It was a Little Bit Like Today

What was it like when the sun shone bright

High in the horizon

Late into the day.

What was life like

When you were here?

What was it like when the wind was calm

Skates on my feet 

Pedals under your cleats

Blazin' fast.

What was life like

When you climbed ever so gracefully, confidently? 

What was it like when we belly-laughed

Threw a T-bone on the grill

Ate raspberries off the bush

Shot some arrows in the yard

All in just one afternoon.

What was it like to be at

Top of the World

Simply because you were here?

A Campaign within a Campaign

From time to time we do things that are not particularly comfortable or enjoyable, but we do them.  Sometimes out of necessity; others, accommodation. Sometimes we just don't know any better.  I have as yet to hear anyone comparing a mammogram or a colonoscopy as a spa treatment.  We still get them done, because they are important. 

Unlike my brother Tim, salesmanship is hardly my strength.  Tim can sell ice to an Eskimo.  Me?  I am always at odd with asking for money, so I almost never engage myself with fundraising activities.  But occasionally I might find a cause I truly want to be a part of, and I switch myself on like a pit bull (sans the lipstick...)  Some people call that "passion."  I prefer a simpler term, "coming alive."

Talk less.  Do more. 

Coconut Milk Buns
Photo courtesy of Adrian Rus

I bake good bread; I know that. That's because every loaf of bread has my secret ingredient that no professional baker can replicate:  Daisy's Love.  How hippie of me.  I care about who I bake for, and before the dough even rises, every loaf has an owner.  I believe my bread has "healing powers" - I believe every loaf of bread I bake injects a shot of gratitude in the world.  I believe gratitude makes the world go 'round.  I believe my bread helps change the world with an ever small Butterfly Effect!  

I am strangely eccentric about my bread.  I own my eccentricity.  I do not ever wish to change my attitude.  



"GaiMeiBao" or Cocktail Buns
Sweet buns with a filling of butter, pulverized sugar, and
finely shredded coconut flakes

                                              
                                            #   #   #

"Don't ask what the world needs.  Ask what makes you come alive and do it.  Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." ~ Dr. Howard Thurman

Puget Sound Community School (PSCS) has always given me that "alive" feeling.  I am not directly affiliated with or employed by the school.  My husband Eric taught as a volunteer teacher for several terms; PSCS had a special place in his heart.  We support PSCS because we believe in its program.  We believe in its approach to education.  We believe in its approach to total human development.  

I want to help PSCS reach its goal of raising $15K in 15 Days Annual Giving Campaign, and I want to have some fun doing so. I also want to invite my friends to take part in it.  After all, a community is not being built by a few select individuals, but by groups of like-minded folks.  

I have to ask you for money.  And I have to sell my bread.  Suddenly a colonoscopy doesn't sound particularly uncomfortable... 

Here's the plan:  
Step 1.  Order my kick ass bread.  
Step 2.  Donate directly to PSCS online by 6/30/13.  That's JUNE 30.  

Here's the link http://pscs.org/donate/

Apricots & Cream Cheese Braid

I don't care how much or how little you donate.  A dollar is good; three thousand dollars is also good.  Give what you want and what you can, but please donate directly to the school by 6/30/13 - the last day of the school's fiscal year.  If you wish, you may also donate it through the Eric Gilman Memorial Fund, which supports tuition aids.  The link above gives you all the details you need. 

And now, the menu.  Let's not over-complicate things. Just email me what you want.  As many as you want.  My email address is in the Contact Me tab at the top.  Then send your gift to PSCS.  YES, you got it, BY JUNE 30...  We'll figure out the delivery details later.  That's small stuff. 

• Kick Ass Cinnamon Swirl (free raisins!)
• Kick Ass "Hyper-Local" Raspberries & Cream Cheese Braid (I pick raspberries from my garden just for you)
• Kick Ass Honey Whole Wheat (You haven't had WW until you try my WW)
• Kick Ass Coconut Milk Buns (Just what it says:  Made with coconut and coconut milk)
• Kick Ass Classic White (The best PB & J or grilled cheese you will ever taste)

Please do not be offended by my straight-forward descriptions.  There is simply no point to beat around the bush.  I mean, who wants to waste time on marginally-good bread?
  
By the way, I bake my bread with organic ingredients whenever practical.  All bread is baked in my oven and I have two trusted loaf pans - so your patience is greatly appreciated.  And if you live or work anywhere outside of King County, WA, I am really sorry but I won't be able to deliver bread to you at this time.  It will be lovely if you still choose to participate in the PSCS Annual Giving Campaign!  

You just increased readership on my blog and made me feel really good about myself.  For that, I thank you.  For those who decide to send a gift to PSCS, thank you for your generous support.  For those who decide to send a gift through the Eric Gilman Memorial Fund, I am immensely grateful and humbled.  

And to you all, I bid you a healthy and active summer that overflows with laughter and joy.

Now the disclaimer:  I am not reaping any benefits from PSCS or your gift.  I doubt anyone in PSCS knows I'm having a campaign within its campaign, as nobody there even knows I write a blog, let alone read it... I already said I am not an employee of PSCS.  I am donating my time, efforts, and costs of all ingredients. 100% of your gift goes to PSCS.  As for my bread, I'm just sowing Seeds of Karma... 

Who needs eternity if it only lasts for 24 hours?

The 15th of each month still overwhelms me, now that I am engrossed in reality. Nothing lasts forever.  Not the good days, nor the bad ones.  

Sorrow exhausts me.  It continues to reach deep inside my core.  Some days it stabs. To be anatomically precise, sorrow lives in the lungs.  Sometimes I feel deeply sad with no provocation.  It physically aches.  Other times the voids become unbearable and the tears unstoppable.  I haven't mastered the skills of feeling grateful when I am in that space.  I would like to, some day.  

Human memories are unreliable.  What I choose to reconstruct from my memories becomes my reality.  

My present reality remains that the 15th of each month haunts me because it has been unpredictable. I have not yet learned to embrace the 15th.  What if I never learn to embrace it?  Then I would just fear it, resist it, suffer from it.  

Just like February 15.  March 15.  April 15.  May 15.  And June 15.  I want the calendar to skip July 15.  Just this once; please.  I will even go to the gym... Luckily, nothing lasts forever. 

Nature is the best lover.  She heals; she replenishes; restores; embraces.  

Good days will turn, bad days WILL end.  As will the 15th of each month.  

Nature at 3100' in friend Scobie's plane.
Restoration.  

The story of a raspberry

Ever pick raspberries? 

Picking raspberries is like living life.
Pick one at a time, lest you squash the berries.  
The good ones get the sun.
The best ones are hidden, undisturbed. 

Most berries should be picked one at a time. 
But especially raspberries.  

Just like life.  You should only live one day at a time. 

Yet, we rush from place to place.  Rush to check off one more box on the list.  
Before tomorrow.  
Eating while driving; driving while calling.   
Texting incessantly while sweating wild on the treadmill.  

We curse at slow drivers.  
Run yellow lights.
Pick the shortest line at grocery stores. 
Pride multi-tasking as civilization.  

           #    #    #

Picking raspberries is now my task.
All things with raspberries, in fact, have become my tasks.  

What I now admire most about living, 
I learn from a raspberry.  

Lemon Cake Milestone

I have stopped counting chapters, but I have not stopped acknowledging milestones.  I used to ask Eric the proper usages of certain words or phrases.  "Are milestones only used for positive events?  You don't usually hear people describing morbid things as milestones,"  I would ask.    

All birthdays are milestones, which make a "milestone birthday" a "milestone-milestone."  Typically a milestone birthday is associated with a number that signifies some kind of importance:  16.  18.  21.  Then there are the zeros - 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, etc. 

In my case, this year's birthday was a milestone, but not of a number.  I turned 46. The number means absolutely no significance to me.  At 46, I feel fantastic.  I have a positive outlook on life.  I am physically, emotionally, and mentally healthy.  I have plenty of energy.  I don't owe anybody anything.  I don't eat much, need much, want much, spend much.  I am independent and self-sufficient.  I don't whine, get annoying or needy...OK, maybe just a little bit.  I am far from being "wise beyond my age," but I feel adequately smart.  Aren't all these great?

Yes, they are.  They really are great fortune, but these aren't milestones.  

My 46th birthday is a milestone-birthday because what fear I still have - and hold every right and reason to have - is ever, ever so slowly dissolving.  It's a milestone because I will no longer dignify fear with a name.  It's a milestone not because I am fearless, but I am gaining courage.  "Courage is not the absence of fear.  It is the act of going through with something in spite of fear."  

I don't "miss" Eric - "missing" him doesn't begin to remotely describe anything.  I think about him literally every waking moment.  When exactly would I have time, or the capacity, to miss him? 

Obvious Solution to Everything: Cake

Whether I want to celebrate my birthday or not this year, she is creeping up with silent vengeance in less than 72 hours, making me tense.  My birthday creeps up like some unwelcome distant relatives stealing toilet paper from my closet.  

I just used an analogy that made absolutely no sense. I meant I wanted to avoid my birthday like a plaque. 

Don't be sad.  Eric would have wanted you to be the star of the day.  To look pretty.  To be pampered by many.  It is one of your favorite days.  And, he would want you to have as many slices of cake as you wish.  You love cake. 

To do what Eric would have wanted me to do is good; to honor what I truly wanted is better.  It is an age old lesson to honor self-awareness.  It is MY birthday.  MY favorite day of the year.  I want to be the star of the day.  I want to look pretty.  I want to be pampered by many.  And I want to have cake.  I love cake.  I am very aware that this is looking very Me Me Me and My My My...  So? 

To live a "new normal" means to truly LIVE - not just getting through - all those favorite moments despite the absence of Eric, while keeping him in my heart and my head.  It makes me cry, not of sadness.  A complex feeling unexplainable by words.  Much more complex than the simple "moving on."  Adding a new normal moment is adding more to life.  MY life.  It is to live life the best way I know how.  

I shall have cake on my birthday.  I shall share cake with you.  I shall add a new normal to my favorite day of the year, to honor Eric's life.  And his love.  Our love has no bounds.  

I cry as I finish typing this.  I can taste my cake.  

Naked Face with No Make-Up

Feelings are complex.  Most feelings cannot be accurately conveyed through words. But we try.  And we use similes.  

Like now.  My feelings are very complex.  My simile of choice is a "well-balanced, diversified stock portfolio."  Like the pie chart that describes your mutual fund portfolio.  A percentage of this, three percentages of that, a laundry list that adds up to a hundred.  That's my current state of mind in relation to my loss.  

A writer friend told me people need to compare in order to relate.   

I am unable to describe how I feel.  I have voids.  I have many Eric Holes and they will not be filled, cannot be filled, by anything.  No persons, no things, no memories.  Nor is it necessary to fill them.  I can have plenty of great memories, AND voids. Memories and voids are not mutually exclusive.  It is not sad or depressing to have voids.  It is life.  

It is being real.  And staying real.  It's exposed like a woman's naked face with no make up.  

My friends want me to feel better.  And will try to console with comforting thoughts like "Eric is alive as long as he is in our memories."  No.  That is not true.  Eric is dead.  And will remain dead, despite him being in our memories.  Our MEMORIES of him may be alive; HE is not alive.  Big difference.  Words matter.  Not pretty, but factual. 

I use the words die, dead, and death, because they are entirely appropriate. Eric did not pass on, or pass away.  He wasn't 89 years old waiting to expire on his death bed.  That would be passing on.  He chose to die on his own conscience, at his timing, with his own judgement.  That was also factual.  No need to skirt around that.  

Summer nears.  Joyous Facebook posts abound with graduations, weddings, vacations, summer camps, kittens and puppies.  I have nothing momentous to post. Not because I don't feel joyous moments, but because my feelings are complex. 
I feel voids.  

Iris of My Heart
Photograph courtesy of Adrian Rus