Nowhere Like Here

I'm beginning to feel a bit more like myself. I informed Dave the other day that "It is terribly difficult to be upset at the beach." His answer was immediate and only half-joking: "You mean you were trying?" A fair enough question considering that I spent a good portion of my first full day back on Amelia Island reaching out and poking at my inner worries with a stick as though to see if they were still there. It's like taunting a hungry dog with food and expecting it not to at the very least be put off by your pestering. But the beach is wonderful. Maybe it's because my parents used the sound of running water to lull me to sleep as a child or maybe my inner soul is a pirate, but either way this terrible sense of peace falls over me when I'm on the sea shore. Terrible only because it seems so much larger than myself. It's a strange sensation to be swallowed entirely by something you cannot see.

When I attempted to explain all this to my mother she laughed and stretched her arms wide. "It's because you're home!" She declared matter-of-factly. "Home is supposed to let you step out of your skin for a bit." It's an odd notion to call this place 'home'. Currently we are staying at a rental house on the Island while my parents wait to relocate to their newly purchased farm house (minus the farm). The rooms are half put together and boxes are half-hidden in corners. But it's tidy for the most part, if you don't look into my brother's room or the place my father uses as his 'office'. Everything that one could need is present and what isn't can be acquired by a quick jaunt down the road to Harris Teeter-- which happens at least once daily. Although, that could be attributed to just getting out of the house than any actual need. But I digress. She wasn't really talking about the place. Home, particularly the Southern definition of home, is the people. Well, that and the region itself.

Something I've also found touching during these past few days is the way my mother has been seeking out southern food that I can eat. Where I immediately turned away from all my favorites when I discovered my laundry list of food allergies, my mom decided that there was a way to make this work. Like tonight we had baked chicken, English peas and yams (have I told you how much I am in love with sweet potatoes?). All simple and easy and free of things that make me ill. It was nice. All of it is, really.

Light Summer Dinner

Tonight Mama made such an easy, tasty meal that I felt I absolutely had to share it. Summer squash (both yellow and zucchini) has got to be my favorite form of the versatile veggie.

Ingredients

• 3 zucchini
• 3 yellow squash
• 1/2 med white onion
• 1 tomato
• basil
• salt
• 1 tsp arrowroot
• 1 lb of de-veined, uncooked shrimp
• 1 bag of success rice (or rice of choice)

Pour just enough oil in the bottom of your sauce pan to coat (olive or canola work fine, though we used olive) because you don't want your veggies drowning. Likewise you don't want any angry oil surging up at your face due to any residual moisture from rinsing your veggies.

Slice the zucchini, squash and onion to toss into the pan along with the oil. There you can let it sit while you add a little salt to taste and a liberal basil. We didn't actually measure this part but just added until it felt right. Use your common sense. If you are fond of Basil feel free to add what you feel is a good portion. Because this sort of meal was about being quick and simple we used a dry form of the herb. You want to keep your eye on those veggies while you're dicing your tomato. Before you add it to the mix make sure that the squash and zucchini are nicely browned (not burned).

It's about this time that you should be adding your bag o' rice to the pot of boiling water so that it'll come out at the same time. Or if you have a rice cooker or some other method/rice of choice feel free to go with that. We decided on plain ol' white rice: a tasty, under appreciated staple.

Now go ahead and add that tomato.

In a little cup or bowl put about a tsp of arrowroot and then add a little bit of water to mix it in nicely. This is going to thicken up water that's cooking out of your veggies. For those of you who make roux out of cornstarch, this is the same thing except corn free. Pour it over your vegetables. Keep in mind that you do not want the things in your pan drowning. Just add enough so that they're simmering nicely and not sticking to the bottom.

Add your shrimp to the mix and cook until pink. And there you go! Put this over your rice and you'll have enough to feed four people easily with possible left overs for later.

Enjoy!

The Whole of It

The future seems like such a nebulous, far away thing. There seems to be a definite path which I'm following for the moment and my (not to scale) map has scribbled in blobs at random points along the horizon which I am supposedly walking towards. SOLAR. Burning Man. Grad School. I want to add in question marks along the edges to punctuate the absolute lack of certainty which seems to have me in its grips at any given moment. Time keeps passing but it is hard to tell with me looking at my shuffling feet instead of the horizon. Maybe I should keep track by the declining numbers in my bank account. It seems to be what I'm judging everything by these days.

Ah, the life of a gypsy. I feel I've earned the title now with traveling adventures as well as abject poverty. Although it's difficult to be truly poor when you have friends and family. Love and hope go quite a long way.

And it was with those self same thoughts in mind which I hugged the puppies goodbye (for now) and pulled my last $50 I'd been saving out of the crinkled Wachovia envelope in my purse. Nearly a month ago when I first left Fernandina after a visit with my parents my mother had slipped it folded into my hand as I was heading off to Atlanta. "In case you should need to come home." I hugged her and promptly forgot about it. It was as if she had issued an incantation. Even when there were things I wanted to do it never occurred to me to spend the money. Maybe it was just that it was specifically earmarked for something else. Or maybe I just didn't feel that it was mine in any concrete sense. But putting $20 into Starla in the form of gas was the appropriate thing to do. The remaining $30 went back into my pocket as a woman with gold teeth and a shiny SUV came to a screeching halt beside me at the gas station.

"Bless you, baby! I love you. Now, you don't think that I do but it's true! See, this here is my mother and I take care of her and I need to get to my son... I'm barren but I have a son and.. I need a few dollars for gas."

I stared at her for a second, trying to make out what she had just told me. The words sort of blurred together around the edges and faded away every time she turned to face the old black woman in the passanger seat who was doing her best to not pay attention to this entire exchange. They both looked tired. As it turns out, however, I am not a good Christian. And rather than split up my money for oil I just started laughing. I couldn't help it. It was that edgy, crazy kind of laughter that isn't so much mirthful as unraveled. I felt a little unraveled. I told her that I was putting the last of my money into my gas tank as we spoke. I don't know if she believed me, but in either case she was quick to get away from me. I don't blame her.

The trip itself wasn't bad. The sun was bright and the traffic was light. It wasn't until I hit Savannah that the sky seemed to open up and my visibility went to nil at about the same time as my gas light urged my attention. It took me ten minutes to get off the exit ramp and then a bit more to figure out where I was and how to cross the median. I probably should have paid a little more attention to just why the gas station I was eyeing was empty in all this rain despite the crazy number of cars getting in my way. Maybe then I wouldn't have wound up in a puddle that made my engine lurch as water washed over the front of my car as I took a nose dive. Amazingly I made it to high(ish) ground in a McDonalds parking lot and waited 45 minutes to figure out a plan to get me to 1. a gas station and 2. the interstate. It took some creative driving and a good amount of praying but I made it. Hopefully my car isn't the worse for wear. We'll see.

Safe in Fernandia I'm trying to keep in mind all the things I'm thankful for and try not to spin off into an anxiety fit as I check my bank account and make lists of things I need to accomplish ASAP. It's hard, sometimes, to keep in mind that this is all part of the adventure. That life is all in the messy bits and how you come through it matters more than if you succeed perfectly on the first go.

And you know what? I may not make it to SOLAR this weekend, but I found my travel snail and it's enough to get me to Burning Man. Things are looking up.

Fandom

I like to think that we all have those things that give us that little extra sparkle regardless of how well the rest of our life is going at a given moment. Something that will give you pause in the middle of a store and send you spiraling into a dilemma of 'I don't really need this but OMG I want it'. I have more than one friend who hide stockpiles of yarn and fabric in various and sundry corners of their homes in an effort to appear normal. Like no one else has this problem. As if having something you are passionate about is shameful.

Only that isn't it.

It's not that people are ashamed of passion, it's that people are ashamed of having particular passions. Guilty pleasures. Vices. Whatever. There are very few people who step forward and proudly declare to the general populace that they MUSH, LARP, collect comic books, read/write fanfiction. . .the list goes on and on. And if people do admit to those sorts of things (unless you happen to be Felicia Day or Joss Whedon himself) you're not exactly regarded as one of the cool kids. Whatever that means these days. It's why I have plenty of friends who say they're going to 'fantasy football' instead of D&D or 'camping' instead of LARPing. Really, though, I guess it's a lot easier than explaining that you're off to a weekend where you plan to play a surface elf on a quest to rid the Southerlands from the evils of the Litch King who has seized the throne. I guess the thing is that I just don't really see why it should matter. Why should there be an embarrassment factor here when people who are health nuts or avid Sox fans are taken in stride?

Then again, maybe someone who is contemplating going to the HP opening tonight as Luna Lovegood shouldn't be making this argument.