Processing Central

We rolled back into town last night at a record-early time for us, we made the drive from Michigan, leaving at 7 something AM and pulled across the border into Connecticut again by 9 PM. We were psyched. We are just insane enough that it sounded like a good idea after all of that rigamarole to reward ourselves by whirling through a grocery store trip before we actually made landfall at the old homing pad. I know it sounds five levels of lost wits but actually was somewhat helpful. Here we are, Monday, first day of our untried homeschooling season and we have a full larder, even if the washing is teetering tall and I can hardly keep my eyes open. (Am doing mad penance for all those early morning chats with my dad PLUS late night discussions and card games and family jam sessions...but OH WELL...it is worth it.)

Today I am printed off menus for the next two weeks, listened to all the new words Nib learned over vacation tumble merrily out of him, took a nap (Hi ho! Sleep, you old acquaintance you!) and generally indulged in the massive, indulgent and very important job of over-processing every single little bit of the vacation. Somehow, I feel like this sort of thing is important after a holiday...but it really seems especially rampant with me when I've been to visit the natal homes of myself and A. I feel like life and my own personal experience and the thoughts of our siblings and the food of our mothers and the hobbies of our fathers and every other little tidbit id a small clue about "what it all means" and "how it all works" and my marriage and my parenthood and any number of other small and un-thought-of connections.

So, I'm running through the grand mass of experiences we had this past week and trying to synthesize. Am I the only one who does this? Tell me that I am somehow normal or sane or ideal or maybe even part of an elite club of special thinkers who are more sentient than the rest of the world. It isn't madness, right? Poor A thinks it is madness. I drive him bonkers with my effervescent desire to wade in the past and the minutiae and my starvation-level search for meaning in the center of it all. A is a raw experience person. He likes to do and then move on. His life is a storage wall of honeycombed cells. Mine is a mass of moving, sticky web strands, woven into a gigantic, sometimes beautiful, sometimes bizarre sculpture that is meant to stay on the wall but has ended up being a room-filling, experiential art-piece-cum-costume for anyone who attempts to come appreciate it. I know that my own personal brain-spill after trips can be a bit um...shall we say...suffocating? I also know that for me it is important and healthful and for those in my life it can contain bits of helpful information and the occasional brilliant insight but it has to be admitted that the mechanism is a bit over-the-top.

This is my attempt at taming The Beast that is my own processing machine. I tried to talk less during the drive home...at least less about all the little things that ran between my ears, and more about the weather and concrete plans for homeschooling and the book we're reading out loud together. And now that I am home, and able to be alone more...or at least buffered from A a bit...I am buzzing through all the things that make my brain whir about what I just experienced.

I am hoping to do a lot of writing, some phone calls with sympathetic/similarly demented pals, and maybe even a little talking to myself out-loud. I don't want to drive my partner insane, I don't actually want to make him allergic to my inner self and I don't want to suppress the very helpful digesting I enjoy doing, and find key to really shelving experiences I've had and also to genuine growth. I am hoping a little distance and self-reliance will be the answer. We shall see. We shall see.

In the meantime, if you need me, and you call me...when I don't get to the phone in time, you'll understand that it is a bit hard to be speedy when wading through a living nest, all plaited with endless strands of thought-tenacles. I will be out again and answering phones and emails and carrier pigeons more handily soon.

Poetry Friday: A Poem For Grace

A pile of Sungolds in my shirt

Happy Poetry Friday everyone! I hope that your weekend is beginning as sunshiney and full of promise as mine. We're packing the kids in the car tonight and hitting the road with a tent, a guitar, loads of good books, my paints and all the tomatoes we can manage to fit in. We're in the thick of it, tomato season that is, and what a beautiful season it has been this year.


I wrote about Sungold tomatoes this year, a variety that I really love, they're super sweet and a little bit tangy, very crisp skinned and just the most amazing orangey gold color. I wish I could send my dear sister-in-law a big box full of them. They were so fun to pick together last year at our CSA and it is such a really wonderful reminder to be gathering them here in my own yard and thinking of her. I hope that she gets to read this...I may have to send her a copy just to be sure.


Tomatoes for Grace

In December I ordered seeds for Sungolds
The only hybrid tomato I planned to plant.
All the rest were beefy, rippled heirlooms
Sungold, a golden marble of a cherry tomato
Was my one modern concession.
The seeds grew, in their little peat pockets
Drinking in the weak February sun,
There, on top of the sill-side radiator.
I bought another potted Sungold in May,
(When you think you can't have too many tomatoes)
There they were, so turgid and fuzz-leafed.
And so, I tucked it into bed, next to the one
I'd raised from seed and they grew up, twisting their
Arms together, embracing their round cages.
Now it is September and every day I walk
Out through the dewy grass and pick a handful
Of their shining school bus colored fruits.
They pop under my teeth just like they did in
Our toddler's hands when you visited last summer
I think of you, so far away across the ocean and
The way our laughter ran together down the rows
When we watched the baby totter after
A summer butterfly.

And this is last summer in the Sungold row, on the farm.

Such a beautiful plant.

And Grace herself. (often call her Penny here on the blog)

Well, I'm off to Michigan...I hope you all have a great week and that time somehow managed to hold still so I don't miss anything during my sojourn in the northland. Much poetic beauty can be found today at The Miss Rumphius Effect, the host blog for Poetry Friday. Drop on over, take a little browse through the offerings and maybe you'll be inspired to pen a few lines yourself.

Take care of yourselves, I'll see you all again soon!

September Time

 We are making our annual tomato sauce. First time in the new house, last summer I just didn't have it in me. I'm experimenting with a new method, no skinning, no seeding which means less finger work and less boiling, just a lot more slow simmering over the stove and the use of my food processor. The house smells amazing, ripe luscious tomatoes, top to bottom. We sat there, snuggled on my bed, reading for our Story Hour and it was incredibly cozy with the bright sunshine, the cool fall breeze coming through the open window and the warm, round scent of tomatoes drifting into every nook and cranny.

 Part of why I am making sauce today is because I need to use up our current tomato harvest. I only had to buy one box of tomatoes this year, half of my normal purchase, because I had so many tomatoes ready from my own garden. That felt like a great coup! We have been eating every which way but we're leaving town for a week in Michigan and we can't take tomatoes along since they don't exactly make good traveling companions and they sure won't wait quietly for us at home, at least not in a solid state. Heh.

 My biggest sauce helper this year was Nib...he was always in the kitchen and pottering around picking things up and poking holes in tomatoes and helping me make sticky orange footprints on the tile floor. Fun to have him becoming such a little boy and independent person.

 Otherwise we have been enjoying quite a bit of outdoor time, the weather is exactly my very favorite right now. 75 degrees, slight breeze, sunny. You can wear whatever you want and do anything from swimming to wood-stacking in weather like that. We're soaking it in.

 We've been doing a lot of painting around the house which I am am beyond excited about!We started by finishing the white walls in the playroom. Such a relief! I got really bogged down there. I painted the corner cupboards with a pretty terracotta inside and a smooth, new layer of gloss white on the outside. I am so pleased with the way they turned out and am so thankful to the friend who brilliantly guided me to this color idea. Gotta love it when people come over and you leave five inches taller and stuffed with great inspiration!

We've also finally painted the stairwell to the second floor which was all layered in retro, faux wood paneling. It is now a smooth, light taupe/grey with the beginnings of fresh, gloss white trim. I hope to finish the trim sometime very soon (I am working on it a little bit at a time in stolen moments) and continue the taupe on up into the upstairs hallway. I am somewhat addicted to the smell of fresh paint.

 This beautiful Siamese kitty has been slinking around our property from time to time, sometimes even slipping into the garage. I have always been rather taken by Siamese cats, I know that Disney painted them as villains in Lady and the Tramp but it didn't take for me. I think they're gorgeous. Is it okay to admit that I am considering leaving some bits of fish or a little dish of milk out for this kitty in hopes that I could lure it to stay around and curl up in the sunshine on our back porch? *wince* Don't tell my asthmatic husband who does not want a pet.

September is a good month and I'm excited to make a pilgrimage to my childhood home this time of year. I plan to swim in The Big Lake no matter how cold it is, roast a marshmallow, catch a fish and stay up way too late playing guitar. I am hoping to get the chance to take some pictures and maybe even log a few posts from way up north...I'd love to share my roots with you all. 

Related articles

• Tomato Water: What to Do With the Rest of the Tomatoes (dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Gallery: Squashed tomato battle paints Spanish town red (calgaryherald.com)
• Sundried Tomatoes, Sans-Sun (twinklingalong.blogspot.com)
• The Enchanting Aroma of Tomato Sauce (viewfrombippus.wordpress.com)
• Tomato Recipes (thehappyhousewife.com)
• garden fresh tomato soup (backtoherroots.com)