It was inspiration by way of nostalgia. I wanted to bake my mother's Bűndnernusstorte for Christmas dinner because other than the little individual pieces I could afford to buy on intermittent trips to Switzerland, I had not had this pie any where near my person (nor the smell of it baking) since 2008, the year Muetti ("Mom" in German) died. And I miss her every holiday season, well l miss her every day actually, but I especially miss her on the holidays where she would produce even more magic in the house than usual. There was the ever present braided bread Zűpfa, but I make that, the Christmas cookies that, given the large amounts produced, seem overwhelming to me, and then Bűndnernusstorte. Ah Bűndnernusstorte. It is a round one inch thick torte with a delicious thick crust, that is filled with walnuts and carmel gooey goodness. The thing is, I had only ever made it once with my mother because, well, 1) I was spoiled and usually just ate the goodies, 2) I was a tomboy and nobody was going to catch me dead in a kitchen, not even for Bűndnernusstorte, and 3) I was scared of creating the carmel-walnut center. On point 3 my mother was of no help. She explicitly warned me to stay away when she was creating it. And the one time when, as a young adult I made it with her, (I realized I better make it with her or I would never, ever know what I was doing once she had passed on), when it came to creating that deep brown, walnut and melted sugar center, I really watched in awe as she worked quickly to not let it harden to an unusable mass, and also not get any of the stuff on her skin. And again she reiterated how careful one must be to not ruin the center and also not hurt oneself. My fate was sealed. My cousins also didn't help matters because none of them made the cake either, rolling their eyes in my request to make one together saying, "Why? We can just buy one at the store. That tort is way too hard to make!". Good for them. Switzerland is the land of Bűndnernusstorte.
This was the year I decided to stare my inadequacy and fear straight in the face. 2019 Christmas dinner would, by God, have a Bűndnernusstorte. My step daughter had moved in with us and she works in a kitchen plating desserts. So who else to help with that touchy, difficult walnut gooey center? It was a perfect converging of talents, knowledge, and context for me to taste my childhood. To combine the ingredients just as my grandmother had done, after all it was her recipe, and as my mother had done, so many times. To be suggested back to that kitchen at 1112 34th Ave in Sacramento, as the smell filled my home in San Diego. To be brought back to the sight of that torte waiting on the counter as we ate. To feel it's weight in my hand as I brought it to the table, like my mother had. Like my father had. Like my sister had. Like I had. We loved that torte. With Christmas dinner shopping list in hand, my husband and I headed off to the store to gather up our various supplies and in my mind, most critically, the walnuts needed for the Bűndnernusstorte.
"How much are those walnuts?" David asked in shock.
"Well, around $11 a bag." I said as calmly and as non-affected as I could. They were pricey after all. But damnit I needed them for the torte and so I was going to push him into the emotional space of sensing he was being the unreasonable partner if it killed me. "We are making Christmas dinner, which is always expensive. It was like this last year when I bought the groceries. And everything is always more expensive at this store and you know it is. If we had gone to the other store this wouldn't be an issue." (It would have been an issue, but he didn't need to know that).
"I am NOT spending $22 for 2 bags of walnuts and then god know how much on the rest of the ingredients! That is like making a $40 cake for Christ's sake!"
"It is not a cake, it is a torte." I always tend to bring things back to specific instances of vocabulary failure when I feel like meaning is beginning to spin out of control. I don't know why I do this because it is not helpful. Of which his response was evidence.
"I don't fucking care what it is! Don't talk to me like I am some kind of idiot! What I do know is that $40 is too goddamn much for a cake!!!"
"OK. I just wanted to make my mom's torte, that's all" I said, trying to keep my voice low because people were starting to stare.
"Oh, wait. Is this some kind of sentimental thing? You miss your mom and so you want to make this cake?"
Now I was embarrassed, so I mumbled "Never mind, I will put the ingredients back and I will come get them later when I have my wallet." I felt like an idiot not just because of his tone or his volume, but because he highlighted my Achilles heel, my nostalgia. My tendency toward the sentimental. I walked away with the golden ingredients to return them to their rightful place on the shelf.
"Don't you fucking walk away from me! Get back here now!! I want to talk about this!!! Barbara, I will leave this cart right here if you don't get back here."
"You don't need to get them. I will get them later. Let's go." I said all of this without meeting his gaze, furious with his voice which carried our private exchange 3 aisles over by the cold cereals.
With that David shoved the cart down an aisle and stalked out of the store. I followed him briefly to only, upon exiting the store, turn sharply to the left, down the side of the building, and out back to the labyrinth of the neighborhood. I would, I had decided, walk home. There was no way I was going to get into the car with that monster. Husband or not.
I walked home, and he went, as is his wont, to his sailboat. It was a very quiet evening. The phone didn't ring and sleep was at a distance. Finally at 3:00 am I fumbled for my phone and called him. He answered in a single ring. "Hi". "Hi", he said back. "So what happened?" I asked. We talked it over. It turned out his questions about the walnuts initially had just been to verify their price, because he had been surprised. But then my response had pushed him to just dig in. He explained that his asking me about the reason for wanting to make the cake was a way to find an out of the conversation so he could just return to getting the walnuts. He was trying to create a door for us to walk through, but what I had experienced was a public humiliation. We apologized. We agreed to try to be better at talking things through in a way that was respectful.
So we made the torte. Mom's recipe called for it to be baked at 325 degrees, so we did, but I had forgotten an important bit of information, which was that the oven in my childhood home ran hot. SO, the torte baked for too long at a heat that was too low, which meant the crust was too dense and tough. Lesson learned for next time. The gooey walnut center? It was heaven. Perfect in every way. Just as I remembered. The only thing that has changed is that this torte is no longer just the Bűndnernusstorte. It is now also the Fighting Torte, or the Fighting Walnut Torte, as David told our Christmas guests. We all laughed as he and I recalled the story.
It's funny how we fight over the smallest things because there are bigger things attached. My heart is attached to that damn Bűndnernusstorte because it comes with so much of me that I have to search for now. So much that I have to just rely on memory for. But with things like the Bűndnernusstorte that memory comes to life. I don't have to rely on just the immaterial memory because now I have the actual thing in front of me. I can experience my memory in a much more first hand kind of way. That is what materiality does. It brings the past into the present, but it also reconstructs that past so that those memories are more vivid. It is like adding color back into a faded photograph so that the details sharpen. And now David and I will likely always recount the unhappy Christmas walnut saga of 2019. And it will make us smile.
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
Monday, December 23, 2019
Emeryville Mudflats
I remember these sculptures and always anticipated them as we would head into Frisco (and yes the old timers born in San Francisco, like my dad, called it Frisco, and I am reclaiming it). I loved the whimsy even as my already environmentalist soul was worried about the trash. It is possible that at some point my dad made mention of the trash associated with the art, though I don't remember that specifically. And when I noticed it was gone I assumed it was for the sake of the animals that call the mudflats home, which I totally support. But that doesn't mean I am not grateful to the artists who made our drive fanciful or that I don't still stare wistfully out of the window to that muddy expanse when passing by, populating it with the sculptures of my youth.
Remembering the Emeryville Mudflats
Remembering the Emeryville Mudflats
What my horse has taught me
Building slowly, block of information by block of information, sometimes going back, but always considering what the horse needs to know, needs to feel before moving forward. Want a relationship? Do ground work. Want to ride? Make sure there are back muscles that can easily support you. Make sure that they know what you mean on the ground before you ever get on their backs. Set them up for success and you will win their trust. And with that trust so much more is possible.
Dog inspired thought
So grateful for quiet dogs. The only problem is when one of them decides to bark (usually Chucho...haven't heard Mags bark in over a year, unless it is in her sleep), it is only one or 2 barks at top volume, out of nowhere, and then silence. Reminds me of when I used to scream "Swing batter!!" at the top of my lungs from short stop, right as the pitch approached the batter. I now have a sense of how alarming this probably was. And I feel badly. Damn dog.
 |
| Maggie May and Chucho el Roto |
Saturday, December 21, 2019
Memory Tree
I am culturally Christian, to be specific, culturally Lutheran. To be even more specific, cultural ELCA. But that's enough of geeking out on the religious specifics. I'm an atheist now, or I am until I can think of something that suits me better. That being said, I do love celebrating Christmas. This is probably because I am culturally Christian (let's keep this simple), but maybe because it is the way in which there are specific sensory experiences that are part of my Christmas nostalgia. I especially love the act of getting a tree, putting it up and decorating it. All while drinking spiked egg nog and listening to Elvis Presley's Christmas album, Bing Crosby's White Christmas, and anything by Amy Grant. There is something intoxicating about the mix of music, nog, pine needles, white lights, and ornaments that take me back to before my own life.
When Tori, my husband's daughter saw my tree and carefully inspected the ornaments, asking about one's that caught her attention. She loved the electrical relay that my brother had, when he was less financially robust, turned into a Christmas ornament and given to me (in fact a number of us in the family received this gift). After a few explanations and musings over the ornaments, she said, "You don't have a Christmas tree, you have a Memory tree".
Sitting here in the glow of the trees little white lights, I have to agree. It is a memory tree. These ornaments are a conversation with the past. For example, I have 2 of some ornaments. Why? Because when my mother died I received some of her ornaments, ornaments that she had bought in threes...one for my sister, one for me, and one for her. I think she liked the idea that we each had the same of something on our trees. Also, when she bought things she really liked, like a cookbook, she couldn't help getting 2 more so that my sister and I could both have one. Looking at any of my two identical ornaments reminds me of this quality of my mother's. It is a memory of her, of her character, of our bond. Or I look at the 1960s plastic ornament of the angel (or it once looked like an angel, now not so much), and I am reminded of the Pennybakers and their endless supply of mixed cocktails and salted peanuts on the coffee table. Their fantastic and terrifying fights. Maryanne was German and her husband, John, was American, they met during WWII and he brought her home as his wartime bride. They were as different as night and day, but the one thing they loved equally were poolside parties with lots of alcohol, or coming over to our house for our various gatherings and imbibing on the good whiskey my mother always kept for when my uncle would come over. Maryanne was a cheerful person, whereas John sulked and brooded, a condition that worsened with the amount of liquor applied. Maryanne would just become impatient and unhinged with him. There is also the ornament that I picked up at a market in South Dakota. It is a dream catcher. The only one I have gratefully, because I am often embarrassed by the roadside kitsch us tourists partake in when on reservations though in the meanwhile not offering any real understanding or attention to what Native people have endured and are enduring. But I like this dream catcher because it was made by an elderly woman who pressed it into my reluctant hands, and I paid her directly, in cash. Somehow it seemed to make things better. My prized ornament, or one of them, is the one I made in Kindergarten for my mom. It has various dried pasta and beads not so skillfully glued to a piece of cardboard with my name scrawled on the back. I remember the pride with which I gave it to my mother, and the joy at seeing it carefully hung in the tree.
But it isn't just the tree with ornaments, it is the smell. The smell of the pine in the house, and the act of putting it up. These physical aspects of making Christmas happen help to conjure other trees, other tree trimmings, the people who were part of the Christmas story in our home. The tree becomes the heart of the home. A place where people gather to talk or, as in the case with my sister and I when we were children, to dream about what lay in those packages, especially those wrapped in the magic brown paper and tied with twine from Switzerland. The way the Christmas tree lights spill across the coffee table in the otherwise dark living room where I sit now reminds me of the way the multi-colored lighted star of my childhood tree refracted on the ceiling. I would lay on the carpet and stare up at the ceiling mesmerized by the design captured there.
My Memory Tree this year is as beautiful as any other. And today is the winter solstice in which Earth is tilting away from the sun, at least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. Tilting away from the sun, but ultimately moving us towards Spring. This shortest day of the year I sit here huddled with my Memory Tree in front of the Christmases of times gone by. My Yule log is these memories. They warm me. The remind me of who I am. They help me feel connected even as my Christmases have become smaller and smaller.
When Tori, my husband's daughter saw my tree and carefully inspected the ornaments, asking about one's that caught her attention. She loved the electrical relay that my brother had, when he was less financially robust, turned into a Christmas ornament and given to me (in fact a number of us in the family received this gift). After a few explanations and musings over the ornaments, she said, "You don't have a Christmas tree, you have a Memory tree".
Sitting here in the glow of the trees little white lights, I have to agree. It is a memory tree. These ornaments are a conversation with the past. For example, I have 2 of some ornaments. Why? Because when my mother died I received some of her ornaments, ornaments that she had bought in threes...one for my sister, one for me, and one for her. I think she liked the idea that we each had the same of something on our trees. Also, when she bought things she really liked, like a cookbook, she couldn't help getting 2 more so that my sister and I could both have one. Looking at any of my two identical ornaments reminds me of this quality of my mother's. It is a memory of her, of her character, of our bond. Or I look at the 1960s plastic ornament of the angel (or it once looked like an angel, now not so much), and I am reminded of the Pennybakers and their endless supply of mixed cocktails and salted peanuts on the coffee table. Their fantastic and terrifying fights. Maryanne was German and her husband, John, was American, they met during WWII and he brought her home as his wartime bride. They were as different as night and day, but the one thing they loved equally were poolside parties with lots of alcohol, or coming over to our house for our various gatherings and imbibing on the good whiskey my mother always kept for when my uncle would come over. Maryanne was a cheerful person, whereas John sulked and brooded, a condition that worsened with the amount of liquor applied. Maryanne would just become impatient and unhinged with him. There is also the ornament that I picked up at a market in South Dakota. It is a dream catcher. The only one I have gratefully, because I am often embarrassed by the roadside kitsch us tourists partake in when on reservations though in the meanwhile not offering any real understanding or attention to what Native people have endured and are enduring. But I like this dream catcher because it was made by an elderly woman who pressed it into my reluctant hands, and I paid her directly, in cash. Somehow it seemed to make things better. My prized ornament, or one of them, is the one I made in Kindergarten for my mom. It has various dried pasta and beads not so skillfully glued to a piece of cardboard with my name scrawled on the back. I remember the pride with which I gave it to my mother, and the joy at seeing it carefully hung in the tree.
But it isn't just the tree with ornaments, it is the smell. The smell of the pine in the house, and the act of putting it up. These physical aspects of making Christmas happen help to conjure other trees, other tree trimmings, the people who were part of the Christmas story in our home. The tree becomes the heart of the home. A place where people gather to talk or, as in the case with my sister and I when we were children, to dream about what lay in those packages, especially those wrapped in the magic brown paper and tied with twine from Switzerland. The way the Christmas tree lights spill across the coffee table in the otherwise dark living room where I sit now reminds me of the way the multi-colored lighted star of my childhood tree refracted on the ceiling. I would lay on the carpet and stare up at the ceiling mesmerized by the design captured there.
My Memory Tree this year is as beautiful as any other. And today is the winter solstice in which Earth is tilting away from the sun, at least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. Tilting away from the sun, but ultimately moving us towards Spring. This shortest day of the year I sit here huddled with my Memory Tree in front of the Christmases of times gone by. My Yule log is these memories. They warm me. The remind me of who I am. They help me feel connected even as my Christmases have become smaller and smaller.
Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Layers
Today, when they pass, people see a middle age woman and an old dog. They weren't there the day the Los Angeles Pound had an adoption fair and that lady saw the little puppy stumbling around on short legs. In an instant, she was smitten. There is no way to know how these moments of falling in love arise so instantaneously, but arise they do. It might have been the sad eyes, or the ridiculous motion of a little body on uncertain legs, or perhaps the long ears. Whatever it was, within seconds of their connection, little did they know they would be with each other for the next 15 years. Today, when they pass, people see a geriatric dog, they don't see an athlete who could run hard and fast for miles, and leap across creek beds. They don't see the goofy girl who would for years entertain those around her by showboating her chase and throw skills, all by herself, responding with open mouth and cocked head at the laughter. They miss the dog that loved to look at you through the mirror and then back at you in person, wagging her tail furiously, as if she was discovering both you and the mirror for the first time. That trick would go on countless times, ceasing to get old. Today, when they pass, people see a dog that is remote in her advanced years. They weren't there in the truck with her and the lady, moving from house to house, from Los Angeles to Sacramento, Sacramento to South Dakota and South Dakota to San Diego singing songs, heads in the wind and holding onto each other. They don't see the dog who loved the lady's mom, staring longingly at her and putting her head in her lap for the soft pets. They don't see the pup that was ever watchful and knew exactly how to handle it when this mom died. She was a blanket for her lady that day, never leaving her side, head buried deep in folded arms. Today, when they pass, what people see is a middle age woman and an old dog, and what they see is true. Over the years, from young adulthood and puppyhood to middle age and the golden years, they have stayed together. They are a part of each other now. They are family, made of one strand. Sisters, mothers, and best friends. Woven together by time and experience and love. Today, when they pass, what people see is a middle age woman and a geriatric dog but what they might not know is that these are two souls who rescued each other.
 |
| Me and Bella circa 2011 |
Sunday, December 10, 2017
"A" Begging
"I want an A", he stares at her with a kind of unstable urgency, unblinking, pupils wide. "I really like your class, I'll do anything." It's a week before the end of the semester, and suddenly it's dawned on him that he has likely killed off any possibility for an "A". "I think you are a great teacher. What can I do to get an "A"? He breathes these sentences together like he is walking a tightrope of thread, his desperation dangles precipitously over a yawning hollow inside of him.
"Well, you are getting a "C" for participation, as we've talked about, because of your daily and incessant cellphone use, throughout the semester, despite having both addressed this problem both to the class generally, and to you personally and..."
"I'm so sorry!!" he strains toward the instructor waving her off with his hand, her explanation like a noisome fly he has no time for. "What can I do to get an A? I work really hard."
Students mill around after class collecting their personal luggage for the day: keys, phones, backpacks, and even their thoughts. She can hear the final reckoning with class topics filtering back to her through the end-of-class noise. "My dad and I kind of have an either/or power relationship." "Did you hear about the study that said gender differences in power are structural, not natural?" They bustle out of the door into the teeming hallway beyond. New students are already arriving, unpacking their daily luggage or, rather, dumping it into piles on the floor, or on their desks, or both.
Stuffing her leather shoulder bag with her teaching paraphernalia, and nodding goodbyes to the other students, she manages the moment. Turning her attention to Nate, she privileges his ears with the classic, perhaps cliche refrain, "I don't give "A's", you earn them." She stares directly at him and says with as much clarity as she can muster, "You still have 2 assignments left to turn in, and those assignments will impact your grade. I can't predict what you will get on those assignments, but focus your energy on them"
Nate begs, "Can we talk?" His book bag and books lie in disarray around him, and his open notebook, hanging limply off to one side of the desk, is filled with doodling. The pages look slightly damp.
He has stepped closer and she can now smell his unwashed privacy. She can't see the pores in his face, but given his physical trajectory, it isn't out of the realm of possibility that she will eventually, be given this insight as well.
"What can I do to get an "A"?"
She now had managed her bag onto her shoulder, the thin strap cutting into her jacket. It was uncomfortable to carry, but its weight triggered her movement out of the classroom. "Nate, you'll just have to finish your work. You have 3 classes left in the semester. Finish the work." The 3 other students who had wanted to talk to her trailed behind. "Listen, I have to talk to these other students now, so email me if you have any questions about the assignments."
"OK, OK, OK. Bye! I'll see you next class! Thank you for your help! I'll do my best!! Have a good day!"
He melted into the background almost as quickly as he materialized at the front of the classroom at the end of every class. An anxious cloud of solid underachievement nursed by years of somebody (or bodies) doing his work for him, supporting him in his belief that he was not capable on his own. He leaned on that belief as he skirted the water fountain and shedded the conversation with his teacher. It landed somewhere on the floor behind him, propelling him forward as he careened into the next classroom. Just as he settled into the blue seat he usually occupied by the window, his English teacher walked in. He'd try a different tactic this time. He'd talk to him now, instead of after class like he had Professor Weber. That way, if he thought of anything else to tell Mr. Trujillo, he could re-visit the topic with him at the end of the class period as well.
"Mr. Trujillo, I was wondering, do you think I am getting an "A" in the class?"
Tired, the 30 year teaching veteran, looked up over his spectacles. He brushed his hand through his stiff curls. "I think so."
"Oh that's great!! Thank you. I love your class so much. You are a great teacher. I learn so much in your class, and I work really hard."
Mr. Trujillo nodded absently. Nate eagerly plucked his phone from his back pocket. He was a good student. He worked so hard. He had to tell his girlfriend.
"Well, you are getting a "C" for participation, as we've talked about, because of your daily and incessant cellphone use, throughout the semester, despite having both addressed this problem both to the class generally, and to you personally and..."
"I'm so sorry!!" he strains toward the instructor waving her off with his hand, her explanation like a noisome fly he has no time for. "What can I do to get an A? I work really hard."
Students mill around after class collecting their personal luggage for the day: keys, phones, backpacks, and even their thoughts. She can hear the final reckoning with class topics filtering back to her through the end-of-class noise. "My dad and I kind of have an either/or power relationship." "Did you hear about the study that said gender differences in power are structural, not natural?" They bustle out of the door into the teeming hallway beyond. New students are already arriving, unpacking their daily luggage or, rather, dumping it into piles on the floor, or on their desks, or both.
Stuffing her leather shoulder bag with her teaching paraphernalia, and nodding goodbyes to the other students, she manages the moment. Turning her attention to Nate, she privileges his ears with the classic, perhaps cliche refrain, "I don't give "A's", you earn them." She stares directly at him and says with as much clarity as she can muster, "You still have 2 assignments left to turn in, and those assignments will impact your grade. I can't predict what you will get on those assignments, but focus your energy on them"
Nate begs, "Can we talk?" His book bag and books lie in disarray around him, and his open notebook, hanging limply off to one side of the desk, is filled with doodling. The pages look slightly damp.
He has stepped closer and she can now smell his unwashed privacy. She can't see the pores in his face, but given his physical trajectory, it isn't out of the realm of possibility that she will eventually, be given this insight as well.
"What can I do to get an "A"?"
She now had managed her bag onto her shoulder, the thin strap cutting into her jacket. It was uncomfortable to carry, but its weight triggered her movement out of the classroom. "Nate, you'll just have to finish your work. You have 3 classes left in the semester. Finish the work." The 3 other students who had wanted to talk to her trailed behind. "Listen, I have to talk to these other students now, so email me if you have any questions about the assignments."
"OK, OK, OK. Bye! I'll see you next class! Thank you for your help! I'll do my best!! Have a good day!"
He melted into the background almost as quickly as he materialized at the front of the classroom at the end of every class. An anxious cloud of solid underachievement nursed by years of somebody (or bodies) doing his work for him, supporting him in his belief that he was not capable on his own. He leaned on that belief as he skirted the water fountain and shedded the conversation with his teacher. It landed somewhere on the floor behind him, propelling him forward as he careened into the next classroom. Just as he settled into the blue seat he usually occupied by the window, his English teacher walked in. He'd try a different tactic this time. He'd talk to him now, instead of after class like he had Professor Weber. That way, if he thought of anything else to tell Mr. Trujillo, he could re-visit the topic with him at the end of the class period as well.
"Mr. Trujillo, I was wondering, do you think I am getting an "A" in the class?"
Tired, the 30 year teaching veteran, looked up over his spectacles. He brushed his hand through his stiff curls. "I think so."
"Oh that's great!! Thank you. I love your class so much. You are a great teacher. I learn so much in your class, and I work really hard."
Mr. Trujillo nodded absently. Nate eagerly plucked his phone from his back pocket. He was a good student. He worked so hard. He had to tell his girlfriend.
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