Peculiar ratio

Today is the 19th anniversary of my mother's death. I was 19 when she died, and so this day for me marks a peculiar ratio: I have lived as long without my mother as I lived with her. Half of my life I've been someone with a mother, and half of my life without. 

Of course, it doesn't feel like two even halves: the last nineteen years have gone by much more quickly than my first nineteen years. As much as I feel permanently marked by that loss, it feels recent, too. I mean, it still sucks. I still feel a sharp tug of envy when I see other people, especially other women, with their mothers. 

Here's the thing: nobody is like your mother. Nobody replaces her. There is nobody you can cry in front of with the same abandon, nobody you can fight as hard with, nobody who comforts you in the same straightforward and simple way. Nobody who can call you mean things in Chinese with so much love. Nobody who knows exactly the right things to say and do when everyone in seventh grade except for you is invited to that one party. Nobody who gets how much you will treasure that hardbound anthology of Anne of Green Gables and how you are going to need some time curled up alone with it after you've carefully peeled away the wrapping paper.

And here are the things I wish my mother had lived to see: the garden in our backyard, especially our pomegranate tree. The food we eat, dishes so often inspired by her heritage, and the way Adam cooks it, with so much love and commitment that it can't be anything but delicious to the point of magic. The Internet as it stands today, oh my goodness, she would have hated it and then loved it, embraced its infinite possibility. Today's Pope. A woman candidate for president. 

Kamal, more than anything. Kamal, who told me once that he had talked to his grandma who died, but that what they discussed was a secret between the two of them. Kamal, who cries out in joy when I wear bright colors, just like she did. Kamal, who gives the songs of birds meanings like she did, whose big eyes I know she would have gladly drowned in. More than anything I wish she could see Kamal. More than anything I wish she could meet him, babysit him, scold me about feeding him cold things for breakfast sometimes, worry with me over his sniffles and bowels and drive me crazy correcting my parenting. 

I wish she had taken the RV trip across the country she always talked about. I wish she had traveled across Europe, seen the houses on Cape Cod, tried out yoga. I wish she'd seen how incredibly, improbably, ridiculously beautiful she was, instead of worrying about her weight. I wish she'd been able to hear how many times the word "radiant" was spoken as people remembered her after her death. 

She was radiant. Even when she was gaunt and yellow with illness, bent over the kitchen island in pain, she would look up when I walked in and smile at me, full of love, wanting to reassure me. That smile lit everything: our hushed house, the humid valley in which it sat, my path forward after she was gone. That smile! It was like all the light in the world, all the goodness that can exist, was coming through her. Remembering it now--thinking of what it must have taken, to muster that much good in the middle of the agony of failing to resign herself to the end of her life--I don't believe it will ever stop aching, right in the middle of my chest. I don't believe it should. 

Because what she did for me, my mother, by dying when I was nineteen years old, was show me how I should live the rest of my life. I was an asshole, like every nineteen-year-old. I was self-absorbed, obsessed with my stupid boyfriend, taking everything for granted. In the midst of watching my mother say a grindingly reluctant good-bye to her life, I drove way too fast all the time, like life wasn't a crazy precious beautiful gift that no one should squander. I argued with her, passionately, about everything, like we were just any teenage girl and her mother and not also a primary caregiver and a dying woman who weighed maybe eighty pounds. 

But also, I loved her. After a lifetime of dieting together, I learned to cook things rich with cream and butter and eggs, anything that might tempt her appetite and help her to gain a little weight. I stroked her hair when she threw up, woke up at night to walk her to the bathroom, sat in the doctor's offices with her and got angry on her behalf when she needed me to. I stayed calm for her until I thought I couldn't, and then I found even more calm somewhere, and more and more as the weeks wore on, drawing from a well far deeper than I'd realized existed. I learned what I was capable of, and what I could grow into, if I let myself, if I could work continuously to be honest with myself about my own ego and my own failings. 

She asked me--she made me promise--to remember her before her illness, not during it. She said her own mother had asked for the same promise. And I promised. And I think I'm keeping the promise, because I remember, with love and laughter, more about her before her illness than during it. 

I remember her following homeless people in order to give them food. I remember her telling me she'd seen a mother cat and kittens in the parking lot down the street, and taking me with her to leave an odorous mixture of milk and tuna fish under the hedges there. I remember how hard she laughed with her sisters, how much she loved Oprah, how she never ever went anywhere without lipstick on. I remember shopping with her--to this day, I've never had more fun shopping with anyone. She and I could spend ten hours in a row at a mall, stopping for lunch, then for coffee and pastries, before heading home with our purchases and throwing a "fashion show" for my bemused dad. (Honestly, if my mother were still alive, I'm not sure I would have become the champion of ethical fashion that I try to be--because it was just too much fun, buying off-the-rack stuff with her.) I remember having my heart broken by mean girls at school and thinking--if I can just wait to cry until I get home to Mom, it will be okay. It will be okay once I'm crying with Mom. 

I have other people I cry with now. I am lucky in love, in every avenue of my life--my partner, my sister, my friends, my parents-in-law, my precious and spectacular son. I love them and they love me, and I am grateful for all the tears of mine they've absorbed. I don't mean to diminish that gratitude at all by saying this: it's not the same. I miss my mother. I miss her every day. I want her back. I want to be two grown-up women together, reminiscing, laughing. I want to have learned to fight with her in a smart and productive way, or at least to fight and then make up over coffee and pastries. I want to call her the next time I'm sad and have her help me feel better. I want her to come visit me, to celebrate with me the beautiful life I've landed in, and I want to take her shopping. 

If the beliefs my mother held sacred are true, then I will see her again one day. If they are not true, then there is this: I was the daughter of a woman who loved me. I was a daughter who loved my mother, who was gifted the ultimate opportunity to show her that love: to care for her in her last days. There is the love we had for each other, which, no matter how fiercely we could disagree, endures still. There is my sunshine of a child, whose smile is the first I've seen as bright as hers. There is my absolute commitment to living as fully as possible, to tasting every sweetness and exclaiming over every beauty, to taking the roadtrips and singing along to the radio, to dancing in the kitchen and wearing the pretty dresses, because it's the best possible way I can think to celebrate her memory. 

Refrigerator bread-and-butter pickles

[What I had for breakfast today: the last of the lamb curry congee with sautéed collards, fermented sriracha, and a fried egg.]

It still feels like late summer here, which means there are cucumbers everywhere. Cucumbers are currently Kamal's favorite food; he eats them sliced and plain, eschewing any salt or spice or dip. He's a cucumber purist. These sweet, mildly spicy bread-and-butter pickles, though, are one of the few ways he'll gladly accept adulterated cucumbers.

We love this recipe for the same reasons you will: it's easy, it's fast, it doesn't require major processing or any canning or even heat. All you need for tools are a good knife, a big jar, and your refrigerator--although a food processor certainly speeds things up.

Adam's mom emailed me this recipe in 2011, and we've made it every year since. It was created by family friend Dave, who came and visited us this past April and got along swimmingly with Kamal.

You can certainly scale the recipe up or down depending on how many cucumbers you've got.

Dave's Refrigerator B & B Pickles

Place in a large jar:

6 cups thinly sliced cucumbers (for these and the onions, Adam used the slicing mechanism on the food processor, set to a 2mm slice) 

1 cup thinly sliced onions 

1 pepper, sliced (optional; Adam put a couple of cayennes in our most recent batch)  

For the brine, in a separate container, mix together:

1 1/2 cups sugar

1  cup white vinegar (Adam used our homemade apple scrap vinegar here, but we've used white vinegar too. Either works deliciously.)

1 tablespoon salt

1/4 teaspoon celery seed

1 teaspoon mustard seed

1/8 teaspoon turmeric

Pour this brine over cucumbers, onions and pepper(s) in jar. Tightly shut lid and put jar in refrigerator. Pickles will be ready to eat in a week, maybe a little less, and in the fridge will keep for a month or two or three--or possibly longer; we just always eat them before that. 

What's doing in the garden today

[What I had for breakfast today: lamb curry congee with sautéed collards, fermented sriracha and a scrambled egg.] 

 Back in June, Kamal planted the seeds for the pumpkin patch he wanted. 

Here's that pumpkin patch (along with some melon and squash plants) today. 

Adam built these neat house-shaped trellises for the happy tomato plants to climb. They make nice shady seating areas (and awesome hide-and-seek territory) . 

These sunflowers! 

The pomegranate tree working overtime and ahead of schedule:

Purple tree collards (same ones I ate for breakfast!) and bright borage:

The nasturtiums are recovered enough from Toby napping on them to resume growing up through this ladder. 

Two kinds of very orderly beets in the foreground; monster boysenberry bramble and giant chartreuse mustard greens in the background. 

Oh, and yeah. So many tomatoes. 

And peppers! So many peppers.

Oh, and holler at us if you need a little rosemary. 

Or bay leaves. 

There's cucumbers and bittermelon and kale and basil and a whole bunch of other stuff I didn't get photos of today. This is a great time of year in the garden!

Lamb curry congee

[What I had for breakfast today: THIS. Read on for the recipe!]

So, you guys, Adam is pretty ridiculous. I mean, we both have our flaws, of course, and we fight and make up and hold grudges and let things go like normal married people. But just the quantity of urban homesteading he's able to accomplish while working and parenting--I live with the guy, and I don't understand how he does it. 

(Here's a link to an article about Adam and all the great cooking he does!)

This morning when I woke up, the Instant Pot was simmering away and smelling delicious. Adam dished me up a bowl of this incredible curried lamb congee, rich with his homemade chicken stock, and then garnished it with a fresh tomato (which he grew), fermented mustard greens (also homegrown, and which he pickled), and homemade yogurt (yup). As I eat it, and write this, he's mixing up some sandwich bread dough. While it cooked, he was kneading bagel dough. This guy.

I asked Adam if I could share the recipe here, and he said, "Sure, but I just threw a bunch of stuff into the Instant Pot." Here's what further inquiry revealed; do keep in mind all quantities are very approximate.
 

Lamb Curry Congee

Lamb necks, about a pound

One and a half cups of jasmine rice, washed

8 cups of chicken stock, ideally homemade, plus about 2 cups of water

About three inches of ginger, unpeeled, scrubbed and sliced*
 
About 3 tablespoons of the tikka masala from Savory Spice 

One small onion, sliced

Four cloves of garlic, sliced

One cayenne pepper, sliced 

*If you aren't sure that your ginger is organic, peel it!

Put everything in your Instant Pot or pressure cooker, and cook for 45 minutes at high pressure. If you don't have a pressure cooker, you can do this in a heavy pot on the stovetop or in the oven, too--but you'll want to let it simmer for a few hours. 

Garnish with fresh tomatoes and pickled mustard greens and yogurt. (Honestly, I think any greens would be delicious here, as would cucumbers, hard-boiled eggs, minced herbs, toasted fennel seeds...)

Hair

[What I had for breakfast today: egg and rice and fermented greens, again. What I had for breakfast yesterday: nothing, because regret. Read on for an explanation.]

In the winter of 2007, while I was in my third year of graduate school, still living in New York and had just started dating Adam, I was both in need of a haircut and low on funds for holiday gifts. I saw an ad on Craigslist offering sixty dollars in exchange for six inches of hair, and I thought, Perfect! I'll get a haircut AND money to buy presents!

This is a thing normal people do, right? I mean, go to the apartment of a random Craigslist poster and let him do things to your head with sharp pointy things. You've done that, right? 

No. You have not, because you are smarter than I was then. To keep the story short, I left the random Craigslist guy's apartment with three twenties in my coat pocket, thoroughly creeped out, and with about a full foot length's less hair than I went in with. I'd needed the haircut because my hair was down to my waist, but I walked out with hair above my shoulders. And I wept, walking along the cold, crowded Garment District streets. I called my sister, and I called Adam, and I called a bunch of friends, and everyone was very nice and said great things like "it'll grow back so fast!" and "you look great no matter what!" and "I know a stylist that'll make you happy to have short hair!" and all the kind things that people should say when you have a terrible haircut. 

But none of it soothed me. For weeks, I cringed every time I looked in the mirror. I woke up and went to sleep soaked in remorse. The cut was on my mind at work, in class, out with friends. I talked about my hair endlessly, obnoxiously. I can't believe the people that were my friends back that are still my friends today. I mean I was the worst. 

And through it all, I kept asking myself (and the extraordinarily tolerant people all around me) why I was so bothered. I was an assistant intern at my school clinic by this point, which means I'd cared for people who'd been in horrible car accidents, were struggling through cancer treatments, had been abused by the people they trusted most. There was no reason a botched haircut should rate so highly on my list of troubles. 

And meanwhile, why was I so vain? Didn't I believe people shouldn't be judged on their appearances? Couldn't I make myself feel okay about this one part of my body not looking the way I thought it should look? 

I thought a lot about why my hair mattered so much to me. I wondered if it was about cultural identity. About sexual freedom. About claiming my own appearance as a way to feel more control over my life. I still don't have a good answer, other than maybe I am just really vain.

So then two nights ago, I cut Kamal's hair. I just wanted to trim his bangs a little, get them out of his eyes, so that he didn't have to keep looking up at me from underneath them. 

Here's where we ended up. 

I don't know how I managed to take a good two inches of hair off when I'd meant to cut only a quarter of an inch. I don't know what happened. I do know that the minute I realized what I'd done, my stomach dropped and my palms sweated, just like they did after random Craigslist guy finally handed me a mirror. 

I smiled at Kamal and told him how nice it was to see his lovely face. Meanwhile, my body was having a full-blown freakout. No matter how many times I told myself "it's just hair, it'll grow back, he's cute no matter what, don't teach him that appearance is important," I felt--and I'm embarrassed to tell you that this is not hyperbole--devastated. I felt panicked, bereft, and regretful to the point of pain. My heart raced, my guts roiled, my skin grew clammy. 

And I knew, intellectually, that a lot of kids have had and survived a dreadful Mom-haircut. But I couldn't stop myself from spinning out about it, to the point I had trouble both sleeping and eating--which is beyond silly, I realize. My reaction was more appropriate to something like having accidentally harmed Kamal, in a real and serious way. I know families all over the world, and in my own neighborhood, are facing actual problems, life-threatening problems. I know a haircut on a four-year-old is not an actual problem and doesn't even deserve comparison to the kinds of things children are called to confront in our time. And yet, my emotions were doing their own thing, wreaking havoc all over my body. 

So what is it about hair? Why does it incite such strong feelings? I know I'm not alone here--I know other parents have wept over their children's hair too, and I know other grownups have had haircuts they grievously regretted. But it's a regenerating tissue. It grows back, relatively quickly, compared to the way the rest of our body grows. 

I have so many things to be grateful for. So many! That Kamal is healthy and happy (and could not care less what his hair looks like, because he's FOUR), that Adam is everything Adam is, that the garden is full to bursting of food and flowers. All those things, and a million more. And Kamal's funny bangs do not change any of those things. But I still feel something stronger than chagrin when I look at photos of his long bangs, and then I feel silly for feeling it, and, well, hopefully I'll be able to start feeling more logically in the weeks before his bangs grow back out.

Mars

We've been hearing a lot of "no" lately. 

[What I had for breakfast today: an egg, jasmine rice, and fermented mustard greens.]

A few nights ago, cuddling before his bedtime, Kamal announced, "Mama, neighbors are the people who live rightnext to each other." He placed his palms flat against each other to illustrate. "So I'm going to be your neighbor when I'm all grown up. And also, I will call you a lot, because I will have my own phone. And also, I will have a swimming pool that covers the sidewalks and the roads so we can swim to each other's houses." 

This was especially nice given that over the last couple of weeks, Kamal's been talking about how he wants to live on Mars when he grows up. I'm not sure he understands how far away Mars is (I mean, I'm not sure I understand how far Mars is) but he knows it's far; he knows you need a rocket ship to get there. I've been consistently clear with him that I support him living wherever he decides he can make the happiest life for himself, even if I have to get really comfortable with space travel to visit him.

Lately Kamal looks for buttons to push, for ways to get a reaction from me. I figure it's part of being the age he is, exploring boundaries, practicing behaviors, seeing what makes the people around you act the way they do. Right now, he's pretty focused on practicing things that might make Mama angry.

In general, it's pretty difficult for Kamal to make me angry. Widespread social injustice makes me angry. Systemic racism, and the denial of systemic racism, make me angry. The fact of food insecurity juxtaposed with the degree of food waste makes me angry.

Kamal considering a move to Mars, though? That doesn't make me angry. Kamal's experimentation with "bad" words--all learned from me in times when someone cuts us off in a dangerous way in traffic or when I've stubbed my toe--doesn't make me angry, though when he says "I hate that idea" or "I will shoot you with a gun" I always wince. (That's just too much ugliness coming out of such a perfect little mouth, and I'm not ready to have the talk with Kamal about why, as a brown boy, there is no real safe space for him to even in jest threaten anyone with a gun; or to define for him what "hate" really means, and how it shrinks your perspective until you're living in a claustrophobically small, angry world.)

One thing Kamal does that consistently makes me angry--so, you know, he makes a point of doing it on the regular--is refusing to get ready for preschool in the mornings. We're late all. the. time, and it is kind of heartbreaking because--here's the thing--he loves his preschool, and he loves their morning rituals there, and I don't want him to miss a thing he loves or feel out of the groove in any way. So I make a real point of trying to manage our time in the mornings: laying out clothes, following routines, frequently looking up towards the clock. No matter how much I prep and plan, though, there's always a moment where he runs across the yard, cackling gleefully, while I try put on his sunscreen, or decides he has to finish a jigsaw puzzle that has a million pieces and half of them are somewhere in the couch cushions, or, you know, he has to poop and that will take forty-five minutes.

This morning, half an hour after preschool started, I was trying to get Kamal dressed. He laughed in my face, peeled off the pair of underwear I'd just managed to put on him, and tore around the house singing and naked and very, very late for school. I stood there, torn between shouting and crying, holding a small, woefully uninhabited t-shirt in my hands. I thought, "It's a good thing I don't have any patients scheduled until the late morning." And then Kamal came back and plunked down on the floor and started paging through a book.

"Kiddo. I've got something to tell you. Come here."

And he looked up at me with his face so open. I can't say I knew what I was going to talk to him about, specifically--I was just mad and trying to find a thing to say that would make this never happen again. But it was clear from his face he didn't have any expectation that I would scold or lecture him. He was just interested and curious about whatever might happen next. 

I picked him up, all forty naked, wiggly pounds, and gathered together his long brown limbs so his body was collected close against my body and we were eye to eye. I took a deep breath, and said, "I just want you to know something. I have done a lot of different things in my life, a lot of really fun things. I have been really, really happy a lot of times. But I've never been as happy as I've been since you were born. Does that make sense? You make me as happy as I've ever been. You are the happiest thing of all the happy things in my life."

He watched my face while I talked. He studied my lips as they moved, and his hands reached up to brush my eyelashes, and then cup my cheeks.

"Mama," he said, "can I ask you one thing?"

"Of course, baby. What is it?"

"Can you do that thing you do with your face where your mouth makes funny noises?"

Okay, so I don't know how much of that got through. But, you know, there is a lot to get angry about when you're raising a little person. And then there's a lot to celebrate. Kamal drives us crazy flipping light switches on and off and playing with dimmers and volume knobs and every reachable lever. It's annoying, it runs up our electric bill, and--particularly when he stacks books and climbs furniture to reach switches--it can be dangerous. But it's also the manifestation of his fascination with the way things work, and that kind of interest is what makes people want to learn. And so that's something to celebrate.

And he drags his feet getting ready for school not because he doesn't love school, but because he loves being home. He loves his house, his room, his stuff. He loves hanging out with me and with Adam. And that is something to celebrate.

And today, the moment we took, face to face, standing still together as the morning minutes rushed headlong around us in all their chaos; the gift of the opportunity to tell him the only really true thing in that moment; the way the clutter of all our made-up deadlines and schedules and paper promises fell away from the clean lines drawn from love: that right there is something to celebrate, too. 

Guest post on Thrive Center's blog!

[What I had for breakfast today: an egg and rice, topped with Adam's pickled mustard greens, fresh cucumber kimchi.]

Here in Santa Rosa, we're incredibly lucky to have Thrive Center for Birth and Family Wellness as a resource for expectant mamas and their families. Thrive opened after Kamal's birth, but I know that the kind of care I received from our wonderful midwife, Colette Mercier, shaped our whole parenting experience--indeed, our whole family--for the better. I wish every birth were as embraced and supported as Kamal's. Thrive, and organizations like it, empower a greater number of families to receive the kind of care and support our family was so lucky to have. I love being able to refer patients to such a warm, welcoming, safe and balanced environment for such an important moment. 
 

Thrive was kind enough to invite me to write a guest post on their blog. Here it is--read up, check out Thrive's wonderful services, and send grateful thoughts to midwives everywhere today. 

On turning an unethical garment into an ethical one

[What I had for breakfast today: an egg fried in coconut oil, jasmine rice, and Adam's pickled mustard greens. Also, Kamal fed me a couple of his grapes, only the ones he thought were "too squishy."]

The tank top I'm wearing here is kind of a model ethical purchase. I bought it recently from Rambler's Way, a company with a robust statement on ethics easily accessed on their website. It's a basic, highly usable piece manufactured with ethical labor methods from sustainable materials harvested from well-treated animals. I wear it all the time. (I would wear the grey one I bought along with it almost as much, except I tragically put it in the dryer and it shrank.)

The red skirt, on the other hand? I don't know where it was made. I don't know who made it, or how they were treated, but based on the price of the skirt--six dollars--I imagine it wasn't produced in the kindest or most sustainable way.  

I bought the red skirt maybe twelve or so years ago, before I thought about the impact my purchases could have on other human beings. It hung on a pegboard at a tiny, crowded shop, more of a street stall, in the Garment District in Manhattan, and I passed it on my way to and from work for a week or so. 

At the time six dollars wasn't an insignificant amount for me to spend on a skirt, so I gave it a lot of thought before making the purchase. But I wasn't thinking about the people who made the skirt, or the circumstances under which they worked, or the way the materials were sourced. I was thinking about covering my rent and electricity bill and still being able to buy groceries. But I was also looking for a new job, and I needed something I could interview in. 

So now, twelve years later, a whole different life later, I am still wearing the skirt. Because I like it, but also because it means I'm not buying another red skirt. Whatever resources went into making this garment, I imagine its creation cost the world more than six dollars, in environmental damage and possibly in human suffering. I know wearing this one skirt forever isn't going to save the world, or make up for the piles of fast fashion I've purchased in my lifetime. But holding on to a garment, instead of treating it like it's disposable, is my way today of showing that I value the resources and the labor that went into it. More importantly, it is my way of manifesting my respect for the people that made this skirt, for their time and effort, and my hopes that their lives are good ones despite the carelessness and thoughtlessness I and so many others have shown them by buying and discarding hundreds, thousands, millions of cheap garments. 

As I've written about here before, there are a lot of ways to make sure the clothes you wear are manifestations of the kindness and empathy you want to put into the world. Buy things secondhand, buy things made by companies who make ethics a priority, and buy things that you will wear for a long time and that will thereby help you buy fewer things. If you identify something in your closet that you suspect was not produced ethically, just don't buy another like it. Instead, wear the beejesus out of it, or give it to somebody who will. Don't continue the cycle of consumption and overt waste in the name of profit, of taking for granted all the human lives that are out of your sight, of failing to share equally the resources that belong to everyone on this planet. Sometimes you can make even more of a difference by doing even less. 

(Oh, and the lipstick--actually all the makeup!--in the photo is by Honeybee Gardens, which is a makeup company I'm newly devoted to. In addition to their products being cruelty-free, organic and reviewed favorably by the Environmental Working Group, they do this great thing I wish all cosmetic companies did: they sell tiny little samples of their lipsticks, mineral foundation and eyeshadows, enough for a few uses, so you can try a bunch of colors before buying full-size.

For someone like me, who has trouble finding makeup that works with my skin--in general, the cosmetic industry is still working on recognizing the fact that people of color exist--this saves so much money, waste, and angst. I tried six different shades of Honeybee Gardens foundation before finding one I liked. With any other cosmetics company, that would have been I-don't-know-how-many-dollars and at least five bulky plastic compacts and their corresponding powder puffs in the landfill. With Honeybee Gardens, I just picked the one I liked best, threw away some tiny plastic baggies, and was happy. I also tried eight lipsticks and four eyeshadows, saving, again, tons of money and a lot of non-renewable trash. All this cost me like nine dollars, because each sample is FIFTY CENTS. Such a good idea. And their compacts are refillable, and they use recycled materials where possible, and the stuff in their formulas is actually healthy for your skin, so--win win win, all over the place.)  

Litmus

Proof that I'm an optimist: the size of the bowl I carried out to the boysenberry patch.  

On choosing sides

Ask Kamal what his favorite fruit is, and he'll tell you: "Fruit salad." Ask him about his favorite color, and he'll say, "Rainbow!" 

There's an elusive concept that this almost-four-year-old understands that many of us grownups don't: inclusiveness. And I think about that a lot lately, because lately it feels like every conversation I have revolves around choosing sides. 

We're a pretty sports-oriented country, I know. I see my friends who love their teams dress up and cheer, pray, celebrate wins, grieve losses. I think it's fun for them. (I hope it is. From the outside, looking in as someone who isn't interested in sports, it looks kind of stressful.) And then, you know, we're in an election year, and for better or worse, we have to choose a side there (and not choosing is still a choice--there's no way around choosing). And that brings up everyone's differences of opinion, and it seems like everyone picks a team to root for, and then we feel compelled to stand and shout as loudly and meanly as possible at the other team. 

So here's what I want us to remember: We don't have to choose sides. I mean, yes, we need to vote for a candidate in November, but we can remember that essentially, we all want the same things: safety for our families, the right to pursue happiness, clean water and food security, having enough of the material things we need and maybe a little extra. We all want all those things, and one of the incredible things about living in the United States is that there actually is enough to go around, if we can accept that we all have the same needs and desires.  We can remember that the people with whom we disagree are still people, and hope they feel the same way about us. There is no trophy that only one team gets to take home. There's no pie that you won't get a piece of because somebody else does.

There's no joy in sitting at an eight-course, wine-paired dinner while a hungry person begs for a dollar to buy food outside the window. There is so much joy in sharing a sandwich. There is no growth that comes from trying to convince yourself that the person sleeping on the street deserves his concrete bed and you deserve your safe and warm memory-foam mattress. There is immense growth in finding every scrap of empathy you can muster for every living person, every one of them someone's child, and trying to do what little things you can to work towards a world where everyone has a roof over their head.  There's no peace that comes from teaching your child that there's such a thing as "us" and "them," and there's real potential for real peace-- peace of mind, world peace, the deep and centered peace that is truly every single heart's desire--inherent in teaching our children that we are all here riding the same boat. 

All the lines on maps, all the borders and tolls and badges and memberships--those are all things we made up. All the little signals we give each other to announce what team we're on-- hairstyles and clothes and tattoos, gadgets and vehicles and zip codes, the stuff in our grocery baskets, the music on our players, the ingredients in our sunscreen--none of those things actually possess nearly as much meaning as we ascribe to them. None of them should divide us from one another. We are not warring factions, tribes facing off across a battlefield. We are not Americans or Syrians. We are not Democrats or Republicans. We are not even women or men. We are people, trying our best, every last one of us, and we might as well be trying together. 

Because otherwise, we're just getting in our own way. In football--and I don't really get football, so this should be interesting--the idea is basically to stop the other team from getting from one side of the field to the other with the ball, right? So one team works really hard to get in the other's way. That's fine. That's a game.

But here, in real life, where we all live and work and parent and love, we are all trying to go the same way--from birth to death without too much pain, with as much joy as we can find, with enough to eat and drink, with the people we love beside us. We're all going that way. Blocking anyone from the goal of a good, safe, healthy, realized life is blocking all of us. 

I'm asking all my fellow American voters to remember this in these loud and prickly months approaching this big, important election. Remember that anyone trying to divide us into factions, anyone using divisiveness or fear of other human beings as the central point of a campaign, does not have your best interests at heart, no matter who you are. And I'm asking everyone to remember this when you read the words "Black Lives Matter," because black lives do matter, and saying that isn't taking sides in any way against people who aren't black; rather, it's a critical and truthful assertion at a point in history where there have been too many assertions to the contrary.

My favorite color is red. My favorite fruit is mango. But my wise and unimpeachable child doesn't feel the need to have a favorite anything.  The world is big and full of possibility, of beautiful things in every color of the rainbow and more incredible flavors than can fit in your own bowl. There's nothing to disown, and so much to claim. Each one of us is all of us, on the same team, working shoulder to shoulder in the same row.  

Eating for healthy skin

[What I had for breakfast today: An egg, cheese and potato burrito at Oliver's, where we go sometimes before preschool when we're celebrating something. Kamal loves it because of the salad bar there--he gets a box full of all kinds of fruit, and he can pick out exactly which fruits he wants. Fruit salad is one of his all-time favorite things! Today we were celebrating Kamal's decision to never ever again wear a diaper or a pull-up. Wish us luck!]

Last week for dinner, Adam made this absolutely fantastic recipe from Serious Eats. Kenji never steers us wrong! 

And it got me thinking about patients who come to me for dermatological challenges, and the recommendations I make for topical skin care. Those usually revolve around minimizing the number of ingredients in your skin care regimen (for me, just sweet almond oil mixed with rose hip oil is the best kind of night cream, and straight honey, sometimes mixed with leftover coffee grounds, is a spectacular morning face wash or mask). That being said, I'm pretty sure that nothing I put on my skin helps it stay healthy as much as what I put in my belly. 

One of the nice side effects of having healthy skin is that it's also usually pretty and glowy skin. So eat good things for the health of your skin--it is, after all, the most important part of your immune system and the barrier between all your inner workings and the rest of the world--and let the outer loveliness just be a happy co-occurence. In addition to salmon and avocado, both featured in the above recipe and both absolutely terrific for keeping your skin nourished and resilient, here's a list of easy things to eat and drink for hale, healthy and happy skin. 

1) Water. This one I probably don't even have to tell you, but it's so critical I can't leave it off the list. Is your skin looking dull? Water! Is it dry and flaky? Probably you should drink more water. Acne? Try drinking more water. 

Seriously, your skin wants to be healthy, intact, and comfortable, and it can't be that without adequate hydration. This is your first go-to for any skin ailments. But if you're already drinking enough water (and by enough, I mean around a gallon a day for active people and half a gallon or so for everyone else) and your skin still isn't happy, move on down the list. 

2) Mugicha (a.k.a. maicha, a.k.a. boricha, a.k.a. roasted barley tea). This stuff, holy smokes. The list of its benefits is miles long: it helps prevent tooth decay and heart disease, it fixes water retention, it soothes anxiety, it helps you sleep better, it can lower blood viscosity (which, among other things, helps to maintain a healthy blood pressure), it can potentially help clear chronically congested sinuses and--here's why I'm listing it here--it clears up acne like nobody's business. One more benefit? It's freaking delicious. 

You can buy barley tea bags, but don't do that because it's so incredibly easy to make your own from scratch. Here's what you do: go to your local grocery store, ideally one that has a bulk foods section, and buy a bunch of raw organic barley. Place about half a cup of it in a heavy skillet, turn the heat on, and roast the barley for two or three minutes, stirring frequently, until it's golden-brown and gives off a nutty fragrance. Then place that half a cup of roasted barley in a pot with about 8 cups of water, bring to a boil, simmer for 20 minutes, strain, and drink either warm, at room temperature, or cold. That's it!

3) Bittermelon. Yes, I talk about bittermelon all. the. time. Love it or hate it, it makes your skin clear, bright and beautiful. You can read all about it here.

4) Lots and lots of fruits and vegetables in every possible color. So...you've probably read about bone broth, and how when made properly, it's full of gelatin that, among other things, helps put collagen back in your skin for all kinds of skin firmness, integrity and resilience? And if you go a little further down that rabbit hole, you'll find that the research supporting that particular claim is pretty heavily disputed. (Note: this doesn't mean that bone broth doesn't put collagen back into your skin--it just means that  there isn't a lot of conclusive proof that it does. No matter what, bone broth has other health benefits that make it a worthwhile addition to your diet--but this post is about healthy skin.)

BUT. You know what nobody disputes? The fact that eating a wide variety of fruits and vegetables means your diet is rich in vitamins C and A, as well as lycopene and antioxidants--all of which help your skin stay healthy and protected by giving your body the materials it needs to produce more collagen and scavenge free radicals. Your mom was right--eat your fruits and vegetables. Eat at least a couple of servings of them with every meal, and watch yourself start glowing with health.

5) Things that make you feel good. You can read up a little right here on what I mean by "feel good."  But in short: nothing heals you, nourishes you, or looks as good on you as joy.   
 

When ethical fashion goes to a party

I found this dress at a thrift store a few weeks ago, made by a retailer that is widely known for its unethical practices. Because of these practices, I wouldn't buy one of their pieces new, but buying it at the thrift store meant that my purchase dollars went to a charity in my community instead of to line of the pockets of the retailer's executives--so it felt like a small, good victory.

These boots came from a local neighborhood block sale this weekend--they're purple platform boots. I love them and they make me really tall! And last year, I hosted a clothing swap at my house and one of my favorite finds there were these silver drop earrings.  

All together, this outfit cost me a grand total of $7--and keeping it all secondhand meant that these pieces stayed out of the landfill and didn't consume additional resources to make. And every one of those seven dollars stayed in my local community. Even small purchases make a difference when you're choosing them intentionally and with other people in mind. 

So, your question for the week: What can you buy--or not buy--that'll change the world for the better? 

Kindness in action

[What I had for breakfast today: steamed jasmine rice, a fresh egg, pickled mustard greens and daikon-and-cabbage kimchi.] 

These last few weeks, we've all been walking around wounded. You, and me, and everyone. There's more hurt and loss in the news than feels bearable, even shared across all of our shoulders. 

Following all the hurt and loss in the news, there's anger. All over social media, in the comments section of every news piece, there's anger.  It's understandable; there is a lot to be angry about. But what I'm asking all of us to do today is think about what we can do to help carry our shared burden, and to avoid adding weight to it. We're all hurting, all in the same boat, even though it seems like we are shouting across lines that we made up--lines named things like "religion" or "nationality" or "political party" or "sexuality" or "race."  Everyone knows what it's like to love and be loved. Nobody wants to live in a state of fear. We're all here together. 

We can throw blame at each other all day long, but that doesn't help us move forward. What helps us move forward is kindness. What helps us heal is letting all of us heal; reaching our hands in love towards the stricken among us, right now. I don't need to list for you who the stricken among us are: they are all of us. Instead of judging anyone; instead of trying to wound someone in the hopes it makes you hurt less (it won't); instead of blaming or othering or fighting: let's ease this collective burden with kindness. Check in with your friends. Cultivate empathy in unexpected places, because I promise, empathy changes minds more effectively than rage. 

Anyway. Today is the anniversary of one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for me, and for Kamal. Here's the story of that. It's not the kind of story that makes the news, and it's not intended to ease any of the grief springing from recent events. It is intended to inspire us all towards acts of kindness that we might not have considered, and to remind us that there are an infinite number of ways to be kind, and mainly it is intended to try to thank my amazing friend Sally. 

A little over a year ago, Kamal and I were at the West End Farmer's Market, and a nice lady gave Kamal a heart-shaped mylar balloon. He was overjoyed, alight, in love. He held his balloon and admired it, and then the string slipped out of his hand. It took him a minute to understand what was happening, and when he did, I watched my child's heart break. 

He cried and cried and cried. Later, soothed by many hugs and kisses and a cookie from the Criminal Baking Company and a bit of a bike ride, he sat on our front porch, processing, looking just grievously discouraged.

Later, drifting off to a nap in my arms, he murmured, "I know. I'll just get some wings like a bird and flap them and then fly up to find my shiny red heart balloon." And then he fell asleep, and I cried, so sad for him, so scared about whether my own heart could take all the heartbreak that I know is in store for him, because he's human, and we all have to face our share of heartbreak. 

I posted about it all on Facebook, and got some lovely sympathetic messages from my lovely friends, which helped me so much. And then my friend Sally messaged me asking for my mailing address, which I gave her without thinking much about it.

AND THEN, a few days later, a box came in the mail with Kamal's name on it. And there was a note in it. And, well, pictures are better here than words. 

Will you look at his face? Look how healed he was by this act of kindness. He kept saying "They really wanted to find me! They came all the way to my HOUSE!" This was Sally, who, by the way, has five kids of her own (FIVE KIDS YOU GUYS) and still found the time and energy to bless my one child with this much love. This was a friend stepping up in an amazing, creative, unexpected way. This is the standard of friendship, of community, by which I want to measure myself. This was love, manifested in a real and strong and unbelievably healing way. This is the kind of miracle that we humans are able to work--reaching out, listening, giving with kindness, with clarity, and with specific intention. My friend Sally, you guys. My friend who I didn't know well in high school but who, from eight hundred miles away and via the Internet, has generously shared with me her professional counsel as an accomplished lactation consultant, and her gentle support and validation in all kinds of parenting dilemmas--my friend who returned to my child his lost heart. 

There aren't words enough to thank someone for this, but: thank you, Sally. This was a beautiful and spectacular gift. This was above and beyond. This is how we heal, from little wounds and big ones--kind thoughts turned into kind actions. Because we're fragile humans, there will never be a shortage of wounds in our world. But we can make it easier for each other. Let's make it easier for each other, friends, every chance we get. 

How to confirm your fashion is ethical

[What I had for breakfast today: rice, an egg, roast chicken, pickled mustard greens and kimchi--thank goodness for Adam's pickling prowess!]

Remember when I wrote this post, about how important it is to make ethical clothing choices? I thought I'd try and make it as easy as possible, if you're interested, by adding here some letters you can just copy and paste and edit to suit your needs. 

I learned about Ibex recently, in part of my campaign to wear more merino. You guys, merino is awesome: it wicks, it feels nice, and it's sustainable. I liked so much of the stuff on their website, but I couldn't find any information on their ethical practices. So I wrote this letter: 

“Hi!

The products on your site are so lovely, and I’m a huge fan of merino wool for daily wear, dress-up wear, and exercise gear! Before making a purchase, though, I’d like to have some information about the way your wool and labor are sourced. Can you share with me anything about the standard of treatment for your textile workers and also for your sheep? Thanks!”

And then I got this GREAT response: 

“Hi there,
Thank you for your interest and concern. We are happy to share this info with you.
The majority of our sheep are in New Zealand where they are free to range on hundreds (or thousands) of acres - usually only returning to the farm to lamb or to be sheared. The shepherds make sure they have adequate water, shelter, and medical attention. No Ibex sheep is put through mulesing, which is incredibly cruel. There is a certification called Zcue - I have attached a link so you may read about that as well.

http://www.zqmerino.com/home/zq-merino/

Ibex also visits the factories and facilities that make the clothing, making sure they are held to the utmost standards. We take great measures to be sustainable, ecological, and environmentally friendly.”

Which was exactly, exactly what I needed to hear, and right now I am wearing an Ibex Balance Bralette, and I am so happy about it. 

Here's another note I sent, to the clothing company Joah Brown, after buying a shirt at a http://oohlaloft.com/: 

“ Hi! I really like the clothes on your site. I just purchased one of your shirts at Ooh La Loft in Santa Rosa, and it’s the softest garment I have ever felt. I want to live in it!

However, I can’t find any information on how you source your fabrics, what your labor standards look like, or what your sustainability practices are. Before I make a purchase, I try to make sure that the clothes I buy are ethically produced. Could you reply with some of that information? Thanks so much.”

Here's the response I received: 
 

“Hi Lorelle,

Ooh La Loft is a great account for us...I am happy you found us.

I hear you on the ethically produced part for sure. All of our garments are sourced and produced in Los Angeles.”

Since labor practices are regulated in this country, I feel okay about this, even if it's less specific than the response I got from Ibex. I'm totally still wearing my super-soft Joah Brown t-shirt. (And I'm stalking the Ibex site kind of obsessively .) 

The absolute best way to dress in a way that follows your conscience is, of course, to purchase secondhand clothing--clothing that doesn't require additional resources to get to your closet. If you are going to purchase clothing new, though, it makes sense to buy things that will last a long time, both in terms of durability and in terms of style; to buy from companies that have a stated ethical and sustainability approach (like Rambler's Way, American Apparel, Everlane, and more and more every day!); and, when in doubt, write your letter--or just copy mine!--and make sure you get the answers you need.

ps: i'm not linked with any of these companies in any way except i wear their clothes sometimes--but i'm not getting, like, a kickback or whatever for posting about them! if that is ever the case, i promise to tell you. in the meantime, let me help you help the world by wearing beautiful things that are gentle on our environment and the people who live in it. 

How to gnocchi

 [What I had for breakfast this morning: Jasmine rice, a fresh egg, a big pile of beautiful frilly mustard greens, and kimchi.]

You know what's way less daunting to make than potato gnocchi, and yet equally impressive? Ricotta gnocchi! 

And you know what makes those ricotta gnocchi even more impressive, and requires only a leetle bit more effort? Making your own ricotta! 

All it takes is a little planning ahead and a flat surface you can throw flour all over. 

Here's the ricotta recipe, from the always-reliable Serious Eats. It's admittedly not a true ricotta recipe; proper ricotta comes from whey, and this is made from acidified milk. It's really a simple fresh cheese, as simple as it gets, and you've maybe heard of it referred to as farmer's cheese or paneer.  Whatever you want to call it, it works just like ricotta, and it's delicious, loaded with calcium and protein, and...delicious. And easy! 

I made a bigger recipe of it so I could make a double recipe of this gnocchi. Every time I've made it, I've gotten less maybe 30 or 40 percent less cheese than the recipe says I will--so plan accordingly. 

And here's the gnocchi recipe, also from Serious Eats. Messy, but not difficult or very time-consuming. (It took us more than 30 minutes, for sure, but since one of us is three-and-three-quarters years old, that might account for some of the extra prep time.) 

How I finished the dish: tossed some pieces of boneless chicken with a little flour, cooked them through in a heavy skillet, took them out of the skillet, briefly cooked trimmed asparagus in the same skillet, took those out and put them on top of the chicken, deglaced the pan with some homemade hard cider, added some heavy cream and homemade chicken stock and freshly-grated parmesan, and tossed everything together with the cooked gnocchi and a big drizzle of good olive oil. I meant to add a little bit of the gnocchi cooking water to the cream sauce, and I even saved it out before draining the pot, but then I forgot. It was still just lovely. 
 

On the secret to every success

A few weeks ago I was baking cookies and I gave Kamal three chocolate chips. Immediately, he asked if he could have five, instead. 

"Nope. I gave you three. Just say thank you and enjoy them."

"Thank you. Can I have five instead?"

"No, honey. You have what you have."

"But five is more than three!"

"That's right. Very good."

"But I want more!"

And there, friends, in my child's sweet little voice, is the reason so many people are unhappy so much of the time. We want more. We want to be more, have more, do more. And in doing that, we're wasting everything we already have. 

And I want more, too. Maybe more than anything else, I want this: for Kamal to understand that relishing what you have right now, celebrating that, is always, always going to be a happier experience than wanting more. Every time. Savor the chocolate chips in your hand, and don't worry about the Costco-size bag of chocolate chips in the pantry. 

You will always have less than someone else. You will always have more than someone else. You will always, in any given moment ever, have exactly what you have. And there is always something you have that someone else wishes they had. There is always something you have--chocolate chips, a jade plant, the love of a friend, a roof over your head, the ability to sit criss-cross applesauce--that someone else thinks would complete their ability to be happy. And you have that thing. And what's more, you have the ability to choose to be happy about it. 

That's the thing: you can choose it. You don't have to wait for happiness to find you. You don't have to get your meditation practice on lock, lose twenty pounds, earn a promotion, fall in love. You just have to take a look at your life, take stock of all that is good in it, and be thankful for those things. Realize how rich you are, how lucky, and celebrate.

That's the secret to happiness: decide to want what you already have. Want what you have, and then you'll have everything you want. 

And the best part is that when you start looking at your life this way--when you start finding the things that are wonderful and wanted in it--more and more things start showing themselves to you. And when you realize how full and abundant your life is, how lucky you are to be living it, it makes it easier to be generous. And, of course, generosity manifests its own abiding joy.

The other night I sat down on the couch next to Kamal as he was watching his little cartoon program. Without taking his eyes off the screen, he scooted into my lap. Then he picked up my right wrist and wrapped that arm around his small, warm body. Then he picked up my left wrist and wrapped that arm around himself, too, so he was tight and secure inside my embrace. Then, still holding firmly both my wrists crossed over his belly, and with a world of nonchalance in his creaky, funny voice, he said, "You can sit with me, if you want."

Well, I did want. In fact, in that moment, it was the only thing I wanted, and there it was, literally in my lap. I don't know that anyone has ever been as rich as I was in that moment, sitting on a couch with grievously tattered upholstery, watching inane cartoon characters with my child after swearing up and down during my pregnancy that I'd have a zero screen-time policy, older and thicker than Hollywood says any woman should be, sleep-deprived and sinus-congested and over-scheduled. In that moment, everything I wanted I had. 

So here's my challenge for you, this week: take all the desire you have, and aim it at all the beauty already in your life. That's all. Decide right now to do your best to want what you have, and move forward from there. 
 

Why this unedited selfie is my new favorite photo of myself ever

[What I ate for breakfast today: jasmine rice, an egg, some roast chicken, and some of my friend Niko's excellent habanero-cumin sauerkraut.]

Have you ever known, without any doubt, that you're doing the right thing, even when you know it looks completely wrong? That certainty is pretty intoxicating. That's what you're seeing in this photo.  There's me, smiling and sitting in the orange chair in Kamal's bedroom, and outside the frame, Kamal is weeping on the floor. If you didn't know the context, I looked an awful lot like a mother taking a vain and unaware selfie while neglecting her adorable child. 

So here's the whole story:  I'd just been sitting with Kamal doing our usual bedtime cuddle, but earlier than usual. We've been working to move his bedtime earlier, because the kiddo is obviously tired and needing more sleep. (So are the grownups in our house.) He's resisting the change, which is understandable, but Adam and I are pretty fiercely committed to all of us getting more sleep. Kamal had slithered out of my lap, saying he wanted to wake up and play already. I let him go, because I didn't want to restrain him and turn bedtime into a battle. Then he stomped just a few feet away and, instead of finding something to play with, collapsed in a sobbing little puddle of tears. Which drew my empathy, of course, but also reinforced for me that I was doing the right thing. Kids who are well-rested typically don't lie on the floor crying, and he didn't go far at all, which told me that the sleepy little bunny really did want to be in bed. 

So the smile is about feeling like I was right both in letting him go and in continuing to work towards his getting more sleep, but it's also feeling the validity of listening to my intuition and celebrating that feeling of sureness. And then it's celebrating how far I've had to come to become a person who listens to herself, celebrating the work that has taken, the years of battling the inexorable downward pull of self-doubt, fighting uphill all the way. It's celebrating making a choice to be happy ten whole years ago that, step by strong step, has brought me to this exact chair, this heart of this beautiful, safe, happy home, with my sweet child, with my beautiful husband, the chickens asleep and secure behind their wire fence, the tomato seedlings and bursting nasturtiums and big old fig tree dreaming in their gentle, plantlike way about seeding the ready ground late this summer.

That choice I made ten years ago, that was a hard one. It was walking away from a person I loved, who was also a person who wasn't good for me. I decided that I only had so much time left to be happy, and I had spent enough time being quiet and sad. It was the right choice, and even if it didn't look like it at the moment--I was sleeping on couches, crying on the subway, being a general buzzkill all over New York City--I knew it in my bones. And I found out I had a wonderful community that supported me and lent me their couches and their generous and empathic ears. And because I let go, because I took the leap of faith away from a situation that wasn't serving me, I found my way here.

So I'm smiling here with all of that. All of the love and laughter that poor Kamal's sagging onto the floorboards raises in me, all of the triumph of feeling so right with myself and my world and my tribe, all of the joy that I've allowed in by simply opening my hands and letting go of sorrow that wasn't mine to hold. That's why I wanted a picture of my face, in this moment, feeling all those things. 

Every one of us has something to walk away from, in order to open wide a space that could otherwise be filled with good work, or good love, or real and profound joy. I hope for you that letting go of someone or something who causes you unhappiness is a process filled with ease--but even if it isn't, even if it's the hardest thing you've ever done, I hope you do let go. I hope you choose happiness, and I hope you make room for it in your life, because it wants to find you. 

The healthy hedonist's "fast food" protocol

[What I had for breakfast today: steamed jasmine rice, a fresh hen egg, chopped and sauteed daikon greens, and Adam's kimchi.]

The other day I had this absolutely spectacular dinner: delicious, nutty brown jasmine rice; an unctuous duck egg perfectly over-easy, buttery mushroom confit; and ribbons of sweet purple collards. It was delicious, healthy and balanced, and it took me about five minutes to put together.

Okay. Truthfully, I was only able to put it together so quickly because of a lot of prior preparation: two days before, Adam had reduced a huge pile of fresh mushrooms into a super-umami pint or so of mushroomy tenderness. He'd put about half of them on a homemade pizza, and the remainder sat forlornly in a jar in the fridge. I'd made the rice for breakfast, since we had just run out of white rice. The collards I clipped from the tree collard we'd stuck in the garden as a tiny cutting three or four years ago. A friend gave us a dozen duck eggs in return for Kamal's baby wading pool, which her ducks will certainly enjoy more than Kamal presently does. Basically I melted a little pat of good butter in our big cast-iron skillet, dropped in the rice and mushrooms and cleaned, trimmed greens and egg, and voilà: dinner.

And all this got me thinking about how my general eating system (rice+protein+greens) really does lend itself to eating healthfully with relative ease. Having a garden that gives us delicious greens is helpful, but even if you don't have a garden (or, like me, if there are mornings you just don't want to go outside yet, or don't have time to clean and prep veggies) you can have greens at the ready. 

This is the basic protocol: have at the ready some kind of grain, some kind of greens, some kind of protein and something that serves as a condiment. Heat up a big skillet and melt coconut oil or butter or olive oil or your favorite healthy fat of choice in it. 

You've made a big pot of white or brown rice, barley, farro, or quinoa, or something. Scoop some of it out and plunk it in your skillet.

Next to that in your skillet, add an egg, or chicken, or chickpeas, or some beef, or some tofu...whatever protein you like or have left over from dinner last night. 

Then fill up the rest of your skillet with handfuls the fresh greens you've washed and chopped earlier. 

Saute, flip, monitor your skillet until everything is heated through. Then scoop it into a bowl (or, if you're me and have made three or four meals' worth in your giant skillet, scoop some into a bowl and divide the rest into two or three mason jars and/or thermoses) and add on top a squirt of sriracha, a pile of kimchi or sauerkraut, half an avocado, sauteed mushrooms, sauteed radishes, fresh radishes, or any combination of the above. Or all of the above! Go crazy. 

A few notes:

-Keeping yourself in cooked greens and washed greens is 80% of the battle.  After that, it's finding the combinations you like. (I like them all.)

-A little good butter and quality salt can do wonders for brown rice or barley, if whole grains aren't typically your thing.

-You can steam or saute the greens in advance, but I don't think they taste as good that way.

-For a busy week (which, let's face it, is every week) we'll often just buy a rotisserie chicken from our local grocery, which uses humanely raised, free-range chickens. 

-To saute radishes, slice fresh radishes into thin coins, saute in butter, and finish with a little salt. You can also chop up the green radish leaves and throw those in with the radishes. So pretty!

-Mushrooms can be cooked into a delicious reduction like Adam's by slicing them thinly and sauteeing them with garlic in olive oil over a low flame for a long time. 

-Kimchi and sauerkraut, besides being an excellent source of cruciferous vegetables, also deliver a nice dose of probiotics. Your gut will thank you. 

Perspective

[What I ate for breakfast today: jasmine rice, a fresh egg, and a LOT of kimchi. When Adam makes kimchi, I eat it at almost every meal. To whomever ends up next to me in yoga class: sorrynotsorry.]

A few Sunday mornings ago, I was getting fancied up for the first West End Farmer's Market of the season. Kamal stood next to me as I put on eyeliner, animatedly talking me through his plans for the day. Suddenly he interrupted himself, his own eyes widening, to whisper, reverently, "Mama--what's on your eyes?"

"It's purple!" I said. "You like it?"

Even wider eyes. "Did you...draw it? On your face?"

"I did."

Supernova eyes. "Can you draw some on my face?" 

My first impulse was to say no--three year olds don't wear eyeliner!--but then I considered. I mean, wearing makeup at all is pretty arbitrary. There wasn't really a good reason I could come up with that I should get to put fun purple stuff on my face and Kamal shouldn't--so, per his precise direction, I drew a sun on one round little cheek and a star on the other. (The sun, which suffered from a lot of wiggling and chatting during its application, was later entirely erased through Kamal's unrelated weeping. That's a whole other story.) 

We don't wonder enough about the whys of beauty. All we're told, from the moment we're aware of beauty at all, is that we're not beautiful enough. 

I don't mean, necessarily, that your family tells you that. I hope your family members are people that helped you see how perfect and complete you are. But whether they are or aren't, there are a million messages coming at us from everywhere telling us we need to improve. We need to be thinner, have smoother skin, have more symmetrical features, have shinier hair and smaller ankles. We need to use makeup in a way that draws attention away from our big noses and small chins. We need to dress in a way that draws attention away from our broad shoulders, our round bellies, our big quads. 

I don't know who came up with our standard of beauty, but I'm not it. I'm not skinny, tall, young, white. And yet I have the nerve to feel beautiful. Those bags under my eyes? I earned them, sitting up at night with my sweet, sleepless child. I flaunt the shoulders I got from Kamal lying on my back for "a ride" when I do pushups, from pulling weeds, from shoveling compost. I show off the quads I got from biking Kamal to preschool and myself to work and all over town at the speediest safe speed possible, since I'm always running late to everything. My big, crooked nose--I don't know where it came from, not my mother or my father, but I have a really good sense of smell and can still sing an aria pretty decently and can make funny faces with it that make Kamal laugh till he falls over. 

Anyway, the point of this post isn't to tell you about why I like myself the way I am. It's about why you should like yourself the way you are. Always remember this: the commercials you see, for slimming bathing suits, for weight-loss "boot camps," for frizz-decreasing hair serums, for mascara, for clothes, for almost everything--there's no end to them. They say, in essence, "Buy this, and then you'll be pretty enough. You'll hide all the things about you that don't fit our narrowly-proscribed standard of beauty, you'll fool everyone, they'll all think you're a beautiful person. This is the solution."

Except it's not, of course. There are always more commercials, more ads. You'll buy the hair serum and then the commercials will tell you you need the boot camp or the meal-replacement shake or the concealer. If you listen to the messages the advertising industry shoots at us like so many arrows, you'll never know that you're already beautiful.  

You are. You are beautiful. You are beautiful enough. You deserve to be here, and you deserve to shine, and you deserve to do that in whatever way works for you--not the way the commercials tell you to shine. (Those commercial writers don't know you. They don't know the things that make you interesting, or the reasons you wake up in the morning, or the last thing on your mind at night. They are writing to a demographic with the goal of making you believe they're talking to you.) 

Whatever you want to put on or take off your body, you will be beautiful. You can line your eyes with kohl or cry a purple sun off your cheek; you can show off a shiner from a bike crash or show off the belly in which you carried your baby four years ago. You can wear leggings as pants or wear a dress that no magazine would recommend for your "body type." (Your body is not a type any more than you are a demographic.)  You can wear pajamas to yoga class. You can wear an eyebrow ring with a business suit. You can make all your own clothes from thrifted finds, or choose a daily uniform.

Let me be clear: I'm not going to judge you for buying the hair serum (there's some languishing in my medicine cabinet right now!), or signing up for the boot camp, or getting lash extensions or whatever you want to do. I just really want you to do it because you want to, because it's fun to manifest yourself outwardly, not because you feel you have to in order to merit leaving your house or being treated with respect. Just let it be fun. Let it be as entertaining and silly and harmless as a kid getting his face painted. Because, really, that's all it is. 

On being a slacker runner

I couldn't run a hundred yards when I started high school--but I remember watching other people run from my dad's car window, and admiring that autonomy of motion. I loved the idea of running to work, or school, or the store, or to meet friends, just because I could. I loved the idea of being my own vehicle, of getting around without relying on a car or even a bike. 

Then I had to run a mile for P.E. my junior year, and I thought I was going to die. It took me about forty minutes. I started trying to run by myself after school, despite opposition from my well-intentioned parents, who worried a lot--about my being kidnapped, about the impact "over-exercising" would have on my fertility, about my catching a cold from washing my hair too late in the day, about my being late to dinner because I was running and then washing my hair too late in the day, about whether I was psychologically unbalanced because I was perspiring on purpose, and about my obsessing too much about my weight. (That last worry, in fairness, was legit. I won't lie and say vanity wasn't a motivator; I was a sixteen-year-old with all the body-image drama being that age brings).

The first time I finished a mile-long run without stopping, I sat down on the sidewalk because I thought I might pass out. Literally everything hurt, even my teeth. Now, twenty years later, I regularly use my body as a vehicle, to get to the store, to pick up Kamal at preschool, to get the car I left the night before at a designated driver's house, to pick up my bike after its tune-up at the bike shop, to get to work (where I am lucky enough to have a shower!). And those are the runs I always want to brag about--not the farthest ones, not the fastest ones, but the ones where I could have used a car or a bike and didn't.

I'm not interested in running races; I am interested in commuting by legs. I'm just so tickled that this is something I am able to do. I'm the runner I used to watch out the car window. I'm frankly really proud of that.

And here's the thing: running is not for everyone. It's just not. But I think there are people out there that could be loving running who don't, because they tried it one way or another and it hurt them, or exhausted them, or bored them. I kind of want those people to try it my way. Which is: moderately. 

You don't meet a lot of moderate runners. You don't meet a lot of runners who've never been injured running, either. Those two facts are related.  

I've never suffered a running injury, but that's probably because I don't race, or run for speed at all. I also rarely run more than 3 or 4 miles at a time, and rarely more than a few times a week. I do a lot of looking and listening while I run, and get interested in my surroundings in a way I can't safely do while biking or driving. I don't listen to music, because I enjoy how much quieter my brain gets when I run and I don't like to clutter it up. I stop if there's a gorgeous plant or bird or wandering neighborhood cat that I want to get a closer look at or photograph. I don't really have a lot of rules around it. 

Running can feel hard, no doubt. I mean, you're propelling yourself into the air and forward at the same time, over and over again, with a lot of impact and sweatiness. But it can also feel transcendent, rhythmically meditative, downright pleasant. It clears my head--literally (if I have any sinus congestion before a run, it's way gone afterwards) and figuratively. Often, I'll find the solution to a problem while running. It's been the single most reliable mood stabilizer and neurosis manager I've found for myself, and the fact that it lets me eat more of Adam's unbelievable chocolate-mint cookies and miraculously tender biscuits without having to size up my clothes is just a nice little bonus. 

So I guess I'm kind of a slacker runner. But I'm a runner nonetheless, and I plan to keep being a runner until I'm at least 90 or so. What I'm hoping is that you might be a person who's resisted running because all the runners you know are so intense about it, and hearing that it's possible to be a slacker runner will lower that resistance. 

Look, if it's not for you, it's not for you, and I am all about helping you find the exercise that is for you. But if you're curious? It's just lacing up your sneaks, maybe making sure you have a comfortable sports bra, and putting one foot in front of the other. Walk when you're tired, and run again when you're ready. And then do it again a couple days later. Repeat, repeat, repeat. If you love the way you feel after you're done running, chances are in just a few weeks you'll love the way you feel while running. 

If you're looking for more direction as you try out running, I always recommend to patients the Couch to 5K running plan. I'm going to start a Couch to 10k running group here for patients and friends, and I'm so excited for more people to find out how calming and lovely and straight-up delicious running can be.