below the whisker-lines, under the bowsprit

More than once in my life, I have staged photos to make me appear to be in a more precarious place than I actually am. This photo? This photo looks a fraction of how precariously I am hanging above the Atlantic-- perhaps fifteen feet above the surface of the water, speeding along on the breeze... First time on a sailboat in twenty years or so. I convinced the captain I'm a good climber. Good thing he didn't ask if I'm a good swimmer-- because I am a bad liar. He let me ride in this net for the last half-hour of the sail, rocking and swaying in my comfortable "hammock."

"The winds of grace blow all the time. All we need do is set our sails." The quote is attributed to Ramakrishna. I know nothing about sails. But I know how to climb. Wind and grace are ever connected in my mind.

This ride was an anniversary gift from our neighbor, who sings the sea chanties while folks hoist the sails onto the masts.

it's the skirt, isn't it?

My friend still hadn’t arrived, so I set up shop on the rainy corner of Chinatown, a few blocks from the Manhattan Bridge: my backpack leaned against the wall, my tote between my feet, I pulled out my glasses and the new hard-cover I’m devouring. My clothes were sweat-through and nearly dripping all over again when two college age young men cycled right up to me. They were cute and hip Anglo’s just as out-of-place as me, and the one with the great glasses began to ask me detailed questions—it took me a moment to realize he was asking me for directions!

“Wait a minute! You’re telling me I don’t look utterly disoriented and like a probable victim for tourist-mugging? I have no idea where I am! It’s not written all over me?”

The two guys looked at each other, then back at me in apparent admiration. The one with the curls spoke next, “No—no, not at all. You look exactly like you own this block.”

We’re suddenly co-conspirators, guards let down as we realized we are equally clueless in a city and neighborhood where cluelessness could be dangerous. “Tell me, so I can know: it’s the skirt, isn’t it?”

“No,” said the curly-haired one, “it’s the book. But then, it’s everything. You look quite comfortable.”

“Definitely the book,” the first one laughed. He whispered, in a congratulatory tone “You project complete confidence.”

“It’s whistling in the dark, you know, false courage when you’ve run out of options.”

“It works. A wall of courage. Your ride comin’ soon?”

“Anytime. He’s within a few blocks.” I shook my head and continued reading as they cycled off into the night.

tenderheaded

Handfuls of hair collect near the drain each time I wash my hair. It startles me, as if I haven’t been losing two fists worth of hair every single wash for the past several months. There’s no need to be alarmed: my hair could cloak three heads, at least, and perhaps I will notice a difference in quantity after another few months of this. Still, the sight is a strange one, something rinsing away from me. It was just a part of me, a minute ago.

My hair has always been like a fussy pet. It won’t tolerate conditions other people consider normal: normal haircuts shape my hair like a Christmas tree, or worse, like a square. A normal blow-dryer can destroy my hair until the next wash, and a curling iron or flat-iron is simply no match for my hair’s deep desire to go it’s own way. Treated just right, though, it’s become my one lasting vanity—it dresses up well, it dresses down well. As long as I treat it with care.

Bits of my hair crackled off when I lived in the pine barrens of eastern Washington for a few years—I woke each morning to find desiccated pieces of dark hair on my pillow, would buy any moisturizing product my hairdressers recommended, in hopes moisture would sink in. On those rare weekends I traveled across the Cascade Mountains toward Seattle, I could almost hear my hair (and my skin, for that matter) sigh with relief as I entered the damp curtain of humidity. For a few days, my hair would remember how to be happy again, before I returned to the desert.

Now I live by the sea, where the weather is always damp and suited to my dense curls. I pull it up and away from my face, almost every day of summer. Ponytail, braids, French twist—there are so many options. I’m good to my pet, feeding it bottles of Frizz-Ease (Extra Strength), covering it with a big straw hat at the beach.

I began a combination of supplements, a few months ago, to alleviate headaches, and the headaches left almost immediately. The doctor thought my mood would lift, and it lifted sooner than we expected. She told me I would gain weight for a few months. She mentioned I might be uncomfortable. She did not tell me the texture of my skin would change. She did not tell me I would lose hair. I’ll go back and read all of the fine print from the pharmacy and see what I learn.

Until then, I wash my exotic pet hair with the reminder to myself: I have plenty, plenty. It only looks scary, washing away like that. I wonder if each strand was connected to a headache I will not suffer, as I watch it go. I imagine all the terrible reasons people lose hair, in cancer treatments, for surgery. This is not so bad. No one sees it go, no one but me. No one sees a single hair of difference in me. No one is upset. But me.



Addendum: I wrote this a month ago—the hair loss has slowed considerably. Now I hope that little weight-gain thing also “subsides,” as the good doctor described it would.

d.i.y. frappucino: summer comfort food V

Make way too much coffee in the morning, and make it really strong. Freeze the extra in ice cube trays, then pop the cubes into a bag in the freezer. Add more every day. One fine day, or one not-so-fine day, toss coffee cubes in a blender with milk, soy milk, or water. Add a little sweetness or don’t. Add a little chocolate sauce or don’t. Add a little ice cream (sigh) or don’t.

Aren’t leftovers beautiful?

melon pops: summer comfort food IV

Once apon a time, my love for fresh foods nearly ran away with me, and I found myself with a large piece of watermelon—okay, half a watermelon—getting riper and over-riper by the day. I looked at it. I sighed that I am unable to eat half a watermelon in one sitting, or two sittings, and the texture was beginning to get grainy and disappointing.

So I did what any fruit lover would do, at least any fruit lover with a blender: I pureed the watermelon. (I have a fabulous blender. It liquefies the seeds.) After a cold glass of watermelon juice, I poured the rest into ice cube trays. After watermelon ice/sorbet came watermelon smoothies, then the watermelon popsicles. None of it tasted grainy, and every variation was better than the last.

There’s a giant watermelon on my counter, across the room…

andalusian gazpacho: summer comfort food III

I hosted a dozen high school students from Madrid one summer, ostensibly to teach them conversational English. They were surly, spoiled, and had less desire to learn than to be on vacation. Instead of enjoying life by the sea, they felt cheated not to live in New York City. Sammy, the group’s college-age chaperone, particularly disliked working with a woman. But he loved U2, and the students would liven up when I offered to parse Bono’s lyrics with them, at the end of a morning of classwork. We chipped away at one song per morning.

The students took away great experiences with their host families and an understanding of the lyrics of U2. I took away a firm conviction never to try that again, and a recipe for Andalusian Gazpacho.

I thought I loved gazpacho, before. I’d tasted a dozen different recipes. Sammy, determined to make an authentic Spanish gazpacho in quantity for an end-of-summer party, went shopping with me at the vegetable market.

“How many cucumbers, Sammy? How many onions?” I asked. The horror on his face!

“What are you talking about? Gazpacho has no onions, no cucumbers! You are talking about Mexican gazpacho. I will show you how to make real gazpacho.”

“Then what do you put in it?” I asked.

“Tomatoes. Garlic. Perhaps one quarter of a pepper, but probably not. Bread. Olive oil, vinegar, sugar. Salt and pepper. You have a blender, right?”

Personally, I love it when people get righteously indignant about food preparation. First, it means I don’t have to cook. Second, it means I will likely learn something. Third, whatever I learn will be authentic, and I’m unlikely to forget it.

At home, Sammy threw all the tomatoes into the blender with one clove of garlic and several ice cubes. He tore an entire loaf of French bread into small pieces and dropped them, one at a time, into the whirling mixture, stopping when the tomato soup had enough body to “stand” a little, on the spoon. He “finished” the cold soup with a splash of cider vinegar, a generous spoonful of sugar and a tablespoon of good virgin olive oil. A pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper.

Sammy held out a large spoonful to me. This gazpacho didn’t look like any I’d ever tasted—a puree, it had no chunks of vegetables, no smell of spice, little color. I put the spoon in my mouth and closed my eyes, a connoisseur in an instant.

“Tomato,” I said. “It tastes exactly like the coldest, most delicious tomato I’ve ever eaten. Where does the bread go?”

“It gives itself up for the tomato,” Sammy said. “This is how we make it in Spain. We live on this soup.” We spoke of Pedro Amaldovar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, laughing together that the heroine had been drugged by lacing her pitcher of gazpacho with a sedative. After five weeks of raised hackles, all it took to laugh was a recipe and a memory of a funny Spanish movie.

U2 gave Sammy a little respect for me, and gazpacho gave me a little respect for Sammy. I only wish we had begun the summer with soup instead of ending it that way.

Later I saw a nearly identical recipe titled Andalusian Gazpacho, made from roasted tomatoes instead of fresh, but it described the part of Spain where Gazpacho originated, and the simple tomato and bread soup served there. Make it by the pitcher, and serve it ice cold.