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The Seeking Heart
I read Franny and Zooey, the book J.D. Salinger wrote after Catcher in the Rye and Nine Stories, every couple years to keep up with the dramatic little-sister-existential-crisis part of me. I remember first reading it in Italy and our residential program director handed me another book, saying, “Do you know what book she is reading obsessively in that? Here it is.” And it was the strangest collection of Desert Father writings I’d ever seen, and I hated it and read about ten pages (though I left it on my nightstand for weeks to prove my interest).
But lately, like Franny I’ve been reading curled up on the couch, in the bathtub, and just before bed, reading something that feels like her ascetic text, but actually it’s a French theologian who was a sophisticated advisor to King Louis XIV. My dishelved copy of his three hundred year old writings is one of the books my mom sent me when I had Lux, with a simple annotation, “These helped me when I was at home with all of you kids.” My mom was home with seven kids and there are several books.
Fenelon says things like “let your anxieties flow away like a stream” and “do not listen to the voice that suggests you live for yourself” and “the pain you feel at your own imperfections is worse than the faults themselves.” He writes very simply and his words ping like drops of hard alcohol into my subconscious muddy puddle.
Becoming a mother has not come easily always. I’m not stir crazy. I’m not bored. Mostly I’m delighted. But at times I miss the narrative of the self propelled life. I’ve never been more aware of my urge to live for myself, aware of what Fenelon would call my self-love.
I heard a quote about motherhood in the most unexpected place the other day. Joe and I were watching a documentary about the bizarre performance artist Marina Abramovic (“The Artist is Present”). I wasn’t really listening, and then I perked up at the first sentence, and then I thought this! is! it! Because people ask what being a mom is like, and how it’s going, and I have trouble explaining it.
The hardest thing is to do something that is close to nothing. It’s demanding all of you because there is no story anymore to tell. There’s no objects to hide behind. You have to rely on your own pure energy and nothing else.”
Of course there is an object, you might say—a tiny human. But in the day to day there isn’t a narrative. The work is slow and breathtakingly repetitive. There are rarely moments of great completion. The demands feel illogical and relentless.
And yet I do feel as if this child might have chance of helping me get rid of my blossoming trifecta of impatience, arrogance, and antagonism toward sympathy. Like Marina says, I realize that the wave of selfishness that crashes when I wanted her naps to fall in line perfectly with my plans, that wave that frustrates me so, does come from the lack of anything to hide behind. Here I am, I’m selfish, and I want to do want I want. At the heart, it is not Lux that frustrates me, it is my own frustration that infuriates me.
Fenelon would say this happens to all of us, from a variety of sources. Mine happens to be Lux, yours might be a family member, an illness, a job, a quiet call that persists. I guess the turn I’ve taken lately, for the better, is to hear what else he says, this:
Learn to see yourself as you are, and accept your weakness until it pleases God to heal you. Your goal is to be as patient with yourself as you are with your neighbor. If you die a little bit every day of your life, you won’t have too much to worry about on your final day.
Does any of this ring true to you these days? Thanks for returning and reading, despite the intermission. : )
Photos of watching the rain, something we’ve been doing again lately, from this summer.
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Almond Cake for the Needy
I make this almond cake for women who’ve just had babies. The food you eat after you’ve had a baby tastes like food after you’ve been sick for a long time and eaten dry toast with nubs of butter for a week. I remember being in the hospital with Lux and they would bring me these rather sad McMuffin-style egg sandwiches and I thought they were amazing. After we came home someone brought me marinated steak, arugula salad, and orzo salad with sun dried tomatoes and I almost wept with happiness.
But even though a new mom might have low standards for what you bring her I think if you bring her the good stuff, it will really count. For life. I’ll probably be calling in favors, five years from now, and say, “remember when I brought you that almond cake? Ok, now will you please come pick me up on the side of a highway?”
I know I’m not grandly delusional too, because then I get the Thank You Notes that exclusively gush about the almond cake (“no need for a thank you note!” I proclaim. New moms don’t listen to nobody.).
But of course, you can bring this to anyone who needs a little extra affection, a paper-wrapped golden reminder on their kitchen counter that the world hearts them. It ages really nicely (I think the one photographed here was a week old), but it probably won’t age because it doesn’t take people long to figure out that it tastes good with eggs for breakfast, salad for lunch, or just after dinner. It also ships nicely. I once packed up a box for my brother in Florida and it arrived perfectly intact, only to be devoured within the day.
But perhaps my favorite thing about it is how humble it appears. The center invariably falls in and at first sight it looks like a FAIL cake. It doesn’t have frosting, and the color is rather simple. It could be anything, from the outside. I think of it like a little time bomb. I say bye!, and leave them with this innocuous package, maybe they ignore it for a day, and try it later. AND THEN THEY REALIZE. On the inside it’s deeply deeply almondly and with “good crumb” as the bakers say. And so hefty that all slices come out as wedges which is really how one eats cake when in need.
I originally tried it because my Aunt Anne told me about it. The recipe is from The New York Times cookbook edited by Amanda Hesser and it was contributed by Amanda Hesser. She’s the best. And that cookbook is amazing. It’s a culinary history class with a sexy cover. The best thing to do is think of making it a few hours before and pull the butter, eggs and cup of sour cream from the fridge. The batter is mixed in the food processor (a normal mixer would also work). The most tedious part is pulling apart the tube of Almond Paste, but that really only takes 3 minutes. As far as going to the store just for the almond paste, don’t bother. Just make it a habit to always have a tube at the ready in your cupboard. Most groceries stock the Odense brand in the baking aisle, by the spices.
Ok, here it is. Make it yours.
2 sticks butter, more for buttering pan
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour (measured after sifting)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
7-ounce tube almond paste
4 egg yolks, room temperature
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon baking soda
Powdered sugar, for sifting over cake
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter sides and bottoms of one 8-inch springform pan; line sides and bottom with parchment paper. Butter paper.
2.Sift flour and salt into a small bowl. Set aside. In a food processor, beat butter and granulated sugar at high speed until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add almond paste, a little at a time at medium speed, and beat 8 minutes. Beat in egg yolks, one at a time, and almond extract. Mix sour cream and baking soda and add to butter mixture. Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually add flour mixture, just until blended.
3. Pour batter into prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake about 1 1/4 hours, until top is golden and springs back when lightly pressed and the cake shrinks from sides of the pan. Cool in pan on wire rack. Remove sides of pan and remove paper. Store in a covered tin in or out of the fridge. It improves with age and can be made 1 to 2 weeks ahead. When ready to serve, sift powdered sugar on top and slice like pie.
you can read the original at the New York Times, or buy the book!
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Warmth and cold
We’re learning how to put on clothes for cold weather here. Feeling confident that Lux is warm when we’re outside makes an enormous difference in how I relax and enjoy the time. After an hour or two at the playground on an afternoon that was much colder than I realized, Lux was bone chilled and crying as a result. Clearly my internal temperature was no metric of hers. I wanted to rush back home and declare, we’re never going outside again!
But of course we went out again, only a few hours later. Long underwear, cotton t-shirt, sweater, jacket.
Hat, thrown to the ground. Plopped back on. Cheerfully tossed. Just as cheerfully tied, though not a strangle knot, let’s hope. Tugged, tugged, off again. “What’s the secret to the hats?” I ask my mentor-friend who runs our waldorf playgroup. “Repetition repetition repetition,” she replies. Ah.
When Lux was a newborn I found myself experiencing cloth on a new level of delight—this one is so soft, this one is so cozy, this one is so carefully stitched. Now again this happens to my senses, but this time I notice only: warm? Oh, is this one lined on the inside? Thick corduroy on one side, soft flannel on the other? I’m at consignment shops across the city spinning through the racks, digging into the bins, grabbing bits of sleeves between my fingers asking only: wool? But it’s thin thin cotton, 100 renditions of the same.
Do you know which items stand out on these hunts? The funny rumpled homemade sweaters, the ones with goofy rainbow yarn and crooked buttons. Those beam the promise of warmth as if each haphazard row captures a little more heat, kept close by your side.
Did you know they make smartwool socks for toddlers?
And the hunt does make you treasure what you’ve got. Shoes from a cousin that finally fit. Thin, yet soft sweaters, and why not just top it with another one? A red wool hat I picked up at a consignment sale. In a chance of 1/20 ,the register I ended up at was run by the woman who had brought the hat. “I’m so happy to see you take that,” she said “both of my children wore it for years.” A good one.
Do you have a few warm things you’re tugging out from under the bed, glad to see again?
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Pintos with Lux
She still doesn’t speak any words I recognize. But delight is her noisiest emotion and her palette has no expectations. For breakfast we can have oatmeal swirled with grated apple and heavy cream, or cold brown rice sprinkled with sesame seeds, or slices of roasted sweet potato dredged in lime juice and cilantro.
But it’s the lunches that I look forward to: at last they are the lunches I’d read about in my favorite food memoirs: lazy and slow with many plates crowding the table. My fellow diner has no compunction about being served from a pyrex from the fridge; and she loves to watch me trim and chop our food in front of her at the table. New ideas of simple combinations come to me as we eat, and I jump up to try them on the spot.
Inadvertently, it comes in courses. Begin with enormous slices of avocado and move to a plate piled with soft pinto beans doused in olive oil, bits of green onion and topped with a snowy layer of feta. Square of homemade bread, hers spread with olive oil or tahini, mine toasted and slathered with Justin’s chocolate peanut butter. We share gooey bits of camembert, spoonfuls of fig jam folded into greek yogurt, and tiny slices of strawberries, the red juice dying both of our fingers. A small plate of fluffy scrambled eggs and brown bits of potato. A sautéed pile of bitter greens with olive oil and slices of garlic. I chop up spoonfuls for her, wondering if suspicion of green things is inborn. It isn’t, she loves it more than the strawberries. Back to the avocado we go, for a final dessert slice. My kitchen has tripled its former avocado capacity—we eat the whole fruit in one meal, daily. She smears it in her hair as she eats, and why not? She has justified the ritual bath time yet again.
We look out the window, listen to the subway trains coming and going, and sip water. She loves to drink out of the glass. I watch as she eagerly sips and then lets the water trickle back out of her mouth, she looks thrilled with the experience. It’s quiet: our neighbors are at work, and the table in front of her has been stratified with everything we’ve eaten: all of it tasted, smeared, examined, and shared. It was a good lunch.
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Handwritten Birth Certificates
These birth certificates by Mr. Boddington’s Studio are so lovely. That shop does the best job of highlighting handwritten elements and making them irresistible. The facts-as-art element, where you can’t help but read all the details, remind me of the personalized wedding prints done by JHill.
Joe and I are going through our ever multiplying pile of art-we-can’t-part-with and trying to decide what to hang up and what to put under the bed. We don’t need something like this, but I love the idea of doing it for a friend.
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in the park for a birthday
The weather folks said it was going to be 91 degrees that Saturday morning. I had visions of our guests sipping coffee and sweating, while humidity swirled around. Fortunately that dismal scene did not happen. At 10am it was very windy and slightly cloudy, which made perfect cozy breakfast party weather.
menu:+ granola with steel cut oats, dried apricots and lots of seeds. yogurt (Brown Cow), raspberries, and blueberries.
+ three frittatas: kale, swiss chard, new potatoes.
+ maple blueberry muffins. One baker friend brought apricot and sage scones, and one thoughtful friend brought Flour treats. Flour treats are the best hostess gift of all time.
+ bacon doused in maple syrup, baked, and cut into triangles.
+ two containers of coffee from Starbucks.
The great thing about this menu was the leftovers were easily incorporated into our week. (people never eat as much at parties as you expect, right??) Lux loved the frittate which is a discovery for me because they have more chopped greens packed per square inch than anything else I make.
Everyone showed up at different times via bikes or just finishing up a morning walk. Lots of the girls wore dresses; I love it when that happens. Strangers walked by with bemused smiles, eyeing the bundle of balloons blowing in the wind and the giddy babies chasing their toys. 
I met Ellie and Lena at the library when the girls were five months old. Our babies were rather immovable and barely participated in the playtime, but we noticed they were around the same age and quickly struck up conversation. We survived the winter by getting together every week. Friends like them were so important to my first year as a mom, and I’m so grateful for their companionship.
And of course we all had that moment. That moment of “why don’t we do this more often?” When you realize all it took was the promise of coffee and a few blankets to get people to the park. When you look around and see other families having parties too, and realize, “this is what the park is for!” I hope we do it again this summer, but for now a baby’s birthday was the excuse we needed.
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eleven thoughts for new moms
This extreme heat combined with Lux’s approaching first birthday has the early days of motherhood on my mind. The sticky floor in our kitchen, the faint hum of a hundred air conditioners through the window, the smell of baking bricks has triggered a wave of memories I’d forgotten in the last few months. I know several of my readers are expecting babies soon! I thought I would share a few things I would have loved to know in the first month or two.
Lie about your due date on Facebook. Smudge it a little starting two or three weeks beforehand, no one will notice. Majority of first births are late, up to two weeks! To keep the dear friends and family at bay during those endless last days, give yourself a little leeway.
Ask for food instead of gifts. If you have friendly neighbors and hopeful friends, tell them you would love for some hearty food in the weeks after the birth.
A doula might be a bit expensive, but it could be the best money you’ve spent. It could save you the cost of an epidural and c-section! And be enormously comforting to you and husband. It isn’t an indulgence, it is a wise investment. If they do postpartum visits and help, all. the. better.
Sleep with a favorite bed companion for your baby before they arrive, and infuse it with your scent.
Never post about how well your baby is sleeping on Facebook. Nothing marks a new parent more than this boasting, and unfortunately, it can really hurt some friends’ feelings who’ve had more difficult babies. Stay savvy and avoid this topic.
Things that are easiest when the baby is smallest: day trips, plane trips, eating at loud restaurants, and evening adventures.
Nap when she naps. Truly truly truly. If you can do this as much as possible, you’ll feel way better about the bizarro sleep patterns.
Avoid sleep training until three months. Do not spend hours googling methods when they are two weeks old. Your hips have to learn to sway, your mouth has to learn the comforting noises, your baby has to stop being a foreign alien to this world. It takes time, and no one’s cheap tricks will help.
Here’s what the hours of Googling inevitably results in: yes other babies do it. No, no one knows why. Yes, it will stop soon.
The sooner you can quiet the fear of your own intuitions, the sooner you and your baby will feel confident in your decisions.
Three questions you might ask yourself and will later look back and wonder if you were insane: Is little Lux getting enough stimulation? Am I keeping her from learning? Am I being a “good” parent at all times?
*Do you have bits of advice you whisper to new moms? I’d love to hear them, please share. Please ignore these until (..if ever) they are useful to you. : )
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our weekend / birthday location hunting
There have been at least twenty discussions about birthday parties around here lately.
Here’s a few of the themes we circle around:
Is it weird to call it a birthday party if Lux will have no awareness that the party is for her?
How much alcohol can you have at a party that’s technically for children?
How do we emphasize that we are actually celebrating the crazy year we just had?
Obviously we can’t not memorialize this enormous life change we just went through, right?
Finally, bored out of our minds with this all this adult talk, we decided we wanted it to be on the Esplanade, the lovely park that coils along the Charles River and is full of playgrounds, benches, clean sidewalks, and beautiful trees. So Saturday morning we went location scouting and visited our favorite nooks, to see how they would do under party scrutiny.
The bridge over to the Esplanade is just up the street from us. You cross over four lanes of traffic, and can smirk with pedestrian swagger as you cross. Or you can focus on how the bridge is climbing up into the trees before it swoops you back down to earth among the sailboats.
Lux particularly liked this spot for duck watching and practicing her sideways bench walk:
We settled on this little triangle of grass:
a small pond on one side:
and shady trees all around!
Now that I’ve started thinking about children’s parties, I’m remembering all fantastic things kids get to count on: cake! scoops of ice cream! goody bags! random streamers everywhere, bringing a gift for your friend that you hope they love, musical chairs, and eating too much candy. This is one of those scenarios where kids really get the good stuff, right?
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what your children will think of your blog
Frequently I wonder what my children in the future will think of my internet presence now. If my mom had a blog, I wonder, would I find it and go back through the archives, reading all of it? Would I ignore it? Would I be embarrassed by what she shared there?
So I was delighted to read this bit from Sam Lamott, whose mom Anne Lamott famously wrote an entire book about Sam’s first year of life. In the preface to their new book (about his son, Anne’s grandson), he writes how he feels when reading the last book:
To this day, that book is the greatest gift anyone has given me; I have a very special relationship with it. When I read any of my mom’s books, I hear her voice talking as if she were in the room right next to me. But when I read Operating Instructions, I hear and feel my mother’s love for me, her frustration and dedication, her innermost feelings and favorite moments of my first year with her. I will always cherish these memories of our funny family and our friends, and I will always be able to come back to them even when my mom is too old to remember them herself.
a great tribute to the possibility of blogs, right?
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an evening cake
The cake I baked yesterday was nearly the antithesis of this quote. I began baking it—setting the espresso pot on the stove, melting the dark chocolate in the double boiler—around 5pm. Anyone who has cared for a baby for 24 hours will tell you never, ever attempt to do anything two hours before bedtime.
Oh, but dense, rich, five eggs ‘n many sticks of butter cake sounded like it would solve so many things. Betty and I were on the same page, this cake would be transformative…except I was baking the cake for myself and would not be stopped.
Joe came home to a kitchen with cake-in-progress written all over it, leftover chicken pot pie burning in the oven, a crying baby, and a wife who had forgotten how to say, “Welcome home!” and instead said, “Why can’t you come home before 7pm???” And the cake tasted like Betty Crocker’s dismal red cardboard box legacy because fatigue and anger came to eat at the table too. (I know this sounds like a bad rendition of a poorly remembered Bible verse, but I promise it was the case. It was a sad scene.)
Fortunately for the recipe‘s reputation, it was still here today. After glaring at it, I cut a slice and added the leftover raspberries from brunch this morning. And shared it with Joe, who had graciously accepted my apologies for nearly sacrificing our family’s weekend on an alter of chocolate. It was dense and nearly-bittersweet with chocolate and had crumb and yet somehow fudgey…..all the things I hoped it would be and this time I could really taste it.
If I get that urge again after 3pm, I’m buying a snickers bar.
Anyway, check your cake baking motives, friends. And once you have, take a look at this beer & wheat flour & maple syrup cake recipe. I think I know what I’m doing next Friday morning…
quote from Domestology (click to see her lovely stitched art!), found via 101cookbooks favorites list.
