'I promise dark gatherings of toadfish and comical shrimp'
I hope your week is filled with promise of good things and hope. <3
Reading corner
HIPPOPOTOMONSTROSESQUIPPEDALIOPHOBIA
—The fear of long words
by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
On the first day of classes, I secretly beg
my students Don’t be afraid of me. I know
my last name on your semester schedule
is chopped off or probably misspelled—
or both. I can’t help it. I know the panic
of too many consonants rubbed up
against each other, no room for vowels
to fan some air into the room of a box
marked Instructor. You want something
to startle you? Try tapping the ball
of roots of a potted tomato plant
into your cupped hand one spring, only
to find a small black toad who kicks
and blinks his cold eye at you,
the sun, a gnat. Be afraid of the x-rays
for your teeth or lung. Pray for no
dark spots. You may have
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis:
coal lung. Be afraid of money spiders tiptoeing
across your face while you sleep on a sweet, fat couch.
But don’t be afraid of me, my last name, what language
I speak or what accent dulls itself on my molars.
I will tell jokes, help you see the gleam
of the beak of a mohawked cockatiel. I will
lecture on luminescent sweeps of ocean, full of tiny
dinoflagellates oozing green light when disturbed.
I promise dark gatherings of toadfish and comical shrimp
just when you think you are alone, hoping to stay somehow afloat.
Source: https://www.gwarlingo.com/2012/the-sunday-poem-aimee-nezhukumatathil/
Healing notes
Two years. Two full years of living without the sound of my little one pittering and pattering around the house. Without her smell. Without Layla. Without knowing she will bark in the morning out of desperation that her sleepy human won't walk her. I sit with the idea that my grief hasn't moved. Yet, I am able to be present with my love for her more and more each day. Does it ever stop hurting? Probably no. Do I ever stop loving her? Definitely no. Do the memories fade? Feels like.
What then is healing in this minefield? It makes no sense to me. I feel as much in grief today as I did two years ago. Crying at the drop of her name. I found solace in these words by Joan Didion that grief has no distance. My hope for you today is that you find some peace in these words.
In the version of grief we imagine, the model will be “healing.” A certain forward movement will prevail. The worst days will be the earliest days. We imagine that the moment to most severely test us will be the funeral, after which this hypothetical healing will take place. When we anticipate the funeral we wonder about failing to “get through it,” rise to the occasion, exhibit the “strength” that invariably gets mentioned as the correct response to death. We anticipate needing to steel ourselves the for the moment: will I be able to greet people, will I be able to leave the scene, will I be able even to get dressed that day? We have no way of knowing that this will not be the issue. We have no way of knowing that the funeral itself will be anodyne, a kind of narcotic regression in which we are wrapped in the care of others and the gravity and meaning of the occasion. Nor can we know ahead of the fact (and here lies the heart of the difference between grief as we imagine it and grief as it is) the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself.
How do you see grief? I think my anticipation of a certain response to her death is still shaping my next steps. But I guess this is my way of handling it and shifting from grief as I imagined it to accepting grief as it has been.
Food experiments
I have been craving to make some idli batter at home. I wanted to move away from rice flour, like I have been saying for a few newsletters now. This batter isn't perfect and I will be trying more changes to them as I keep making my batters at home.
Millet Idli
1 cup ragi flour
1 cup millet flour
1 cup curd (I used lactose free curd)
1-2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt.
Optional: One packet Eno
Mix the the flours, salt and baking soda together. Add one cup curd and mix it well. Add some water to get the idli batter consistency if you want.
Add the eno if you want? If you want to and are eating rice flour, do add half a cup of it. The starch from the flour makes the idlis softer.
Now put it aside overnight.
Next morning, I don't have an idli maker so I innovated. I took a large bowl and filled it with about one-two inches of water. Next, I oiled a vessel that is big enough. Then pour the batter in. Put the vessel inside the larger one and close them both (like a cooker). Slowly, watch the idli cook. It takes time so be patient. A trait I am learning only from cooking and baking.
After it is cooked to your satisfaction, cut it up into pieces and eat. You can make an upma like I did. Or eat the idlis with chutney. If you have the idli vessel then you can make the idlis in it.
Warning: The top layer takes long to cook. So use a knife to check if it is done. I absolutely loved it. With my leftover batter, I made dosas a few days later!
Happy cooking!
Dear you,
I hope you have some kindness in your life and you feel increasingly at
peace with the world around you. I am learning to keep alive the moments of bliss and joy,
even as the horrors of the world continue.
Love, kindness and warmth,
Nidsitis
'I’ve been circling for thousands of years and I still don’t know: Am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?' - Rainer Maria Rilke