Nomnom COokies!!!!

While ice and snow blanket the midwest and the eastern part of our country, Egypt continues to stand in the light of the world's news services; and February begins, reminding me of my neglect in contributing into the blogosphere. Thanks to Ling for reminding me to just start writing. Training for the upcoming 2700 mile jaunt on the PCT proceeds, and Jacob and I continue to plan for our inevitable uprooting. April 19th hasn't felt so near. As I've been a bit MIA for the start of 2011, I'll begin with an awesome chocolate chip cookie recipe. A non-vegan friend gave her stamp of approval-so perhaps a future business endeavor is in the works?

Ingredients for an awesome vegan chocolate chip cookie worthy of the cookie monster himself:

1 cup vegan margarine
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
2 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 cups all-purpose baking flour, or almond flour for a gluten free cookie
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips
1/2 cup pecans or walnuts (I used pecans cause Ling made them available:)
3 tsp egg substitute
4 Tbs warm water
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

Combine egg replacer, warm water, sugar +molasses, vanilla, and margarine (at room temp) and mix into a creamy paste
In separate bowl combine dry ingredients. Pour wet into dry and add chocolate chips and nuts. The dough will feel a bit crumbly, but use your hands to work it into small balls and put on a non-stick cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 min. The cookies won't spread out, and may be hard to tell that they're done, but if you stick a fork into a chocolate chip and its melted, they're fairly well done. Let cool-unless you're like me and can't wait and burn the shit out of your tongue because you're too excited, and go at it like the cookie monster!!!!

Liminal Bliss

Jacob and I in a horse-drawn carriage, traveling the streets of downtown St. Paul on our wedding night. Just one example of the many acts of kindness we received from friends and family. 

I'm going to write down a few personal thoughts on this weekend, while that feeling of heightened emotion is still fresh. This was one of the most mind-blowing, intense, and tender weekends I can remember. I was left profoundly grateful for family and friends, for those who were there, but also for those who weren't, whom reside in the memories of my heart.

There were, of course, moments leading up to the wedding where I wondered what it was going to be like. I was nervous what the merging of two new families would feel like, how the hodgepodge of personalities would interact, how I would feel sharing such an exposed and vulnerable part of myself, up there for everyone to see. I didn't sleep the night before the wedding. Jacob and I were staying in the bedroom I spent my formative years in, which I shared with my sister, looking out to the same weeping willow I looked out to as a young girl. I was in a bed in the room that was the same, yet so different from when I was making those transitionary steps toward becoming a person, and it was poignant. The realness of it hit me hard in the stomach. I imagine it to be the same sort of feeling people get when they get “cold feet”, which typically starts a chain of doubt in the decision to spend the rest of your life with someone. It was a bit different for me, in how it was manifested. I looked at Jacob, and had no shed of doubt that I wanted to be with him for as long as I'm on this planet; but I glanced over to the closet that was the same closet I used as a child, with a large, very long, ivory dress draped over it, smothering that closet, and my heart of hearts sank to the depths of my soul. I put all of my doubtful thoughts into that dress. Jacob woke up, and looked over at me, and saw the trepidation and asked, “what's wrong?” 
“That dress is so F*cking BIG!!!!!”

The practical and rational part of me was happy that my doubts were directed at that overwhelming dress. There was the part of me that knew it was just nerves and anticipation of something that I tried to minimize prior to that night. There was also the part of me that knew how real it was, what it all meant. Because, of course there were the sort of distasteful elements of weddings present at one point or another along the way, but these were offset by the beauty that exists when people you love shower you with joy and kindness in their desire to celebrate with you. I guess I wasn't really prepared for all the underserved acts of kindness from friends and family. I wasn't prepared to face all the time and energy, blood, sweat and tears, that were shed for us. I guess, it was simply inspiring. And I still feel a bit suspended in that liminal state.

There were so many beautiful moments, that I can't name them all; but a few stick out in my head. One moment, that is so raw and tender, and representative of how a father feels when his daughter gets married, is when I watched my dad on his computer playing the video of me as an overly impressionable 8-year-old when he told me there were vampires. Of course he played that after the ceremony. But when he was quietly watching in his study, when no one else was around, I glimpsed, for a moment, what it must feel like for him.

I also really enjoyed setting up the backyard, before the ceremony. There was that feeling of a place when no one has yet sit in it. When the electricity of human emotions hasn't yet run through; only the anticipation of what could come, and it's a serenity, permeating.

The best part of the wedding was promising to Jacob, promising to stay with him until I die. Promising not just to love and be loved, but to continue along the path with him-this was one of the most beautiful things I've done to date. It's not all rosy, shiny, and certainly, that promise isn't always going to be pretty and fun; but it's beautiful. In a real, and gut wrenching way. In a really really big way. I guess that's why a wedding is just so f**king huge, no matter how small you try to keep it.

So perhaps that's why there is the fear of a sort of meteor shower at weddings. When emotions are high, sparks will fly. But there is also an overarching simple joy, coming full circle, coming Home. The only thing I'm left with is how beautiful it was to share this special, liminal time, with people I love and deeply cherish. It feels more real, this commitment and promise I've been living.

And, I did end up loving that dress. 


Also, I'll be posting the text of our ceremony for anyone who is interested, I wrote most of it, and Jacob and I each wrote our vows individually. More pictures up shortly. 

September Come

Brinn picking Tomatoes at Live Earth Farm. Winner of the Sept. cutie patuty award:)

Sunflowers at Life Earth Farm, a family-run CSA, organic farm overlooking the Parjaro Valley in Santa Cruz

September, here you are. Beckoning with a fresh slate, a new beginning. Summer months gone with that lingering bitter/sweet scent of careless abandonment, playful innocence with open eyes, and dancing hearts. Summer months gone, and we start new. And my theme for starting new this coming September, is all about becoming. Feet on the ground, life lived best when it's fully ripe. September comes with the promises of a season full of becoming. Here's to becoming. 

  

It's been a few months since my last blog. We successfully made it into a new decade of the 21st century. 

I coached a girls basketball team, went through the ebb and flow of a season with 11 14-year-old girls. 

Jacob and I moved into an 1800's victorian home in San Jose, CA. I hiked into Big Sur, Yosemite, Pointe Reyes National Seashore, and other various places in this part of California.

I wasn't sure what I wanted from a blog when I started this one. 

It might seem strange that I lived for 3 years in East Africa, and only now am I documenting my voice in the ostensible anonymity of the internet. I was just having a conversation about how strange it is that people share so much of themselves in the open-access world we live in. Yet, here I am. Just another of my many contradictions.

Since I've started, I figure I might as well use this space for a purpose.

We all seek meaning in our lives, and wish to tell a story. I've been trying to strike an internal balance since returning to the states, and it's proven to be an arduous task-what with the challenges of reverse-culture shock-the struggles of re-entry into a place I used to recognize as home. 

With a new set of values and a fresh perspective, my frustration has been manifested in an unfair judgement of Americans-I say, I don't remember people being so indifferent and narrow in their scope; I don't remember this lack of depth or foresight in interpersonal, political, or social interactions. 

I don't remember people being so disconnected from the world around them-the Earth they are indebted to. 

I don't remember it being so hard to find a common connection to the people around me; and most importantly, I don't remember feeling so isolated or lonely. 

Lucky for me, I have a friend and comrade to commiserate with. Not all people are so lucky.

Nowhere has this change in me been so apparent as in my rejection of a career. I don't know what I want to "be", by American standards; yet I feel more certain than ever before of who I want to be. I don't know what path I want to take in the workforce, yet I feel very certain of a path I want to take for my own self.

I went home for a week, to the cold Minnesota winter, and visited with my beloved family. Although I think readjustment has been difficult, the time I got to spend with my parents and siblings was a refreshing reinforcement of the unconditional love that I have and feel with family. No matter where I go, or what I do, or vice versa, there is that common history, ancestry, and shared formative years that will keep us together. While having a dialogue with my sister, I was able to see the reflection of the my values in her eyes. "Kit has three things that are important to her-Jacob, the PCT, and fluffy poop."

While not in this order, or quite as literal-especially for the latter of the three, they do reflect the values that I have come to hold dear to my heart.

1.Jacob, of course, is the primary example of the value I have for intra and interpersonal relationships. I do believe that the most important relationship any of us can and ever will have, is the relationship we have with our selves. As individual as Americans are, I still find it interesting that this is the one relationship that tends to be the most neglected, damaging and affecting the ability to form, nurture, and develop relationships with others.

I find that I'm able to put the necessary energy and love into my relationships with the people most important to me when I've fed my soul. When I'm grounded, or balanced, or centered, or however you want to say it; I'm able to empathize, really listen, and love others. And I am grateful to have found a friend and life partner in someone I admire, respect, and want to have the longest conversation of my life with, through marriage. I look forward to when we will recognize our commitment to each other in October with friends and family. And I'll get to call him my husband.

2.The PCT

An intersection and interaction of three countries, three states, and nearly 2700 miles of rock, sand, wind, desert, mountains, and snow-the Pacific Crest Trail is a childhood dream that is now within my grasp. Like the Peace Corps, the PCT represents a desire and drive I have to continuously challenge myself to grow and change and evolve. Together, Jacob and I plan to walk at least 20 miles a day for 4-5 months; a full-time job with the deadline every day as the setting sun, and the long-term objective of walking inexorably north before the snow or our bodies stop us. With our homes on our backs, and nature unrelenting; I want to see the wind, hear the rocks, taste the sky, and smell the mountain streams. I want to push myself past my limits, and challenge myself to force that interconnection between my mind, body and spirit. I want to overcome and work through the heat, blisters, hunger, injuries, and mental and physical fatigue. It's what keeps me going right now, and what I'm looking to. This blog is a journal and documentation of the preparation for the PCT.

3. The final value my sister so explicitly stated, was fluffy poop. And before anybody can say how disgusting that is, please let me explain. Being a vegan does change the consistency, density, and form of bodily waste. Now I don't necessarily value that change, but I do value the implicit values in a vegan lifestyle. I eat with intention, I think about what is going in to my body, and what repercussions my eating has on the larger living community. It's, as I mentioned before, a pillar in my life.

So, this was another dialogue into that open internet abyss. Hope someone could take something from it.

Until next time, I'm out.