She's Come Undone

(My hulking 8 harness floor loom, before recent dissection)

Twenty three years ago I committed to changing my life & my location, both rather drastically. From a type A+ job in Maryland to momentarily unemployed in the Caribbean, that's how we rolled back then.  

We weren't relying on some carefully amassed pile of assets either. Instead, we took the leap with the hope that our diverse-bordering-on-bizarre catalog of 'skills' would save us from what I'm sure most viewed as a foolhardy bout of arrested development.  

Plan would be too strong a word to describe the warm fuzzy dreamy images I had of the new life ahead. You might be conjuring images of some tourism-related idyllic pursuit such as captaining a sailboat or maybe producing underwater documentaries, or something similar. Not me. I was setting my sights on something much, much weirder. 

I wanted a career as a professional weaver...in paradise. I'll let that sink in a moment. 

I started weaving before I turned 13, & I've had two looms in all those years. I ordered the one above in kit form when we decided to move to St Croix. It came in five huge boxes & although I'm not mechanical, I am determined, & that gave me the steam to get through several days of sanding & oiling parts, counting pieces, studying instructions, & eventually successfully building the loom. 

The little house we rented was surrounded by bush & could be pretty sweltery.    Weaving on a floor loom is a fully aerobic process--throwing the shuttle & stomping on the treadles. No sugarcoating it, it was just so blame HOT. Too hot, in fact. I stuck it out for a year or so, ordering custom labels to sew into the wearables & upholstery I created under the 'Caribbean Handwovens' moniker. I sold the home decor items I wove & stitched through an interior design shop, & the wearables through another shop. One of my tapestries, a close up of a cactus bloom, was displayed prominently at Government House during a show for the local environmental association. After a couple years had passed, I was forced to face facts--that the gap between the income & effort was too great to warrant continuing. 

The loom was still the centerpiece (read 'pain in the arse') of every move from rental to rental. Each time a different friend would draw the short straw & be chosen to ride in the open truck with the loom, ensuring it would stay put around tight corners or through sudden stops. Risking life & limb for loom, they survived the twists & turns around the goat hills of the north shore, being squashed going up & down steep inclines...you get the picture. They did it because they were my friends & knew how much the loom meant to me. I've been weaving since I was 12, after all. Oh, & generally there was some food or liquor bribe involved. 

When I bought my happy little house in 2008, a big deciding factor was the big 2nd bedroom with lots of windows showcasing green or blue views, & a vaulted ceiling--the perfect venue for the loom I thought...until closing & moving day, when the final 'loom nanny' friend helped carry the loom from the moving truck, only to realize the bedroom doors were narrower than normal & the loom wouldn't go through. So from May 27, 2008 until now, gigantor the loom lived in the living room, taking up space, forcing awkward furniture arrangements & radiating the reflected guilt that comes when you abandon one life's avocation for another. 

Last week when I started dismantling & cleaning it, supposedly in prep for the move to the originally targeted sunny corner of the 2nd bedroom, I remembered how it felt, those first weeks after we moved to St Croix.  The satiny feel of the cloth beam, worn perfectly smooth by all the yardage that had passed over it reminded me that it wasn't always so.  I had departed from my normal state of rushing to complete whatever I was excited about to slow, deliberate sanding & oiling of the raw wood parts. I remember watching hummingbirds & bananaquits harassing the red hibiscus the landlord had planted around the cottage. I remembered carefully placing all the parts in order on the terrazzo floor so I would have a better chance of remembering them all. I remembered reading, rereading, & then reading the instructions again, just to be sure I was assembling the massive machine correctly (and to procrastinate just a little longer about the overwhelming task). And I remember the absolute shock of joy when, after a couple of weeks' work, I saw the finally assembled, fully working machine I had evidently built, despite myself. 

 

Transitioning from making a living to making a life...without stripping your gears?

Maybe the lines were more clearly drawn when our grandparents were living their timeline. They went to school. Then they went to work.  Maybe they changed jobs once. Then they gave their all to their chosen profession for a certain number of years, after which someone made a nice speech, cut some cake, gave them a watch, smacked them on the butt & declared them 'retirees.'  At which point they had paid off their mortgages & launched into their 'golden years' with enough saved to travel a bit, fill a couple of albums with pics of those trips & their grand kids.  Then they died, & had also saved enough to pay for their final funereal wishes, & leave a little or a lot to their progeny. The end. 

Our story arcs are no longer that clear cut or linear (if an arc can be linear?).  School can overlap work. Some of us will die never having chosen a major. We careen through careers, changing direction like socks, location like nomads, & focus like a room full of caffeinated preschoolers. Some of us choose to forego having kids. Some of us simply run out of biological time. We upsize, downsize, live in McMansions or tiny houses no bigger than an Airstream. We travel for work, telecommute, staycation, turn our hobbies into careers & our careers into contract work, then we blog about all that. 

(My workspace--representing working from home & completion of a hairbrained, put off project that finally came to fruition & worked better than anticipated--the big blue porch table)

The lines between work & leisure are so blurred they are virtually nonexistent, & we live so long & mistrust Social Security & our investments so much that a lot of us jam our fingers in our ears & babble 'LALALALALALALALALALALALA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALALALA' when anyone dares utter 'retirement' in our presence. 

At this point, I think the most any of us dare hope is for a shifting (at some point, or gradually) of the emphasis from making a living to making a life. To that end, & despite appearances of seemingly random scrambling, I think I must have always had an 'unplan' churning away in the back of my head, kind of like an unsung background program while I focused on a more pressing foreground ap. 

I have a lot in common with Henny Penny, chiefly that my friends poked fun at my over-the-top emphasis on toil. They would jab that I was trying to pay off my mortgage last week. Sometimes, after a few sleepless nights spent making jewelry & ornaments during high season, I questioned my sanity too.  

        (Best coworker in the world--Mu)

An aside:  a lot of their apparent jibes were just their way of trying to convince me that I am human & in fact need sleep. My friends & my Mom know I am beyond bullheaded & that humor is really the only way to change my behavior. That, or making me believe it is my idea. Also, there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY I could have worked like I did without an unseen army of support from Mom & my friends. From seemingly random drop bys just when I was setting up, lugging, or taking down, to food, beverages, laughs, supplies, opinions, ideas, & actual financial support (thanks Mom!), I get by with a lot of help from my Mom & my friends. They have been integral in any life- or financial-goals met.  

   (View of landscape change--realized by decidedly UN-glamorous labor of friends + solar)

So now what?  When you've rushed headlong at one goal for several years, once met, how do you put on the brakes instead of running off the edge into thin air, a la Wiley Coyote?  

I'm just starting to answer that for myself. Not pretending this is a good template for everybody, mine looks more like a shift from 'plan it for someday' to 'WHY NOT NOW?  It doesn't sound like a big deal & thus far I'm not talking about huge life changes, but it requires a fundamental brain retrain, even for the smaller stuff. Most of mine is about arty & construction projects. And it is about stomping down some fear. Drowning by doing that damnable voice of doubt (mine sounds like Bush saying 'wouldn't be prudent').  

Anti-Pro Day (First Annual)

This morning I officially declared today, & all Mom's Day Eves hereafter in perpetuity, 'Anti-Pro Day.'  That is to say, today is a day dedicated to the systematic eradication of things we've procrastinated about for at least two months*.'  (*Note:  the two month line of demarcation is a proviso to weed out things we have merely put off, & that we will take care of before the point at which said delay becomes an embarrassment.). 

             (Mythical studio organization system I've procrastinated about forever)

Now to the topic of embarrassment, & it is this part that caused me to attach the day to Mother's Day.  

Many or most of us are not actually going to have the luxury of spending tomorrow with our Moms, for reasons ranging from simple distance to more dire.  For those of us who are as crazy about our Mom as I am (& crazy proud, as almost anyone who has had more than a one minute conversation with me would surely attest), this is rough.  Sure, we talk/text/email daily & occasionally video chat, but that is a sad substitute for working a crossword together, or counting pineapple starts in the patch (24 this year!) or group 'conversations' with us & my dog Mu,

            (Mu, procrastinating about barking)

or just being lazy & lingering at the breakfast table chatting about nothing while putting off showering. 

And I'm back 'round to procrastination. I am 53 & since no one but Mu sees my house most days, & since organization & methodical cleaning & maintenance rarely go hand in hand with creativity, I tend to let things get away from me periodically. And we're so very 'there' now.  Just coming off high season for tourism & end of year accounting cleanup at the other job, plus adding an entirely new line to From the C (gold vs silver, handmade chain links),

                         (New gold bamboo wrap aquamarine ring)

it all conspires to mean house-, body-, & car maintenance tasks have mounted up to borderline insurmountable.  

So right now, I'd be horribly embarrassed for Mom to see the state of my 'state.'  And so I decided to act like she would be here tomorrow & set about taking care of things, tout suite.  I climbed ladders & re-hung sagging curtains. I pulled all my vending equipment out of my car, cleaned & oiled it, fixed my bent tent leg so it would retract, replaced the zillion missing bolts & handle from my folding table, cleaned out my cigar box, & re-loaded the car. Now I'm going to tie a sickly orchid in the miracle-working 'hospital tree,'  wash the windows & screens, disassemble & clean the oscillating fans, & then start loading the car with things for storage or donation. 

It is cooperating & clouding up for much-needed rain & that means I can wash all the Mu linens (towels & rugs) without compunction over drought level cisterns. And then I'll shave Mu to summer cut length, bathe her & water the plants.  Then it will be time to organize my studio, move furniture & steam floors. 

Finally I want to get to an outdoor art project.  A long cinder block wall at the back of my yard wants a fresh coat of tiffany blue, followed by adding some big, boldly graphic tropical leaf shapes in my leftover paint colors. Stay tuned for that before & after. 

Anybody who knows me realizes that by writing the litany above, I have managed to procrastinate just a little longer. 

Happy Mother's Day!

Hot au Many (as opposed to Pot au Feu)

The French have many beef stews, probably the most 'peasanty' of which is 'Pot au Feu.'  The French never had to live with our inconsistent WAPA, but they do (as most of us practice) tend to cook from whatever fresh ingredients they can source. So today's culinary Cirque du Soleil concoction combines the peasant stew concept with the whatever is fresh, available, & most importantly, whatever this weeks myriad power outages have failed to shrivel or rot. Yum, that sounds good!  ;) You'll note there is no beef in my version, but the 'Many' in the title refers to the number of veggies. The heartiest of those & the base of this satisfying, just one more spoonful dish is baby Portobello  Shrooms. The 'Hot' descriptor comes later. 

I like to cook when I get to chop a lot of stuff & don't have to measure exactly. Makes me feel all 'chefy' inside. So here goes:

Coarsely chop 2 medium  or 3 large carrots, 3 large stalks of celery, reserving the leaves, and 4-5 good sized shallots. Put them together in one bowl & put them aside. 

Scrub a mesh bagful (1 1/2-2 lbs) of cutesy little potatoes (new, Yukon gold, white cream, whatever you find) & pare out bad spots. Leave the skins on & cut them each into 2 or 3 pieces each to make them cook more uniformly. Put them in a big soup pot (there will be lots of room, but we'll take care of that later) & cover generously w/ salted water, adding a hearty shake of granulated garlic & the reserved celery leaves.  Bring to a boil & cook until just tender (don't cook to a mush because they'll be cooked a bit more when combined with the other ingredients), then drain into a colander & add 2 TBS butter & 1 TBS sesame oil (tempura version is lighter) to the empty soup pot & return to the heat. Add 1 tsp ground chipotle, 1 tsp gran garlic, 1 tsp curry powder, 1/2 tsp each, ground cumin & cumin seed & heat a bit to release the flavor of the spices.  Add the bowlful of carrot, celery, shallot dice & stir to combine with oil, butter & spices. 

Cook that mixture until celery & shallots start to become transparent.  While the celery mix is cooking, clean & roughly chop 2 8oz containers of baby portobellos & (optional) 4-5 thin slices of Deli honey ham, then cut the kernels off 3 ears of cleaned sweet corn. As soon as the celery is transparent, add the shrooms, ham, cooked potatoes & corn kernels to the pot along with a few more shakes of gran garlic & 1-2 tsp Worcestershire sauce. Stir to combine, cover with the lid & reduce to a simmer for 3 minutes. At this point I added 1/4c of shaved Parmesan but you can opt out.  Stir again & as soon as the cheese melts, remove from heat & stir in 1/4 c nonfat plain Greek yogurt. 

Serve in your fave bowl. The smokey heat of the chipotle balances well with the sweet corn & the nutty, earthy notes of portobello & sesame. The yogurt is a bit of richness to finish. 

Enjoy!

Athletic 'Feets'

D

(This sea glass jumbie did not run in today's race, much like us!)

So Triathlon has run right by us (me & Mu) again & though we might not have the enormous & deserved sense of accomplishment that accompanies that annual event, we feel pretty upbeat about what we have done instead. Mu has napped in 4 fave breezy spots, & as for me, I've been spinning gold into, well, gold. More accurately, gold filled wire into hand forged bamboo wrap links & teardrop earrings.

(Light amethyst/14kt GF/lavender sea glass necklace, in process)

So to all the amazing athletes from near & far who 'went for the gold' today, congratulations!
Oooh!  Mu has poured on the afterburner, pulled out all stops, & found a FIFTH nap spot. Now that's dedication!  She appears unbeatable in her napquest, so good luck to all challengers!

Higher Math

I spent my long day at my 'regular' job today, knee deep in the tedium of other people's decimal points. While I'm grateful for that job, I'm even more so for the shift to more fulfilling math that happened just now, at 2:20 am, under the misshapen potato of a moon.
I spent the shank of my day, from 7am to 4pm numbering 100 named accounts.  Obviously, this was the brainchild of accountants, not me. After work I let my fuzzy dog go free ranging around the yard, brushed her until she was sure having a dog was my choice (over having kids), & met a dear friend for dinner at an outdoor, roadside Latin restaurant.  

The dinner options there proved to be limited only in number, not in flavor. She had camarones (shrimp) in butter sauce con mofongo (a mashed plantain dish molded into a dome, & I had the mahi con mofongo & brought home enough for tomorrow's dinner too.
We each had a Cruzan dark rum & Coke, & it is that I'm blaming for the hour of this post. I conked out on the sofa-loaf in my studio, in front of  'To Catch A Thief,' & slept soundly through Grace Kelly's gold lamé Costume ball dress-for-days.  So when I woke after 2am, I still had my fave task of plant watering to do before any hope of sleep.

(The pineapple crew--best reason to water I've ever had)

Not being facetious here--I love my daily watering ritual.
So Mu (fuzzy doglet) & I were out in the breezy yard by the light of the weird moon & newly installed solar landscape lights, watering pineapples, orchids & new shrubbery, listening to dogs in the distance, faint wind chimes, & the chittering of mango-munching bats nearby.
It was too beautiful to go inside, so after I recoiled the hose I sat on the stoop, skritched Mu & started scheming.
Tonight's task--plotting a pleasing & functional planting for the next set of pineapple plant 'Tweens' (outgrown their nursery trays, but no room in the 'in-ground' pineapple patch).  Combining recycling with fractions & algebra (the only known use for that combo), I decided to cut 3 holes between each of the solar lights in the 'bouncy grass' on the slope above the stone retaining wall by my driveway. I'll repot the tween pineapples in the big pots leftover from the front landscaping (14 pots) & sink them into the turf holes. You'll only see the plant, not the pot & the drainage there should be great. It should minimize weeding & be aesthetically & architecturally pleasant. Solar up lights already in place at the base of that wall should highlight the peach-to-red leaves...& give me something else to sit outside at 2am & enjoy!  Good night all.

Five Boy in the Cabinet Curry

(This is the first of a series I'm calling 'C Glass Half Full.'  I'm thinking it will be a small island of optimistic bits & pieces bobbing around in a big sea of otherwise. )

Mu & I are here today, heavily medicated & happy as clams!

I'm taking a day off today, after a run-in with a Jack Spaniard (evil & potent wasp) necessitated a run-in with Prednisone in a bit too high a dosage. So after spending 3 days making new cord necklaces, new bamboo wrap necklaces & bracelets, I'm on the porch instead of by the pier. Given the breeze & the company, you'll forgive if I'm not too broken up about this unscheduled stop.

Bamboo wrap necklaces

So Mu & I weren't the only hooky-players today. WAPA decided a day-long outage two days ago wasn't quite enough, & when I got peckish an hour or so ago, power was nowhere to be found. Not wanting to open the fridge (in case this proved to be another powerless marathon), I consulted the cabinet instead, & the resulting curry was weirdly wonderful. 

5 Boy in the Cabinet Curry

Toss 1 1/2 C uncooked Jasmine rice in 1 TBS Olive oil with at least 2 TBS curry powder, 1/2 tsp ground cumin, 1/2 tsp whole cumin seed, 1 TBS granulated garlic in large covered pot or Dutch oven over medium flame. After 2 minutes, add 2 cans drained garbanzos (mine were organic, but either way) & toss all until well combined. Cover & heat another minute before adding one can of light coconut milk, a grating (generous) of fresh nutmeg, a couple grinds of pepper, several dashes of soy sauce or Worcestershire or both, & 1/2 C of dried cranberries. Rinse the coconut milk can & add that can of water plus another 1/2 can to the mixture. Stir to combine, then cover, reduce heat & simmer just until the rice absorbs all the liquid. Remove from heat, stir off the bottom, cover & let sit for a minute before calling the 5 boys. 

Now it is time to review your power outage & make choices based on status. And time for a short aside. When I first arrived in St Croix almost 23 years ago, there was one very happening lunch spot where all the VIPs & politically connected business people dined. And dined was the appropriate term. The Comanche Restaurant sported a slightly elevated, breezy view of pool & harbor.  The more important you were, the bigger the fan back on your peacock chair. Lunch started with crudités & a basket of freshly baked corn muffins, redolent with fresh nutmeg & delicious enough to make you want to spoil the rest of your lunch by climbing right into the basket with them. After the preliminaries, most VIPs opted for the 1/2 roast chicken with rice & peas (read beans) that could have fed a small country. Moist & fall off the bone tender, it was enough food to guarantee 2-3 hours away from your desk & office, & if you were truly, 'big I important,' a mandatory, sleep-it-off coma nap after.
We were on a non-nap mission, however (eavesdropping for business opportunity crumbs being dropped from adjacent tables), so we'd opt instead for the 'Ten Boy Curry.'  The name came from the condiment cart, so full of options it allegedly took ten boys to pass them around the table. I'll no doubt miss some, but here are the ones I remember: toasted coconut, orange marmalade, chutney, sweet pickle relish, dill relish, chopped dry-roasted peanuts, Currants, chopped scallions, preserved ginger, & raisins.

So back to today's curry. My cabinet yielded peanuts, currants, raisins, & coconut & just as I was making do with those, the power returned & I added tart orange marmalade & the pickle relishes. Mu was thrilled with a couple spoonfuls of rice, & as for me...
I feel a coma nap coming on.