The Big Brownie

Okay, so Grand Rapids is not as palatable as chocolate, or at least no with such frequency. But brownies and today have something in common.


Today we are getting are first sticking snow, our first real snow of the season, and I love it! I love the first snow because of the smell, the crispness of the air, and the likeness to the shaking of powdered sugar over brownies: when it is done gently and evenly, the brownie gradually disappears under a blanket of sugar (well, one typically stops before that). The first snow is so similar, and I can't help but get so excited.


Walking to class this morning, it was all I could do not to drop my back pack and go skuttling around in circles with my mouth open, tongue out, grinning like there's no tomorrow. I do miss California winters, the wet season, the lulling crisp and cleansing rains but in exchange for standing out in the first rain, bare-foot and silly, I stand out in the first sticking snow, just as delighted, as the shimmering flakes swirl and dance.

A Moment of Calm

Professors are cool. That reads sooo eloquently, doesn't it? But I do mean it.

Sunday evening, our CAS professor had the class over for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner. And it was wonderful. She has a fireplace in her home, a real, wood-burning fireplace. The paint in the room, the furniture, the trim were warm and welcoming. Homes are beautiful, beautiful places. We sat around the living room in an oblong circle, talked some, had some measures of silence, met her younger son (who was quite adorable), laughed, shared a sliver of life for a moment . . . it took me by surprise, the calm, the peace, the welcome, the feeling of home.

Jealousy

I admit, I am a glutton for punishment. I love my CAS class.
CAS: Communication Arts and Sciences.
CAS 101: Oral Rhetoric

Yeah, uh, speeches. So the concept of my loving the class and its contents seem a little contradictory. And it is, to an extent. I love the challenge. I love that it is familiar but new. I love that the professor is passionate about her teaching.

This is what gets me jazzed on subjects. When the subject is somehow familiar and new at once, and the professor/teacher/lecturer cares very much about the subject, about the students/audience, and pushes for a cohesive understanding of that subject, with perhaps the hope for genuine appreciation.

Anyway. Where does that jealousy element come into play? Our professor is going to a conference, so we don't have class next Monday. The conference is in San Francisco. !! I want to go to California. I sent her a list of to-dos (which is a joke as I've been in-in San Fran, what, twice?), the primary obligation being to watch the sun set into the ocean.

My ignorance of the area makes me want to do something there, to get to know San Fran. Is that weird or what? Me, want to get to know a city . . .

November Thoughts

This morning the sunrise was astounding. Not at first. At first I went to the field behind DeVos and decided that although watching the sunrise is more about the peace than the painting, this uneventful color scheme could be passed over for presentation preperation. Once the library had opened and I trucked up to the fifth floor, I looked east to see the sun peaking up, dripping with color.
It was all I could do to not run. I moved as quickly as my non running feet would take me back under the Beltline (all I wanted to do was take off my shoes and run, I was so excited), slipped off my flats, and moved up the hill to field bare-foot. It was gorgeous. I must have been there a half an hour, freezing my feet off until I finally bid goodbye to the horizon to clean up and head back to homework--but, oh! What a sight.
Mornings are best quiet. I suppose it isn't truly quiet with the Beltline roaring behind or Burton humming ahead, but there aren't voices. The birds chatter, squirrels fidget, the wind blows the switches of the willows, geese honk, but inside is a silent well of joy, of peace, of I think I can make it through this day after all.
Sunset was phenomenal also. Although I was constricted to the apartment and theology readings, from the sliding door the sky was permeated with pink . . .
Michigan has something I'm not used to, something that scared me at first, but something I have learned to love: a big sky. I can't imagine it bigger, but know it must be in the prarie states and parts of the south. The immensity is amplified by the distinction between land and sky (it cannot not mingle with any ocean) and the events that parade across daily. I'll miss this sky someday. For now, I'll just enjoy it. Mornings. Mornings in Michigan are the best part of November 2010 thus far.

In Love with Simplicity

"Ohh Michigan" is one of the most over-used expressions of *sigh* of "I'm sick of college/Calvin/here/what you will," but I am using it as a phrase of endearment. The trees are on fire here. Flaming. Is it really October though? The trees are on fire AND the sun rays are wrapping around my skin as though it were a mild summer day. The trees are on fire and not all the flowers have withered or dropped--color, color, color. It is so simple, so ritual, and so irrevocably necessary to the cultivating of awe to pause and note.

If I were to wind up living here, and I would muchover prefer it to Los Angeles, my yard would be boardered with mixed wildflowers, tangled and tripping over one another with dandelions on the less trampled but always ragged lawn. The backyard would no doubt have a garden. And I would never miss ArtPrize. (I did not, unfortunately, make it down this year, and am very sorry for it.) This city is not a big, hopping, dynamic city, me han dicho, and suberbia is, suberbia, but it looses its monotony without overembellishment where the wild things grow near the soccer fields, in unminded lawns, in art.

The Farmer's Market again has done me well. Chard, swiss chard, was my splurge purchase, and it was delicious. 1 Tablespoon olive oil, 1 clove garlic, red pepper flakes, sautéed; 1 T water, a bunch of chopped chard, salt, added and mixed and covered about 4 minutes, served with fresh out of the oven, homemade pugliese bread (altered: half whole wheat flour, some corn meal, and white flour). MMMMMM!!!

Flowers and Food

Most exciting things in my life right now: not much. Today I cooked acorn squash, chick pea, potato, curry stew and also (managed to burn my oats--napping is always a bad idea) baked pugliese bread, banana chocolate chip bread, and moved sourdough onto its next stage of sitting and festering. Fester fester fester, rot rot rot. But there are still inexplicably delightful bits of lightness and cheer in my life, like this flower . . .

. . . from Dahlia Farms, Fulton Farmer's Market: a wild and dazzling joy.

Thanks Libby!

Annie-ranjado

Me soprendo que mi piel no ha llegado a ser anaranjado. Todo lo que como tiene lo mismo tinto: jugo de naranja, zanahorias, camote, polvo de chili, maíz (es amarillo, yo sé, ¿pero que es la diferencia?) . . .