Announcement / get your copy of Emergency Calming Down Techniques

I’ve been reeling hard lately in some cursed combination of heartache, numbness, political anxiety, winter stuff and some wild panic episodes.

Have been holding on (for dear life) to my Emergency Calm The Hell Down Techniques from a long time ago, and it’s been helping.

I am giving away a copy of these (ebook + audio recordings) to anyone who gives any sum of money to the appreciation funds / discretionary fund in the hopes that we can all keep practicing together, for each other and for the collective, and also for ourselves in these scary times. ❤️

An Alchemy of Apples and a Tatterdemalion

The waiting periods

Someone gave me an ungodly number of very small red apples, and they sat in the turquoise colander on my counter for an amount of time that began to worry me, collecting soft spots that I would press with concern as if I was in the business of analyzing apple spots, until…?

Until it felt like the time had really come to do something about them or with them, but what.

I told Cate that I didn’t know what to do with the apples, that they were feeling symbolically burdensome, as if they wanted something from me but I didn’t know what it was, and how everything more or less feels like this lately, and it’s hard to describe.

Perception

This perception that various projects are waiting for me to remember them, notice them, care about them, or to somehow become the person who is capable of that kind of passion, enthusiasm and care again.

Capable of care, that feels important. Important and also currently often out of reach.

I don’t know even know if it’s true or not, that the apples want anything from me, or that I have forgotten how to care, it’s just a vague sensation in the background about everything all the time.

Seeds versus urgency

If the seeds of desire have been planted, it is not yet time to see what will grow.

And so I am trying not to stress too much while waiting, but also sometimes you have a pile of apples that is like, hey please turn me into a something before it’s too late.

That’s what I mean about this perception that the situations want something from me, and I don’t have the something to give yet, or maybe I don’t even know what the something is to begin with, never mind how to access it.

Okay, applesauce, for example

Cate told me that she’d just made a delightful applesauce with anise and cardamom, and this sounded like the correct activity for a day of grey and gloom in this season that is (for me) characterized by The Big Melancholy, and a lot of doubt and ambient anxiety.

I turned the pile of apples into a large batch of applesauce, and my kitchen smelled amazing.

It was a therapeutic process. There is something useful and good about observing a transformation in action. Look, it happened.

Maybe just remembering that this is possible, that situation [too many apples] can turn into [oh hey, a pot of applesauce].

But then I remembered that I don’t really like applesauce that much, certainly not enough to remember to have some, even when there are jars and jars of it in my refrigerator waiting to be appreciated.

Something about cravings

There is no And I crave it for me about applesauce, and it turns out that I am only motivated by the feeling of And I crave it.

Is that depression or is that neurodivergence or is that just an element of how things are right now, and does it matter, probably not.

Radical Acceptance of Moment Present (RAMP it up, take the on-RAMP) suggests that I just put this in the category of IIWMI (It Is What It Motherfucking Is), and work with what is.

Here is something I know about myself in this moment, it has to be craveable or I will not take action.

The problem is the problem is the problem (until it isn’t)

What am I supposed to do with all this fucking applesauce became the new what am I supposed to do with all these fucking apples.

In permaculture they say, THE PROBLEM IS THE SOLUTION, and I can never decide if this is incredibly wise or incredibly infuriating. I suppose it is or can be both.

Once the solution reveals itself, you can say, ah yes, observe the brilliance of a simple solution!

The beauty in the solving

It is so beautiful in that moment when you see the problem solving itself; the problem helpfully offering its own solution, from within its own essence. A form of alchemical magic in action.

But while you are waiting for it to solve itself, it is hard to remember how to be lighthearted and at ease about being in the waiting period.

Obviously an abundance of applesauce is not one of the world’s great problems, and yet it still felt like a proxy problem, a stand-in for all the other mysteries that are not solving themselves, or at least not yet.

Alchemy is always an option, or at least: it is sometimes an option

Justin sent me a Smitten Kitchen recipe for chai applesauce muffins, and certainly Deb has never let me down, so I made applesauce cake.

I made it gluten-free, and also subbed in flax eggs, used home-made chai ghee instead of butter, then skipped the nuts because I don’t think cake requires nuts. Also added a fennel rose simple syrup I’d made, and topped it with crumbled brown sugar instead of doing an icing.

The applesauce cake, much to my surprise, turned out to be extremely AND I CRAVE IT, to the point that I noticed I was spending my morning jog thinking about how much I was looking forward to a slice or two of it with my chicory burdock fake coffee.

Which was fun. Better than fun, actually.

Better than fun

I love having something to think about that is not a) how heartbroken and bereft I feel, b) the unsolvable and very boring mystery of what on earth could have happened to make someone I loved and trusted stop loving me, and c) all the fucking problems that have not revealed their solutions yet.

What a reprieve to have my thoughts revolving around the sweetness and simplicity of an enjoyable and fulfilling ritual, instead of trying to solve for things that need to solve themselves.

The power and the delight of a good surprise

I surprised myself by feeling so AND I CRAVE IT, in a good way, about this applesauce cake.

And then I surprised myself again and even more by not just keeping it in the rotation but tossing everything else out of the rotation, and just baking the applesauce cake five times in a row.

And then further surprised myself by going to town to acquire more apples to make more applesauce to make more applesauce cake.

Third transformation is the charm?

Tamar Adler says: “When we cook things, we transform them. And small acts of transformation are among the most human things we do. Whether it’s nudging dry leaves around a patch of cement, or salting a tomato, we feel, when we exert tiny bits of our human preference in the universe, more alive.”

I am fascinated not only by this process of transformation, but in feeling into which iteration holds the yes.

The first transformation, apples into applesauce, was interesting but not yes. It was the next transformation that did the trick.

I don’t know how many exertions of human preference, to use Tamar’s excellent phrase, are needed in any of these situations, but I am intrigued by the notion that the first transformation might not hold the yes. You just keep transforming.

Keep transforming, with love and patience. An ongoing experiment.

Laundry day, for example

Going to the laundromat is truly the bane of my existence, I hate it so much.

In part because it’s so time-consuming. But mainly because of the way Long Covid works.

If I do something that takes a lot of energy and has many moving parts to keep track of (gathering the laundry, loading up the car, taking out cash somewhere to change into coins, driving to the laundromat, running errands while the laundry runs, loading it all back up, driving all the way back, carrying it all into the house, making the bed with clean sheets), there is so much more involved than the time and effort it takes to make it all happen.

There is the day of fretting about it and the day or two of recovering from it, and then the dread about doing it again. It takes up so much space in my brain.

LOAD it up

And yet, because it must be done, each time I try to come up with a new name to make it less hateful.

L.O.A.D. it up stands for Lighthearted Ops And Dreams Day, for example.

Other times I pretend I’m on the show Leverage: Let’s go steal clean sheets!

What is the apples into applesauce into applesauce cake of Laundry Day? What is the next transformation?

This is the mystery I am constantly trying to solve, or asking for it to solve itself.

In radical acceptance of hating something and wishing I didn’t hate it but I do…

Pretending it can somehow be not hate-able or less hate-able is not an option, because reality is that I do in fact hate it.

Or maybe what I hate is living alone with chronic illness, maybe if I had company it could become a fun adventure, but see also: this is the moment that is…

And so, in radical acceptance of how much I hate the laundromat, I asked a friend to plug “I hate the laundromat” into the anagram generator for me.

A Tatterdemalion, Huh

I hope you will appreciate as much as I did that “I hate the laundromat” anagrams to A Tamale Donut HITHER, which is amazing.

Thought it also anagrams to A Tatterdemalion Huh.

Or: Huh, A Tatterdemalion!

And other excellent words

I had to look up the word Tatterdemalion, and it means:

Ragged or disreputable in appearance, being in a decayed state or condition, dilapidated.

RELATABLE CONTENT.

Relatable content.

Who among us. It’s just a tatterdemalion kind of day, here in tatterdemalion season.

I too am feeling ragged and dilapidated. Dilapidated is such an excellent word too.

It’s Tatterdemalion Day, let’s go!

Kathryn joked: “Another tatterdemalion, huh?”, The washer whispers to the dryer as it sees me coming.

And so, as much as I am disinclined to go to the laundromat, I do like the idea of Tatterdemalion Day.

We have gotten a little too tatterdemalion these days, time to run a laundry heist!

A dream of trees / I dream of trees

In the last conversation I had with Michael before he died, we were talking about fruit trees and how I want to plant some on my property, and he had so much excitement and enthusiasm for this plan.

He was always so encouraging and loving and supportive, and I miss these qualities, I miss him, I miss everything about him.

Sometimes I dream about having a little grove for Michael, something to tend to.

Maybe grow some apples. Imagine that. Apples that could in theory one day transform into applesauce and then into applesauce cake that I feel excited about while I jog in my kitchen as the sun rises.

Michael would laugh delightedly at this entire train of thought. I am thinking about the legendary green chile apple fritter he had in Albuquerque that he wanted to re-create.

That’s a good dream project too. I could get excited about a green chile apple fritter. I could care about that if I am going to find my way back to care.

Three or even four trees

If I could find a way to house a washing machine on the property, and used only natural soap, and the water redirected to water the fruit trees, then one load of laundry a week would support three or even four apple trees.

Imagining this sometimes fills me with hope and joy, because it is such a beautiful vision, and sometimes fills me with despair because it feels so far off and impossible at the current moment.

Too many mysteries to solve for, no one to tell me what steps in what order.

It’s a beautiful vision, no more laundromat days and looking forward to future applesauce cake.

But it feels distant and unobtainable, vague, foggy.

Calling on the superpowers of Three Months Later, Amplified

A while ago, I wrote about the phenomenon of Three Months Later, like on a television show when one of the main characters has disappeared, and they have to fill in the blanks. So you get an expository sequence of Three Months Later, Dot Dot Dot…

I like three months as a period of time, solstice to equinox, quarters as a slice of time, quarters as living quarters, a space that holds you, a place you dwell inside of and inhabit.

Because I don’t do resolutions but only experiments and wishes, I am thinking about all the small experiments and wishes I could play with inside of the container of these next three months.

But I am also putting this wish for A Tatterdemalion Solution and Fruit Trees and On-Site Laundry and A Grove of Love of Tending into the cauldron of three months later.

And the cauldron of it solves itself. and the cauldron of what if the problem turns out to be the solution…

What else do we want to put into the wishing cauldron?

Doing the things that help — more candles, more walks outdoors, more stretching, for starters.

Even on the Gloomiest Day of Gloom, when everything feels bad including and especially brain weather, and the candle lighter is out of charge, and I can’t find the charger for it and somehow turned that into a whole story about how I lose things that are important, there are always things to do that help, and they always help more than I think they will (even when not as much as I want them to).

Even when it is so scary to let myself hope or wish for anything, I also know that it is brave and beautiful to be a human being in a body, wanting wants and needing needs. Breathing courage into my tender vulnerable heart.

Into the wishing cauldron:

Into the wishing cauldron of sweet and astonishing transformations and alchemy, apples into applesauce into the most craveable cake…

Care. Ritual. Grace. Sweetness.

Repair. Tending. Courage. Love.

Focus. Clarity. Ease. Encouragement.

Wonder. Togetherness. Comfort. Returning to myself.

May it be so or something even better.

In the meantime, peace peace peace, courage courage courage, miracles miracles miracles, and doing whatever helps, as a symbol of trust.

A quiet roundabout back-door sort of entry to the new year…

I wrote about laundry and apples because I wasn’t ready to write new year wishes or to process anything about what I want, or to let myself be brave enough to stride directly into the wanting.

And as usual, applying Safety First and a little play was the right approach, because I actually learned quite a bit about what I want and crave, what helps me feel grounded and centered, what matters to me.

I hope you can also find some good playful ways to sneak your way into wishing wishes, in a form that feels safe and supported, to let your curiosity lead the way.

It can be vulnerable and overwhelming enough to just move through this transition time of year with all the social pitfalls and pressure of NEWNESS and PASSAGE OF TIME, without having to resolve resolutions, make goals or name wishes in any kind of formal way.

So we can play, experiment, add on layers of safety and sweetness, bake some applesauce cake, name the mysteries, observe the alchemy, find clues, enjoy the treasure of a good AND I CRAVE IT when we are lucky enough to find one.

Wishing you lots of peace, ease, good surprises and/or whatever you need most. Glad you are here with me.

Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company

Leave a pebble (o) to say you were here, so I know I’m not doing this alone.

Also it feels good to pick up a pebble and place it somewhere, I have noticed.

And of course you are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped, clues received, or anything on your mind, wish some wishes, process what’s percolating…

I am lighting a candle for us and our beautiful heart-wishes. What a brave thing it is to allow ourselves to want something better for us and for the world.

Or if there’s anything you’d like to explore further or toss into the wishing pot, the healing power of the collective is no small thing, companionship helps.

Whatever comes to mind or heart. Let’s support each other’s hope-sparks…

Housekeeping note: You can subscribe to posts by email again!

If you aren’t seeing these updates in your in your email and want to, you can can solve that here.

This will pop up a new page on Follow.It that lets you subscribe via email, newsletter, or RSS reader. They say “expect 50 stories a week”, and that’s a very imaginary number, once a week is the dream.

I am emailing copies of the Emergency Calming Techniques package!

Anyone who gives to the Discretionary this week (more info below) will get my Emergency Calming Techniques package by email as a pdf. I am only checking email twice a week because I no longer have wifi at my place, long story, so be patient with me but if it doesn’t show up within the week then let me know!

I have some ideas for the next ebook too but if you do too, shoot me an email or share in the comments.

A request!

If you received clues or perspective or want to send appreciation for the writing and work/play we do here, I appreciate it tremendously.

I am accepting support (with joy & gratitude) in the form of Appreciation Money to the Discretionary Fund. Asking is not where my strength resides but Brave & Stalwart is the theme these days, and pattern-rewriting is the work, it all helps with fixing the many broken things.

And if those aren’t options, I get it, you can light a candle for support (or light one in your mind!), share this with someone who loves words, tell people about these techniques, approaches and themes, send them here, it all helps, it’s all welcome, and I appreciate it and you so much. ❤️

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