How to Avoid a Glaring Failure of Epic Proportions

21 Jun 2020 10 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, caronavirus, lockdown, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , ,

I’m not talking about the very recent rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, although I could be.

There’s an old adage: ignorance is bliss. Operating on that assumption, I set about making my first ever batch of naan, that fluffy, flavorful accompaniment to an Indian meal.

My expectation for favorable results was understandably optimistic because this time I had all the ingredients. No substitutes. Cooking in a skillet on top of the range was listed as an option. The stars were aligned.

I stirred the yeast into lukewarm water with a tablespoon of sugar. It frothed perfectly. I thoroughly blended yogurt, oil, and salt into the flour until crumbly then slowly added the yeast mixture. The directions said to knead the sticky dough for ten minutes and it would become elastic.

I kneaded.

If too stiff, add more water.

I added more water.

And kneaded.

After ten minutes the dough, in my humble estimation, was more like concrete than elastic. But I covered it with a damp paper towel and set the timer for two hours after which, according to the recipe, it would have doubled in size.

The waiting was productive. I finished The President is Missing, co-authored by James Patterson and Bill Clinton. I don’t usually read thrillers since I find life quite thrilling enough as it is, thank you. But it was on my shelf and once started I was hooked.

The timer buzzed.

I peeked under the paper towel at a lump that hadn’t changed one iota in size. Maybe the dough was too stiff. Should I add more water and give it another two hours?

I took a quick peek at the next series of directions. Form dough into balls the size of lemons. Pat flat on a floured surface and bake until brown spots appear. Flip and bake the other side. I decided if I could create a patty that would hold together while transferring from counter to pan, I’d proceed.

I scooped out a lemon-sized lump and sprinkled the countertop with flour. In spite of it’s density, the dough responded well to my patting. The pan was hot. I plopped the unbaked disc into the skillet and hovered over it waiting for pillowy bubbles to appear.

That didn’t happen.

After about four minutes the underside had browned. I flipped it. Four more minutes and it was done. But instead of the hoped-for pliable, bread-like consistency, my naan appeared to be the close cousin of a saltine cracker. I broke off a piece for a taste test to determine the fate of the remaining dough.

The flavor wasn’t bad, a bit like the Norwegian flatbread of my youth. I patted and baked the rest of the lemon lumps and had a fine meal of red lentil stew with my crispy naan.

But what, oh what, had gone so terribly wrong? I’d followed the recipe to the letter. I had all the right ingredients. Or did I?

A question lit up like neon in my brain. Does yeast need gluten to rise? I Googled it and what do you know: gluten captures carbon dioxide given off by yeast – which makes the dough rise. My first ever order of banana flour had been delivered the day before. It simply hadn’t occurred to me to question the use of that gluten-free substance in my naan experiment. No wonder I’d had a solid lump of banana-flour concrete that refused to budge.

Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is ignorance, and it can be the difference between success and failure.

After the dream…what?

16 Jun 2020 6 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, caronavirus, lockdown, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , ,

Sometimes I feel almost normal. I wake up without hyperventilating. The sunrise is splendid. Roosters crow and doves coo. The aroma of my neighbor’s coffee prompts me to brew my own. The beans are organic Kintamani Arabica and they’re almost gone. Mental note: order coffee.

By this time I have a plan for the day. I’ll take a walk.

Trust me, it’s a plan. For three months I barely left my house. Now there are a few – very few – cafes opening and I’ve begun to venture out. First there was Monsieur Spoon for coffee and almond cake. I was a bit traumatized – can you tell?

Then a daring evening out at Mingle.

So far so good. This week I tried Tropical View, a picturesque restaurant overlooking a rice paddy next to Monkey Forest. The nachos were great.

Perhaps you’ve noticed a consistent theme…

No people.

Today my walk took me along Monkey Forest Road. Normally at 2:00 in the afternoon this time of year the sidewalks are crammed with tourists and exhaust from cars and motorbikes inching their way along Ubud’s narrow streets clogs the air. COVID has changed all that.

There wasn’t a single moving vehicle on this stretch, and I was the only pedestrian.

It takes a fair amount of numbing to manage the silence without feeling like a dream has died. So many dreams. I tell myself to enjoy the peace while it lasts only to remember the article I read that said recovery may take two years.

That’s a lot of peace.

It isn’t just here. Ubud is a snapshot of the rest of the world. As I walked I tried to imagine how I could force a positive spin on this situation, at least for Bali. There are thousands of unemployed who are in desperate need of the basics for survival. Some have gardens so food for them isn’t a worry. The ingenuity of others has spawned new services. But for the vast majority…

As I passed the soccer field I had my answer. If there’s no work, there’s an over-abundance of one commodity: time.

Plenty of time to fly kites.

TMI – What should I believe?

23 May 2020 8 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in caronavirus, lockdown, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , ,

Credit: Blanco Tejedor

If you’re like me, your friends send links to YouTube shouting in all-caps: WATCH THIS.

I dutifully watch.

Nine times out of ten, the information flies in the face of whatever is carried on international news networks. The media is quick to label these alternative perspectives ‘conspiracy theories’.

On hoaxbuster sites, depending upon which one you click, either side may be dubbed a hoax.  

I like to be informed. I hate being misinformed. How does anyone decide what to believe?

I listened to a podcast recently. Cristos Goodrow, VP of Engineering at Google and Head of Search and Discovery at YouTube was being interviewed. He said, I helped grow YouTube from 100M hours of viewership per day in 2012 to over 1B hours per day. But when he explained how he accomplished that, it was bone-chilling. To ensure people would serial-watch YouTube videos he designed the algorithms to always give them more of what they were already consuming, never the opposing viewpoint.

When I head it I mentally thought: Ah-ha. That’s why people are so righteously convinced that their way is the only way and become militant about it. This algorithm is not encouraging us to be well informed, it’s essentially leading us down our chosen rabbit-hole and brainwashing us.

It isn’t likely that anybody you or I know personally has the inside scoop and can say with absolute certainty, This is the truth, believe it, you can trust me. No doubt there are factual elements on both sides. The challenge is to be a discriminating, independent thinker. Don’t swallow the bait, hook, line, and sinker.

Question everything and research the pros and cons. You probably have time.

Should there be lockdown – or not? Should we social distance – or not? Does wearing a mask help – or not? Should a vaccine be required – or not? Should a tracking app be mandatory – or not? Once infected am I immune – or not? Herd immunity – yes, no? There are convincing arguments for both sides of every one of those questions and hundreds more like them.

What I find most disturbing is the tremendous toll this is taking on humanity. The number of deaths is sobering. But the psychological trauma of living in confinement has consequences. The loss of jobs, livelihoods, mobility, freedom…

What are we protecting? At what cost? And after we’ve protected it, what’s left?

This is not one of my more upbeat writings. The conflicting viewpoints flooding in from caring friends is distressing. They can’t all be right. But they’re passionately convinced they are. If I ask, How do you know this is true? I’m sent another video preaching the same message and I wonder how Cristos Goodrow feels about his algorithms now.

What were you doing in May 2012?

17 May 2020 4 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, caronavirus, lockdown, wisdom Tags: , , , ,

I’m fortunate. I’ve been writing blog posts since February, 2012. I know exactly where I was and what I was doing in May of that year.

Who cares?

Perhaps we all should.

According to astrologers world-wild, the configurations in the heavens for the next few weeks are exactly as they were in May of 2012. Whatever you seeded eight years ago in your life is either flowering or dying, says Lorna Bevan of Hare in the Moon Astrology. It’s an opportunity to see what no longer serves us and change the game.

I moved to Bali in spring of 2012 and was confronted with the strangeness of time. The Balinese have a name for it: jam karet. All the familiar markers were gone. There weren’t five-day workweeks with weekends off. The sun rose around 6:30 a.m. and set at approximately 6:30 p.m. giving equal parts darkness and light. I had nothing to do and all day to do it – jam karet – rubber time – a new concept for me.

I remember waking up with my heart pounding one morning thinking, “Do I have time to do yoga?” It took my nervous system months to settle down. But it did.

Eight years later, with no appointments, no meetings, no deadlines, confined to my home with strict parameters around socializing, time has once again taken on a strange shape. It loops around turning back on itself and I’m reminded of the symbol for infinity.

I ask myself, What’s the lesson here? Am I not moving slowly enough? Have I fallen into a time management sinkhole abusing my allotment for this incarnation? What’s important? What really needs my attention?

My days fly by much more quickly than before which is strange. But when I look ahead time stretches, an endless blur of uncertainty. Can perceptions of time be foreshortened and elongated simultaneously?

As I write I know that every situation is different. There is unimaginable suffering. People have lost jobs, fortunes, loved ones. Some didn’t have jobs to begin with. Some are sick. Some are wondering how long they can keep their companies afloat. Some are barely clinging to life. I’m aware these exist, yet I can only speak with authenticity to my own reality.

I’m retired. I’m old. I’m healthy.

I have the incredible privilege of doing only what I want to do, no more, no less, and doing it at exactly the moment it feels best. If I had children, a partner, a spouse, a job, or if I needed to find a job or my next meal, I wouldn’t experience time the same way. And time wouldn’t be my lesson.

As weeks go by and I observe the ebb and flow of moods, the flashes of inspiration, the voids where my mind doesn’t want to engage with anything, I pretend not to notice what’s happening.

But today I had to admit, after a moment of shock and denial, that I like this better – the sensation of timelessness.

The feeling that it doesn’t matter whether I accomplish anything of great importance or not. That life itself is enough. That the experience of this pandemic is enough. To soak in the essence of uncertainty, to watch fears appear then leave, to have spurts of great energy then spend a day with my nose in a book, to miss my children and grandchildren but be grateful they’re doing well…

to commune with clouds…

is enough.

The ego-driven push to accomplish, to produce, to be recognized, is irrelevant to the person I need to become.

If what I hear is true, this is just the beginning of a monumental shift in life as we knew it. Right now we’re in the crucible that will transform us into the kind of people we must be to thrive in whatever comes next. It’s different for each of us.

Taken in that context, these weeks that melt into months are extremely important. It behooves us to pay attention to our discomforts, to look at what isn’t working and maybe hasn’t worked for a long time. To ask the tough questions and search for honest answers.

When life once again resumes beyond my front door, if I’ve learned my lessons sufficiently well, I don’t expect to recognize myself.

The Future of Airline Travel

12 May 2020 8 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, caronavirus, lockdown, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , ,

I’ve done pretty well so far, staying in the present, managing thoughts, focusing on what I can control. Then I read an article in Forbes about the future of airline travel. It was too real. My mood plummeted and I did nothing to stop it.

AirAsia new uniforms

Ketut’s message came just as I was about to slit my wrists.

Saya sudah mulai menanam.

I grabbed my flip-flops, and ran. For the next hour I didn’t think about immunity passports, disinfection tunnels, sanitation fogging, on-the-spot blood tests, thermal scanning, or four-hour check-ins.

I just watched Ketut plant the garden.

My relatives farmed. Uncle Olaf was a commercial potato grower. Uncle Daniel had acres of greenhouses. Uncle Nils earned his PhD in horticulture. Uncle John raised beef cattle. Dad grew apples, raspberries, fields of alfalfa, and kept bees. We always had sweetclover honey. So, you see, I’ve witnessed a few gardens in my time. They were things of orderly beauty: straight rows, weeded, mulched, tended with care.

Perhaps in my mind I’d envisioned something similar for my backyard Bali project.

When I burst through the door, there was Ketut, hacking a trench in the sun-baked earth.

“You already started, Ketut.”

He stood and pointed out cabbage and tomato seedlings. Their tender green leaves peeked bravely through the clumpy dirt. “Thirty tomatoes, ten cabbages…no…eleven…they gave extra.”

“What’s this one?”

“Petsai. You know petsai?”

“Yes, Napa cabbage. I love it.”

He resumed chopping the earth and I studied the mounds of plants awaiting his attention. Among them was a pile of short sticks sharpened at one end. I picked one up. “Ketut, what are these for?”

“That’s cassava. Tree grows two meters. Very tall. Roots are good for eating – strong flavor.”

“You’re telling me you plant these sticks and a cassava tree grows?”

“Ya.”

Once upon I time I would have argued that you can’t just pop a stick in the soil and grow a tree. That was Minnesota Sherry. I know better now.

A few minutes later he called my attention to a droopy bush he’d just planted. “This one’s bayam,” he said.

“Spinach. I love spinach but it looks a little sick.”

“Jetlag,” he laughed. “Stress.”

Hilarious. Where does he come up with his off-the-cuff humor? On second thought, I guess that one’s obvious. Ketut’s been at the airport to meet me after every, grueling, thirty-plus-hour return trip from the States. He knows the jetlagged look well. But I don’t want to be reminded about air travel, past or future. Definitely not future.

We chatted about this and that as he worked. I marveled at his matter-of-fact confidence, his economy of motion, always moving but never in a hurry. I’d have studied, measured, plotted, planned. It would have taken days. Ketut, the garden guru, laughed and joked while weaving his magic.

Besides cabbages, tomatoes, cassava, and spinach, we have onions, ginger, lemongrass, turmeric, and galangal. The garden already boasted a lemon tree, key lime and chili bushes, and a cluster of banana trees. If the carrot, cucumber, and watermelon seeds Ketut planted in an old egg carton germinate, there’ll be even more abundance.

It took an hour, including hosing down the whole shebang to give it a nice soak, and it was done. I thanked Ketut, bid him good evening, and went back to my quarters.

What a difference. All gloom was gone. Garden time soothes and nobody can stay morose for long around Ketut’s happy energy. The future will be what the future will be and no doubt it will have juicy red tomatoes in it. In this uncertain world, I’m almost certain of that.

My Exceptionially Brilliant Idea for Old Plastic Bags

06 May 2020 12 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, lockdown, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , ,

Perhaps I’m not meant to have a quiet life, even in lockdown.

I thought I was getting close:

  • Rats and rat guys – dismissed
  • Snakes – gone
  • Mosquitoes – fogged
  • Monkeys – fact of life. Nothing short of fireworks deters them, but the sounds of heavy artillery at six a.m. is off-putting. I nearly jumped out of my skin when the neighbors commenced blasting. I was sure we were being bombed and almost fled with the screaming monkeys. Two days later they were back. Nothing scares them for long.

Then…

Bats.

My eaves overhang the terrace creating a cozy night’s lodging for the local bat community.

At first it was only one just a few times a month. Then he brought two friends. The three of them came every night and feasted on fruits until midnight or later, dropping the pits with a resounding CLONK on my hollow metal railings. Every morning new gifts of poop, pee, and cast-offs from their evening meal dripped from the railings and mounded on the floor.

Cleaning up after them was annoying, but the racket they made was worse. I couldn’t sleep.

After a particularly loud night I’d had enough. What would stop these party-goers from overnighting at my place? A string of blinking twinkle lights? Nowhere to plug them in. A row of wind chimes? More noise.

A picture of Tibetan prayer flags flashed in my mind. Maybe, just maybe…

My imagination went to work. I had scraps of fabric from a recent change in home decor. I could cut and stitch. But in this climate they’d get moldy and faded in no time.

What else?

Just then Ketut arrived with my morning produce fresh from the market. Bali forbids plastic bags in grocery stores but traditional market vendors bag and double bag in plastic. I refuse to discard them so I have a growing collection.

A light went on. I could turn my plastic bags into plastic flags. They’d rustle ever so slightly in any breeze, they’d weather well, and it would be quick work with a pair of scissors and stapler. I even had a spool of enough pink plastic ribbon to span the nine meter (thirty ft.) stretch of overhang.

I set to work.

In a little over an hour I’d finished. Just as I looped my handiwork over the daybed to keep it from tangling, Ketut walked in.

Whaaaaat? He likes to elongate that word when he thinks I’ve done something particularly…shall we say…unusual?

I couldn’t hide my excitement. Proyek baru, Ketut! I told him it was to keep bats away and would he get the ladder and hang the flags for me please.

He gave me an odd look. Did you see this on Google? he asked.

No, Ketut. It was my own idea.

He appeared unconvinced and went to get the ladder.

As he attached my brilliant creation under the eaves he queried again, You saw on Google, ya?

I was indignant. What? You think you’re the only one around here with good ideas?

He chuckled and seemed satisfied.

I waited until I made certain it worked to tell the story and I’m thrilled to say I’ve had two solid bat poop, bat pee, CLONK-free nights. It’s heaven.

If only I could devise such a simple solution for monkeys…

Mood Management 101

03 May 2020 11 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, caronavirus, lockdown, Poetry, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , , ,

I used to know what I wanted. I had a dream. My assumptions about the future allowed me that freedom.

Now my world is probably similar to yours, a basic box with X number of rooms where we are told to remain, with only a few exceptions for intermittent escape. And like an animal that’s been in captivity for a long time, even if the gate opened I probably wouldn’t venture through it – not right away.

The uncertainty of the future sucks all potential out of dreams. Dreams need to anchor in something solid to feel achievable. Unless your dream exists within the rooms in your box, or the pixels in your computer, it has probably already evaporated.

Nothing in our prior experience prepared us for this un-reality. I’ve found the best way to successfully navigate uncharted waters is to manage that over which I still have control.

****

People spending so much time at home begin to notice things that have probably irritated them for years but they were too busy to address. My sister and her husband decided to redo the water system in their kitchen and move the sink.

A nearby neighbor fixed a leaky drain pipe. Then he dug a new septic tank. (This is Bali. You can do that here!)

Stuck in my studio apartment I suddenly needed more elbow-room. It took a day of grunting, groaning, and pushing furniture from side-to-side and back again, but I managed to creatively reconfigure the contents to my satisfaction.

MOOD MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLE #1 – Become industrious in your own space. It’s one place where you still have control. Whether it’s cleaning, organizing, painting, repairing, or rearranging furniture, it shifts attention off the computer, the phone, the news, and away from doom and gloom.

****

A Facebook friend began a Get-Healthy-and-Lose-Weight routine January 1st. She posted the other day that as of April 30th she’d lost 37.5 pounds (17 kg) and social distancing has made it easier.

Another acquaintance funneled his anger and feelings of helplessness into poetic verse. He said he never tried poetry before but it keeps him focused on the rhyme instead of the reason. His poems hold to strict anapestic meter with an AABBA rhyme scheme and they’re brilliant.

Then there’s the friend who left an abusive relationship after many years. In close quarters it finally became intolerable.

MOOD MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLE #2 – Practice extreme self-care. It’s another thing you can control. We have to become aware of how this pressure-cooker situation is affecting us personally. It impacts everyone differently. Individuals handle it according to their stress-management ability and it’s a challenge even for those who are stable, well-adjusted, and emotionally healthy.

****

My Airbnb host in Italy went into total lockdown with his family fifty-three days ago. His school-age children were sent home to learn online. All income for both him and his wife ceased. They are just now being allowed a brief walk outside. He messaged me: Can go nowhere, do nothing, not even sex. (Spoken like a true Italian!)

There are similar stories world-wide. How do people cope with a life turned up-side-down then put on hold? We aren’t used to moving so slowly, not in our bodies and not through time. It rubs the wrong way. We experience shifting emotions: anger, denial, rejection, alarm, resistance, anxiety, panic, and potentially, terror.

Our nervous systems must undergo re-calibration. This can occur consciously or unconsciously and it makes a difference. What happens in the mind manifests in the body for better or worse. Happiness boosts immunity and resists disease. Stress in all its various forms attacks the immune system and invites illness.

If we allow ourselves to get sucked into the downward spin of endless news reports…

If we let anxiety crawl under our skin until we’re so antsy we want to scream (and maybe we do)…

If we feel helpless without our familiar routines and fail to create new ones…

If we sit on the couch watching hours of TV, numbing-out with alcohol or drugs…

…we wont’ survive intact. Something will give, either mentally or physically.

MOOD MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLE #3 – Push the reset button. Your mind is the third thing over which you have control. Right now the definition of happiness doesn’t fit the situation: Happiness is that feeling that comes over you when you know life is good and you can’t help but smile. Yeah…no. Let’s change the word happiness to positivity.

It’s tough, but it IS a choice. We don’t have to dwell on the horror of death and disease even though that’s all anyone thinks or talks about. We can focus on the things we can control: home improvement or self-care projects, hobbies, culinary experiments, online classes or exercise routines. (I saw one on jump-roping. The guy was a machine.) Upon waking in the morning we can resist the urge to check the news and instead look at the sky and breathe a word of gratitude for another day of life.

It takes intention and willpower, but it is possible to observe our minds and manage our moods. If thoughts begin to slip into dark places, we can acknowledge that this is a crazy-making time and adopt a zero-tolerance attitude toward self-destructive energies.

And there’s one fall-back activity that never fails…

Take a nap.

Carona breeds strange bedfellows

27 Apr 2020 4 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, caronavirus, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , ,

It’s a little off-putting when you pick up the binoculars to check out the neighbor across the river and stare into his binoculars looking back at you. I don’t do it often, but I could see moves, like a dance sort of, and I was curious – needed a closer look. In the time it took me to walk across the room, pick up the binocs, and walk back to the window, he’d had the same idea.

Normally I don’t spy on my neighbors but isolation does strange things. This quote by Wess Haubrich describing voyeurism sums it up nicely, ‘…the desire to look where one probably should not…’

Oh… He’s moving again. Just a sec…

Actually, I think maybe it’s exercise. He doesn’t get out much – meaning he’s always over there, on his balcony, hanging out. And I’m always over here. But I do my workout routines before I open the curtains.

He’s an exhibitionist. With a man-bun.

Did you know there are clip-on man-buns? It was news to me. Many of the younger male crowd in Ubud sport them – not the clip-ons, real ones. At first I thought he was female – long hair pulled up – like mine. But binocs proved me wrong. There’s a beard. Not much of one, but enough to show up with magnification.

This is a fair likeness although it isn’t him. I borrowed the photo when I googled man-bun.

I’m learning his habits. He sleeps late. But when his west-facing doorway is in full afternoon sun he comes outside, spends several hours bare-chested soaking up the rays and doing, like I said, his moves.

Oh – he’s turned his chair around. Now his back’s to me. Like a slab of meat on a spit, turning, turning, roasting evenly on all sides.

There are five houses and a river between us but we occupy the highest points opposite one another so the others are below. Here’s the view.

See him? He’s that tiny flesh-colored dot between white curtains. That’s why I need binoculars. Right?

It’s a friendship of sorts. I’ll never know his name but I’ve given him one. He’s Melvin. I knew a Melvin in high school. He wore fringed buckskin jackets and holey jeans before holes were a thing. He snared rabbits. He didn’t have a man-bun but he was memorable in other ways. I think my sister dated him.

Anyway, this Melvin’s dependable. I like that in a human. I can count on him to…oh wait. He’s gone inside. That’s disappointing. Oh. He’s back. Shirt’s on now. Must be pretty hot in the 81-but-feels-like-91 degree afternoon heat.

My house faces east. I guess you might have figured that out seeing as how his collects the setting sun. They say ‘trust your reader’ but personally, when I’m reading I don’t want to obsess over details. I just want the story to take me out of reality for a while.

I hope this has done that for you.

This is lockdown. This is crazy time. This is living moment by moment…

25 Apr 2020 6 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, caronavirus, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , ,

As the clock crept toward 4 p.m. I craved chocolate. Not just chocolate. A brownie. I wanted, badly wanted, a brownie.

There are bonafide bakeries in Ubud that deliver. I could have ordered my sweet treat from professionals. But where’s the adventure in that? Where’s the fun? The suspense?

I remembered buying something called cacao nibs. I burrowed through the basket that holds miscellaneous such things looking for them. In the process I found a far more promising candidate.

The Bali version of Hershey’s syrup: Chocolate Topping Jam. Notice the expiration date. March 26, 2021. I’m checking more carefully now.

I would never buy chocolate topping jam. I inherited it from Ketut who used to squirt it on his delicious banana fritters. But there are no guests for the fritters now so it found its way to my stash of mishmash (along with the likes of decades old curry powder).

Next step: I Googled chocolate syrup brownies. Hundreds of recipes popped up – who knew? I chose Domino Sugar Chocolate Syrup Brownies, not because I had Domino sugar – far from it. Mine was a lump of the old, solidified, palm variety.

And of course I still don’t have an oven, or a 9 x 13 baking pan, so I halved the recipe to fit in my trusty non-stick skillet.

The ingredients called for four eggs – half would be two – but Bali chickens lay large eggs so I used one.

Pili nuts have a buttery flavor. They’d be a perfect complement. I dumped in a healthy portion.

In case you don’t know pili nuts, they’re a high fat (22g/ounce), low carb (1.1g/ounce) superfood. They also weigh in at 200 calories per ounce so they’re perfect for brownies that are already off the calorie charts. I mean – if you’re gonna do it – go whole hog!

I spread them in the pan, flopped the cover on, and turned up the flame. The recipe said bake for twenty-five to thirty minutes. I set the timer for twenty and started cleaning up. Three minutes into the bake cycle – burn smell. I whipped the skillet off the heat and flipped the contents up-side-down into a different pan. Salvaged. That was close.

Another three minutes and – done. I turned them out onto a plate.

I know – they don’t look normal. In case you hadn’t noticed, nothing right now is normal. The important thing was, they smelled right.

I washed dishes while they cooled,

Then sat down to test the results.

Oh! My! Oh, dear. These are so much better than any brownies I’ve ever tasted. No! I’m not kidding! They’re moist…chocolaty…sweet-but-not-too-sweet. The palm sugar adds a caramel flavor. Ohhhh yes!

See what I mean? Experimentation. Adventure. Suspense. I learned that a recipe that calls for twenty-five to thirty minutes in the oven takes a quick three minutes per side in the skillet. Never had to flip brownies before but, listen, whatever it takes, right? This is lockdown. This is crazy time. This is living moment-by-moment and making it work.

Try them! I dare you….

“You’re an odd bird,” she said…

24 Apr 2020 6 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, caronavirus, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , ,

“You’re an odd bird,” she said, and for the first time in my life I felt affirmed.

Are there things you know about yourself that nobody would ever guess by interacting with you? Is that because you hide those aspects? Or is it perhaps because they’re buried in your subconscious and you don’t even realize that’s intrinsically who you are?

The thing is…

I suspected – maybe we all do – that there was another side to my personality that didn’t automatically show up. Every-once-in-awhile it leaked out. Like the time I was irresistibly attracted to a wildly colorful, Bo-Ho blouse that didn’t at all fit with the buttoned-down, tailored professional I thought I was. I bought it, loved it, but never wore it.

Growing up in Minnesota we lived near a reservation. Native Americans gathered every Friday night and performed traditional dances in full war paint and feathers. Their wild drumming mesmerized me. At six years old, when Dad asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I said, “An Indian chief.” He very solemnly replied, “Okay, honey.”

There was something about drums that took me to another realm. If you’ve never heard Japanese Taiko, baby, that’s what I’m talkin’ about. I was introduced to it at a Praises for the World concert in Berkeley, CA in 2002. I came home and tracked down an instructor. All through that winter I made the icy trek from my home in Minneapolis to a warehouse in St. Paul and drummed my little heart out.

When Jessica Murray told me I was an odd bird, she also said I’d gone through a transformation around 2012 – 2015 that redefined how I related to the world.

I moved to Bali in 2012.

Astrologer Jessica Murray | MotherSky
Jessica Murry
http://www.Mothersky.com

Okay, this woman, this Jessica, didn’t know me from Eve. But she read me like a book. When she finished I understood myself in ways I never had before, because I AM an odd bird, and not too many people I know would describe me as such. In fact, before she said it and I acknowledged the truth of it, I would not have described me as such.

In Bali I’ve become who I am. Now I wear those Bo-Ho shirts, long swingy earrings, and flouncy skirts.

My blood pounds to the sound of gamalan orchestras as they parade with the deceased, the tower, and the bull to a cremation site. Here I’m an odd bird among others of my kind – some even odd-er – and nobody cares. It’s liberating and thrilling.

Don’t live small, only allowing a fraction of yourself to show up. Life’s too short. The world needs every bit of you, your good, bad, and ugly, your shine and your shadow. It’s thirsty for the nitty-gritty of you – especially now.

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