Diana's Blog: Quirky Words and Book Reviews

October 19, 2008
This afternoon, for the second time this month, I learned -- re-learned -- the point of cooking. About nine members of Dinner Grrls -- a networking group with women ranging from architects to naturopathic physicians, journalists to jewelry-makers -- gathered at Dr Reba Akin's gorgeous sun-lit condo in Portland, Oregon.
Two points to cooking, actually. The first is to enjoy the fresh talk of friendship -- with hundreds of women in the group, there are always old friends and new faces. The second, is to cook healthfully, with nothing out of a box unless it's the most pure version of that ingredient.
A few weeks ago my friend Dr Lisa Shaver popped over to my house with a bagful of groceries totalling a few bucks, and cooked up a storm with just vegetables, buffalo meat, and other raw foods. I ate off that adventure for a week, froze some, and am enjoying the new knowledge that it is possible to cook without opening a bunch of bags of pre-cooked, chemically-altered foods.
Those points in mind, realizing that both Dr Lisa and Dr Reba created their own recipes, I pulled the American Heart Association LOW-FAT, LOW-CHOLESTEROL COOKBOOK from the shelves when I got home. Yes, I feel the need for a little more guidance before I start grabbing ingredients from the shelf, cutting, pouring and stirring. There's a chicken-veggie stir-fry and Sirloin with Portobello Mushrooms and even Triple-Chocolate Brownies. Can do.
Reba asked us each why we chose to come to her event today. I had signed up as soon as I saw the listing. And, I gave the reason that I used to cook a lot, really enjoying it, when I first got married, but he started working a five to midnight shift, and then I had babies and when they grew older, I still was cooking "kid" food. Then, I was single again, and now, with Lisa's encouragement, I want to revert to cooking.
What I didn't answer was...my mother was a great cook. Well, her friends say so. She would begin cooking dinner around five, and do enormous damage to a full jug of Gallo wine. And, while she was on the phone, cooking and drinking, we kids would sneak bites of whatever she was cooking, because dinner never seemed to be done before midnight. All too soon, it was go-to-bed-kids, and I don't remember very many sit-down dinners. Oh but Christmas time, she would always make spaghetti sauce from my step-father's Italian mother's recipe, a sauce-splotched list of ingredients that I copied, typing it out before I left for college, and still have. Mine is now also splotched with decades of Christmas spaghetti sauce. A few neighbors would knock on the door a day or so before Christmas, asking if the lasagna I made from the sauce was ready yet. Divine!
Today, I expanded my horizons with Reba's Gluten-Free Pumpkin Muffins -- rich and tasty; roasted cauliflower -- roasting, Reba says, brings out the sweetness in vegetables; spicy orange chicken -- totally yum -- everything's organic; she mentions baking sweet potatoes in egg white to make the fries crunchy; she chops up kale, onion, garlic and sautes -- don't toss in the garlic until the end, so it keeps its nutritional properties -- and top with sugarless rice vinegar and toasted sesame seed oil; dessert chocolate coconut balls -- low in sugar, high in fiber. Find Reba's recipes at www.inurmagazine.com.
Suddenly, the recipes I see in the LOW-FAT, LOW-CHOLESTEROL COOKBOOK look appealing. The two doctors have made their point -- that cooking healthfully can be very tasty -- and emotionally-rewarding.

Labels: American Heart Association, cooking, Dinner Grrls, Dr Lisa Shaver, Dr Reba Akin, LOW-CHOLESTEROL COOKBOOK, LOW-FAT, mothers, transcending the trauma

October 11, 2008
One of the books I treasured when I was a kid was Alan Paton's TOO LATE THE PHALAROPE. Set in Paton's South Africa, we see a white policeman fall in love with a native girl. The affair is discovered and he is betrayed and reported. The book broke my heart open. I was too young to understand about romantic love. But I did know injustice. My real dad -- and everything about him, stories, pictures, his name -- were severed from my life when I was five -- forever -- by my mother and stepfather. I understand the reasons why my mother and stepfather did what they did, so my heart forgives them -- but I am not sure that I can forgive what they did -- the rapes, the violence, the alcoholism, the suicide attempts, the abandonment, the neglect.
What I find most amazing is I've been thinking about forgiveness lately. So I looked up the word Forgiveness in the OXFORD DICTIONARY OF MODERN QUOTATIONS, 3rd. Ed. There were a handful of choices, and I immediately went to the one in the index marked "until we f." It was a powerful quote by Paton -- marked an unrecognizable PATO in the index -- and it was from TOO LATE THE PHALAROPE:
"When a deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive."
As I write, I am also assimilating the first visit of longer than a half-hour I've had with my younger brother -- born of the same father as I -- in probably fifteen years. We talked for nearly six hours today, sharing stories, filling in the gaps, and finding puzzle pieces that fit that one had but the other didn't.
I was filled with fear as I drove to meet him -- the child fear -- because to see him would mean all the old energy and the old scenes would come flooding back. I promised myself I would be real and I would stay in that vibration of light.
One wonderful thing about my brother. He has played the piano since he was three. And, he has been living in my parents' home for the last year and a half, giving classes to people in piano, yoga, Spanish. I said to him, "You are immensely talented and all that violence and abuse kept you from sharing your music with the world. " And I burst into loud, gasping tears. Not pretty in a restaurant, but very real.
And then he got it. I have always loved and treasured him -- we were trapped apart by the violence. Not any more.
"When a deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive."
I am gently moved into a place of forgiveness.

Labels: alcoholism, brother, forgiveness, mothers, OXFORD DICTIONARY OF MODERN QUOTATIONS, rape, stepfather, talent, TOO LATE THE PHALAROPE, transcending the trauma, violence

September 6, 2008
"Which book is right for today?" I ask, as I walk around my stacks of books, opening to whatever sense is pulled. I do that, sometimes. It's fun, harmless, and sometimes -- like today -- downright astounding.
James VanPraagh's new book GHOSTS AMONG US, is two-thirds of the way down the stack in the middle. I choose it, and slip it into my workout bag.
First I am off to a baby shower, where, instead of guessing how many cotton balls are in a jar and how big the mother-to-be's waist is, we have ritual. In a beautiful ceremony, we are each called on to give a personal reflection. Only half the women have given birth, and we are forewarned, no birth horror stories. It is my turn, and I truthfully say that I loved every stage of it -- including labor and delivery -- and since I had plenty of time, with 42 hours labor the first son, and 28 the second son, one technique I found mystical and amazing was as simple as playing music. A lot of music. I tell the women that there was one tape that I played over and over during the late stages of pregnancy, and particularly during labor -- the music was rolling piano chords, played by a man at Portland's Saturday Market -- and I loved the heavenly tones he created. A few years later, when I was driving home from church in the middle of the afternoon, I found the tape, and slipped it into the deck to listen. My three-year old son said from his car seat, "Dark, momma, dark!" Bringing goosebumps to everyone.
I drive to the gym along that very same road, so many years later, this afternoon, and my phone rings. It is my ex-husband, telling me that the matriarch of his family has just died. I tell him I loved her and I am sorry, and I present the irony that I had just been telling of our sons' births a half-hour earlier, and we hang up. Aunt Lenore was in her nineties, and -- in his words -- had not lived fully in the last several years. He and I have been divorced five years, and immediately I talk to Aunt Lenore. As my words begin to pour out -- about being sorry I hadn't contacted her -- I feel my heart fill with warmth and I hear Aunt Lenore say in her kindly southern way, "Dear, I understand. You did the right thing, divorcing him, and I love you both." And then she answers another concern, I've begun to express, "I will be able to help him and your two sons much better from over here." Thank you, Aunt Lenore!
And then I get to the gym with my book. The choice makes perfect sense now. There's a very peaceful chapter about relatives passing, and VanPraagh says "Because our consciousness doesn't die at death, we carry our mind-set of thoughts and beliefs with us to the other side." Which explains why Aunt Lenore is still so sweet and kind.
GHOSTS AMONG US is full of interesting stories of the medium, ghostbusting, VanPraagh's explanation of ghosts from different vibrational planes, and his reassurance that "Love is the most powerful, natural force in the Universe." He writes that many people ask him "Do spirits know I am thinking of them?" The answer, James says, "is always 'Yes!' More importantly, the spirits feel the love that we have for them." More goosebumps.
Years ago, I interviewed James VanPraagh in person about his book TALKING TO HEAVEN. After the interview, with the tape still rolling, James shifts into his medium persona, telling me he sees my dad with me, and that my father is proud of me. Then James says my dad "died of a broken heart" after he was blocked from seeing me ever again. He says my dad is sad about what happened to me in my own home, and that he couldn't protect me from that abuse.
James asks if my mother now lives near a lake.
"Yes!" I answer.
"Her mother has passed," James states.
"Yes,"I say.
"Your grandmother is working to get through to your mother," he says. She wants your mother to be loving to you. What happened wasn't your fault."
James looks at me, "It was horrible, wasn't it."
"Yes," I say.
"Your grandmother is trying -- it is discouraging, but she is trying."
It hasn't worked just yet.
But many times, I will walk through a room in my own home and catch a strong scent of gardenias.
Gardenias.
Comforting.
My grandmother's perfume.

Labels: birth, Ghosts, GHOSTS AMONG US, grandmother, James Van Praagh, medium, mothers, TALKING TO HEAVEN, transcending the trauma

Cookbooks are beautiful. I have two stacks on top of my refrigerator of current cookbooks, but I never open them.
One book I received today was -- at first blush -- way too cute. COOK UP A COOKBOOK: CREATE YOUR OWN RECIPE BOOK FROM SCRATCH. Open the front of the book -- which is more like a box with an old-fashioned ribbon -- and you see instructions on how to create your own chef's hat. Um, skipping that. But when I burrowed through the labels and chef's tip cards, and found a little book -- and discovered the brilliant idea of interviewing loved ones about their special recipes. Oh, now that convinced me to maybe go for it, create my own cookbook! Or at least collect a few recipes.
I only have two that I love. One comes from my stepfather's family. I'm a little loose on details -- hence the desire to interview -- although really only the recipe survives. It's a list of ingredients for lasagna that I have made every Christmas since I moved away from my parents' home, and it is killer. It's all in the sauce. Or saw-us, as I grew up saying it. A list of ingredients typed on my mother's old Remington, splattered with decades of tomato paste. When the holidays draw near, certain neighbors come round, asking for a plate of lasagna. A plate of happiness...? You bet!
It's family tradition -- a big pot of sauce simmering on the stove -- a long wooden spoon resting nearby. Each of us furtively slipping the spoon into the sauce, tasting, adding oregano or garlic salt or red pepper to our taste, a collaborative effort -- as secret as everything else in our house. But oh so incredibly tasty!
It took hours to cook, typical, but in this case, not an issue. Mom was an amazing cook, but we rarely ate before midnight. She would begin with a recipe like Beef Stroganoff or Veal Parmigianna early afternoon, the ingredients laying about on cutting boards, her trail easy to trace of food-stained spoons, plates, measuring cups. My stepfather following after her, swearing up a storm at the mess. Mom, cooking while on the phone, refilling her wine glass until the new liter of Gallo wine would grow empty. We kids would circle, asking when dinner would be done, resorting to pulling little half-cooked bites out of the simmering food. And finally giving up, and going to bed. Many nights we would hear the sound of breaking glass. In the morning the mess would still be there in the kitchen, evidence something amazing had happened in that room.
But there is some sweetness -- a Cheesecake Pie -- that I frequently bake. It too is a favorite -- and there's just over a half-cup of sugar in it. The recipe is written in my mother's handwriting on a yellowed, battered notecard.
I will share it, and you'll have to forgive me for not getting the recipe format perfectly right -- there's info on that in the COOK UP A COOKBOOK book. Right now, I just want to make my midnight deadline:
Ingredients for the pie:
1 graham cracker crust
1 8 ounce pkg of cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbl lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
dash salt
2 eggs
Ingredients for topping:
1 cup sour cream
2 tbl sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Directions:
For pie filling:
Beat cream cheese until fluffy, gradually blending in 1/2 cup sugar, lemon juice, vanilla and salt. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each.
Pour filling into crust. Bake in slow 325-degree oven, 25 to 30 minutes or until set
Topping:
Combine sour cream, sugar, vanilla. Spoon over top of pie. Bake ten minutes longer. Cool. Chill.

Enjoy the cool sweetness! My gift to you.

Labels: books, Cheesecake Pie, COOK UP A COOKBOOK, cookbook, lasagna, mothers, stepfather

IF HOLDEN CAULFIELD WERE IN MY CLASSROOM. What a great title! I open the first few pages and am pulled into a middle school classroom, kid by kid.
Bullies who reveal they want to be loved.
Exhibitionists who reveal they miss their dad and will do anything to draw him back into their lives.
Angry kids who reveal the sadness that was born because they were separated from their birth parents.
Bernie Schein teaches in a small school -- just 750 kids. Paideia, near Atlanta. It feels like SUMMERHILL. My mother was going for her degree in Childhood Education, and I would read her books wherever she set them down. SUMMERHILL was about an experimental school, and very creative, fascinating kids. I wanted to go there. I wanted to grow up and teach there. I wanted to find a college eventually that would be like Summerhill. None of that happened.
I was also pulled into another book my mother left around -- the very dangerous THE THROWAWAY CHILDREN by Philly attorney Lisa Richette. The kids were the same age as me. They had the same pain, born of similar sexual abuse and violence. I read, and I wondered what would happen if I acted out like they did. I trapped it all down, sublimated with reading. Tears and tantrums and speaking out were absolutely forbidden to me. So I read about Lisa's kids, and I wept, and experienced at least some of the rage that really should have been expressed.
My mother got to take a lot of interesting classes. One was ceramics. She was tired of teaching school during the day, taking classes at night, and having three kids of her own. Sometimes, whether I was in elementary school, junior high or high school, she would let me come "teach" with her and in the summer, be a camp counselor. I loved those three year olds! My mother would tell me after class that one little boy -- the one who dressed up in ladies' clothes, played house and talked with a lisp -- was likely gay. One of my campers, when I was sixteen, was a little girl who had twisted bald spots in her hair. The three-year old would suck her thumb incessantly. Her father would thrust a tip into my bathing suit top between my tiny breasts. I told my mother we had to do something for her, that her father must be doing bad things to her. The little girl was tough and strong even at three. But nothing was done. I do the math sometimes, to figure out how old she would be now, and wonder if she made it.
My mother didn't have time for all her homework, and my stepfather, being a creative man, often did it for her. The ceramics class, for example. I came home from junior high one day, and there was a nude torso sitting on the kitchen counter. He had molded it out of clay. It was of my body.
I felt ill. But I didn't know until decades later when I picked up a book called WOMEN, SEX AND ADDICTION by Charlotte Kasl at one of my radio stations -- opening to a chapter about Margot, whose father painted her nude body -- that this was wrong. So very wrong.
What if I had had a teacher like Bernie Schein. I wonder...

Labels: Bernie Schein, camp counselor, Charlotte Kasl, classroom, Holden Caulfield, IF HOLDEN CAULFIELD WERE IN MY CLASSROOM, mothers, school, SEX AND ADDICTION, stepfather., WOMEN

A fat softcover book arrived today called SEW ON. Fat, because it was padded with five patterns in the back pocket.
The woody smell of the pattern paper drew in memories of my grandmother and mother. They sewed dresses for my sister and me when we were in elementary school. Rather, they competed -- or, my mother competed. My grandmother had sewn a gorgeous triplet of burgundy velvet dresses for my mother, younger sister, and me, and my mom pointed out the nap of the velvet was pieced the wrong direction on one of the dresses. "She should know better, sewing all these years," my mother said.
I thought the dresses were beautiful. The nap laid all funny anyway when we sat down.
My grandmother sewed all her dresses. Except for her RN uniform,I don't remember her wearing anything but her Singer-sewn dresses. And there was her gold necklace she wore every day -- Our Lady of Guadalupe pictured inside, Jesus and Joseph on the other side of the circular two-sided pendant. It was mysteriously beautiful.
My mother and grandmother wanted me to sew. If they taught me, I blocked it all. I also blocked knitting and purling.
But for a short time, living three-thousand miles away, when I was pregnant for the first time, I bought what seemed like bolts of denim and a pattern for a maternity dress with a flat-pleated top and a tie that was generous enough to make it around nine-months of belly. And the skirt was full. I finished it just in time to wear it when I was seven, eight, nine months along, and the jumper was admired. A friend of one of my girlfriends -- I don't even remember who -- begged to borrow it, she would give it back.
It must be out there somewhere, that denim jumper. At times I wish I could have it to pass on to my children, and then I just wonder how many pregnant bellies it has covered in these many years. And I wonder if I have any talent, handed down from my mother and grandmother, for sewing. My sewing machine is in the garage. The pattern on page 80 of the silky scarf, halter wrap-around dress looks lovely.
But I do have my grandmother's necklace that she wore every day. She bequeathed it to me.

Labels: bequeath, grandmother, mothers, patterns, pregnant, Sew On, sewing

I met Jennie Shortridge when she was on book tour for RIDING WITH THE QUEEN, the story riffing off her years in a band. We connected right away, realizing our bond -- we're both members of the secret "Crazy Mothers Club." We members can sniff each other out, although we often claim anonymity -- we connect with each other for the purposes of healing the other, following a deep biological need to heal ourselves. Jennie adopted me, herded authors my way when I decided to timidly venture into media training, emailed me gaily at unpredictable intervals to say hello or offer a brief update.
Jennie came to Portland today, came in on the train from Seattle, came with her easy smile. We wandered through Elephant's Deli and chose healthy food -- shrimp and beans and salad, sat outside on this perfectly sunny day, and opened up the pages of our lives. Those old jarring shards of memories that are the pieces of the puzzle tangent to the one jigsaw piece we really want to see. It is why we write, to push at those edges. Without writing, without pursuing wild bursts of creativity, we might sink forever in the abyss with our mothers. Jennie and I traded stories -- and she tells me of her new book -- the manuscript due in a few months. In it, again, she explores the parent-child relationships. I look at her chin-length curly dark hair, her warm eyes, her beauty-pageant smile -- but genuine -- and feel so easy while we pull out the yards of ourselves few people see.
After two hours, I walk with her to her appointment, nearly a mile down sunny, shop-lined streets -- and we promise we will stay in closer touch. Sisters now.

Labels: crazy, Jennie Shortridge, mothers, writing