Leaf

A leaf fluttering on a tree

stopping, no wind can be found

searching, no shaking seen

branches still, air sullen

what makes the leaf flutter in the tree?

I wonder about the leaf in me.

Breaking a Spoon

Sundays are lazy days. They are meant to be a time to recharge and put life back into spiritual order. For some this means going to church, for others it means meditating, walking in parks, spending time with the family and friends, or watching excessive amounts of Food Network.

I irregularly pick the Food Network choice. Today, I should have headed to church.

After 2 hours of watching, I decided to cook. First, I was going to make a dump soup. This is a soup made by dumping canned items into a pot with a bouillon and let it boil. Simple.

Food Network saturated my brain and I could not be "simple".

Using yellow lentils, garlic, and onions, I fried them together and added my only can, canned cream corn. Then, I took out my spices and added and added. Focusing on the yellow color, I added only yellow spices and salt. Then, I put in water and sat it for a simmer.

When it came to tasting, the method of choosing spices by color revealed itself to a disappointment. The soup had flavors I wanted, flavors I didn't want, and I couldn't tell the difference. The solution was a bouillon cube and the old faithful yellow curry powder. Solution found.

Lentils require water, time, and heat to cook. They got an inadequate amount of the first two and excessive amount of the last. Remember the onions and garlic? I remembered them too when trying to stir.

Stirring. Stirring is good. It mixes ingredients together and keeps ingredients from burning on the bottom. Mine were both mixed and burned.

In the process of stirring, I managed to break a piece of the wooden spoon.

Remember, I'm making soup.

Soup

A liquid dish.

A dish that is mostly water.

A dish people eat with spoons.

A dish people can consume like a drink in a rush.

A dish served in a bowl to hold it.

I broke a spoon making soup.

A piece of my spoon cracked off from the tip while stirring soup. My Sunday soup was dangerous. Watching excessive hours of Food Network and then cooking is not advised on Sundays.

Must buy a new spoon on Monday.

Not Rising

I have to accept the failure and appreciate it. My bagels are not rising. It is not a personal thing and I shouldn't take it that way... but I do.

Dear yeast in my dough,

Why do you refuse to rise? I have given you sugar and let you sit in a warm place. Please, I don't mean to rush you but I need to bake you. After an hour of rising time, I saw little difference in size. Why? What did I do wrong?

Please let me know so we can work this out. I don't like the separation between us.

I miss you.

XXX

Exchange out some words in the message , and the text doubles as a letter to a friend after a fight - normally a letter from middle or high school best friends. How history repeats itself, from high school to baking, still amazes and amuses me.

A few weeks and several good and bad batches of bagels later, I stopped baking. Like all phases in my life, I was done with it and needed to move forward. No one moment sparked the end point but seeing frozen bagels in the grocery store might have done it.

My conversation topics changed from the rising of bagels to Egyptian politics and novels I was reading. My friends no longer got plates of bagels or heard about my latest efforts into making blueberry or cinnamon raisin ones. My waistline reduced a bit with the decrease in carbs which made me realize it had increased when I started this tangent. My kitchen was cleaner. I stopped feeling the failure of my non-rising bagels.

What direction would my baking had gone to if yeast worked properly for me? Would I had ventured on to other baking horizons? Or would I, like with the high school friend, have eventually ended up where I am today?

Morning

The sun rises on a new day. Noise in my mind broke me from sleep and thought kept me from knocking around in bed anymore. The brain awoke caught in a loop of thought I could not resolve nor could I ignore. But I was resolved to not give up the day to circles.

Using both the power of yoga and a morning, indulgent milkshake, I finally knocked myself into contentment and onto a straight line of thought. Changing environment effects the patterns of thought and distracts the mind from the thought it got caught on and releases it to other, more pleasant ones.

My poor kitty was happy not to snuggle in bed. Luckily, she benefited from my inability to rest my mind. This meant my, and her, day started earlier. Kitty got what she wanted.

The day was early and she enjoys the priviledge of a safe balcony to explore. Peeping over the edge, the guards at the gate interested her for a moment, then the blooming tomato plant, then the smell of the floor, and then the sounds from the balcony above, and finally the sun rising above. Her eyes caught two birds mating or fighting in the air. Neither one of us has enough knowledge to know which was occurring. She forgot them when they are out of sight and peers down at the dogs near the gate.

They are medium sized, short-haired canines, desperate for attention like children. With the owners away, they look to the guards at the gate to fill the vacant role. Kitty has lost interest in them, like the guards lose interest after a few playful motions with the dogs. She wants to be down where the dogs, birds, and guards are but not really. The safety of the balcony allows her courage to want to be down (but not really).

Morning air tastes sweeter than others. Every morning could be the same, but I am on the balcony to enjoy it and thus feel the newness of the day more. A calming feeling emits from the climate of the night's damp haze yet to burn off. Work not begun and traffic but a coming memory, the peace of the birds chirping rule the air.

I see the sun fighting to bring in the serious day, burn up the night's dew, and heat us all into serious efforts. But I will not head to work today, nor tomorrow, so the sun has little effect on me.

Chicken

Saying the word "chicken" is saying half of a joke.

Please don't think disrespectful thoughts about the animal.

Seriously.

Chicken.

Chicken.

Chicken.

Chicken.

I bet you're smiling.

Few animals evoke such a common emotion with but the name. Is it the feathers? Is it the clucking? Is it how chickens run? Is it the tilt of the head as each step is taken? Someone, somewhere is studying the humor we find in the animal.

So I didn't have a chicken but a rooster in the house. He was brought in a cage to watch a game. He was named "Gary the Gamecock" and that's the last time I will type his full name. As a guest, he was polite, quiet, and didn't share his food nor water. As a talisman for his football team, he failed miserably.

SEC championship for 2010, Auburn Tigers vs South Carolina Game***** finished 56 to 14. He watched the game, he had a chance to cluck or crow, we brought him out, he was brought out to watch the end of the game, and we encouraged him to win. Nothing saved the college football team.

Luckily, his team did not determine his fate.

The chicken walked away free and safe.

Isn't that the punch line for a joke?

Liberian Cherries

For 40 LD (about $0.70 US) I bought two pound of Liberian Cherries. I have now been in Liberia for 3 years, so I'm wondering where these cherries have been hiding.

The thing that is irksome is that in Liberia, most of the produce in the grocery stores is flown in at great expense, and then sold for even greater. I have seen two zucchini for $11.25! Strawberries are flown in and a text goes out to faithful customers. Tomatoes come from Spain and oranges are from South America. In the heart of the tropics, restaurants sometimes serve canned pineapple. They grow here!!!!

With the shipped in fruits, comes an elevated price foreigners rarely question. For the zucchini, asking if the price was correct, the worker who weighed it loudly and vehemently went into an argument about how it was priced correctly. The two zucchini cost half the wages of a maid for a week of work. They cost the same as hiring a a private taxi for two hours and giving the driver a good tip. The zucchini went back into the bin.

So now, out of the blue, local cherries appear (though they were still the appropriate red color). With an outer layer of leaf that needed to be pulled off, but could be done with ease. The taste was a bit tart but still juicy, fruity, and a hint of cherry flavor. Smaller than the normal cherry varieties, these fruits come with an outer husk and provide an experience of flavor, texture, and effort similar to the addiction pistachios invokes. A small bit of work for a reward, and repeatable but in a fruit version.

I found the mysteriously addicting berries at a local fruit stand that catered to locals waiting for transportation. Nothing on the table came in a box or on a plane, all were locally picked and probably from that very neighborhood. I think the owner was so amused by my interest in her products that she forgot to double the price. And at 70 cents for two pounds, I would have happily been the fool to pay more.

So I saw an unusual fruit and asked about it at a stand normally patronize by locals. It was incomprehensible that I had missed cherries in this country. The owner said they were cherries. I kept repeating my question in various forms unable to believe that I had been missing local cherries.

Me:

"What are these?"

"Cherries?"

"Liberia has cherries?"

"Are these cherries?"

"These are cherries?"

A woman in a perfectly made traditional dress, eating cherries unpaid for was at the table. She helped me out with this explanation:

"They are cherries. You know cherries. See cherries."

"You eat them like this. Cherries"

Then she ate another one without paying and handed me one to try. Then I purchased.

See cherries in Liberia.

Almost Chili

I almost made chili today.

It started out a week ago with the desire to make spaghetti. Sauce is better if made a day before and the day before plan never happened.

So Sunday came around and the basil in the garden had grown plus there was a large bag of onions in the cupboard. I chopped and chopped, fried, and seasoned. Tomato sauce from scratch was the goal.

Seasoning was my downfall. The pleasure of adding flavor took hold of me. I kept adding and thinking, oregano, sage, pepper, salt, and fresh basil. And finally I had thought too far. The cumin seduced me. I added it and thus my tomato sauce had a chili taste.

What to do? Two options appeared: make chili or add a jar of non-scratch sauce.

I accepted defeat, losing the battle but winning the war and making dinner.

On Top of a New Building

I stood on the top of the building. It was a new and would not be finished for another year. From the view, the whole of the city could be seen. Perched up high, my eyes were level with a soaring hawk.

Cities have a special look from a distance. Patterns emerge when the entire community is seen. The gridlines of streets can be made out by the repetitions of roofs. The curve of the river and the significance of a hill do not always form meaning on the street, but standing with the birds they do. Repetition of architecture and building construction pop out, while the details to distinguish blur in the distance.

In this city, a new building would stand. The beginning was marked with a ceremony and so would the end. Those on the roof were there for a middle mark. A person spoke about the significance of the new site, praised the workers, and spoke about the country. Others spoke about the significance of this new building, the rebuilding of the country, and appreciations to the workers, with hope that they might pass their skills along after its completion. All spoke well, all said meaningful words, and the hawks kept playing in the air.

They stayed so close because of a tree. Beside the building stood several trees with branches covered in orchids and moss. Beneath the cover of the leaves, a magical green playhouse of limbs hid. Within a limb sat a nest for the hawks. The tree had withstood over a hundred years of human presence. Weathering construction, destruction, conflict, and transition in the county, the limbs held the leaves and many living things lived in the forest of limbs inside.

I stood on the top of the new building. The plans allow it to withstand hostile conditions but so the the formation of the trees. The hawks eyed us all as they flew. Diving and soaring, they survived in this city through war and peace. As they watched us and the city, I prayed they watched over before retiring to their nest.

The Effort

The effort that goes into each day
need not produce results

if not for the work
nothing would get done

so nothing changing
with energy used

still means that something gets done

For My Ambassador

We stand on the beach with feet in the sand
the tide bring the waves up and over us

each wave is different and last but the time it was meant

Some softly cover the feet with tickles
Others forcefully wet our knees
Few splash up with droplets reaching high

The shape of the sand around us changes
But our feet do not change
They stay as we put them as the landscape alters

We plant our feet in the beach
we stay until time to go

Enjoying each swell but knowing
another beach will always bring us similar joy
in another pattern of waves over our feet