The Evolution of Pie Crust (and My Own)

At the tender age of nineteen, I treated my fiance to a rare spectacle. As he watched with patience and curiosity, I pressed a ball of dough together as it fell apart at exactly the same rate. I added water. It stuck like glue. Then flour. It hardened. I tried to roll it out. The blasted thing crumbled.

I stomped up and down. I growled and shrieked. I pounded the dough and the table with my fists. Then, to my future husband's wide-eyed amazement, I shot-putted our purported future pumpkin pie crust across the room.

I don't throw tantrums often, and that one made family history.

Since then, he (and all other dear friends and family) granted me a wide berth the day before Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have tried many recipes -- those with butter (too hard), palm oil (eeuuww), coconut oil (hmm.), vegetable oil (cardboard), and Crisco (God, don't tell, but it tasted good....). I have tweaked recipes and followed them, refrigerating, freezing, pre-baking, and resting doughs. I have eaten them all, even raw, as a penance.

But this Thanksgiving was, indeed, a first. Seda (who once was my husband and now sports the apron and heels of Ms. Cleaver) volunteered to cook Thanksgiving dinner. And perhaps since I socialized her harshly around pie-making, or maybe because she regards with due respect my personal pilgrimage to enlightenment through oil saturated dough, she said: "But you will make the pies?"

And I agreed.

I got on the phone with a dear friend (Thanksgiving itself), and we chatted about everything from the earth-shattering to the spoon clattering that night. It's all the same, all one, we laughed. I threw away the measuring cups after I lost count of the flour. I put in just enough butter to feel kind of right. (What had I to compare it to?) And then I put in water until it all came together.

Sam said, "Look! It's stretchy!" Well, for those of you familiar with pie dough, you will know that is not a good sign. I smiled.

"Yes, I said, and it will probably bake up hard as a rock, but I will chew and chew and think on how grateful I am to have such a good friend to talk with while making pie crust.

Guess what? It's hard, alright. It doesn't taste half-bad, but cutting a piece would be named an Olympic event if the pie only lasted long enough. And every bite I chew with gratitude for the joyful chat that was mine.

"It's a Concrete Crust!" beamed Trinidad. "Really hard to live with. Get the joke, Mom? Hard?

I'm still laughing.

P.S.
Seda posted recent pics of the family on her lovely Thanksgiving blog post.

Wisdom From Trinidad...

"Mom, there should be a John Holt book about how adults learn, because most children would like to know that!"

P.S.
John Holt, previously mentioned sporadically, is the author of How Children Learn, How Children Fail, and Learning All The Time, amongst many others. He is called the "Father of Unschooling" for his iconoclastic views on education. I have been rereading him lately....

Notes on Teachers and Learners

After swimming class last night, a discussion arose around the engagement and demeanor of the boys' two different teachers. As we discussed the qualities that these teachers of children possess, Trinidad said, "If I was a teaching something, I'd want to have the same amount of joy as the kids and if I didn't, I'd stop teaching."

Last week, the boys took flying lessons from a friend. At one point, seven children formed a line to Sam's dresser where they climbed up and launched themselves airborne to land on the children's king-sized bed (flying). I entered the room, wiping my hands on my apron. "Are you children jumping off the dresser onto the bed?" I demanded.

"Yes," said two children, smiling shyly.

"Oh. Good!" I said and turned back to preparing dinner.

Later in the evening, the boys refused to participate in any more lessons because their "teacher" wouldn't let them talk or make sound effects as she spoke for several minutes at a time. She wanted full focus only on her and her instruction. She felt bewildered about their mutiny, and did not know how to let go of her role or shift while staying connected. She had collected pages of notes in number-letter code as to their progress, but more importantly to her, the notes clocked their obedience and where they stood in her esteem.

We had a talk about it together. What needs were the boys trying to meet by talking or entertaining themselves with sounds? (Sam had been repeating to himself several of the witches' lines from MacBeth, and Aviv found the soliloquy disturbing. "That's because you're in Waldorf school," said Trinidad. "Everything in Waldorf school is a certain way and this is not that way.") What need was the "teacher" trying to meet by telling them to be quiet? The boys were clear that they would enjoy the flying lessons if they were sure the instructor was really considering their needs as people, too. The "teacher" felt frustrated, as her primary role model was her own classroom teacher, Miss K. And Miss K always just told people to be quiet if she couldn't focus and hear herself talk.

A visual of Miss K's was described where a leafless tree was drawn on the board and leaves were added to it when children did what they were told. "And we don't like it if Miss K is not pleased," she said. Our young friend assumed that the boys would be as concerned about her pleasure when she was in the role of teacher and had not much thought about their needs beyond the excitement of flight.

"I want to talk less and fly more," said Sam.

"I am beginning to like the idea of public school less and less," said Trinidad.

With more clarity about how to meet her students' needs for engagement and consideration, this young "teacher" proceeded with the joy of sharing her skill, though, she noted, this was nothing like School anymore.

I remember

I remember
falling in love, each
time the first and
last, dancing into
sapphire skies, feeling
the edges of clouds with my eyes
bent on dreaming,
waving lightness and
dark to choreograph
twilight, driving
innocence into
storm, stretching and
soaring pink, blues, and gold,
inviting the heart to tumble
in, find refuge, and be lost.

It is mine to remember.
Every sky,
a soul falling
in love.

Traipsing 'Tween Worlds

We pledged between the three of us to be explorers of the Caves, there at the Skinners Butte rock wall on the edge of downtown Eugene. We looked up at the forty feet of sheer pillared stone, green hillside and oak forests sloping away from the top. "This is one of the most beautiful places in our city," I said.

We climbed the outside earthen edge and peered out over our metropolitan area. Industrial pillars belched dark clouds over concrete paths and square buildings. Cars and trucks inched like ants over highways that snaked its outer rims and doubled back to shopping malls parked at the river's edge. "This is one of the ugliest views of our city," I said.

We climbed the rock way up, poking into dark nooks, unearthing mysterious skeletons and brittle vegetation, imagining the demise of these cave creatures before us. Sam saw a Saber Tooth cat and he and I sprang lightly down across the rocks, drawing our swords. As the big cat made its escape, we turned to practice on each other, brandishing our invisible weapons as we darted and weaved at the foot of the stone fortress.

"I cut your sword in half!" shouted Sam. "Here's a new one."

After another minute's entanglement: "Now I've cut your pants. Here... stitch!" He bound the torn cloth with invisible needle and thread.

"I'll play easy on you now, Mom," he whispered, apologetically.

Trinidad, above, discovered the origin of the cave paintings (I [heart] Mark) and turned to scratching rock upon rock with an artist's care.

What would natives do?

Sam took me from our Camp to share an invisible map on a large post. After he pointed out our location in respect to the street (across which, they have told me, you can look into the Other World that we came from), the Dark Forest, and the Caves. As I turned away, I noticed aloud that the Park Rules were posted beside it.

"What do they say?" asked Sam.

I read them silently to myself (no camping, park opened now, closed then, etc.), and only after I spoke these words did I hear them myself: "Well, to be honest, they don't say anything useful for us. They must have been written for somebody else."

I am caught in that moment between worlds, their world and mine, magical and urban.

"One is concrete, one is stone," Trinidad tells me. "The stone will last longer, but even this will probably be gone in a thousand years."

Oh my children, hold them gently.

Heavenly

Can I tell you about life in and under a cedar, two boys barefoot sprawled across branches that bend as if they were made of solid wind?

Can I describe the smell of damp earth beneath us, a picnic lunch scattered with school supplies (each child with his own first binder, pencils, and sharpeners), while University students walk by, not privvy to our hideout, not knowing that a bonafide Mother resides in that cedar twenty feet up, her children resting on branches below her?

"I think I will only talk about Our Tree quietly so that no one else hears," says Trinidad as we leave. "Otherwise, I'm afraid that what's natural and beautiful here will be spoiled by other people coming too much."

I see the sadness in his eyes. I'm guessing that he would also love to share this magical place, that he so wants others to honor the space in a way that is gentle to the tree and her community.

We hang long from branches so that our bellies stretch out thin and bare. We climb so that our hair is taken up in the wind. We laugh so that the sound of it echoes through the green as if from the tree herself, and perhaps it does. We drum, the tone shifting, as we gently rap the branches close to and away from her thick, furry trunk.

We are music here.

Don't Try To Teach Me A Thing!

"I would like it if when I'm reading you stand on the other side of the room and don't help me unless I ask for it," said Trinidad.
Months later, I read Jon Holt describing a trained (and then Untrained) Reading Teacher who "does almost nothing... almost never points out or corrects a mistake." (Learning All the Time, p. 3). Hmm. I guess my son's request has some authority behind it after all. (!)

"Did you teach your baby sign language?" I asked a friend.
"Yes -- with the first of our kids," she replied, "And it really helped. All that communication!"
"You didn't teach your second?" I asked.
"No, she refuses to make our signs, but we always know what she wants."
"You don't think you would have known what your first child wanted if she had made her own signs?"
"Well. That's true. But it was so much fun!"
"Yes. 'Look what I taught It to do!'... Why is it more important to us that we teach them to speak in our symbols instead of trusting that symbols of communication will organically develop (leading eventually to the spoken word)?"


"We will be done soon with recording, which I consider to be the dessert, and get down to the real work and rhythmic practice of music in January..." said my music teacher. "Why are you making faces? What's going on for you?"
"What's going on is that my personal evaluative process supports my learning and growth just as much in this time of recording as it does in any other musical training you have offered to date. I do not wish to distinguish any part of this effort as "work" or something I will engage in with less joy than I am now experiencing. You have taught me to relax, to let go the tension in my body that I may stay present with and open to the music, note for note. I have been striving toward that ideal and listening for the places where I fall short in the recordings. I have adjusted and adjusted and adjusted again. We will leave this season of recordings and fall into the next season of fingers to the keys of piano and matching tones with voice, but I will never learn differently than this way I am teaching myself now. I will keep taking in what I am ready to learn. Would you be willing to use some other word than 'work' to describe this change in seasons?"
"Of course," he said. And later: "Wow! Your piano has really improved! Everything you're learning in voice (our focus the past few months) you've taken to the keyboard!"

Well, yah.

I took the boys rock climbing. They had never done it before, other than during short free climbs at the park. They have been swimming, rollerblading, and biking constantly as of late. Belays tied, they scrambled to the top of the forty foot+ synthetic "rock wall" in seconds. "My gosh, are you sure they haven't done that before?" asked the instructor.

I, myself, climbed the most difficult route there in less than 5 minutes. Yoga on the vertical.

Everything is everything is everything else. What if we stop structuring learning and packaging concepts in ways that they cannot interact? What if my yoga practice is a dance practice is a meditation for conscious parenting? What if by cooking, I generalize to using carpentry tools, fixing cars, sewing clothes? What if the more I generalize across activities, the quicker and more effective I become at the process of generalization itself?

Dang, I could be handy.

If all the world were that empowered, could we let go our terror and hold hands in celebration?

Neighbors

Last week, the boys and I started something new. We've been talking about doing something like this for several years (some seeds take longer than others to germinate), and now that the bare bones of home and garden are firmly in place, we find ourselves with an easy space of time each week to do it in. We are sharing soup with our neighbors.

I like to make soup during the cold season. I throw in whatever I find in the garden -- pumpkin, apple, fava bean greens, potatoes, carrots, onion, garlic, eggplant (yes, even now!), kale, tomatoes -- some black-eyed peas, fresh herbs, and call it good. It usually is.

After the morning efforts of chopping and stewing are complete, we load up my basket and backpack with hot 1/2 gallon jars, bowls, and spoons, and head off down the road. We stop at the places one can usually find those in need of a hot meal and some lovin' -- the intersection at Albertson's, under the Amazon Parkway bridge, the picnic tables behind the community center -- and we break bread there with our neighbors over a steamy bowl.

We have heard some stories. Mills shut down, work injuries, children dead, the struggle of living on the streets, and always present but often stowed away so it is not drunk "in front of the children" (mine), is the Bottle. Sedative and millstone, its affects are tragically kaleidoscopic on the lives of those who have been grateful for our listening and sharing.

Last week, we swapped stories with a young man at the skateboard pit. As I described how I made the soup, he nodded appreciatively at the skill I appeared (!) to have in balancing flavors with herbs and vinegar. "Not your first day at the rodeo!" he said. He offered the boys encouragement as they rollerbladed back and forth.

Yesterday, coming home with a surplus, we caught an elderly neighbor we had not met before as she unlocked her door. An offer of soup was welcome, and I felt so relieved to help, having seen her struggle to mow the front lawn two months ago on a day that I did not easily find the space to offer a hand.

Finally, we had the great pleasure of taking the last half gallon to my own grandmother who lives in Springfield (aren't I lucky?) and sharing a meal with her. The boys listened to stories from her life and the Great Depression, then shared their art and play with the woman who has shepherded more young souls than just about anyone I know.

I am so grateful to experience a sense of abundance in time, energy, and to some degree resources that I may give and receive with true joy. I am grateful for my children who share my dream (as long as it includes slides and skateboard pits) to connect and love within our community.

And I am grateful to share it all here.

Halloween, Day and Night

Sam: Could someone stay home and give out candy and you come with us trick-or-treating?
Me: You want Maddy to stay home?
Trin: No! I want Maddy to come -- wait! Actually, Maddy is of the opinion that we should only trick-or-treat up and down half the street, Mom. What is your opinion?

Me: (to Seda) I made Jerusalem Artichokes here, for you to eat. It's quick and easy and healthy for Halloween. I'm really excited because I'd like to plant some for next year. These are a trial. They are completely effortless to grow, they're pretty, and they're a good starch --
Seda: Hmm. (tastes one) So, what's for dinner?
Me: Oh, you are fired as my Permaculture Paragon.
Sam: Trinidad almost poked my eye out with his sword!
Me: Do be careful. That would not have been a Happy Halloween.

Me: Trinidad, please hold still while I'm braiding your hair with these wires [to be Pippi Longstocking]. The sword -- please, Trin, I can't focus while that thing is swinging past my face. Could you put it away?

(Trick or Treating)
Lu: Oh, it's you! And don't you look wonderful? A pirate and...
Trin: Pippi Longstocking.
Lu: Yes! I see it now.
Me: And I'm a Domestic Superhero.
Lu: (laughs) Oh, well that fits. Look, all I have are these (Snickers)... will Mom let you have...?
Me: Lu. We're Trick or Treating.

Me: (walking down a darkened street, boys with candy bags swinging) Sam, your sword almost went up my nose.
Sam: Sorry, Mom!

(Halloween gathering of adults around a lantern as we biked past in costume one block from where we live.)
All: Come back! Don't you want some candy?
Me: Oh sure, we'll circle back.
Middle-aged Drunken Witch: Wow! What are you?
Me: Domestic Superhero. Check it out. If you wear an apron backwards, you can fly.
MDW: Oooohh. You have great legs. You know, I think I'm in love with you.
Me: Hmm.
MDW: (2 inches from my face) No, really, I am falling in love with you right now.
Me: Don't worry. You'll get over it. My husband did.
MDW: Well, here's the thing. (Leaning so close that I stand taller over her as she hisses in stage whisper) I'm a Woman.
Me: Yeah. That was his problem, too.
MDW: (Straightens, looks at me cock-eyed twice. I smile.) Well, his loss.
Man Scantily Clothed in Animal Skins: Have a candy.
Me: Thank you.
MSCAS:I know you from somewhere. Oh, yeah -- your garage sale. I bought a trowel from you.
Me: Is that possible? A trowel? Was it plastic?
MSCAS: No, it was a trowel. For laying cement. Not a girlie trowel.
Me: (peal of laughter, then dead serious) Watch your language, mister.

Sam: I have enough candy! We can go home!



Happy birthday to my dearest Grandma Cele who loved to dress up and go Trick-or-Treating for cocktails. I had one in your honor tonight! My love and gratitude for your presence in my life.