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Simple garbage pickup

8/27/2020

I’m so excited. Today is our first day of garbage pickup. No more going to the dump. This morning I pushed two cans, one with recyclables and one with garbage, to the end of the driveway. When I hear the big truck come along and dump, I’ll wheel them back to the garage. I’m excited because at our age, and with my husband’s back hurting, we need certain help that we didn’t always not to need. Things we took in stride, now take too many strides. I’m also grateful that we can afford this service that our town doesn’t provide.

What does garbage pick verse going to the dump have to do with silence, solitude, and simplicity? it is much simpler to organize the trash during the week, and certainly easier to drag the cans to the end of the driveway than load everything in the car and distribute it to the many (15?) recycle stations at the dump. Most of all it is about time—time to be silent and solitary.

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"Just throw it on the grill!"

8/21/2020

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“Just throw it on the grill!” * If you are in charge of meals at your house, you know where that comes from—from the person not in charge of meals. Yes, most likely the man in the house. It goes something like this. He suggests, usually last minute, that we invite someone over for supper on a beautiful evening. She, grocery shopper, sous-chef, waitress, and dishwasher, takes a deep breath and says she doesn’t have the time. It is then that He offers to help: No problem, we’ll just “throw it on the grill.” In an instant He become Chef.

What is it that gets thrown on the grill? A piece of meat that can be thrown directly from the butcher’s wrapping. The rest of the meal, the sides, are not thrown, they are prepared.
Roasted potatoes is a great side if you are ‘throwing it on the grill’ because once prepared, they can roast away in the oven for hours.
No matter how I cook them, everyone raves and there are
never any leftovers (which would be a waste because reheated they lose their yummy taste and texture). I’m always told that they taste the same, but as you can see, there is a great deal of flexibility in preparation. Once you get the gist, you can let go of the recipe.
So here it is:
Gram’s Roasted Potatoes

I usually use Yukon, but any kind will do
Peel and cube
Mix with olive oil and salt. I use a Pyrex baking dish, which I have sprayed with Pam.

4. Bake anywhere from 350 to 450, depending on how fast you want them to be ready. If I have plenty of time, I start with a low temperature and turn the oven up to speed things along and brown them up. The  hotter the oven, the crisper the potatoes.
5 .Stir every 20 minutes until done. How long? An hour or so, depending how high you set the oven and how crisp you like them,
6. Sometimes I add a finely chopped small onion the first time I stir the potatoes.
* The title for the book of family recipes that  my daughter is  creating for her kids

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Name all your feelings

8/16/2020

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These days much is being written about how isolation, loneliness, purposeless and malaise are defining people. I understand that and don’t refute it. Could it be, however, that those of us who committed ourselves to living in silence, solitude, and simplicity before the pandemic are a finding certain freedom from such ‘negative’ moods?
     Having actively embraced silence, solitude and simplicity for the past eleven years, I find that the flow of my interior life continues to be peaceful, abundant, and fruitful. During those five winters (2009-2014) at the cottage, I did the hard work of being alone. At the time, it didn’t seem like a big decision to spend the weekdays there by myself, but clearly it was. I cherished that time by myself, doing what I wanted and not doing what I didn’t want to do. I was on my own, by choice. Most of the time I was peaceful and contented, but sometimes I felt isolated, lonely, purposeless, and melancholic.
       Somewhat unwittingly, however, I had put myself in the inevitable situation where I would feel out of sorts, lonely, enervated, bored, and purposeless. I must have known that I needed to experience those feelings, and so when they came up, I sat with them until something moved within me and I accepted them as friends and necessary to balance the positive, optimistic disposition I was born with. I embraced the “big idea” that deep contentment comes when I am honest with myself.
     The current pandemic is offering each of us permission to name our full array of feelings--from joy and gratitude to fear to despair. We are learning that we are not alone, not a bad people, not failures, nor do we need to keep up the façade that we are perfect. In being honest with ourselves we can be more honest with our friends. Honesty isn’t about good or bad; it is about truth and being fully human.

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No stories to tell

8/1/2020

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Five months into the pandemic and only a vague end in sight. Four months ago I would have been in Italy; five months ago I had cancelled the trip. Why do I even mention this to you? Undoubtedly you have a similar story to tell. But that’s the point. Because of the pandemic we all have fewer stories to tell. The telling thing is that nothing worth happening is happening.
    That’s not completely true, but we do have fewer adventures to share. How many people do you know who are off to Disney World? Whatever adventure we do have is always couched in a pandemic setting.
    Friends still care about each other, but email contact, telephone check in, and getting together face-to-face has becomes less frequent. For those of us who love silence, solitude and simplicity, we can easily adjust. I, for one, like having a quieter schedule, but that may also be because I am well into retirement age.
     Among other things, I am filling the  void with reading, contemplation, listening to opera. And, when I contact someone, it is very special.

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Simple garbage pickup

"Just throw it on the grill!"

Name all your feelings

No stories to tell

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