First, some context: I’m a Mormon, and Mormons have a tradition of fasting for 24 hours, usually on the first Sunday of each month. The idea is to step apart for a few moments out of one’s lifetime and take our focus away from the things that we have and that we consume, and then, to share: the money that would have been spent on food eaten in that time, it is encouraged, will be given towards feeding the poor. Generously.

But one of the things that doesn’t seem to get mentioned that often (maybe because you don’t want to talk about food inside a church full of hungry people) is how much doing so sharpens one’s appreciation for the very things we’re avoiding just then. How it makes us more aware of what we have, day to day, how it lifts the so-ordinary chore-filled efforts in the kitchen into a thing of thankfulness. How a bowl of oatmeal can, in the right circumstances and with the right attitude, truly feel a gift from God.

The fasting is not mandatory, and in fact, I, with my string of diseases, don’t do the 24-hour thing nowadays. But still. Today I skipped lunch, trying to do my part, and then, wanting to make a really good meal at dinnertime, got started on making a pie. One of our favorites. Strawberry. My husband bought a multi-pound box for just a few dollars yesterday, and as I took it out of the fridge, opening the clamshell, I thought, was there ever a berry so pretty. Watsonville: that’s what, about 90 minutes away. I bet these were picked on Friday. There are moments when I am just truly grateful I live in California now.

I suddenly remembered a grocery store in New Hampshire, wintertime, snow on the ground, 20 years ago: a worker was handing out beautiful orange slices of persimmons, samples to get the crowd to buy. Fresh from California, just came in, come try out this exotic, lovely, orange-colored fresh fruit–in December!… And if you know anything about Hachiya persimmons, you know the fact that they were slices means, Houston, we have a problem. Ever eaten a very green banana? Right. Exactly. Persimmons–at least that variety–aren’t something you’d want to eat till they go completely soft and mushy, but the poor person roped into handing them out didn’t know that. I doubt she’d ever seen one, nor the store manager, for that matter. Oh my. People were accepting one, popping it in their mouths, and then trying not to look like they were making furtive looks around as to how to quietly ditch this thing. Or just eat it and get it over with? I didn’t understand what was going on till I tried it too. Oh my. Why someone didn’t just say something, or why I didn’t, for that matter, I have no answer for. I bet they didn’t sell a whole awful lot of them.

My neighbors here threw up their hands once and exclaimed to me, what on earth were they going to do with this whole big tree’s worth of persimmons! I told them that Second Harvest Food Bank will enlist volunteers to come pick the tree and, at least according to the local paper, they’ll sweep up the drops off your ground, too, as a thank you. Oh!

So. Now I live where people offer up persimmons to their neighbors like zucchinis, where people know when to eat them, and fer cryin’ out loud, it is *November,* and here I was hulling locally-grown just-picked strawberries, remembering a pie I’d made when I was 18, all the pies made in between, by me, by my children growing up, remembering my daughter’s delightful addition of Valrhona bittersweet chocolate to the 1952 Betty Crocker recipe. I stood there just inhaling the sweet strawberryness of it all.

Puree a half-blenderful’s worth by dropping onto the spinning blades a few at a time. Add just enough sugar and a small spoonful of cornstarch. Throw in the microwave for seven or eight minutes, long enough for it to bubble for a minute to thicken the starch, but short enough that it doesn’t taste overly cooked. These are just-picked berries, you don’t want them tasting like they came out of a jar. Fresh from the fields–keep them that way. Let cool, then pour over whole strawberries sitting nicely in their already-baked piecrust, to which you’ve added a thin layer of cream cheese and a thicker layer of the melted bittersweet chocolate (easier to do if you mix it with the cream cheese, but the purists in this household prefer their layers separate, the way little kids don’t like to mix foods).

That was the idea of it all, anyway. Reality is, I’d washed some raspberries (fresh. A buck a box. It’s that California thing again. I was loving living here more by the minute.) I looked at those raspberries in that colander on the left, the cooling sweetened thickened puree on the right, and… picked up a perfect raspberry, upside down. You know, that thing is its own little bowl. Just right for topping off with fresh strawberry pie filling. So is that one. And that one. In the end, the pie never happened; I just poured the filling over the raspberries and strawberries and said it was strawberry-pie-in-a-bowl. (It would have been more convincing had I chilled it to let the filling set.) My youngest said, “Mom, you are SO weird.” I accepted the compliment quite happily. It was just too good to wait for the excess of fat calories we didn’t need anyway. This way, it came more directly from where God grew it.

I grew up in a house in the woods, right by a ten-mile-long regional park running along Cabin John Creek in Maryland, flowing out to the Potomac River. In a normal year, I make a trek back East for a short while, visiting friends and family, taking walks down the towpath of the C&O Canal, where my husband and I went on our first date; always dipping a toe in the Potomac, just because. One friend and I had a Great Blue heron take off into the air right in front of us on one of those outings. It lifted up in graceful slow motion, right there. Glorious.

But this has not been a normal year. My trip got cancelled by a Crohn’s flare (yeah, got that, too) and I didn’t get to go–and my parents suddenly decided to put their house on the market and move into a downtown condo two thousand miles away, to the city where my mother had grown up, where they could get by without driving anymore. Which makes sense at their stage; everything’s right there for them. I wanted to say goodbye to the house, where some of my earliest memories are of the day we’d moved in. It didn’t happen.

A few years ago, I was back there, and it was distressing to see that the English ivy the neighbors had planted to tamp down the erosion on the hill had grown like kudzu across the back yard, destroying everything in its path. Where were the jack-in-the-pulpits? Had the mayapples even made it through the ivy cover earlier that year? Where were the turtles? But the trees! There were several trees that had ivy running up them now, sinking roots into the trunks, threatening to kill them. Tall dead trees are wonderful for feeding pileated woodpeckers, but twice in years past, hit by lightning earlier, the folks have had one land on or go right through the house in a hurricane and a tornado. Not to mention, these new ones would be dead, and then the next ones would be, and the next. Ivy so much does not belong there.

No way was I not going to try. Short-breathed or no, dizzy or not, that ivy had to go. I spent I don’t know how long ripping it out, which was easy where it was young growth–and a lot of it was–and where it was not, well, I ached for days, but man, was it worth it. The next year, when I came back for the wedding of a friend’s daughter, I can’t tell you how wonderful it felt to see the forest floor rebounding fast where the ivy had been cleared. And I’d cleared quite a lot.

My friend Robin of the comments lives in Bethesda, and drove over to the folks’ house on their moving day. Snapped pictures and sent me the link, including this picture of the back yard (thank you, Robin!) I had never in my life seen the front yard so sunny before; since my last trip, a storm had finished off what had once been a big, shady poplar in the center of the yard.

Today I was wishing I could see fall colors in all the glory to be had back there. Northern California claims fall colors, but it’s just not the same. The trees here change with the seasons the way a fifth grade band class follows the music teacher: every random which way when, notes often squeaky and never in concert together, with the class clowns in the back holding out till January.

I don’t know why I never thought of this before. I love this photo, showing the trees I pulled that ivy off of, scarred, but still growing tall and strong, holding the weight of the sky off the young saplings below. Light bursting through at the top. I was knitting this evening, and just needed–something. What? I glanced around, and suddenly found myself reaching for a copy of that shot and putting it in my lap, so that when I glanced down at the knitting in my hands, I would have those woods as the backdrop. It completely changed how I felt about that particular project, which had lagged earlier, but now was just sailing off my needles.

I took a break to come write this.

I wonder who will pull the ivy off in the years to come. I hope that, rather than looking at that large lot with the For Sale sign only as a place for their Washington McMansion, the buyers love those woods the way we kids did. The mayapples have such a short season. Don’t forget to look for the turtles. 

I’m not trying to spoil the book for anyone, but I do figure that not a lot of people are running out to buy it because of my having mentioned it. So I wanted to share my favorite part of “Winterdance”: at one point, Paulsen saw another Iditarod musher sitting, his dogs parked, looking down at the scene below the rise at a point where Paulsen couldn’t see. The other guy motioned him over, saying, You’ve got to see this!

Down below them was a frozen lake and four buffalo. Two were out on the ice, trying to rise awkwardly to their feet. The other two were on the side. One backed up the embankment, carefully, and then with tail held high, went running forward and hit the ice with its front legs apart just so, so that it went twirling around and around on the ice. It got up, legs slipping out from under it, shakily and with the obvious buffalo equivalent of a grin, while the next one backed up the embankment to come do the same thing. Run, hit the ice, spin like a top–next!

Worth the price of the book just to read that part. Go buffalo. And cheers to the men who took the time away from the race to stop and see it.

My hospitalization and testing were actually going to be last week, but my doctor and the hospital couldn’t get it together on the timing, and it got put off till this week. Which left me thinking, okay, I know from experience that timing is everything: I wonder. Who does that mean I will see that I wouldn’t have seen if it had been earlier? I put a white baby alpaca/silk lace scarf in my knitting bag to take with me so I would be prepared for whoever whenever.

Three years ago I was admitted to Stanford in such a state that my husband wasn’t the least bit sure I would still be there the next day. Noel, the nursing assistant assigned to my bed, took one look at us and knew we needed him. He spent as much time as he reasonably could in my room with us, being himself, being warm and kind, being very funny, making my Richard laugh at a time he felt laughing had become extinct. Even I cracked a smile over and over, at a time when it took all I had just to breathe.

When I asked him at one point a few days later if the picture of the adorable little girl he had hanging from his neck was his daughter, he said softly, looking me in the eyes, that, no. That was his niece. She had not made it. And now he works here, taking care of other patients.

I pulled through that setback, and later went back to Stanford with a wool hat I’d knitted for him as a way of telling him how much what he had done and how he had given of himself had meant to us. He loved it. He told me I had caught him just before he left; he was moving home to Hawaii and going back to school to become a full-fledged nurse. (And I thought, goodness, what would you ever do with a wool hat in Hawaii?)

I have often wished him well, wherever life might have taken him since then. He was such a good one.

So. My second day at Stanford this week, someone just happened to walk past my room, and I found myself exclaiming in thrilled disbelief, “Noel?!!” He stopped. Looked just a moment–and hey, we’re talking me with, in effect, a bald head, and three years since we’d laid eyes on each other–and he exclaimed back, “It’s YOU!!” He came bounding in and we threw our arms around each other. I reminded him how he’d made Richard laugh, and thanked him once again. And asked him, “But I thought you moved to Hawaii!”

He’d had the plane ticket for three months. Two weeks before he’d been supposed to leave, his brother, who lives in this area, was diagnosed with cancer. Noel had stayed by his side the whole time. Of course he couldn’t leave. He was very happy to add that his brother had been in remission two years now.

So he had stayed here. I gave him that scarf, for his mom, or whomever he chose. And I just happened to be in the right room at the right time with the door open at the moment he just happened to walk past it in my department. And somehow he recognized me.

But then, he was always someone who could truly see.

Tap your heels twice, “There’s no place like home.”

So far I’ve gone through half a bottle of baby oil and nearly that of cheap coconut-scented hair conditioner picked up on our way home, trying to de-superglue my hair as per instructions. I smell like a Mounds bar. And then I think of all the cancer patients who would love to have glue in their hair to complain about, and, well, hey.

Last time I was at Stanford, they had me tethered to the wall for a long infusion, and set up a bedside commode as they pumped three bags of fluids into me. Which means, it having been night and the blinds opened, that I mooned the incoming Lifeflight chopper.

This time I was again straight across from the helipad on the roof, but I was on the top rather than the ground floor–close enough to wave at the pilot and think she might well have waved back. I said a small prayer for whoever was laid out in the back of that chopper. Thank goodness they were able to get to Stanford so fast.

And the next one. And the next one.

It’s wonderful to return to normal life here.

Watch out, these guys at Stanford’ll just floor you. And see what
happens when you hand my hubby a camera phone? Dangerous, I tell you.

(Editoral note from the Hubby who is posting this for her: Alison is unfortunately in Stanford Hospital for observation for possibly several days. Those who know her well know she does not complain, but she has not been doing her best. This time they are just observing her. I will try to maintains some updates for her while she is in the body shop for diagnostics. Here are a few pictures I took as they hooked her up for monitoring. She selected these from a set of pictures I took. She ended up looking a bit like a pre-halloween mummy look if you ask me.

Maybe her brain just got jealous of all the time I put into bring the server back to life and it wanted more attention of its own? Maybe It wants an CPU upgrade? Our youngest thinks she looks like she had a brain transplant in a bad science fiction movie. Maybe it is one to many pattern in the brain? It’s been 28 years and I still don’t have a clue. But I will probably get spoken to about my comments)

After four days AWOL, the server is finally back in commission and the blog and site back up. Many thanks to my Richard, who spent a huge amount of time bringing it back to life.

My youngest, as a baby, hated being in the car. Hated it. Screamed from the moment you put him in there in the backseat till the moment you picked him back up again, completely different from his siblings, who would watch calmly out the windows and often fall asleep after awhile. He was the world’s most placid baby–except on wheels.

But still, that didn’t prepare me for his first words. You know, there’s the usual Ma Ma Ba Ba babbling, but the very first real words out of that little boy’s mouth made it very clear he had older siblings to copy. It wasn’t even the standard two-word tiny toddler talk. I was buckling him into his carseat, and this little-boy voice pronounced in protest up at me, “No way Jose.”

Say WHAT? You can’t say that yet! But he could. And he did.

So, now he’s a college freshman, the one kid to choose to be living at home while going to school, at least for this year. (And I’m the one trying not to freak out when he’s driving. One horrendous moment being twice-crashed because of one distracted speeder behind me six years ago, and my balance was shot for life.) He’s in the college choir, and he proudly volunteered his mother’s superb chocolate decadence torte as treats he was going to bring in to share with the other singers.

And then he came home and told me. Oh really? No way Jose, hon. You’re perfectly capable. Dowicherself. (He’d thought, on reflection, that that reaction might be forthcoming.)

So. I walked into the kitchen a little while ago to sneak a peek at the proceedings.

It took me a moment. What on earth? Oh. Um. Did you… Are those egg whites being beaten with the butter, with the egg yolks waiting to be beaten separately? Rather than the other way around?

Oh oops. He had to start over. No biggy, and his tortes (my recipe makes two) came out beautifully.

I, meantime, threw some milk and flour and those egg yolks into that first bowl, baking like I knit: ad libbing as I go. I’m waiting to see how it comes out. But his tortes will definitely find their way to the college near San Jose; the kid did a good job. As I knew he would, and now he knows he can.

And, though it really shouldn’t bother me, I will, as I often do, say a small prayer as he gets in my car and heads down the crazy California freeways, offering a quiet thanks later when he arrives safely home.

Some days just need a tiger hug, and this one’s for Lene, my friend over at theseatedview.blogspot.com. Not as cool as the real four-month-old tiger cub she once got to hold, but it’s what I’ve got.

One of my earliest memories is of watching in huge excitement as my dad opened up his suitcase in the middle of the living room rug. He’d just gotten home from a trip to Europe; I’d missed him fiercely, and he told me he had something in there for me and something for my little sister. He’d toured a stuffed animal factory in Germany. First, he pulled out my tiger. (There is no Steiff ear tag; at some point in my childhood it must have mortally offended me, so out it went.) Then a koala for my little sister.

There were many stuffed animals along the way over the years growing up, but none with the power to comfort like my tiger. Mom used to hold him up to the light at bedtime so there would be glowing cat eyes in the dark, always watching over me and keeping me safe. Now, as in any parent/child relationship, he’s in his old age and I’m the one keeping him in good care.

As I do my friends, to the best I can. Hey Lene. Consider yourself tiger hugged.

So, how many people by now have wondered how to start a blog? I spent too much time typing and deleting, till my husband armwrestled the keyboard away and started going, “This is a lame…” and I wrestled it back and wrote this instead. I think we’re tied.