nina turns 60

endless

It's been tough, these weeks in isolation. Endless time alone. The same routine over and over, I feel like I'm spinning in place. No touch, no affection, no sex, not even any face-to-face conversations. There have been some walks with friends, each of us awkwardly keeping our distance. There have been trips to the coffee shop for take out espresso and kind, funny baristas. Visits to see my parents.

In the Before Time I signed up for a writing workshop that I haven't been able to finish. I wrote poems in April, but not a full 30/30. I took a workshop with one of the poets who publishes with the Press. I am writing in my journal. Every once in awhile I draw. I do my job and zoom with my colleagues. I zoom with my friends. I talk with my boyfriend and count the weeks since I had a date with him (10). I text with my son. I try to keep up with my exercises; I try to walk. I cook and I eat. I am fortunate to be able to complain that I am bored. I try not to worry about my parents, about my son, about myself. I try not to drink too much. I drink too much. 

It's an endless Zen retreat that I don't remember signing up for. It's breathing in and out. It's crying. It's watering the plants, and talking to them. It's walking into the back yard to smell the lilacs. It's looking up through the branches of the white pine. It's walking out after sunset and seeing Venus, the only thing that ever seems to give me hope. 

California

I didn't go to Texas, but I did go to California because my parents and sister were there. They were staying at a nice resort in the desert, but it was not a vacation. My parents are having a hard time resigning themselves to their limitations. I can't blame them, so am I. My sister and I were happy to be there to help them, and glad to have the chance to observe them at the same time in the same circumstances. We gave each other breaks, she to play tennis; I drove to a coffee shop in a nearby town. My parents had a three week trip planned, with visits to friends and other resorts, but instead they flew home with me. I stayed with them until the shuttle van came to bring them to their car. I headed back toward the baggage claim area to use the bathroom and buy a coffee. As I passed over the skybridge to the terminal, I looked down and could see them boarding the van with the other passengers, who helped them with their luggage. It is very like taking care of your child in the world, but the destination is so very different.

alive || not alive

I've been setting metal type in the physical world rather than typing in the digital one, and it feels really good. The meticulous care with which one must operate to make a beautiful page (or even just a clear, easy to read page) is impressive. The feel of the type in my fingers makes me grounded. The presses themselves, so beautiful and heavy, still doing their work after 100 years, give me joy. I marvel at their ingeniousness, their various parts working together just so. They don't seem alive, but they don't seem entirely not alive either. 

Next week I will go to Texas with 10,000 or so other people who care very much about words and language, about fitting it together just so, both by meaning and by its physical properties. I will get to eat and work with beloved colleagues whom I normally only interact with digitally. It will be warm, at least outside. 

My parents are flying out to California on the same day and same airline that I am flying to Texas. I hope I will see them at the airport. The last time my father fell down was at an airport. The helplessness of watching your parents grow old and start to falter—

my parents have grown old

Spent the weekend with my folks. It was their 62nd anniversary. They didn't know I was coming, and they were happy at the surprise. I sometimes find it hard to be patient with them in this new iteration of themselves, these old people who have taken over where my parents used to be. I want to be better. I work consciously toward being better. But the dynamic shift has thrown me. I had underestimated how much I still depended on them in my mental world. That sense that they would always be there for me. It's been true my whole life. And now it's not. They can't be anymore. It's my turn to be there for them. And I am happy to do it. But really, it's much harder than I am prepared for. 

It's not unlike when you become a parent and you have no friggin' idea what you are doing, but you have to figure it out because you've got that baby and that baby needs you. Except now you are much older and even more tired and you aren't as desperately in love with those in your care. Oh, you love them deeply. But the mama bear thing does not drive you. There is a tenderness. There is also mourning. You miss your parents the way they were even just a few years ago. You worry about them—so much worry. So many questions about what is the right thing to do. Instead of leading them toward independence, as with a child, you must start to take their independence away from them. Everybody is a little bit afraid. 

 

this & that

I saw some coffee described as having flavor notes of Fuji apple. Not just apple, but Fuji apple. I want to know who has a palate that sensitive that they can get down to that level of specificity when they are tasting a friggin cup of coffee. I'm the biggest dorkiest coffee snob anywhere, but even I must apply the eyeroll emoji to that one. (Hey, why doesn't typepad have emojis? This really is an old school operation.)

I made a notebook!! As in, I folded the sheets into a folios and nested the folios into a signature and I punched holes into the fold and sewed that baby up into a notebook. I'm taking a class with Myrna at Expedition Press and we ended up spontaneously making notebooks at the end of the evening last night. Such a delight to be in a print shop with a group of women who care deeply about words and art. 

I'm the oldest person in the class (including the instructor) by at least 20 years. 

Alejandro is turning 21 in a couple of weeks, and I can't even.

 

ordinary

Funny how when you get thrown out of your routine by something unexpected and unwelcome, nothing seems more appealing than getting back into your usual groove, a groove you thought you were utterly bored with. Mornings are the best, with coffee and almonds that I've roasted in a cast iron pan, and things to read on the internet. 

I dreamed of trying to make coffee, but I was always missing one thing that I needed, which was in another room. I'd go to that other room and then I'd realize something else was missing. I was getting frantic. Even my subconscious clings so tightly to it. 

still

Still sick. Still home. In a weird limbo, throat aching. Bored. Why do I always feel guilty for things I cannot control?

home sick

Home sick and frustrated because I seem to be getting sick more often than I used to. One of the main reasons I stopped eating sugar was in hopes of improving my sinuses' tendencies to be irritated, swollen and congested. It hasn't helped. Am enjoying all the other benefits of no sugar, but not that. It's a windy day and the crows are having a bit of a turf war with the seagulls over something tasty. The crows are smarter, but the gulls are bigger. I saw the waning moon this morning, and the dark gray clouds blowing over it, briefly illuminated as they passed. 

home

Spent the weekend in the city. I am always energized by the city, both by being there and by spending time with people that I love while I'm there. It's not my city anymore. It has changed while I've been gone and I have changed, too. In certain neighborhoods, all of the quirky personality is being razed and replaced with tech offices and businesses that serve the employees of the tech companies. I like going to the new restaurants and coffee shops that have sprung up there; I am not immune to the charms of this new environment. But I miss the sense of discovery that I used to have walking around. I miss the mess and vitality, the sense that the city was alive in an organic way. 

I was happy to see some places were still recognizable to me. The docks and floating offices of the Center for Wooden Boats are still there. Lake Union itself, of course, with its marinas and sea birds and sailboats. Even the giant storage facility near the entrance to the freeway made me smile for its longevity. 

I both long to go back and know that there is probably no place for me there, know that I have become a country mouse who likes it quiet, who needs some wildness, who cannot and does not want to keep up. Yet this place does not feel like home without Alejandro here. 

Not So Instant

My dad got me an Instant Pot for Christmas, and I confess I do not understand it. You cannot put ingredients in it, start it up, and go to work leaving it to cook all day like a crock pot, arriving home to a delicious ready-to-go meal. Instead, in order to cook anything, you must first let it build pressure for 10, 20, 30 minutes. Then it cooks said thing anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple of hours. Then you must de-pressurize it, which is supposedly better to do naturally. Who knows how long that might take because I have never been patient enough to wait, because by this time I am HUNGRY. But it takes at least a couple of minutes to do that even with the vent while violent bursts of steam blast the undersides of your kitchen cabinet and possibly burn the shit out of you if you are not careful. Then the food inside is exactly the same as what I could have made on my stove in far less time.

Take this recipe, for example. It brags about being an easy weeknight meal that only takes 20 minutes, yet there are no fewer than SIX different vegetables that you must chop up, PLUS an entire bunch of lacinato kale that you must SHRED, resulting in at least 45 minutes of prep time. AT LEAST. True, once you have finished the endless chopping you simply toss everything into the pot and you only need to heat it on high for five minutes. Except it will take at least 20 minutes to get the pot up to pressure and then the recommended natural de-pressurizing after, which will take some mysterious amount of time that nobody knows or talks about EVER.

I can see that the pot will be great, and actually faster, for cooking dried legumes, and probably makes a good stew, but I'm not convinced about anything else. If you have a favorite recipe, or technique, help a girl out. I want to believe.