Soaring Through Blue

of twitter, pork, and rare love
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Oh, my.

One word.

Twitter.

If Twitter was a food, it would be the sweetest of sweets, the meatiest of meats, the most substantive, yet, the mostly lightest, bite. It would be a bantamweight ether of smell, and also, a fist-pumping gorge of flavorful intensity.

I was late to the party. Months ago, I had heard of Twitter. But my days were wrapped in mama-ing, like a thick, cocoon membrane pulsing with love, fatigue, hunger, and many thoughts of food, with no time even to breathe into it, for days, on end.

The outer world? Might as well have not been there at all. All I knew was her wail. And my quotidian somnambulism as I wandered through the gloaming. Twitter? What was Twitter? The lilting voices of feathered creatures? Goodness, what did I know?

Once the little one began sleeping more at night, and PapaChef stopped working as a chef and was home all day so that our family was of apiece, I slowly woke from the scrim of maternal cumulus, and found that the world had moved on, without me. I hurried to catch up, breathing, beseeching.

Wait!

Wait, please.

Oh, wait, for me.

But, it didn't, couldn't, perhaps wouldn't. I plunged onward, as fast as my maternal feet could carry me. And where I arrived? A place wholly new, and different, to me.

The doorstep of an unending font of nascent friendships, of budding pals, of burgeoning bosom buddies. And none of them farther than one click, away. Day or night. As many times a day as I wanted. Thirty. Forty. Fifty or more.

My mind whirled and dipped, turned inside out, and right side up, again, at dizzying speed.

You see, most of my life, people have had a hard time keeping up with me. They were intimidated by my saber-sharp wit, my intimate knowledge of James Joyce, my innate writing skills. They withered backwardly from my exuberant laugh, just as they skittered scantwise when I spoke of growing ill, mysteriously, and progressively.

I found myself, often, alone.

Except, of course, for Sharon.

Sharon, my best friend since age 15. We plan to grow old together, her and me.

We do. We really do.

But, if you read this blog regularly, you are probably familiar with the story of how PapaChef and I met, online, through this blog, in a way. He has filled the gaping holes of loneliness in my life. I'm now complete. Content. Not wanting for anything, unlike others who still haven't found that special person, the one whom makes their heart dance gentle flipflops while it sings old Beatles tunes.

Yes.

That one.

That can be hard to take for a middle-aged woman who's alone, no matter how blond and workout slim she may be. Growing older alone is a scary and lonely business. Oh god, just thinking about it makes me tear up, so so so so so grateful that I found my PapaChef just in time.

I tell Sharon that she still might find someone as special as my husband, and then she could live in a place as heart stopped wondrous as the island, instead of L.A., which she hates, with a passion. I reach out to her. I tell her that. I do, I really do.

But I don't know how to fix it.

And anyway, it's probably better this way. It's my turn to be on top for awhile. If she ever does find someone, it'll be that much achingly sweeter for having been made miserable by my indelibly joyous celebration of life and constant public declarations of love.

But no worries. I have hundreds of new friends on Twitter who demand my attentions, daily. We laugh, we cry, we share recipes, food, and dreams, together. I've never had so many friends as I do these days, around here. Just 140 characters and a click and a new bond is forged, between me on the island and another being, most likely not on the island.

It's so awesome.

And then there's Tita. And Molly. I couldn't ask for better friends, right now. They both have husbands. It's as if we're all in a club together, the club for women who are at the point in their lives where they are content. Settled. No longer looking around every corner for something they, quite possibly, may never find. A club where the best part is the sitting around after, resting on our elbows, watching the candle flames flicker, stomachs full to bursting, a second helping of dessert beckoning, enticingly. Conversation flickering, wiggling, surging, dangling. Grins warming into smiles, smiles expanding into guffaws, loudly.

Shared knowledge, a bond emanating from a life station.

Together, in the world.

Couples, like the one above, which we have over our bed, to remind us of us.

Families.

Not single people.







Pork Roast for Couples


This is what PapaChef and I make any time we have other married couples over, the ones whom we have known forever, ever since we got married, and even some we knew before we were married, though now of course we share that unspoken bond with them. That of married people. Something you can't know until you experience it yourself.

Buy the largest pork roast you can find. Around here that is 14 lbs or more, but that's because island pigs grow larger than any others, due to the the fact that island farmers feed them island corn, island millet, and frosted cupcakes every day.

Slather the pork with fresh pork lard, an inch thick. Cut slits into the roast and fill a turkey baster with more lard, and force it into the slits. Warm the turkey baster in your armpit if the lard is a bit sluggish. Use up to two pounds of lard this way, depending on the size of the roast, and your love of lard. Use more, if you like. Lard should be a celebration.

Take strips of bacon and form them into bows. Pin over the slits in the roast with rosemary branches, to hide the slits so that your guests won't be tipped off to the surprise within.

Get your oven screaming hot, as PapaChef loves to say, whenever he cooks. Thrust the roast in, shutting the door firmly on it. Slow roast it until it's done in the middle, which your chef husband can check, using his tingling chef sense. Don't have a chef husband? I feel sorry for you.

Hover in front of the oven door, breathing deeply of the hot, moist air that exudes from the vents. Check the roast, constantly, with a high-powered flashlight, since oven lights are never quite bright enough to really see what's going on there and to be able to determine just how much longer it will be until you can sink your molars deep into it and run your tongue along the edges, slurping the juices, savoringly. Mentally poke the roast, prodding it with your eyes, beseeching it to finish cooking. Infuse it with your love, and longing.

When done, pull from oven and let it rest, basting with pan juices using your turkey baster, now empty of lard. Try, as hard as you might, to let it rest for ten minutes after the rigors of roasting. This is a time to honor it, before you eat it. Hover over it, sniffing deeply of the porky goodness, whetting your appetite. Poke it, if you must. Bounce on your toes, do a childlike twirl or two in anticipation, wring your hands, wipe the sweat from your brow. It won't be long.




Place platter on the table. Let your married couple guests tear hunks off to feed each other, and you. They'll get it, if they are as happy as we are.

Feeds an even-numbered group of people who are married, happily.