grumpy with a side of grapefruit.

It has snowed again.

Normally, I shrug off the weather. Once, standing on a small boat off the coast of Juneau, Alaska, getting beaten by the ocean water mist, a local said to me, “There is no bad weather. There are only bad clothes.” This was coming from someone who lived in one of the rainiest places in North America. She beamed, her face glowing as a light drizzle came down from the skies. I nodded my head in fervent agreement. Previously I had held vague formations of similar sentiment, and with her wise words, they became a solidified life mantra.

But now, with another blanket of snow in mid-April, my resolve is waning.
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pain au chocolat: a way of living.

My last visit to Montreal, Quebec, was over fifteen years ago. A high school friend and I had decided we would go for a short four-day trip – we’d see some friends who were going to McGill University, relive past memories (our high school art class had went to Montreal as a consolation trip instead of the original choice of New York due to 9/11), and pretend to be grown-ups. We took the Greyhound bus from Toronto to Montreal, a solid eight-hour ride, with a stopover in Kingston. I remember it was cold, damp, and a little lonesome. I don’t recall if I actually felt lonely at the time, but these days when I look back much of it feels tinged with loneliness, and with the benefit of aged wisdom I wonder if that is simply the baseline state of my heart, and that’s just how it is.
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strawberry jam and polarities.

July is a month of opposites. The intoxicating thrill of hot weather casts a spell of electrifying delirium, but also a stupefying and mind-numbing glaze. Office workers are scant – all having escaped to the lake by Thursday at 2 pm, or at the very least, cool basements – while university students flit by on their bicycles, the breeze they make the only form of respite. The children are still riding the high of freedom from school, before the melancholy of late August sets in.
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beets and self-sufficiency.

Even before the pandemic happened and all the restaurants were forced to close and life ceased to be as it was, I had cooked and baked almost everything we ate. Besides the meals themselves, I made lots of kitchen staples: loaves of flax-laden sourdough, almond walnut granola, jars of spicy salsa and sweet marmalade…delicious things upon which to base a meal that I created and maintained stock of before the pandemic, now during, and forever, as long as we have interest in eating them.
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peanut butter and jealous.

I’m a piler. I like to pile things; it’s how I put things in order. Currently on my desk, I have: two piles of books, three piles of papers (separated based on topic), and a pile of yarn that I’m making something with. It’s not pretty to look at, but I do, in fact, know where everything is. When the piles get a little harried, I re-make the piles and continue on my merry way. In my mind, it’s organized.
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brothy soup for murky times.

Buckle in, because I’m going to talk about death, grief, and fatigue – but! There’ll be a great soup recipe at the end! Balance!

I hesitated sharing this, because it would appear that I have already talked a lot about death on here. Sorry. Unless you’d prefer I’d talk about one of life’s other inevitabilities, like…taxes?!
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tahini zen circles.

There is a meditation practice in the Buddhist tradition of drawing circles. Using a calligraphy brush, the Zen circle is drawn with one quick stroke. It exemplifies directness, simplicity, presence. A dubious ripple indicates an unsteady mind; an unfortunate ovoid betrays overthinking.
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grapefruit season of life.

We didn’t grow up eating grapefruit. In terms of citrus, my family ate oranges, with maybe some mandarins here and there on special occasions. In fact, I don’t think I tasted grapefruit until I was an adult living on my own, and its sharp bitter sourness was initially so shocking that I couldn’t understand how people liked it. Its flavour seemed to match the people who had affinity for it: people that proudly proclaimed their preference for grapefruit seemed to be as sharp and opinionated as their acerbic nourishment. Perhaps they grew more angular for being able to stomach such a punch, or their inherent toughness allowed for such a blow – either way, I couldn’t quite relate.
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to soothe and protect.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading these days, of books. Books of all sorts: from research on the intersection of yoga and science, folk stories and the psyche, white fragility (uh oh!), to cookbooks. Books have always been such a comfort to me growing up – a chance to get to step into worlds beyond the walls of my room – and they continue to be a source of expansion, challenging me in my opinions, or bringing vocabulary (usually better than mine) to thoughts previously unfleshed.
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slow down soup.

For someone who makes a living off of telling people to slow down and take their time, I feel like I have very little spare time. I am subject to the same pressures as anyone else – the pressure to perform, to hustle, to get this done, that done – you know the drill. Being idle is a true luxury, and I could use some interest off of my investments.
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