FIRST SNOW & SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT CONFIDENCE & WORK

First snow-sticking-on=the=ground=and-slushy-roads day in downtown Toronto. The provident already have their boots out and the rest have wet looking feet. I am still looking for the snow shovel; it must be in the garage.

I love fresh snow in the city, for even with grey skies and the weight of that ugly word “slush”, the snowed surfaces brighten the day, giving us spare wintry lightness. I can love it because I’m not trying to drive in traffic made worse by the slush or to navigate the slippery sidewalks with a cane or walker or while pushing a child in a stroller.

Snow now is a reminder of time. Yikes! Every year December seems to collapse, lose days, until suddenly it’s the weekend before Christmas. Part of it is that we all raise our expectations at this time of year. We make more of an effort to see people and socialise, we may be doing those extra shopping errands for presents, or packing for a Christmas holiday departure. Whatever the extra “it” is, the month accelerates past.

In the last five or six years I’ve been away in November and the first half of December, so I’ve missed these early weeks and landed as the holidays were about to start. Now that work travels are taking me elsewhere my travel away pattern has shifted. I like that. The change helps me see with fresh eyes, and appreciate the details I might have ignored when I was last around at this time of year.

In this past five weeks since I got home from Iran I've been able to really dig into my Persian World project. I've come to realise, as I've been digesting my Iran and Georgia trips, doing recipe work, engaging with photos, stories, and historical research, that I love being home working and reflecting. And with short days and chilly weather, being indoors is feeling good, and productive. It’s a privilege to be able to settle in, to NOT have to think about airplanes and packing, etc. for awhile.

Is this age, I caught myself wondering yesterday, this pleasure I am taking in being home and working steadily?

Perhaps. But I think it’s also a change in working style. And that in turn comes from increased confidence. Rather than rushing from thing to thing, afraid I’ll be late or miss out on something, I am now more prepared to work steadily and to not worry about the possibility of not getting this or that done in a day. I guess I am being more methodical and generally more deliberate. Part of the explanation for the change is that after doing the Burma book sola, rather than with a partner, I know that I can trust myself to carry a big project through on my own. And I enjoy the whole process more, for I am in control of what is done or not done. It’s all up to me.

I used to think that carrying one large project, a thesis say (which was how I first imagined what a large project would be, when I was in my teens and early twenties), would be impossible for me, too sustained and onerous a burden. Then once I started making books in a partnership, I discovered that like almost every other task, the work of researching writing, etc. gets broken down into pieces and gradually as the pieces get worked on, the whole takes shape. Once the first book, Flatbreads & Flavors: A Baker’s Atlas, was finished, and the manuscript sent in, starting on another book seemed like an obvious and wonderfully desirable thing.

But in those early years there were the kids to factor in, and the organising of travel and other work, and the complications of partnership. It all seems like a whirling blur as I look back.

In comparison, this process of deciding what work I will do on a particular day is very easy and uncomplicated. I can recipe test, or write up work already tested, or take on the writing of a story, or read some history, or edit photos… All of those possibilities are inviting. That’s the thing. And none of them scares me, though they do all require me to have energy and to take them on with creative imagination, rather than passively.

I think that’s the essential difference between a chore and work that you love. A chore is something that just needs to be done, and can be done with a dull mind and heavy or exhausted spirit, whereas work that I like and that I look forward to requires good energy and engagement. If I’m sleepy or otherwise exhausted I won’t get any good work done. And in such a state I’m better off doing some chore like cleaning or tidying my office or looking for that shovel.

I can imagine you wondering, 'and what about writing this blogpost?' For me writing, all writing, including these explorations of ideas on the virtual page, requires a fresh head and good energy. And of course I also need to have an idea in my head that I want to explore. I woke up this morning knowing that I wanted to write this. And now here it is, miraculously.

Once I’ve posted this, and done some other book-writing work, I’ll hit a low ebb, energy-wise. And then it will be time to get that sidewalk shovelled!

RECIPROCITY IN A WORLD OF WONDERS

The moist overcastness of today was almost a shock, as were the few spatterings of rain, since we've had nothing but clear blue skies and sunshine for almost four weeks. Yikes! It is about to be autumn, in a few hours. I'm not ready!!

With the new moon, and the momentousness of both Rosh Hashana and Eid (the end-of-Ramadan celebration) this weekend, as well as the equinox, everything feels full of meaning, a turning-point and a time to be especially attentive. Because of the new moon, on Saturday night, after a crystalline day, the sky was alive with every star possible. No wonder the ancients marvelled and studied the night sky. What could be more astonishing and miraculous? We in the modern industrialised world have other distractions and so we often miss out on the essentials. They, the ancients, lived face-to-face with the vastness of the universe every clear night. And on Saturday might it was so clear up in the lovely unlitness of rural Grey County that the Milky Way wasn't a hazy band but instead a number of distinct strands oriented south west to north east, split apart in places so that they trailed off in several ribbons toward the horizon in both directions. When have I ever seen it so clearly?

I looked and looked for the moon, the sliver of the new moon, but never found it, even though it was after 9 by then, so surely it was up?!

Perhaps, you'll say, you were hallucinating? Maybe the Milky Way wasn't so marvellous, it's just that you were in an altered state? Perhaps. But I don't think so, despite the fact that the late afternoon had been quite astonishing, with a long intense sauna at Jon and Lillian's: inside in the intense dry heat, outside into the chill of early evening air and the trees all around, back in for another even deeper and more penetrating dose of heat, the air burning up into my nostrils, and so on. Finally we all dashed for the car and drove the half mile to the river. In we went, into moving rippling water that carried us along, practically singing with exhilaration, the bottom clear, the water completely transparent, the sky equally limpid above. We waded slowly out, laughing with pleasure. My bones felt warm, my whole body too, except that my skin was sharply tingling with that "I am alive!" tingle that the best and luckiest sauna can give. Steam drifted off us as we stood in the road, the sun aimed straight down it from due west, our shadows crisp and long in the golden dust.

Later, on our way back into the city under that spangled sky, Ian and I talked about the shape of things in the house, the way Dom and Tashi and Ian share cooking and cleaning and how best to communicate about it all so everyone feels equally responsible and equally appreciated. It's about reciprocity, I think, and that seems to be a good thing to think about as we who live here at 45 degrees north hit the equilibrium point in the year and start to tilt (slide? creep?) toward winter.

Reciprocity is equal connection, balance, mutuality. When we're assured of it, we relax. When it's not there we feel resentful or angry, or we withdraw. It's not about alternating who pays for coffee each time we go out (though it can be I guess), but instead it's about loosely but clearly maintaining a sense of that balance of giving and taking in a relationship.

Sometimes there is no obvious balance. Sometimes the gift that we are given is so precious, like the gift of time in the magical post-sauna river, that there is no specific equivalent to balance it. But that's not the point. In the larger and longer arc of a long friendship, it's the sharing of wonder that becomes the precious gift, and sharing is by definition reciprocal, isn't it?

SOFT GREEN LANDING - SPRING'S FRESH START

The sun was still high-ish in the sky as Dawn drove me out of the airport parking lot and into the city 36 hours ago, amazing because it was already 7 o'clock.   Toronto glowed a little in the late afternoon light, the snow all melted, and people out in the streets with smiles on their faces, welcoming the warmer weather at last.

Spring is such a time of hope.  I feel grateful to be back here safely and easily (courtesy a great Air Canada direct flight from HongKong).  As Tashi wrote in the comment below my last post, the guys had cleaned the house in the days before I got back, and it was welcoming and airy, with Ian's great version of beef stew simmering and a fresh pot of rice made.  What a lovely welcome!  

The other part of getting back is walking into the office to the greetings (silent but nonetheless demanding!) of piles of mail, mostly bank statements and bills.  Dom did a great job of sorting mail and taking care of immediate bills, but I had a hard time making myself even go into the office, let alone open it all, look at it, and deal with it.  The weather was so great yesterday, my first day back, that I could only make myself take on the mail in the evening, when outdoor temptations were over.  Now it's done.  No catastrophes to report.

And good news: Ann Bramson, our beloved editor at Artisan, has sent us a  contract for a food-focussed book about Burma.  Still have to give it a close read, but I'm so happy to have it here waiting.  It's for very little money, and that's hard, but realistically it's also part of this meltdown era we are living in.  And somehow the smaller money takes a kind of pressure off, so that hopefuly we can feel lighter on our feet as we work on it.

Still waiting to hear if Anne Collins at Random House will also give us a contract for it. 

Meantime, of course, apart from the sleeveless T-shirt weather yesterday, the other lovely thing was to see early spring flowers out here and there, and garlic chives poking up in our small back garden.  I confess to having pinched off a few to sprinkle on my morning rice yesterday, a way of celebrating green and spring and the renewal of life generally.  I topped it of course with a fried egg, more new life!

That reminds me, anyone who lives near a Persian/Iranian grocery should make a point of going right away to see if they have any special Nou-Roz (new year festival, celebrated around the spring equinox) treats for sale, fresh wheat grass or its juice, for example, as well as sweets and fresh herbs.  Check the Flatbreads book, or Seductions of Rice, for recipe ideas...

Now I'll stop rambling to you and try to get back to the rest of my return-home chores (figuring out how to organise and tidy up my digital photos, for example - yikes! - it's intimidating, all the new skills and organizational decisions that lie ahead).  And yes, I'll go on spending as much time as possible in the good spring air and lovely sharp light of March in Toronto.