Chips

     I hear them calling from the pantry. I hear them everyday. They are hard to ignore. Crispy, salty, yummy potato chips.
     At this current moment I have 4 types of chips in my pantry, because you know, one is just not enough. I need ( like that word need?) to have a selection that I choose from everyday. Oh, please, let's be frank here...I put a little of all of them in a bowl, a smorgasbord of chips, to enjoy with my afternoon iced tea or coffee, a good book and, if I can convince him, my cat on my lap.
     I have shamefully gotten into this habit in the past school year. Coming home every afternoon, and rewarding myself with this hour of luxury, which actually sometimes turns into a full on napathon (my new word; look for it soon in a dictionary because I think it will catch on!)
     Since I was diagnosed with cancer two years ago and had gastric surgery three years ago, I have been battling stomach and digestive issues. I have given up so much. And one would say, "But you feel so much better. Isn't it worth it?" Well, yes. In some ways it IS worth it. I physically feel better, but on the inside my whiney, food-addicted self has not been a happy-go-lucky girl.
     Since doctors were not helping me solve my body's issues, I started going to an acupuncturist who is trained in Oriental Medicine. The first thing she had me give up was dairy. ACK! No cheese! It helped my issues. The next thing I gave up was gluten. I do not have Celiac Disease (I really feel for those that do) but my system sure liked being without gluten so, we decided I have a gluten sensitivity. Two wins! I lowered my intake of sugar, leaning more toward Stevia and honey. That helped also. Three points for the better. I've lost weight. Yay! Not going to be on a commercial or anything for rapid weight loss but every pound has made a difference.
     I tried many of my favorite things when I became food sensitive, just testing the waters, like a good food addict would. Through trial and error (more error than success unfortunately) I have discovered I can eat my home-baked gluten free bread but most of the store bought brands do not like me. I have learned that taking the time to make crackers was a complete failure. I have come to the conclusion that I do not have the "gift" just like I found out a long time ago I do not have the "gift" to produce flakey pie crusts. You bakers out there, you know what I'm talking about. Some people have it some people don't. That's just the way it is. I tried some lactose free dairy items...found out that it is not the lactose (sugar) in the dairy I seem to be allergic to but the casein (protein). Even in some of the dairy free products the manufacturers add casein. I found out I don't handle soy very well either, which is used in many vegan food items. And the list goes on and on, and depressingly on.
     So, one day I was sitting at my desk in my classroom and I decided I wanted to go next door to the 7-11 store (so convenient) and get an iced coffee. I picked up a bag of potato chips. Read the label. Potatoes, oil, salt. Hmmmm....I ate them with trepidation. And waited. Usually when I eat something my system doesn't like, my body lets me know in about an hour. I was pleasantly surprised as my body accepted the chips. But once was not enough to set the precedent. So I followed that up with another couple days of experimentation. Hooray! I was able to tolerate chips. So, the addiction developed (like I wasn't addicted to enough food already.)
     Now, so many people would probably tell me, or anybody that would listen, that potato chips are the worst food one can eat. I have considered giving up chips but I have come to the decision that I am done giving up. I'm taking a stand; drawing a line in the sand. On one side will be the world of doctors and health enthusiasts. And on this side will be me, with my food allergies and a smile on my face; holding a bag of chips. 

Walls

     I stand, staring at the wall. Up close. Back away. Squinting my eyes to see if there is anything that doesn’t look right. One thing that stands out amongst the rest.

     I built this literal wall. It is built of Styrofoam insulation covered in flannel. It is a design wall in the room where I do my quilting and it’s in continuous use. As I create my quilts I put up the individual blocks, as I sew them, turning them this way and that; moving them from one side to the other. My wall gives me the opportunity to change the pattern, and redirect the colors, and depth of colors, until the entire project is pleasing to my eye. I have come to this wall late in life. On this wall I pour out my creativity for anyone to see. But this wall is different than my past experiences with walls.

     I believe everybody builds walls. They protect us from a myriad of things in our lives. I built a wall around myself when my mother died, of cancer, at the age of 49. It was easy then. I was pregnant with my daughter at the time. It was so easy to put up that wall and hide in the joy of an impending baby on the other side. That wall did not come down until many years later as I was faced having to deal with another relative with cancer. Both my children had been born by then and I had nothing to support the wall any longer. I grieved then and for about a year after that. I still grieve sometimes for my mother, missing the relationship we could have had as I grew older.

     My son built a wall once. He was in high school when he was forced to dissolve a friendship with a good buddy. The young man in question had been new to the school and had lied about basically his entire life to gain friends and sympathy. David felt betrayed when the lies and pretense all came to light; when the young man got in trouble with the law. The courts sent David’s friend to another state to live with his mother, and as far as I know, David has never heard from him again. So my son built a wall in my kitchen. He started baking. Every day: after school, on the weekends and school holidays. Cookies and brownies and more cookies and muffins and yet more cookies. For several weeks this went on until it slowly died away, the wall crumbled and he stopped baking. He was grieving for the loss of a friend and for the loss of trust his friend brought into his life.

     As I was going through my credential program I was lucky enough to have some excellent master teachers for my student teaching assignments. My first class was with a Mr. Carson who taught seventh grade English at a local middle school. I thought it odd that he had taken yellow tape and marked off a square about two feet out from the edges of his desk. When I asked him what it was for he told me that it was his invisible wall and students had to ask permission to cross it. It kept students away from his grade book on the computer and his personal stash of teaching supplies. I marveled at how well his students respected this tape on the floor. A very short wall, but a wall never the less.

     When I first started teaching I built an emotional wall in my first classroom. I was determined to be taken seriously by the teenagers in my classes (yeah, I know… do teenagers take anything seriously?) and so I put up a thin emotional wall and made sure they were on one side and I was on the other. Every once in awhile one of my students would jump over that wall, and I would be taken with their humor and honesty, and their wonderful outlook on life. Once the wall was breached by a student that enjoy stealing from me; sodas out of my fridge, my special bathroom pass, nice pens off my desk, whole sticky pads, hall passes, water bottles and probably a lot more things I never noticed. He was good. I knew who this student was but never could catch him in the act.

     My second year of teaching I moved to a new school within the same district. As I dismantled my old room I decided not to put up the wall in my new school. I felt like I could hold my own without a wall. But it turned out, as much as I didn’t want to, that I had to construct a very short, thin, almost translucent wall that sits around me. As one gets to know teenagers, one gets to know their struggles and difficult lives. I have had students living in cars, locked out of their parents’ house, living with their entire family of 6 in one bedroom, sleeping behind city garbage cans. Ones that only come to school because it is one of the only places they can get food for free. Ones that come to school bruised and battered; ones that wear the same clothes day after day. The wall is to stop me from gathering these children up and taking care of all of them, which would truly be impossible. And now, as I go into my eighth year of teaching, I have let most of my students breach my wall. I have let my students into my territory because I have found that if you don’t let them in, you cannot expect them to respect you and learn from you. They have no patience for people who do not want to get to know them. I want my students to know that I am approachable and that I really do like them, or I wouldn’t be standing in front of them all day. And I have learned that for the most part they respect my personal space, even though there is no wall.

     So, now, as I have finally deconstructed the wall in my classroom, I begin to use a new wall in my sewing room. But this wall isn’t to keep things or people out. It is to release my creative spirit so that I can share it with others in my quilts, my art. I am happier using this wall than I was using my old walls. Maybe it’s age or wisdom, I don’t really know, but I have finally peeked over the emotional walls I used to build in my class room and found out that, for the most part, they‘re just not necessary. I’ve tried to impart this idea to the student teachers I have been honored to guide over the years. Tape on the floor is O.K. but anything taller than that their students won’t be able to jump over. You’ve got to reach ‘em to teach ‘em. (Wow, that was kind of poetic!)

 

Blueberries

     'Tis the season. On my way home from San Luis yesterday, on the back road, there was a home-made sign advertising blueberries. Yep, must be blueberry season. I didn't have time to investigate but I am assuming that these people have a fairly large area planted in blueberries, seeing that they want to sell them to the general public. Their sign was out last year, for the first time, and I contemplated stopping then, but never got around to it.
     I like blueberries. But I like them raw, uncooked; blueberry muffins were not my favorite back in the glory days when I could actually eat a Costco muffin. You know...those wonderful muffins Costco bakes, that you can smell from a mile away, as you're filling your tank at their gas pumps? Costco does that on purpose, you know...They do live up to the sensory hype. Even the basic ones have something like 45 grams of fat in them. With all that fat, and then added sugar; what's not to love? But the blueberry ones were not my favorite. In the fall, just in time for the holiday season, they put out a pumpkin with brown sugar streusel topping. OMG! And even though I am not a chocoholic, I must admit that the memory of the chocolate with chocolate chips was pleasant. Especially eaten with a nice hot cup of coffee. And their carrot cake cup cakes...oh, wait...I digress...we were talking about blueberries.
     So, I like my blueberries fresh from the vine, so to speak. Don't mess with them. O.K. you can put them in a fruit salad but no fancy dressing!
     Before I moved to Massachusetts, when I was in 4th grade, I don't recall ever having a blueberry. They are not indigenous to the West Coast. We talk oranges out here and in the Central Valley we talk almonds and melons. So, when I got to Massachusetts blueberries were exotic, new, revolutionary. I remember the first time I ate them. We had gone on a camping trip. And in a culvert under a bridge my mother found a patch of blueberry bushes. Me, my sister and mother spent the entire afternoon picking them off the bushes; my mother instructing us just which ones were ripe and juicy. How she knew so much about blueberries, I will never know. Maybe they grow in Minnesota, where she grew up? The gardening books do say they grow best where there is a natural frost, although you can buy varieties that grow well here on the coast of California.
     Anyway... back to the summer of my childhood. We ate blueberries with cookies that night; sprinkled with sugar and topped with some whipped cream my mom purchased from the little store at the campground office. And my mom put them on our cereal in the morning. We snacked on them for the time we were camping and before it was time to go home we revisited the patch and gathered enough to take home for my mom to make cobbler. Yum!
     But for most of my adult life, blueberries came at a premium, not free, on the side of the road. So up until a few years ago, I did not reacquaint myself with blueberries. I have come to the realization that I like them as much as I did when I was a kid.
     This year, as we were making improvements to our rather large backyard, I decided to have our handyman make me a raised planter. I wanted to plant boysenberries, another favorite of mine that can be costly. About the time the planter was finished I was at a nursery and, there in front of me, stood a display of blueberry bushes. It was late in the season (they had been bare root) and were discounted to half price. I picked the best one out; they were all pretty scraggly, (think Charlie Brown Christmas tree) and took my prize home to plant in my new planter box next to the thorn-less boysenberry plant. The plant I chose had a little cluster of berries, green and immature on one of its branches.
     Every couple of days I go out and check the bush to see how they are coming along. I had a dream the other night that big black crows had made a nest under the bush. A silly dream seeing that I have a cat and no bird in its right mind would make a nest on the ground in my backyard. But in my dream they were waiting for the berries to ripen. I went out in a panic to check on the bush the next morning. All was well, but I thought maybe I should prepare for the birds and get some netting or something. Maybe the cat will keep them away. All this for a handful of berries.
     But I look forward to the day, sometime in the not-too-distant future, I hope, that I can harvest enough of those blueberries to make a cobbler. I will have to see if I can find my mom's recipe.