We Are Still Here

I have not blogged in six months. I have not really posted anything on social media in all that time. I try to respond to messages and keep up with news, but I’ve fallen behind with most things.

Like many of you, I suspect, my orbit has been small in these strange times. Daily life has been revolving around the day job and the kids, managing risk from the virus while trying to serve as a support system.

Writing has taken a backseat to most things, and other relationships have not been given much attention at all—not for lack of caring, but for lack of energy and hours. And self-care? Self-care is not something I’m good at. I come from a line of self-sacrificing nurturers who don’t really do boundaries. Nothing like a pandemic to hold up a mirror.

Stephen has been a good partner through it all, and Mark has been a good co-parent. Ever since I had kids, I keep coming back to that adage, “It takes a village.” It really does. I am grateful for our little village. It has taken our team of three adults to parent our three teenagers in this pandemic. Each kid has unique academic, social, and emotional challenges exacerbated by remote learning and quarantine.

There are highlights: We have a lot of animated dinner conversations. They are often the high point of my day. We pay close attention to the spectacular sunsets outside our windows. Maya has applied to colleges for next year and has already been accepted to several. Liam is making beautiful music and came in second for Student Council president in his high school election. Lana creates rainbow sculptures that dot our house, and she is my steadfast kitchen helper. They don’t like remote learning. They miss their friends. They are worried about the future. Their emotions are all over the place. They are doing the best they can.

I have heard versions of this from other parents and caregivers, or from teachers  dealing with students. The kids living in this time are not really ok. The people who are trying to help them are not really ok.  None of us are really ok.

Yet as a society, we are not good at talking about mental health or the role of it during this pandemic. People are being asked to perform as close to “normal” as possible when so little about this is normal, especially for the children and teenagers.

So we do our best, and then we often feel woefully inadequate at the end of the day.

It’s a lot. For all of us.

The caregivers trying to fill other people’s “buckets” are drained. Those confined with (and grateful for) family and friends crave a little time and space for themselves. Those who are alone are starved for contact and touch (even the introverts).

There’s a song by Florence and the Machine that keeps running through my head. The refrain is: “We all have a hunger.”

Yep.

So many needs not being met. So many people hungry.

And tomorrow’s Thanksgiving. In a pandemic. In a country raw from disparity, unrest, and resistance.

Am I grateful? Every day. Does that mean that everything is ok? Nope. Our world is not ok. Is there hope? I think so. Are there moments of grace and joy and profound beauty in the middle of it all? Absolutely. Thank goodness. Is it easy to lose sight of that sometimes? Also yes. Is there a lot of work to be done to make things better for the future? Again, absolutely.

I wanted to write something today because people have sent messages recently asking me if I’m ok, concerned that they haven’t heard from me in a long time.

It’s mostly been that thing where you have five minutes free, and you want to call a friend or write a message, but you know that five minutes is just not enough time and there’s just so much to catch up on, but nothing at all so urgent or monumental.

How do you fit an honest response into five minutes, especially if brevity is not your strong point? (And if you know me, you know that brevity is NOT my strong point.) 😉

So instead of saying, “I’m fine,” or “I’m ok,” I tend to get quiet when there’s too much to say and not enough time. I’m sorry.

This time, I wrote this. Hopefully the next post will be sooner than six months.

I am looking forward to cooking dinner for tomorrow, but I am going to miss all our family who would usually gather together. I wish we could all be with the people we love. I look forward to the time when that’s possible.

Sending love and all the hugs.

Ukrainian Christmas Blessings

Much like Greeks, Russians, and other Slavic people, many Ukrainians (Orthodox and Catholic alike) celebrate Ukrainian Christmas today, according to the old “Julian” Calendar.
WILLIAM KURELEK, Ukrainian Christmas Eve (1973)

We have always celebrated both Christmases in our family.  “American” Christmas was the festive holiday for Christmas movies, carols, and Santa Claus. We would watch the skies for signs of Santa while driving home from my Uncle Mike and Aunt Sophia’s, and my sister Nadya and I often fell asleep in the car before we even got home.

Ukrainian Christmas was the more sacred winter holiday for us, connecting us to family but also to our ancestors. Sviat Vechir (Holy Night) dinner on Christmas Eve night was at the heart of the holiday, and we would go to Baba Dudycz’s house with all the aunts and uncles and cousins. Baba had her tree decorated, and around the house hung several of Baba’s pavuky (more on the pavuk can be found here). The small house was filled with family, and it always smelled amazing–frying onions, baked bread, borshch, mushroom gravy, the sweet kutia. My cousins and I amused one another with stories and games as we waited,occasionally entertained by adults who took turns interacting with us or watching television with Dido in the front room.

After seeing the first star in the sky, we said a prayer and often sang a Ukrainian carol, then feasted on the traditional dishes. I knew that Baba and my aunts were working in the kitchen, but I never really appreciated how much work it was until I prepared the dishes myself many many, years later. Baba and Dido Dudycz would beam as the meal began, so proud of their big, beautiful family; so happy to be sharing this treasured night.

There would always be a place set for our Beloved Dead, for our ancestors. The night felt like magic to me. I truly felt like our family from Ukraine would come to visit while we sat there, and I wondered which spirits from Baba and Dido’s lives back home made their way across the big ocean to visit with them, and with us.

There was never a doubt that some of them would come, that they could not be deterred by time or distance, because they were family; and where there is love, there is the most powerful of connections. If anyone could make a feast to entice the ancestors from “home,” it would be Baba.

Looking back, I realize that Sviat Vechir, even more than other rituals and holidays, formed my ideas about our relationships with our Beloved Dead; because even though I had not yet experienced a personal loss, I knew that after people died, they were not gone and forgotten. Like any relationship, we would have to work to nourish and maintain it. It was our job to remember and to honor them.

Many of my fondest memories are from the many years of Sviata Vecheria meals squeezed into that dining room around those long tables. This is also where I developed the idea that sharing a meal with loved ones is a sacred experience, and preparing food with intention is one of the greatest ways of showing love–because you could feel the love, taste the love in every bite of Baba’s cooking.

Baba 1987

Today the family has grown larger and spread out across the state, and even if we were able to all gather together (which is rare these days), there would be many faces missing from around that table. We’ve lost too many of our loved ones, and there is a hole in our hearts that is full of memories but still aches for them. But when my sister and I gather at my parents’ house, and my cousins gather with my aunts and uncles–the same traditional dishes are made with love, the prayers are said and carols may be sung, memories are shared, and our family who have died are with us. I have no doubt that Baba and Dido make every stop to see all of their family.

So when I put portions of every dish on the ancestor plate, I serve them before myself, and I whisper the names of the loved ones we have lost. The room, although not as full as Baba’s house, gets a little cozier, a little more full, and I know that they have come. Because we do get small miracles and moments of grace in this lifetime. I can feel them still beaming and loving us–because love is the most powerful of connections, and what is remembered, lives.

Veselyh Sviat. Христос народився! Merry Christmas.

Baba Yaga’s Thanksgiving Tips for Big Hips and a Healthy Appetite

Something I wrote that seemed timely to share during this holiday season. A little wisdom from the Bone Goddess:

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Baba Yaga’s Thanksgiving Tips for Big Hips and a Healthy Appetite

Well-known for her iconic hut perched atop chicken feet and her flying mortar and pestle, Baba Yaga is the quintessential Slavic witch of the woods. Familiar throughout Eastern Europe as the frightening witch who entraps children and young women, she is older and more complex than a mere cannibal bone collector. Baba Yaga is also the wise woman and earth-mother who protects the forest, the animals, and the wisdom of ancient traditions in danger of being forgotten in a modern world. She is the opposite of what is glorified in our society: Baba Yaga is old, powerful, alone, and perpetually hungry, and her wisdom comes from that ineffable appetite.

It’s time to celebrate the harvest, when your ancestors would stack their tables full of food to celebrate the fruits of the growing season and fatten up for winter. As you face the feast ahead, I offer one simple piece of advice:

Reclaim your hunger.

Hunger is powerful. That’s why people are afraid of it. Hunger reminds us that we are alive and fragile. It casts a light on our mortality. If we eat, we have a chance at life. If we do not, we will eventually die. It may take the average person between 30-40 days to die without food, but die they will.

Hunger teaches us things. When we listen to our bodies, we learn important lessons: our bodies will signal when we are full; they will usually give us clues when we are lacking something. When we pay attention to hunger, we start to discover what we need to change about ourselves and the world around us. Hunger is transformative.

Hunger is holy; it is the emptiness waiting to be filled. Hunger is what tempted people to venture into my deep, dark woods. Hunger is what brought them to my door, and hunger is why I let them in.   So why have people stopped knocking on my door? They have learned to ignore their hunger.

And women have it worst of all when it comes to appetites. Taught to go without, so much language around nutrition and diet is full of words like “combat hunger” “fight cravings.” When did the table become a battleground and food the enemy?

Warm bread slathered in fresh melting butter, soup filled with hunks of potato, juicy meat falling off bones, salt to enhance flavor and combat boredom, honey to sweeten a hard life. The smell of savory stews makes our mouths water. The color of cooked beets is red like flushed cheeks, they feel smooth on the tongue, their taste is sweet, they stain the fingers. Eating is sensual. It fills our mouths with flavors and textures. Why did we stop delighting in this thing we must do every day?

When people could take food for granted, they stopped listening to hunger. They found other reasons to eat or not eat. Restraint replaced relish, and hunger became…monstrous.

Somewhere between vanity and morality, young women became removed from their appetites. Old women became frightening or invisible. And an old woman with unapologetic appetites was the worst of all.

Today, we are rarely shown old women in print or online. (Yes, I do have internet in my hut. If I can make my house turn around to face the stars, it’s not hard to boost a signal and tap into the global network.) But if we see an old woman with food of any sort, she is usually cooking or baking in her spotless kitchen. Or she may be serving a meal, her apron clean and her tray in hand. Do we see her eating? Do we see any women eating with gusto like famished farmers after a day of hard labor? Not usually. Not unless their perfectly lipsticked lips are wrapped around some kind of suggestive sexual substitute.

Food can be sexy, but women do not always eat to tease or please their lovers. Sometimes women savor their meals because there is pleasure in eating, and hunger is the foreplay of the feast. (Because the exquisite wanting makes it so much more delicious.)

Of course, finding our way back to our appetites will take more than fairy tale trails of breadcrumbs, unless maybe they are tossed with bacon fat and onions, seasoned with salt and pepper, and served alongside some succulent spiced meat and cheesy potatoes.

This holiday season, love the food you eat, and eat the food you love. Fill your plate with savory delights and you’ll be on your way to becoming a person of good taste. After that, I invite you to come to my hut, just look for the chicken feet. They’re hard to miss.

Hut of Baba Yaga by Gil Rimmer

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