event, there is an emotional letdown. The fun is over, the assembled people dispersed. Not so with Thanksgiving! Post-Thanksgiving does not have a letdown after the celebration, because it looks forward to the biggest celebration of the year; one to be had in a month! After the meal is over and the turkey naps are taken, there are sparkly lights to string, shopping to do, concerts to hear, joy to plan, secrets to keep. 

            And of course, the biggest pleasure of Thanksgiving is the corporate moment to stop. We stop and humble ourselves; we take an accounting of the year. Even if it has been a hard one, even if our hearts have been eating gravel, there are still reasons to be thankful. If the year has been easy and bountiful, it’s even more important that our souls pause and return thanks.

            Each year as we name our reasons, my heart grows larger and weeps a little. Life is so short; it’s so hard sometimes. It’s a good and beautiful thing to have a moment to stop, to account. Individually and in families, in neighborhoods and in the nation, we name the blessings that have lightened our load, brought us joy, sustained us. We thank the God who is in all things and before all things; in Him all things hold together. 

            As we look forward to this time, this meal, let us anticipate and savor it. I bless you with the hope and prayer that you may find the pleasures of Thanksgiving. 

Memory's Antidote

            “Revision is memory’s antidote,” I heard the wise greyhair say. Antidote. It fascinates me, that. I think of an antidote as being an agent of healing, of cure. But it’s not. Antidote is the very first line of defense, the liquid that renders the venom harmless. Antidote does not cure. Poisoning has already occurred—is occurring—and antidote simply suspends the hovering death. Life continues, but if there is damage to fragile tissues, they will have to be healed through other means, other therapies. 

            Memories, venomous. There are so many, and not just because we chose to take things, people, circumstances badly. For me, revision takes the form of trying to emphasize the good moments over the hard ones. To try and remember someone as better than they actually were. But he actually wished to see you confused and heart-sick. He actually played games with your mind. He chose to hold pain over your head and crack it like an egg, dripping down, slimy-stuck. Maybe it was the power. The viper struck, intentionally. What he gained was the upper hand, making a game of what should have been as easy as getting cereal before school. 

            Revision requires effort. Revision is an intentional process. In some ways, I have been revising all my life; taking the good and shucking the bad. Keeping what I can find that is useful, clever, beautiful. 

            But revision itself—is it delusion?

            And if delusion—is that harmful? 

            “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good,” Joseph told his perfidious brothers. God can step in and revise; he can choose that something that is meant end up saying another thing entirely. In Joseph’s case, it saved thousands of lives during a famine. And make no mistake, God is always interested in life. Not venom. Not death. 

            Revision suspends death, but is not the healing, the cure. I can tell myself a new story, and that is well and good. We live and breathe our narratives, and the narrative of death has to be arrested, stopped before it locks our lips and legs forever. 

            But the cure is more than just narrative, and it is the real work, the every day. It is the walking out in each minute the narrative that will end up bringing life, sustenance—both to yourself and to others. Narrative matters. But the doing is the life. 

            So delusion or not—I will participate in antidote, in keeping the death at bay, suspending it. I will be saved from the venom in order to gain space, room, breath to let God mean things for good. 

            Save me from the venom, bring to me the chance for good, for life. Bring me revision, memory’s antidote. 

Coffee: Bean of the Devil

            The thing about coffee—besides being a drug—is this: At its best, coffee gives you margin. It gives you transition time from asleep to awake, from private to public life. 

Some of us have just as vivid of a life when somnolent as when waking. I, for one, have been busy all this night, doing and thinking new thoughts and actions that my awakened life neglected or didn’t have time for. Coffee gives me the moment to detach from that reality to this one. 

I also used to wake up most days feeling quite ill. Headaches, uterine pain. Because I am a teacher, it’s not unusual for me to be actually ill with a head cold, and morning is the most acute time of the scratchy throat, the stuffy nose. Coffee would alleviate the headaches and soothe the scratchy throat. I’m feeling fine right now, though. Thanks for asking. 

And—besides being a drug—coffee is delicious. When I was young, I used to drink coffee black. I liked the bitter taste. Because I started drinking coffee at the age of three, sipping the dregs of my parent’s cold cups, it was not just bitter (although not verybitter, my parents were ones for weak coffee. So am I, honestly.), it also had a staleness about it that I loved! There’s a stale flavor that you like, or you don’t. It’s most easily discerned in chamomile tea. I like it… I always have. Thus the beginning of my life with coffee, earlier in years than anyone might have imagined. 

Nowadays, coffee is delicious in a way that the 1980s could have never imagined: Coffee is a template on which to create infinitely varied flavors and experiences. You can be as creative in preparations with coffee as you can with the good ol’ standby chicken breast. In this way, coffee appeals to those with the capability of creative expression. 

I certainly don’t have that capability. Especially not as I am transitioning from asleep to awake, private to public life. But I enjoy the talents of those who do. 

            Another thing coffee gives is a gathering point, an occasion for community with others. Almost anyone except my husband will enjoy the offer of going to get coffee, and it’s less expensive than protein, veg, and carbs; you can linger over it as much as with any meal. Those people who don’t like coffee? They’re just being rude. Throwing a wrench in the social fabric of the universe that binds us all together. Consigning the other to caffeine-less loneliness. At least, that’s what I think. 

And when you run short on time for all these social, delicious, margin-giving functions, coffee is, after all, a drug. 

Isn’t your life insanely busy? Don’t you hardly have time for reflection, much less the beginning of any true leisure? (Not confusing entertainment for leisure; they couldn’t be less kin.) We need drugs to get us through this inflexible, hardened, exhausting world we created. Coffee does that for us. 

So, when I pause to enumerate the benefits of coffee, I become disgruntled with myself, the busy life I have made, and society that aids and abets that blinding run for us all. Regardless of my feelings toward myself or others, coffee is there for us, smoothing the path as we blearily shamble through the world. 

Wait. Maybe this isn’t a good thing. Maybe it is coffee that has brought us to this. Coffee, and electric light in homes. Without those two things, I am sure we’d get to bed at a much more decent hour, and then we wouldn’t have a drug to hep us up, to pull out of our beds, our fatigue. 

I take it back! I take it all back. Coffee is a great evil in this world. Without it, I would have to realize the limits of my humanity and just stay home. I’d probably lose that home, come to utter ruin, but at least I’d be well rested. 

And that’s that.  

I need to check into tea. 

(Originally posted 10.18.18)

Warmth

            It’s an unseasonably early freeze; sleet pelts my windowpane. The suddenness makes the cold seem more acute than usual. It causes me to seek warmth in all its forms. 

            I turn toward my husband for warmth; he’s the warmest person I know. His sunny nature, loving attitude. His physicality, the nape of his neck as I stretch to kiss it, his strong arms, the chest in which his precious heart beats. He envelops me in the softening dark, I am warmed. 

            I pull up my blanket and lift my book. With only a whisper of motion my catkitty arrives, finding the bowl of my legs. Together, we while away the time, cuddling and loving on our love seat, and we are warmed. 

            I step into the shower, the steam rises around me. I pull out my warmest scents: citrus and honey. The lather surrounds me, I am warmed.

            

            Snuggled in my bed as I write this, my husband at the door: “You’ve got to come look at this.” He opens the front door: SNOW! Big, huge, angel flakes of snow falling down. I grab a blanket, turn off the living room lights, peek out the curtains as he fusses with trying to get a photo. 

            He settles down, comes to me on the couch, and holds me as we watch the beauty. Catkitties, not one, but two, join in to see what all the fuss is about. Serenity and loveliness reign in the quietude. We are in beauty. We are in companionship.

I am warmed. 

Hannah Key

            In 2004, I moved out of my mom and dad’s house. Rabbits Deke, Molly, and I (a person) had been living there so I could go to teacher school. I moved into an apartment to be near my friend Kendra. I loved my little place, but was missing something. A cat. My mom had a cat named Smokie who was absolutely The Buddha. Coolest cat you’ve ever met. I missed Smokie. Being a dog rather than a cat person, naturally, I decided to get a cat. 

            I cruised on down to my PetSmart where they had cats for adoption. I looked at cats several different times. I almost landed on a longhaired white with sky-blue eyes. However, I was advised to make sure the cat I got was not animal-aggressive on account of the buns. Little White Angel wanted to rip Deke’s head off. No go. 

            So we tried this grey and tan tortie named Hannah out with the buns. Animal-avoidant. Yay! I was surprised to learn that she had been up for adoption for over a year. Though her looks were demure, not as brash as Hairy Angel Cat, she had a definite prettiness about her. 

            I had been attracted to Hannah because she did the cutest thing—they had a watering can to refill cats’ bowls. When she had her time out of the kennel to stretch her legs, she’d dip her pitty paw in the water: licklicklick, dip, licklicklick. Adorable. I took her home, not realizing I would be guarding all my beverages for well over a decade now. Maybe it’s her training program to make me less susceptible to date rape drugs; I don’t know. 

            The first night I had her, she patiently waited in the hallway while I brushed my teeth. When I climbed into bed, lamp lit, book in hand; she jumped right up there with me! She lay down on the left hand side of the bed, right at home. 

            And it’s been that way ever since. When I was single, she used to start to fuss at me around 9 pm to go to bed, and she’d keep it up till at least 11. 

            To her mind, she’s essentially my mother. She’s channeling Marmie from Little Women at all times; she’s nurturing, but strict with me. All torties are strict with their affections and preferences, I guess. She chats and chirps at me often to let me know what’s what.

            She aids and abets my reading habit; we like nothing better than to hunker down on the love seat with a blanket and a book. We’ve been doing it for ages. 

            She’s been with me since the first year I taught elementary school in the state of Kansas! She’s seen me through heartbreak, car problems, job insanity, my parent’s divorce, my dad’s dementia and death… she’s been there through it all. She intends to be. I am her Person.

            She’s endured the taking on of Mr. Lou, an excessively boingy orange and white boy cat, living with a galumphing, deep-hearted black lab, a husband who has shut her out of her rightful place in my bed, and three teenage boys; Lord have mercy. She’s had to learn to be social after having lived with a spinster alone for nine years, she adapted to all that my life brought her, and she still loves me.

            Although she also now adores my husband AND his oldest son! I’m a little put out at having to share her affections, but there it is. FAMILY.

            She’s getting older now; her fur is not as plushy. But she hasn’t slowed down much from her ever-gentle, meek, chatty ways. She still loves it when I grab a minute to be her cushy internally-heated mattress, especially in the winter months. 

            I try not to think of the day that I have to live without her, this sweet light who has encompassed so much of my adult life. When I do, I pre-cry, though she is still here. 

            Until then, she’ll be waiting as she always does, at home. Ready for me to pick up a book and cuddle. Ready to love and boss me around. 

            I love my sweet Hannah Key. 

Green

            Green is the distillation of rain and sunlight; the primeval blue and yellow that power this world. Green is the snap-crunch of celery. Green is health, growth, plenitude. It gives birth. It gives birth to the bounteousness of harvest time. Green is the first sign of hope after deadly cold. It is the winter wheat that has been making God glad since my youth. 

            Green is not, and has never been, jealousy. How can growth and life itself… spring, ever be jealous? How could it ever be in want? 

            Green is beyond emotion; elemental. It is the queen of the secondary colors. She herself is half the earth. 

            When my eyes and heart walk outdoors to see, green refreshes and renews me. She gives me back my perspective, lays her gentle hand on my bruised mind. I become still. I know that my part and place is small, but beautiful. She heals me.

            To eat green is to love myself and this good world that is given; the agricultural act that ties me to the growers from time immemorial. My body was made for this green food, for this green planet. 

            When I lay me down in sheets of lilies, green quiets and comforts. She is sister to the freshening breeze across my skin, gives the birds their transport, those birds that are barely tethered to any of our ponderousness, the weariness that goes on in the brown and grey cities. 

            Green is meek and easily ignored, yet she waits. When I remember her, and come, she does not scold—she only receives me. She receives me graciously because she has always had, and knows, her power. She is Giver, and simply, kindly gives without ostentatiousness or pride.

            She is simple, healing, beautiful, kind. 

            I am glad that I live in a world where there is green. 


**With homage to Rich Mullins, Wendell Berry, and a twisted understanding of Elton John.