duhpursuit

Already my heart and mind are wholly devoted to fall. I am hopelessly infatuated with the smells of baked apples, cinnamon, pumpkin, and cloves. With the warm, comforting smells of oven-baked dishes–roasted potatoes, macaroni and cheese, green bean casserole. It’s not my stomach I want to fill, it’s my senses. The aromas and textures of a home preparing for cold weather. The desire to make things tidy and clean. To smooth down the corners, the linens, the countertops. To wrap myself in blankets while a cool breeze drifts through the open window, a good book and a sleeping cat, a drowsy husband.

These are always the most beautiful days. While everything holds its last for just a few more moments, still strong on the limb before the trembling starts, before the rigid stems crisp and drop their sails.

Already the garden leans under the weight of late season fruit, bearing down to return to the soil. We manage to harvest a few before they begin to rot or house insects who are also making preparations. Also devoted to the tides that will sweep them into the earth dampening the darkened loam, the slowly shifting grains of sand.

These are always the most beautiful days. When the sun still warms the roots. Buds burst open, glazed with an unexpected rain. Close by neighbors are still shrouded in green. The earth still splits, still seams easily enough, a bouquet unwrapped and scattered before the vase. The small fruits of shrubs and trees have yet to harden and fall. Still promises to keep. Still miles to go before they sleep.

Wednesday afternoon, I was admitted to the hospital. Nothing special. Just some palpitations and chest pain. No biggie. My cardiologist said I might be having a heart attack. Nothing to worry about.

They asked me if I wanted them to perform “heroic measures” to save my life if my heart stopped. Just curious. Taking a survey.

They tried three times to get the IV into my right arm. Once on the left. Twice in my right hand. Five times a charm. They told me they usually only have trouble getting IVs into drug addicts. Scarring in the veins. Good information.

They put me in a room with a poor woman who was scheduled to evacuate her bowels. Which she did. For three hours. Boisterously. 7.2 magniturd.

I sat in the lobby until she finished. They finally moved her to another room and de-stinkified the place so I could come back in. Meanwhile, a woman who came to take my blood asked me if I would come into the room so she could (for the third time that evening) draw some blood. I told her either she could do it somewhere else, or get vomited on. She chose the former.

I hadn’t brushed my teeth in two days. I hadn’t showered. I hadn’t washed my face. I hadn’t slept. They said I was lucky to have bathroom privileges (the alternative would have been to shit in a pot next to the bed). They said I was lucky insurance agreed to pay some of the cost. Lucky that I’d met my deductible. Lucky I got a discount and only had to pay $120 a night.

At 11 am on Thursday, the hospital doctor said he thought he might be able to send me home.  Sometime between 11 am and 6pm, when he returned and said I could go, I woke three times to talk to three different doctors about why I’d been admitted to the hospital.

I was served three meals. 1) A ham and croissant sandwich with mayonnaise, two chocolate chip cookies, a bag of potato chips, and sweet tea. 2) Scrambled eggs, a sausage patty, buttered toast, whole milk, and oatmeal. 3) Chicken with gravy, stuffing with gravy, green beans with gravy, a buttered biscuit, a piece of pecan pie, candied fruit, whole milk, sweet tea.

If I wasn’t a cardiac patient going in, I might have been one going out.

I now have seven holes in my arms. I have had to explain the circumstances of my admission into the hospital to six different people. It felt like I was on trial. Accused. Interrogated. It felt like I was part of a herd of cattle. Cart them in. Take their money. Cart them out.

They say that I experienced normal sinus tachycardia. Their way of saying, we don’t know what’s wrong, or possibly, it’s all in your head. I’m starting to think I’d be crazy to believe them.

So, I’ve officially decided to keep a food blog. Originally I was going to make it about bread, since this has been my recent obsession, but there are so many other things that make up my life besides bread-making, like eating everything else, so I re-fashioned the bread blog I’ve been keeping, took down some old kind of ranty, hoity toity posts and put up one on flatbread that I made at Laurien and Will’s over the weekend.

I also joined The Daring Kitchen which hosts a monthly baking and cooking challenge. They have deadlines. They have secrets. They have rules. All requirements for one said English teacher to partake of trying new recipes during the school year. Wish me luck. And for those of you within tasting distance, wish for tastings. I am sure there will be some, since I am in no way planning to eat an entire batch of anything by myself.

They also have flickr groups–one for cooking challenges and one for baking challenges–so this gives me an excuse to take more pictures and perhaps continue drooling over the amazing clarity and beauty coming from Renee’s camera (Christmas gift anyone? Husband?)

I’ve been making bread, reminding myself of release, patience, the importance of yielding to each other, to life as it rises beneath our fists. Even the dough must exhale a little in order to make things turn out right. It’s all a matter of balance.

More or less.

It’s intuitive, all the books say. You’ve got to learn to listen, to read with your hands the changes, the messages that are right there on your fingertips. The bread will tell you what to do if you’re careful, attentive.

A poem by Robert Louis Stephenson

Fairy Bread

Come up here, O dusty feet!
Here is fairy bread to eat.
Here in my retiring room,
Children, you may dine
On the golden smell of broom
And the shade of pine;
And when you have eaten well,
Fairy stories hear and tell.