In times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag.
“If you’re afraid of butter, use cream.” –– Julia Child
Pulled out my faithful companion today to make a few notes and – what’s this? – it’s pretty darn full. Luckily I have a few stashed away so I cracked the seal on one. I’ll have to transfer a few bits from one pocket to the other but there’s always a sense of adventure when you’re starting with a fresh, blank book.
Off today, work tomorrow, then vay-kay! Last night I was wide awake for awhile and in part I’m blaming the multiple plows and sanders that all arrived in front of my house around 1 AM. Having driven back from the south of here, I see that they were out pouring salt on the roads. In places it was like driving on marbles from the thick salt.
I had gone to Chatham on an errand to pick up some Fire Cider. Many at work have been sick in the past couple weeks and a few have lost their voices altogether. I’ve known about apple cider and vinegar for years but here it was, bottled with honey, oranges, lemons, onions, horseradish root, ginger root, habanero pepper, garlic and turmeric. Below the ingredients were the instructions SHAKE ‘N’ TAKE!
Who was I to wonder why or even question this? I looked up the suggested “dose” and got out my calibrated shot glass. One tablespoon suddenly seemed pretty large. I brought it up to my lips and saying the ritual words* I slugged it down.
I had a moment’s flashback to a Seder I’d been to many many years ago. My across the table neighbor and I were chatting about how much we both liked horseradish. The part of the Seder tradition came where a bit of horseradish is normally spread on a bit of matzo and eaten to represent the bitterness of enslavement. This host (who? where?) had cut horseradish root into very thin, seriously matchstick-sized pieces: an inch long perhaps and an eighth of an inch across? My neighbor and I each applied one of these to a small piece of matzo and popped them into our mouths.
You know that sense you have as you’re fainting of the world going black and fuzzy and there being a roaring sound as all the blood moves around in your head and starts down towards your feet…?
A moment later I reopened my eyes and looked across the table to see my equally wide-eyed neighbor recovering her own sense of reality. All shreds of bitterness and slavery purged from our bodies, we took a deep breath and continued on with our meal. We did not speak of it. I saw that everyone else at the table had done no more than touch the horseradish to their lips and set it back down on their plates as a reminder of our time in Egypt.
Cowards!
But I digress. This swig of Fire Cider wasn’t quite that “I’m about to fall on the floor” feeling but it was definitely a close-your-eyes-and wait-for-the-wave-of-heat-and-whatever-that-is moment to move around in your body and allow you to see again. After that first shock of heat and all passed, it left a nice warm all over feeling.
Neil Gaiman spent 12 hours tweeting a question or prompt an hour and a gazillion people wrote back with a very short response. Even reading the original responses brought laughs and tears. So I was wildly excited to sit down tonight and read Neil’s twelve very short stories, A Calendar of Tales, inspired by the responses. What a deal! I was glad that each month’s tale included the tweet that had inspired it.
I was at work so I didn’t get to see all the prompts as they rolled out. I sure understand the excitement and pleasure of working under a restraint or challenge. Having the limits really stirs the pot and gets the mind working and focused. That is true no matter what media you’re working with.
Yanked from the archives, here are my responses to some of the prompts (like, “Why is January so dangerous”):
Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with its apparent opposite and enemy–the sense of order imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence.
