Weather Alert: Brain Fog

Yup. Looks about right.

Like most of us, my mind has weather. Amirite? My moods are “sunny” or “dark.” I rain (even flood) tears; I freeze people out. I’m sometimes long-winded, I can be a tornado of energy. My outlook can be clear or cloudy. This week, though I’ve been fighting it, I am foggy. Brain Fog has seeped into my cranium and taken up residence, and I’m having a hard time getting my bearings. I can only see a few feet ahead of me, and my emergency lights are flashing. I’ve slowed WAY down. Exit and street signs are impossible to read, so I’m going on instinct, feeling my way through my days. Suffice it to say, I cannot concentrate worth a darn right now.

There are understandable reasons for this lack of clarity, but that doesn’t make it any easier to navigate. 

Yes, we are in Month 13 of the Pandemic that Never Ends

Yes, our pastor died last Wednesday afternoon, so sad

Yes, I have precisely 4,123 items on my to-do list FOR THIS WEEK

Yes, I’m only on Number #3 of that list

and 

Yes, I’m 64 years old, and a little haze comes with the territory

I’ve always prided myself on achievement and speed (natural, not chemical) to power through life. While I am no athlete, I do usually move at a brisk pace, often knocking over knick-knacks and small children (sorry, Peter!) as I barrel along. These last several days, though, have been like slogging through molasses mixed with maple syrup mixed with crazy glue…when I’m not completely stuck, I am struggling to move. 

I’ve been sleeping restlessly, my dreams vivid and disconcerting. When I wake up (as I do at annoying intervals throughout the night—thank you, age 64!), I am disoriented for several moments (why am I in bed and not still climbing that icy ladder with the bad guys chasing me?) The rest of the days glide by, blurred at the edges. I feel like Lucille Ball in the movie Mame (if you saw it, the great Lucy insisted on soft-focus to hide her advancing age. When she was in scenes with other actors, it was like someone covered the camera lens with Vaseline when her face was featured).

I hear about the intense brain fog that is one of the lingering symptoms of COVID-19, and I truly empathize with those sufferers (and no, I’m sure I don’t have COVID). All I can do is keep driving down this road, cautiously, making my peace with a slower pace and rather less accomplishment than usual. Our lives, like our bodies, have spells of rough weather, and I think I’m in one now. The clouds will break, the fog will lift, the sun will shine again, eventually. I’ve learned THAT over 64 years.

While I wait, I might try to be patient, for a change. And grateful that, for me, this is a temporary condition. 

But I’d better keep those emergency flashers on, just in case.

H2O4U

You never forget your first Coke...look at that smile!

When I was little, I hated drinking water. Well, to be fair, New York City tap water way back then tasted pretty yucky. So I just didn’t drink any. And I was allergic to milk, so I couldn’t drink that either. And I was not a big juice fan. So I spent a lot of my time feeling—thirsty. Then, one magical day, at my cousin’s apartment, I discovered Coca-Cola. Where had they been keeping this amazing and delicious beverage? I wondered. It was sweet, it was fizzy, Coke was like a party in a bottle! I’d finally found something I loved to drink! 

But there’s a funny thing about Coke. I could drink gallons of it (and I did) and it could give me a mouthful of cavities (and it did) but I would still be thirsty--almost like my body was trying to tell me something, but I wasn’t listening. 

As an adult, my antipathy towards water, and my affinity for soda, continued. Oh, after a workout or tennis game I’d guzzle a little H2O, but never nearly enough to replenish what I’d lost during exercise. Usually, I’d imbibe exactly the amount required to swallow my pills in the morning, and not a drop more. 

Recently, I purchased a large, snazzy water bottle and have been trying to drink at least 6 glasses worth a day. My motives aren’t the purest (my skin has been really dry; I am struggling to lose some weight) but whatever the reasons, my body is reacting positively to this change. 

Monday was World Water Day, and that reminded me of how difficult it is to obtain fresh drinking water in many parts of the world, and how lucky I am to be able to just turn on a tap and watch it flow. Over the years, our church has supported charity:water, an amazing organization founded by Scott Harrison. Scott had been a nightclub promoter on the NYC party scene through his twenties; at age 30 he decided to change the course of his life. He spent two years on a hospital ship off the coast of Liberia, seeing the health consequences of dirty water. Since 2006, charity:water has raised $500 million for projects in 29 countries, providing clean water to 11 million people. 

We live in a world that tries to sell us Coke, when what we need is water. The world tells us that we need things that are symbolically “empty calories,” things that may sound good, or look good, or taste good, but can really hurt us. And there’s cool, refreshing water right here waiting for us, and we don’t even notice.

 This glorious first week of Spring, as I attempt to turn over a new leaf with a water-drinking routine, may I evaluate ALL the empty calories in my life, and fill up on the good stuff instead: compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, kindness. And may I do my part to provide life-giving water to my brothers and sisters who thirst.

Ny new H2O receptacle!

Our COVID Dish Supper

Dinner Screenshot 

Last week marked the one year anniversary of the pandemic shutdown. I’m sure we all remember where we were when the news hit, how surreal it felt, how we were told (and hoped) that it would all be over in two weeks (ha!) The past 12 months have seemed like an eternity, with all our lives affected, if not completely upended. My first thought was to leave observances to the media (some of which have done an amazing job of covering this milestone, with touching tributes to those lost—from the famous, to the every-men-and-women.) And honestly, don’t we just want to move on, as quickly as possible, to a post-coronavirus world? 

But Steve had an idea, a suggestion for hitting the one year point: why not invite the family to a Zoom virtual meal together? And of course, being Steve, it had to be a “COVID dish supper,” with all participants charged with preparing a dish whose name contained the letters in either “mask” “Zoom” “Fauci” or “pandemic.” The gang agreed to this goofy plan, and we had our dinner on Monday night (not the actual date of March 11, but the only night Patrick was off from work, and his girlfriend Ashlyn could join us too). 

 It ended up being lots of fun, and more meaningful than I was expecting it to be. The food part of the evening was a hoot, with LOTS of cauliflower and kale on the various menus. Ever the overachiever, I made pizza with cauliflower and kale (of course) but also Cheddar, Parmesan and mushrooms…which, if you check, you’ll see that this concoction used the letters in all 4 magic words. 

 As we ate, we reminisced about where we were when we first heard the news. Evan was in Canada, Patrick had just returned from a business trip to Charlotte. Julie and Gil had just gotten back from a California vacation. Steve and I had tickets to Company on Broadway, and of course all the theaters went dark. Yaj and the boys had only been home from Taiwan a couple of weeks. C and Rob said Hawaii had already shut down, in advance of the mainland. 

 Then we went around answering the following questions: what was your biggest loss? Biggest win? New skill learned? Skill not used? One thing you’ll keep doing? One thing you’ll never do again? One word to sum up the pandemic, and one word for the future? 

 While we each answered differently, there were common threads: we missed contact with other people (Rose in particular has been going it alone, living and working in a tiny studio apartment), we all learned some disappointing things about human nature. There were sharpened skills (C painted more, Steve played more guitar, I wrote more) and skills not used (driving, performing, etc.) Our summing up words for pandemic included: inevitable, unprecedented, sad. For the future? Onward. Hope. Connection. Love. 

 I’m really sick of Zoom, but it was a joy to Zoom together that night.

Grand Prize winner (oh, wait, there was no prize)

Mise-en-Place

my little corner of writer's paradise!

For many years as a cook, I resisted the French concept of “mise-en-place” ("putting in place"). I would watch Julia Child or another TV chef chop, dice, wash and portion, all before beginning to put a recipe together. What a ridiculous use of time! And how boring to do that kind of prep! Why not just plunge in? thought I. 

As a result, while I gradually became a better chef, the act of cooking or baking was a messy one indeed. I’d read “1 cup butter” and hastily grab two sticks from the fridge, only to read on that the butter had to be at room temperature before proceeding. I’d be mincing garlic and onion on a cutting board together, then discover that they were to be added to the saute pan separately. I’d never (ever) wash up as I went, so the after-meal kitchen resembled a culinary tornado, with the sink heaped with dirty pots, spatulas and measuring spoons. 

But recently I have embraced “mise-en-place,” because it inarguably makes things better (and simpler, in the long run). No more frantically softening butter in the microwave (and watching it melt instead), or trying to pick the garlic bits out from the onion. And washing dishes gradually during the process means that the after-dinner chore (which, full disclosure, is 99% of the time accomplished by Steve) is a relative snap. 

Now that my “cooking mise” is in full swing, I have turned to other, unkempt areas of my life and applied the same principle. I used to think my haphazard filing system at work, and my “home office” ritual of writing among the cereal bowls at the dining room table, were signs of eccentric creativity. It was just how I rolled. 

But now I see that I can roll in a different direction. I can keep my office spaces (at church and at home) tidy, with pens and scissors and plenty of paper, with computer files that make sense and can be easily accessed. 

And now I can add beauty and joy to the room. I have on my desk a bamboo plant and a little orchid and an English ivy,  a few framed photos of my family, a banker’s lamp (same color green as my little desk), and even a bit of whimsy ( a pencil holder in the shape of an old typewriter). I have a variety of scented candles to light—WITH a lighter, and a really nice water bottle to remind me to hydrate.

I joined a UK-based writing group that meets online to write from 8-9 each morning (I’m writing there now), and I marvel at how much I can accomplish in one focused hour. 

Life is messy and unpredictable enough as it is, so why have I been allowing MY life to fall into the same disheveled state? There’s not much I can control, but I can do some advance planning and make my days much more successful, and peaceful too. 

Mise-en-place. Vive la France!

Meal prep's looking different these days

Leftovers

 

The only cookbook in Mom's kitchen--true!

I’ve never been a big fan of leftovers--probably because of the way Mom would store whatever remained after our dinners (or at least, the “homemade” ones, as opposed to the frozen Swanson variety that was our usual fare). Very appropriately, we ALWAYS ate our meals in front to the television set, so in a way every dinner at Cunningham’s was a TV dinner. Joanie would crumple up a piece of foil and sort of loosely drape it over the pan containing our entrée leavings (either dried-out baked chicken or dried-out meatloaf). The refrigerated result was guaranteed to be extra dried-out the following night. Yum!

When our kids were little, we rarely had leftovers (this was especially true during the boys’ “formative” years, when they seemed to be “forming” out of endless mountains of groceries.) If there were any extras, I could count on my husband to scarf them down for lunch. Even now, when I thriftily make a double batch of whatever, I am never really tempted to eat the same menu again on Night #2. As always, Stevo to the rescue! Sometimes I need to remind him that the leftover fish was from a week ago Tuesday and might not be the safest choice today. His response is to give the dish a whiff, taste it, and proclaim, “It’s still fine!” To be fair, he hasn’t been poisoned yet, although I do expect that to happen at some point.

My disdain for leftovers does not end with food. I vastly prefer new clothing to second-hand, because I’d much rather be the first one to encounter these items. Not being Mrs. Moneybags, I do of course wear my sweaters and jeans (lots) more than once—but I do read with envy about the vast closets of the Rich and Famous, who are rarely seen garbed the same way twice. 

As I approach the midway point of my seventh decade, it is easy to think of what remains of my life as mostly  “leftovers”—that I will probably spend most of my final years recycling old habits, opinions, tastes. Not enough time to become a brain surgeon or astronaut or major league ball player, right? So I might as well tread water (figuratively speaking, as I am a lousy swimmer.) But then I remember how I feel about leftovers; I recall this right around the moment I remember the latter-day blossomings of Grandma Moses and Colonel Sanders. 

And so these days I am freshly inspired to keep going, to keep trying new things. To keep growing, as a writer and as a person. Most of all, to remember that every minute of every day IS brand new. There is no such thing as a “leftover”—life is all beginnings, even in the midst of endings. Every day is a gift, a beautiful new scarf, a freshly-cooked feast. A source of wonder, never seen before.

Which is a poetic way of saying: Steve, you can finish up that casserole. I’m good.