Soaring Through Blue

it's a little crowded in here, for now





Sometimes, writing this blog about my life is like inviting everyone into my life.

Don't get me wrong. I love my life. It's just like I make it out to be, spontaneously. We live on the island and breathe, slowly, the sweet island air, filling our lungs with its airy goodness. We rise, slowly, in the morning, faces a little pink from island sun beaming through the open window, honoring our rumpled, tumbled bed sheets with a photo, to be uploaded to Flickr. We put our feet in the island wet, along the beach, captured on Polaroid film, a little green, with the dreaminess of blur. So edgy and fresh.

We go about our business of the day, documenting as we go, each cherry blossom and every bite of food and pile of clutter honored with a line or a photo or a tweet, somewhere, someplace, on the internet.

It's what I do.

It's what I love, what I adore, what I cleave to.



But lately, as I write, hunched, at the computer, I think, this is not what I like to do. I want to be moving, doing, acting, speaking. Not writing. Well, yes, writing, because that is the driving force of my life, after mama-being. Just not writing while hunched at the computer. Writing in the air while perched on a tree limb high above a grassy expanse littered with blossom petals might be heart stopped wonderful, now that I think about it. But hunched at a computer?

Oh goodness.

Not so much.

You see, we've been terribly, un-utterably busy, around here, lately. Piles of laundry dot the floor like random polka dots, stacks of plates await, patiently, a warm bath of suds and water. Emails glower, menacingly, at me from my inbox, following me with their eyes as I cross the room to lean out the open window, to breathe the sweet island air, even if a bee hopped up on crystal meth might fly in and chase us, a little panicked, around the house, not quite sure how to guide him outside, again.

You see, everyone wants to move faster in the spring. I know, I've said many times that my life is slower now, but it's still too fast, for me. I need time to smell my skin in the sun. I want to take time to move slowly, to leave words behind, to get in to the car and sit while it moves me around the island, leaning into curves, breathing into the dips and turns and long stretches of island roads, wordlessly, feeling our hair grow in the warm sun.

I'm not sure I have another story today, and that one has nothing to do with food. Whatever that means.

Bear with me? Please.

I read something the other day that has been, shadowyingly, in my mind ever since, ducking and turning in my everyday thoughts, like a faraway lighthouse leading me, to the shore from the roiling sea. It was about spending time with people in person instead of tweeting at them, all day, online. I never really thought of it like that before, though I love humanity, dearly. It seemed kindly, in a way that so much of what *I* read, lately, isn't, on the internet.

So, you'll be seeing less of me around here, lately. Oh, I'll still be pushing pork on my other blog, the one where I'm paid (shhhh, don't tell my readers over there!) to sing, joyously, enthusiastically, the praises of pig meat, three times a week. Mama gots to have her bacon, after all. And this blog, maybe. If I have time after I walk on the island beach and eat pulled pork under the cherry blossoms on the island and smell my skin for awhile. If I didn't have to actually work for a living, I could do a lot more of this kind of thing. And maybe even get to those dishes, once in awhile.

This morning, I made these muffins, just for us. But some things are best left private. You know the details of our wedding, of our bed sheets, our constant marital bliss filled with giggles, our child-like skipping, our kissing until we nearly suffocate, our dancing in the kitchen, our life in Italy, our various medical crises. But some things need to stay private, like when we eat muffins. Please, understand.




Muffins.

2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/4 stick butter
1 cup sour cream
1 cup applesauce
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup St. Andre cheese, shredded
2 eggs
1 tsp. pure, unadulterated, genuine vanilla extract

Mixing the dry goods. Mix the flour and baking powder. Combine with the salt until mixed. Mix together until combined, completely. Enjoy the fluffy textures of the dry goods as you stir, thinking of how good they will taste as they nourish your soul, later.

Mixing the wet ingredients. Melt the butter and add it to a dish. Combine it with the sour cream until they are combined. Add the applesauce and combine until they are mixed. Add each egg, separately, stirring well to make sure each one is combined, thoroughly. Add vanilla, stirring, gently. Don't be afraid to sniff the vanilla aroma as it wafts toward your nostrils.

Combining wet and dry. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, and stir, using confident strokes, not nervous, choppy strokes. There should not be any dry goods lumped up anywhere, but you also don't want to stir too much or you will end up with dry, tough muffins that will disappoint. Your guess is really as good as mine as to how much and how hard to beat it. Go with what says YES to you. Be careful. Pay attention. Turn off the Beatles music if it's too distracting.

Filling the muffin tins. Grease up some muffin tins, any size, from those tiny mini ones to the giant ones, it doesn't matter. Say YES to whatever strikes your fancy. Fill as full as you want. I filled mine up to the top because we like muffins that spill out onto the tin and get that nice, burnt flavor. So so so so so good.

Bake until they are done, which could be anywhere from ten minutes to half an hour, depending on the size of your muffin tin receptacles, and how full you filled them. Watch them, carefully. Pay attention. Keep the Beatles music off if it will hamper your concentration.

Serve hot, with plenty of butter or lard for spreading. Sprinkle the chocolate chips on top, or top with bits of St. Andre cheese, or both.

Makes 4-20 muffins, depending on size.

Feeds two, around here.