Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

january

Burns Night, quarantines, and introducing our kids to a classic movie: A January round-up

We’re on our second snow day in a row today, and it’s been snowing for three days, so I’m convinced we now live in a snow globe. At the beginning of the year (was that only a month ago?) I decided to start keeping track of the things our family was doing, watching, eating and reading each month and at the end of the month I would publish the round-up. Some of it is super ordinary, but it’s helping me appreciate our days more. You might find some of it interesting, you might not, and that’s okay. This is one of those things I’m doing for me. As I did with a post late last year, I’ve broken it out with headings so if you’re only interested in the books we’ve read, for example, you can skip to that section and ignore all the shows we watch.

What we watched/are watching

Movies

We’re gradually working our way through the Marvel Universe. This month we checked these movies off the list:

  • Ant-Man. I love Paul Rudd!
  • Avengers: Civil War. It’s SO intense.
  • Doctor Strange. The first time I ever watched this, I was SO confused and did not really like it. The second time was better, but it’s still a strange (ha ha!) movie.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Baby Groot! Also I find myself now saying, “And I didn’t say ‘frickin'” far more than is probably healthy.

We were supposed to watch the first Spiderman movie but we had to get it from the library and they closed for COVID and then snow, so we decided to introduce the kids to Napoleon Dynamite. They laughed at the physical comedy parts, but I’m not sure they loved it as much as I always have.

TV/Streaming Series

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? We started the third season of the animated version on Netflix.

Grantchester, season 4 on Amazon Prime. This includes a significant turning point for Sidney Chambers, which made me sad. I once described this show to a friend as “hot vicar solves mysteries” and I stand by that description still.

The Crown, season 4 on Netflix. Diana deserved better! Also, this part of the story is traumatic for me because I know how it ends. Is this what it’s like to watch fictional creations of history you’ve lived through?

Bridgerton, on Netflix. Brilliant. There are subtle creative touches like the orchestra playing contemporary songs at the balls and in the background of scenes. I will admit to having never watched a series by Shonda Rhimes before. Is she a genius? Yes. I watched all the episodes and I might watch them again while waiting for the first book to be available from the library.

Mr. Mayor, the new NBC comedy starring Ted Danson. Can we just be honest and say that Ted Danson has only gotten better with age?

Schitt’s Creek. Phil and I are still working our way through the series, mostly because we don’t want it to end. We just finished season 5 and are a few episodes in to season 6, the final season. Does it have to end?

The Presidential Inauguration. Because of my quarantine (see the “What We Did” section) I was able to watch it live all day with Phil.

Daily press briefings. Phil has a little crush on the new White House press secretary, so he tunes in regularly but also we just appreciate the wealth of information being disseminated from the administration.

What we ate

Our son picks the meal on Saturdays and helps make it. One meal in his rotation is pork chops. He decided he didn’t want to make an onion sauce this time around, so we did caramelized onions. I followed the recipe in Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything cookbook (a MUST for every kitchen. It’s comprehensive and accessible) and I fell in love with my own cooking for the first time in a long time. (Usually I consider myself adequate.)

Homemade chicken soup. While we waited for Phil’s COVID test results (again, see the next section), I made chicken soup for dinner. Because I believe in science and medicine but I also think food contributes to healing. Did I pull the frozen bone broth out of the freezer to make the soup? Yes. Did I drink all the broth that was left in the soup pot? Also, yes.

After I learned I would be quarantining, I searched the Internet for foods that boost your immune system, intending to give my body a head start, in case it would need to fight the virus. I made a soup with a variety of vegetables, bone broth, and miso paste. It was delicious, and it makes me feel like I’m doing something to help my body.

I called it “immunity soup”

During the inauguration, Phil and I ate summer rolls, sushi and samosas, a nod to the multicultural heritage of our new vice president. (And because it’s good food and we wanted something sort of special for our quarantine date.) For dinner, we researched some of the favorite foods of our new president and vice president. Kamala Harris likes seafood gumbo, and Phil got a cookbook for Christmas that celebrates black cooks, so we picked a gumbo recipe from there that has meaning to the African-American community. Marcus Samuelsson, the cookbook’s author, honored New Orleans chef Leah Chase, who ran a restaurant in New Orleans during the Civil Rights era (the restaurant still exists) and served everybody, regardless of race. Chase’s gumbo recipe is what we ate, and it was GOOD.

Leah Chase’s seafood gumbo

We picked up some of Joe Biden’s favorite ice cream, a brand called Jeni’s, made in Ohio. We tried three different flavors:

Peanut butter almond brittle, salted peanut butter with chocolate flecks (the President’s favorite), bramble berry crisp

January 25th is Scottish poet Robert Burns’ birthday, and because the pandemic is feeling like it will never end, I decided to do something sort of crazy that also made me happy. I planned a sort of Burns’ Night Dinner for the occasion. Here’s what was on the menu:

  • Cock-a-leekie soup (chicken and leeks with barley and plums).
  • Scotch eggs (soft-boiled eggs wrapped in sausage and deep fried).
  • Selkirk Bannock (a yeast bread made with raisins; sort of scone-like). I was proudest of this because I don’t always do well with yeast breads.
  • Orange Cranachan for dessert (a layered pudding dessert with toasted oatmeal).
  • I also drank some Scotch whisky that tasted like I was licking the hills of Scotland.
Selkirk bannock
Orange cranachan (it’s typically made with raspberries but we used what we had)

Phil plans and executes the meal on Wednesdays, so one night we had a plant-based burger taste test. Phil cooked two kinds of plant-based burgers–Impossible Burgers and Beyond Burgers–then gave each of us half of each kind to decide which one we liked better. We did not tell the kids, at first, that they were plant-based protein. Three of us liked the Beyond Burger better; one preferred the Impossible Burger. And the biggest surprise of all was that our son, who is a meat-atarian, liked the Beyond Burger so much that he added it to his Saturday menu rotation.

We’re trying to eat local takeout once a month, so for January we went to Noodle King for pho and egg rolls. There was a time, pre-pandemic, that we ate at Noodle King once a month. The kids are convinced this is what kept us so healthy.

My bowl of chicken pho from Noodle King

What we did

Our son figured out how to play his Switch online with friends–one from school and one who lives on the other side of the country, and I couldn’t love this more. He now hosts regular online meetings with his friends to play video games together. He’s being social.

We left our church. There’s a lot I could say about this, but the decision has taken up a lot of emotional and mental space in my head, so I’m just going to leave it at that for now.

We took the Christmas decorations down and put them away for the year. I miss the tree’s presence in the living room, but I have some evergreen/pine candles to re-create the scent.

I played Minecraft with my children. A highlight: My son saying, “I’m going to revive Izzy because she’s more helpful.” I also played an old-school Nintendo game with my son.

Phil got a COVID test and we isolated at home for a day (or two). Then I quarantined for a week. These were anxiety-induced days, but we made it through without either of us testing positive or developing symptoms.

On two consecutive nights, I watched the International Space Station pass overhead from our backyard.

I finished a puzzle of Cinque Terre, Italy. Sometime last year, Phil and I watched a travel documentary about Cinque Terre. When I saw the puzzle, I had to have it. Now, I’m dreaming of the Italian coast.

Cinque Terre, Italy is now on my must-see travel list

I unintentionally cleaned the area around my desk while searching for some documents I needed to fill out paperwork. 

Isabelle and I attended a Zoom meeting live from Dadaab, the largest refugee camp in Kenya. The meeting was hosted by the co-author of a book we read this month–a man local to Lancaster now who grew up in the refugee camp. It was heart-opening.

The kids went to a new dentist. It was an overall positive experience but the practice’s policies are different than our previous dentist and it was a bit jarring at first. (The kids went back to the cleaning with the hygienist. I waited in the car with a pager.) Both have healthy teeth, though!

What we read/are reading

Most of what I list here will be what I read, but I’ll include some from the rest of the family as I can.

Clanlands: Whisky, Warfare and a Scottish Adventure Like No Other by Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish. If you’re among those who are in Droughtlander (the time between release of Outlander TV series seasons and/or books) right now, this is a suitable substitute. There is A LOT of history in this book, but it actually just makes me curious to know more. If you’re familiar with these two actors as personalities, the book will be that much better for you.

I started reading Truman by David McCullough as part of my It Was Always Burning reading challenge. It is slow going, but mostly because it’s a thousand pages long. The politics section I’m in right now feels like a slog.

3,000 Miles to Jesus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life for Spiritual Seekers by Lisa Deam. Full review on this in a separate blog post. I met Lisa at a writing retreat several years ago, and I was pleased to be able to read her book in advance of its release.

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. My daughter and I both finished this as part of our school reading. I don’t remember if I ever read it as a student. Her conclusion? It’s such a good book. I agree, although sometimes the vast descriptions are difficult for students to sift through to find the main actions. Part of my job was to help with that.

When Stars are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed. Omar lives and works locally in my city. I’ve met him and heard his story through one of the refugee resettlement organizations. I’ve had his book for months and wanted to read it before he hosted a Zoom meeting from the Kenyan refugee camp where he once lived. (See previous section, “What We Did.”)

Selected poems by Robert Burns. This while drinking the peaty Scotch.

Monster by Walter Dean Myers. Another one for school. I’m only a few “chapters” into it. I read along so I can better help my students. (It’s not a huge sacrifice to me.) Myers is quickly become a go-to author for a quick but meaningful read.

Raisins and Almonds by Kerry Greenwood. Back to the Phryne Fisher mysteries.

The next two books deal with mental health issues and suicide, so if those topics are triggering for you, please feel free to skip.

I started All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven for a book club I’m in. I’ve read the first quarter of the book, as needed for book club. It was really hard to stop but I don’t want to read ahead and accidentally spoil for someone else!

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. A few weeks ago, I checked this out of the library and then had to return it because it was on hold and I couldn’t renew it. Second time’s a charm! Unforgettable. I finished it in a day.

Our son likes the Stick Dog books by Tom Watson and he and I are reading one together at night. (There are also Stick Cat books, which is where he got his start.) These are quirky, humorous stories about a band of dogs who get into a little bit of trouble now and then.

If you want to keep up with my reading in real-time, you can follow me on Instagram, where I post a picture and short review every time I finish a book, or find me on Goodreads.

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Well, there’s a bit of what we’ve been up to. You can check in towards the end of each month for another riveting update of our lives in media, food, activities and books.

This year will be different

It’s a third of the way through January, and I already feel like I’m doing it wrong. Doing what wrong, I’m not sure. It’s just that I have this sense that I’m somehow squandering the new year. That a new start should feel more productive, more monumental. While I appreciate the opportunity for renewal that comes with the start of a new year, I kind of hate all the pressure that tags along. We’re “supposed to” dream big and plan and set goals, none of which are bad things, but how can any one day of the year hold that much expectation?

Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash

If I’ve learned anything over the years it’s that the planning, the dreaming, the goal-setting is a constant process of re-evaluation. We can make our plans, dream our dreams and set our goals, but life often has other plans for us and if we don’t hold those things loosely, we can easily convince ourselves we’ve failed if we don’t achieve what we set out to do at the beginning of the year.

It’s the bigness of the dreams, goals and plans that bothers me right now. A dream, goal or plan doesn’t have to be big to be good.

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I spent half of last year dealing with an ovarian cyst. Between the discovery of it, the surgery to remove it and the recovery from surgery, it was five months, not all of it active, but the issue was looming in the background. In the fall, before surgery, my health took a scary turn–high blood pressure and extreme anxiety. I had been taking on too much and not taking care of myself.

Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash

I was squeezing extra work–writing, reading–into the margins of my day. I felt really productive most days, but all that constant working was taking a toll on my body. The month of recovery after my surgery left me with quite a shock. I couldn’t do all the things I normally could do. I rested. I read. I watched shows and movies.

And I thought about what needed to change for this year. What settled in my soul is a hard statement to put into words.

The truth is: I want to do less this year.

(There. I said it. And I survived. Even now, though, I want to erase it.)

Do less? Who wants to do less? Who makes that their goal?

I am fully aware that we live in a world where more is the word that grabs our attention. Every advertisement convinces us we need more of this or that. More savings. More stuff. More money. More, more, more.

I’ve been wrestling with this plan to do less for months, and I’m still not completely comfortable with it. Will people think I’m lazy if I say I want to scale back and do less? Will I appear apathetic or uncaring when I say “no” to some things?

Honestly, I don’t care what people think about this plan. I have no proof, but I think this elusive quest for more is killing us, and I’m over it.

I didn’t know how much I needed the break from everything until I was on medical leave, and it’s almost embarrassing that it took a medical reason to force my rest. The pace of life slowed way down for me in November, and I tried hard not to let it ramp up again in December. Fortunately for me, my body wouldn’t allow me to jump back in to life as it was before the surgery, so I had to ease into it.

Now it’s January and the pressure to “get back to normal” is creeping back in. But I don’t want to go back to normal. Not the normal that had me sobbing in two doctors’ offices with terrifying blood pressure numbers and prescription anxiety medication in my hands.

Friends, that’s not normal. It can’t be. (Please don’t hear me say that anxiety is not normal or that it’s somehow wrong to take medication. That’s not what I’m saying, not at all.)

As much as I might want to do more, this year, I’m focusing on doing less.

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You might know that I choose a word every year–something to center my life on for the year, a word that becomes my focus.

Last year’s word was “intention.” It was a good word, a good plan for the year, forcing me to think ahead about some things and not just drift through my life. I didn’t write much specifically about that word, but I do feel like it changed me and helped me grow throughout the year.

For this year, I pondered a couple of words that went along with the theme of less doing, more being, words like rest and return, but the one that keeps speaking to my soul is “abide.”

It’s a bit archaic, the meaning I’m going for. It’s the idea of living or dwelling with. It’s not quite the opposite of intention, although it feels a little like it is. I don’t mean to accept whatever comes my way or tolerate bad behavior or anything like that. I just need to reconnect with this inner sense of being.

Apart from what I do and produce in this life, I want to abide as who I am at my core. And to do that, I have to strip off all the expectations that what I do, what I produce, makes me who I am.

It is no small task.

One way I’ve started implementing the idea of abiding is by letting the morning hours be leisurely. Last year, I was waking up around 5:30 a.m. trying to write or otherwise do creative work for an hour or so before I felt everyone had to start getting ready for work and school. A lot of mornings, I would be frustrated because my kids wake up early, and I wanted to protect that hour. I did get some things done, but I always felt a bit rushed in the morning.

Since my health issues, I reformed the morning hours. I still wake up around 5:30 a.m. but the first little bit is for spiritual practices. I listen to a short prayer program called Pray As You Go, and I read the daily passages offered in the Book of Common Prayer. These are things I had abandoned in favor of productivity last year, and while I don’t hold any expectation for these practices (i.e. if I start my day with prayer and Bible reading, the rest of the day will go well!), they do help me fight the urge to do.

When I finish those two practices, I make coffee and breakfast. I read for leisure. And then I start getting ready for work. It’s a rhythm that’s working for me right now, and I do feel better able to start the day on a more centered note.

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The temptation, with a word like “abide,” will be to let some things slide. I am letting go of some things this year, but my hope is to create more space for the things I feel are more important. For example, I’m planning to take one afternoon/evening a month to leave work and head to a coffee shop and focus on my writing until I’m ready to come home. I will sacrifice some family time to do this, but if I want to accomplish my writing goals, I have to.

In other ways, I’m starting over. Like with running. I’m back to the plan I used when I first started running, if only to ease my body back into the habit. My muscles remember, though, and as badly as I want to just run and keep running, I’m forcing myself to stick to the running and walking plan for now. Last year, I ran five 5k races which was not something I planned to do. But I consider it a great accomplishment. Last year, I wanted to try a 4-mile race for the first time, but my husband got sick and I couldn’t follow through with that.

This year, I want to run a half-marathon with my husband–13 miles to celebrate 13 years of marriage. This is a goal that terrifies me, especially since I’m practically starting over with running. Maybe that doesn’t sound like it fits with the “do less” plan. It is probably the biggest goal I have this year, and it will take discipline and focus. I will have to do less of other things to stick to my training plan.

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Forward. Forward. Forward. 

It’s the way we’re always told to be moving. To grow is to advance, and I don’t think it’s always wrong, but I don’t think we give enough credit to the idea of circling back. Of returning. Of starting again. Sometimes we need to return to the places we’ve been, to walk a circle instead of a straight line, to revisit a place, physical or mental or spiritual, that we think we’ve moved on from. And we need to see it as part of the process, instead of as negative progress or regression.

If you find yourself in a place of returning, a place of circling, a place of starting over, please know that you’re not doing it wrong. More isn’t always better. Forward isn’t always the best direction. Growth and change can happen when you’re standing still (just ask the trees). It can happen when the world is cold and dark (just ask the seeds planted in spring).

Whatever you choose to focus on this year, may it bring you joy and peace.