“A person who can’t bear to share their habits is a person who needs to quit them.”  -Stephen King

This morning I was reading a book review in the Seattle Times of Gretchen Rubin’s new book, “Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives”

In her book, Rubin focuses on our habits and how they create our identity, which is an interesting idea.   She asserts that “we have the inherent power to start good ones and stop bad ones, but we are surprisingly loath to do so.”

Since we have moved, most of our normal routines are gone.  We don’t have places to go weekly, we don’t know many people around here yet.  Our weekly habits are definitely different, but the change in our daily habits have changed just a little.  For instance, I wear a heavy sweater all day now, which is something I didn’t have to do after February in California.  I have also been wearing Ben’s socks every day because my feet are cold/freezing, and this is a very different habit than my previous barefooted life in warmer climes.

Our food hasn’t changed much, thanks to the consistency of Costco and our already rather set diet, but where we eat out has.  Instead of hitting In-n-Out, we now hit Jake’s Pickup, which is found in a Chevron gas station and run by a previous head chef who thought it was deplorable that people on-the-go are stuck with useless fast food instead of helpful nutritious food…and I’m not kidding, this guy is where it’s at.  His tuna sandwich alone, made from sashimi grade ahi, is the best tuna sandwich I have ever had in my life.  I have talked with the Sous Chef about finding the best gluten free bread recipe for them, since they make everything in house.  We love this place, and we love what they’re doing.  They are changing how people see food on-the-go, and they are making the small corner of the world they have to control, a better, brighter, healthier corner.

Habits are habits because they don’t change, though.  That is the entire purpose of a habit: you can rely on it to be consistent.  You can rely on the habits in your life for hourly, daily, weekly …or lifelong periods of time.

But what if you leave your habit?  What if you walk away from it?  What happens next?

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky (Discworld, #32)

Leaving a habit lets you look back and see it with new eyes.  Sometimes, if not most of the time, habits are a comfortable place.  They are usually a safe place, only because you can depend on the habit to always be there.  Leaving a habit changes the entire dynamic of your day, as well as the way you live your life because habits reflect your goals and values; even if they are bad goals and vacuous values.   If your goal is to be a good person, then your values will be entirely absorbed in making sure you only do good things in order to attain your goal.  The problem with this is that your values are supported by the habits you instill to reach your goal, which inherently revolves around the goodness of you.

Overall, it takes time and reflection to see how habits can be constructive, deconstructive or reconstructive.

How you can analyze your relationship with your habits is very similar to how to assess a healthy, or unhealthy, relationship:

In a healthy, constructive relationship, you treat each other with respect.  You listen to each other, and you communicate with each other.  You feel secure and comfortable with each other, and you can trust the other person with your vulnerability.  You take interest in each others lives, and most importantly you support each other.  That is what love looks like, in a nutshell.

 Nutshell Love.

On the other hand, an unhealthy and deconstructive relationship tends to have a more controlling, oppressive nature to it.  One side, or both sides, try to control or manipulate the other person.  They are not only not interested in the happiness of the other person, but they go out of their way to make them feel bad about themselves.  Instead of spending time with the other person, they make many excuses as to why they do not have time for them.  They criticize the other person for things they do, or who they are.  But worst of all, they use tantrums or threats to prevent the other from leaving.

How many habits do we have that  are, in truth, deconstructing us, that we could change “but we are surprisingly loath to do so”?

Although “we have the inherent power to start good ones and stop bad ones,” we continue on with habits that deconstruct us.  Habits that make us feel worthless.  Habits that are not interested in our happiness, and make excuses for why we don’t have time for ourselves.  And worst of all, habits that throw tantrums and threaten us when we think about leaving.

Listen.

You are not your habit.  Your identity is shaped by the habits you choose to accept, and you have the ability to choose healthy, constructive habits that actually reflect on your values and what you really believe.

“Habits are part of your identity,” Rubin said in a recent phone interview. “Changing them means changing a fundamental part of who we are.”

What is frustrating is looking back on habits you have left behind, and thinking that creating the same habits again is a good idea.  The amazing thing about changing is the opportunity to both look back on what you have done, and forge a new path ahead of you.  Even though the new path will be paved with stones hewn from past adventures, this new journey will still lead you to somewhere farther off in the distance; and that is the whole point of a journey.  To discover new corners of the earth, and of yourself.

What if change led to growth?  And yet…”Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”

You can be assured that however it ends, the journey will always take you somewhere.

These are the questions that keep us up at night, over here in the forest.

My daughter was doing her history lesson the other day, and she was learning about George Washington Carver.  I told her, in a very short and broad summary, that George Washington Carver was the man who invented peanut butter.

Now, the thing is, the longer story of George Washington Carver  is amazingly fascinating.  The reason why he focused on peanut crops, among other crops like sweet potatoes and soybeans, was because they helped to heal the nitrogen depleted soil that was almost useless after too many cotton harvests.

After graduating with a degree in agriculture, Carver began working at the University of Iowa, but it was a letter from Booker T. Washington that changed his course:

“In April 1896, Carver received a letter from Booker T. Washington of Tuskegee Institute, one of the first African American colleges in the United States. “I cannot offer you money, position or fame,” read this letter. “The first two you have. The last from the position you now occupy you will no doubt achieve. These things I now ask you to give up. I offer you in their place: work – hard work, the task of bringing people from degradation, poverty and waste to full manhood. Your department exists only on paper and your laboratory will have to be in your head.”

“Carver was determined to use his knowledge to help poor farmers of the rural South. He began by introducing the idea of crop rotation. In the Tuskegee experimental fields, Carver settled on peanuts because it was a simple crop to grow and had excellent nitrogen fixating properties to improve soil depleted by growing cotton.”

It wasn’t an interest in peanuts that drove Carver, but it was filling a need in the South and helping farmers sustain their farms that motivated him in his career in agriculture….which is amazing stuff.  He was an amazing man who helped rebuild the nation (and I’m kind of a sucker for good history).

Seriously.

credit

But, back to our history lesson:

After I summarized Carver’s works, she looked puzzled and asked, “If George Washington Carver invented peanut butter, then who invented jelly?”

I…have no idea. I kind of figured it was just a recipe that has been around forever to preserve fruits.

But there should be some answer out there…to Google!

Naturally, this is creating a few rabbit trails.

On one hand, there is a really boring story.  There is the general idea that jelly was acquired through the road of trades and commerce in the Far East: “Although, the exact date is unknown, the making of jam and jelly probably began centuries ago in the Middle Eastern countries, where sugar cane grew naturally.  It is believed that the returning Crusaders first introduced jam and jelly to Europe.  By the late Middle Ages, jams, jellies and fruit conserves were popular there.  The use of sugar cane to make jam and jelly can be traced back to the 16th century when the Spanish came to the West Indies where they preserved fruit. ” (link)

That is probably true.  But there is no good story in there, so I kept looking for any other theories on the origins of jelly. Lo and behold, I found one!

There is an epic tale of an esteemed Roman man who was stuffed with incredible self-discipline, curiosity, culinary intrigue, and loads and loads of money.

Which is helpful when you go around being a writer for a living…

In the first century there was a man named Marcus Gavius Apicius who published a recipe book, and this book included a recipe for fruit preserves:

“The world’s first known book of recipes, written by the famous 1st century AD Roman epicure, Marcus Gavius Apicius, includes a recipe for quince jam.”

Simple enough story.  Straightforward. Easy. But….

Who was this Marcus Gavius Apicius, though?

So statuesque.

“Marcus Gavius Apicius is believed to have been a Roman gourmet and lover of luxury, who lived sometime in the 1st century AD, during the reign of Tiberius. The Roman cookbook Apicius is often attributed to him, though its impossible to prove the connection.”

and yet,

“Evidence for the life of M. Gavius Apicius derives partly from contemporary or almost-contemporary sources but is partly filtered through the above-named work by Apion, whose purpose was presumably to explain the names and origins of luxury foods, especially those anecdotally linked to Apicius. From these sources the following anecdotes about M. Gavius Apicius (hereafter called Apicius) survive: to what extent they form a real biography is doubtful.”

Nevertheless, Apicius was an interesting dude.

– Apicius dined with Maecenas (70 – 8 BC), Augustus‘s adviser: Martial, Epigrams 10.73. It is possible that Martial drew this idea from a facile comparison made bySeneca between Maecenas, cultural adviser, and Apicius, gastronomic adviser.

– Drusus (13 BC – 14 September AD 23), son of Tiberius, was persuaded by Apicius not to eat cymae, cabbage tops or cabbage sprouts, because they were a common food…

– Apicius was “born to enjoy every extravagant luxury that could be contrived”. He advised that red mullet were at their best if, before cooking, they had been drowned in a bath of fish sauce made from red mullet…

– Apicius advised that flamingo’s tongue was of superb flavour…

Run Away!!!

– Based on existing methods of producing goose liver (foie gras), Apicius devised a similar method of producing pork liver. He fed his pigs with dried figs and slaughtered them with an overdose of mulsum (honeyed wine)…

and finally,

– Having spent a fortune of 100 million sestertii on his kitchen, spent all the gifts he had received from the Imperial court, and thus swallowed up his income in lavish hospitality, Apicius found that he had only 10 million sestertii left. Afraid of dying in relative poverty, he poisoned himself…

It is, indeed, the Roman way.

What was most interesting about my little trip down the gastronomical legend of Marcus Gavius Apicius, was not the report of the lavishes of flamingo tongues; it was his perfect 5 course Roman meal plan:

• Appetizer: Olive Caviar
• Starter: Sweet Ham
• Main Course: Imperial Chicken
• Cheese: Herbed Cheese
• Dessert: Honeyed Dates

Not much has changed in +2000 years…!

And so, without further ado…Apicius’ Quince Jelly Recipe:

Thank you to The Joy Kitchen for providing the recipe!

“The quince has played part in humankind’s orchard for centuries at least. The quince was Paris’s offering to Aphrodite, and Apicius’s ancient Roman cookbook contains recipes for stewing quince with honey.”

The Smithsonian is on the task of covering heinous crimes. They have compiled the…

“Top Ten Reasons to Beware the Ides of March

2. A Raid on Southern England, 1360
A French raiding party begins a 48-hour spree of rape, pillage and murder in southern England. King Edward III interrupts his own pillaging spree in France to launch reprisals, writes historian Barbara Tuchman, “on discovering that the French could act as viciously in his realm as the English did in France.”

4. Czar Nicholas II Abdicates His Throne, 1917
Czar Nicholas II of Russia signs his abdication papers, ending a 304-year-old royal dynasty and ushering in Bolshevik rule. He and his family are taken captive and, in July 1918, executed before a firing squad.

and, worst of all:

8. CBS Cancels the “Ed Sullivan Show,” 1971
Word leaks that CBS-TV is canceling “The Ed Sullivan Show” after 23 years on the network, which also dumped Red Skelton and Jackie Gleason in the preceding month. A generation mourns.

That one is harsh.  Ed Sullivan…though, I hardly remember thee.

Today is pretty rough, and reading random lists is kind of helping.  Remembering the Ides of March is helping get my mind off things for now.  It’s a little break in the storm, so to speak.

This morning was another lovely morning.  Outside it was a cold, but sunny day on the island in the Sound.  I was greeted with wispy fog commuting through the trees on their way to work this morning, as I and the kids dropped Ben off at the ferry, and unfortunately they were stuck in a little bit of traffic at the round-about, as well.  The sunlight was filtering through the towering pine trees, and everything just seemed so peaceful and quiet.  It was a beautiful morning on the island.

This morning I was going to do some cleaning around the house, and I was going to start by mopping downstairs, but I don’t have a mop.

I wanted to vacuum the bedrooms today, but I don’t have a vacuum.

I am in the middle of all this right now, and I still don’t know how to process everything.  I am trying to keep busy, stay on our daily schedule, and not break open the bottle of wine in the kitchen (I’m saving that for later).  But the waves of emotion keep washing over me, and my stomach is in knots when I think about it.

We got a call from our agent from our previous home last Thursday just as we were getting dinner. The front door to our old house had apparently been open all day, and a neighbor had called her to let her know.  They said the bathroom upstairs was flooded and pooling into the kitchen.  So, that’s not good news.

Ben flew down Friday morning, which we were planning for a while already, and he was originally going to pick up what we left in the garage.  Mostly stuff that couldn’t fit in our moving van, bikes, lamps, treadmill, etc. But now we don’t know if there is anything left.

We called the police and had them check out the house, and they said it clearly appeared to be a forced entry through the side garage door, but no one was inside, and we have an official police report saying it was breaking and entering. The kids are upset, and I’m getting worried about Ben going down alone…but there isn’t much we can do about it, and we are trusting that things are going to be okay.

I just couldn’t shake it all Friday.  On one hand, we called our insurance and they were incredibly helpful.  They said this was covered, and they were going to dispatch a clean up/repair crew to the house.  This was such a relief, since I don’t know how much it is going to cost to repair the house.  I don’t even know where to begin on something like this.  I don’t even know how safe the house is now.  This house that we were just living in, two weeks ago.  My kids slept in those rooms.  I taught at my desk in that house.  I made birthday cakes in that kitchen.  We enjoyed fires in the winter in that living room.  We just lived there.

I am so furious that this happened, and some dude has been sleeping in our home and flooding the bathroom and no one on the street thought it was weird. We lived there for 7 years…where were any of the neighbors who I gave Christmas cards to? Or to whom my daughter gave Valentine’s cards?  Or even the next door neighbor who I gave a spare dog crate to, when their puppies were outside in 110F degree sun all weekend?  Nobody is around?  Anyone?

When Ben finally got to the house on Friday, we were able to see what the real damage was.

It was a lot worse than we thought.

The stuff in the garage is mostly gone. Everything was torn apart and stomped over.  All of our bikes, vacuums, lamps, shelves, tons of stuff. The treadmill is gone.  The vacuum is gone.  The Hoover Floormate is gone.  My sewing machine is gone.  My daughter’s sewing machine is gone.  The box of cables is gone.  The patio set is gone.  The hamper is gone, and the clothes are gone.  The toys are gone.  The tricycles for the kids are gone.  The Radio Flyer wagon is gone.  I still have to go through the pictures we took before we left to itemize what was stolen.

The door to the garage was definitely busted in. They kicked the door so hard, it broke the entire door frame off.  They made a mess of the garage, and I didn’t think there was anything in the empty house to take…but I was incredibly wrong.

They also took all the cabinet doors off all the cabinets in every bathroom. The shower doors are gone. The closet doors are all gone in every room and in the hallways.  The refrigerator that was supposed to stay with the house is gone.  The microwave is gone. They were apparently “in process” because there were two huge mirror doors in my bathroom that were already dismounted, and a sink was in a hallway.

They were in the process of taking a toilet, but the bonus to that one is that they unscrewed the toilet upstairs and flooded the house intentionally.   The kitchen ceiling is ripping apart, there are huge, 3foot holes in the ceiling and waterfalls were soaking the kitchen cabinets and the living room carpet, and they will all need to be removed now.

There is more, but that’s just the bulk of it.

Our realtor is going to sell it as is after some repair, and insurance will pay us for the losses.  That’s the plan, as far as I know.

This is pretty hard to swallow, and while I am trying to keep my mind on life here…the waves of nausea hit me when I think of all of this, and I don’t know what we can do.  There is nothing else to do, at this point.  Ben brought home what was left, and that should be the end of it.

 On one hand, I am so extremely grateful that we are safe.  No one is hurt, and we didn’t have to defend ourselves from anybody while we were in that house.  It’ll take a little while to get some things we need, but it’s all stuff.  It’ll just take time.

On the other hand, that was our home.  And it has been so thoroughly gutted and ruined, it is a skeleton of what we knew.  All the happy memories we had have been replaced with theft and destruction.  The purple walls I painted stand across pools of water on the floors that once felt the bare feet of my children.

I’m just trying to breathe through this. But I kind of want to crawl in bed.  I have been seriously conflicted with whether or not I should even write about this, since this level of violation is deeply invasive and this is a very personal trial.  I don’t even know how to process what happened.  I thought we were going to move, like we have always moved.  We just go from one house to another.  The invasion into our home was so thorough and so disgusting, it makes me enormously thankful we weren’t there when it happened.  I can’t even think of my children having been there with such horrible people near by, and we thought we were in a safe place…there are a lot of “what if” thoughts going through my head, but right now I need to think through this, and I need to think beyond it.  I know we are going to be okay now, I know we are all safe now, and I am so grateful we have a home far away from the mess.

I know all this, and I am trying to stay positive. But this sucks.

Nothing like bringing out the intense, poetic hubris in me than rejection letters that say I am too deep for them.

Right??

“Hi, Tamarah. thanks for writing!  Sorry to add to the rejection thingy, but don’t think this quite works. It’s deep and a wee vague, we’re hands on and nitty gritty. Best, pam”

The problem with poetry is….

There are lots of problems with poetry.  Some problems are on the poet’s side, some problems are on the reader’s side.  Sometimes poetry is too obscure to understand on the first read.  Sometimes poetry is too simple, and it is just embarrassing how bad it is.  Sometimes the reader doesn’t understand how to read poetry, and sometimes the reader can understand it too well…and dismiss it as rubbish.  There is a lot going on with poetry, all in all.  The same reader who loves Robert Frost will hate Tracy K. Smith, while those of us who love Tracy K. Smith will still be able to see the poetic honesty in Robert Frost.

The relationship people have with poetry will never be easy.  In short: it’s complicated.

It isn’t too dissimilar to being a SysAdmin, I don’t think.  A SysAdmin is responsible for… honestly, I am married to a SysAdmin and I know what a SysAdmin does, but that is like defining what a mother does.

What does a SysAdmin do?  everything.

But I’m sure there is a better, clearer definition out there:

“A system administrator, or sysadmin, is a person who is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems; especially multi-user computers, such as servers. The system administrator seeks to ensure that the uptime, performance, resources, and security of the computers he or she manages meet the needs of the users, without exceeding the budget. To meet these needs, a system administrator may acquire, install, or upgrade computer components and software; provide routine automation; maintain security policies; troubleshoot; train and/or supervise staff; or offer technical support for projects.”

That is a pretty good summary.  There is a lot more to it, like, “you need to know where everything is, how everything works, who is using everything, how to fix everything when everything is bungled, how to warp time,” etc.

 That is correct, Thor.  I, indeed, read all your emails.

SysAdmins are very much like Heimdall, the guard in Asgard.  “Heimdall is the god of light, the son of nine mothers . He was born at the end of the world and raised by the force of the earth, seawater and the blood of a boar. Because of his shining, golden teeth he is also called Gullintani (“gold tooth”). His hall is Himinbjorg, The Cliffs of Heaven, and his horse is Gulltop. Heimdall carries the horn Gjallar.”

“He is the watchman of the gods and guards Bifrost, the only entrance to Asgard, the realm of the gods. It is Heimdall’s duty to prevent the giants from forcing their way into Asgard. He requires less sleep than a bird and can see a hundred miles around him, by night as well as by day. His hearing is so accurate that no sound escapes him: he can even hear the grass grow or the wool on a sheep’s back.”

And I think Heimdall is also very much like poets.

He lives by himself and watches Asgard.  He guards the burning rainbow bridge called the Bifrost, which leads into the world.  He sees all, hears all, and is fiercely protective of what he loves.  He is overly dramatic and will stand his ground regardless of what god demands anything from him.

Tell me poets aren’t over-the-top dramatic like this, and I’ll tell you that you have never met a poet.

“The world revolves around me!” “Poetry is the verse of life!” “You just don’t get me, man.”

Yet, even poets are unable to truly define what it means to be a poet:

The definition-

“Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be ‘the expression of the imagination’: and poetry is connate with the origin of man. Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted. Poetry is a sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it. All high poetry is infinite; it is as the first acorn, which contained all oaks potentially.”  –Percy Blythe Shelley

The emotion-

“Poetry is not a turning lose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality.  But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.”     -T.S.Eliot
The ego-

“I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is prose; words in their best order; -poetry; the best words in the best order.”    -S.T. Coleridge

“Poetry is what in a poem makes you laugh, cry, prickle, be silent, makes your toe nails twinkle, makes you want to do this or that or nothing, makes you know that you are alone in the unknown world, that your bliss and suffering is forever shared and forever all your own.”      -Dylan Thomas

And finally-

“Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and widely effective mode of saying things, and hence its importance.”    -Matthew Arnold

Poets are pretty impressive people, you have to admit.  They literally walk around the world with this hubris within them, as if it is totally normal to do so.

So, without further ado, and with much hubris, here is a poem I wrote last year.

The Buffalo In The Room

by Tamarah Rockwood

Sometime, in between, the beats of torn petals

we meet in the parlor, sharing

a mint mocha called a Snuggler

and scrape the soft, slightly melty chocolate chips

out of the nook at the bottom of the tall

glass, garage sale, cafe` cup.

Somewhere in between little chuckles and

bullish smiles, quickly hidden by a napkin,

we stare at our fingers.

Sequentially, beating the dance of our parents

on the timeworn wooden table, shuffling silverware

shoulder shaking the hustle to the rhythm of our screed.

A lifesize buffalo head looms over our table

as our spirit animal.  He remembers the days

of indulgent opportunity, the long days on the long American veldt

spent in slow ambulate with his tribe.

Minding the calves and entertaining the satisfied ladies.

With a glassy stare he could almost see the valley

filled with long shadows, thrown in billows over the tributary

leading to the Missouri River,

whose waters dried up after Jesse James was shot in 1882.