the Move

Backsliding Into Worldly Depravity

| Hope

Yup, that’s me. Backslider. Depraved. Worldly. Actually, the “backslider” label may be inaccurate. You can’t backslide into new territory. No, this is much worse. Tumbling headlong into sin is more like it.

When I was a kid, living on one of a trio of Christian communes in Northwest Ontario, we did not do Halloween. We regarded those who did with a sort of fascinated horror. Christmas and Easter were Paganism-tainted, worldly holidays which we also did not celebrate – along with birthdays – but those at least were fairly innocent and had a religious slant. Halloween had no such excuse. It was, to our sheltered eyes, the embodiment of Satan-worshiping evil. I mean, those kids actually dressed as ghosts, goblins, and witches. They were practically inviting demons to possess their souls.

It started slowly: “gradualism,” the preachers of my youth would say (probably are saying right now, if any of them see this). Living in Anchorage, Aaron and I would buy candy just in case trick-or-treaters came by. We didn’t want to disappoint any kids, after all. Then, when I started teaching, I saw how much my students loved Halloween. I didn’t want to disappoint them, either, and since other teachers were allowing costumes on that day, I did too — and bought a green-feathered witch hat which I donned each year so as not to appear unpleasantly strait-laced. Then, Niko arrived, and we were given the cutest little Winnie-the-Pooh costume for him. Who could resist that? The following year we actually purchased a dinosaur costume; last year, a robot. And this year, we entirely succumbed.

Three nights ago, we dressed both of our innocent children in Disney-inspired costumes and joined friends (one of the nicest families I know, who are — incidentally — faithfully church-attending people) to trick-or-treat in their neighborhood. It was…well, fun. No goblins assaulted us. No witches hexed us. Not a single soul became demon-possessed. In fact, everyone we met, at homes and on the street, were remarkably polite and kind.

We had a tense moment when we encountered a snazzily dressed skeleton with a cane and top hat, his skull leering menacingly. The little boys, aged four and three, froze as Baron Samedi and his family approached. His wife poked his arm. “You’re scaring those kids! You have to take your mask off!” “Oh, no!” he said with genuine concern. “No, I don’t want to scare anyone!” And despite the effort he’d exerted to make a convincing Baron, the skeleton immediately pushed his mask up to the top of his head, transforming from a dark lord of death into a cheerful man in a colorful suit, smiling sheepishly at us.  He kept his mask off the rest of the time we were out.

No, we weren’t hauled off to the realms of death. We weren’t lured into a Satanic ritual. We just enjoyed the fresh air, collected treats, and walked to a nearby church for their Halloween/harvest festival. The boys went crazy in a bounce house while the babies stared at the crowds with wide eyes. And on the way home our family stopped for groceries, where cashiers and customers ooooh’d and ahhhh’d over the fairy princess and little pirate. Our kids were just as innocent, but better-exercised, at the end of the night as they’d been before donning their costumes.

Yes, this year I embraced worldly depravity with a will. And as I watched my son marching up to the doors of strangers with his lantern-lit pumpkin basket (courtesy of our generous friends) glowing bravely, I was so glad I did.

Best friends. (Ours is the little pirate.)
Trying to remember the words. “Trick or treating?”
Aaron with his Tinkerbaby.
Me with Sofia.
This bounce gym was a huge hit.
Wheeee!
All four kids.
Puppy and fairy are quite taken with each other.

Making Chai Citrus Spritzer

| Hope

I’ve recently begun to realize how important food is to me. Every bite of a familiar food is loaded with nostalgia, accompanied by a dazzling parade of memories. Every recipe comes with a cascading waterfall of linked stories connected to the people in my life. Food brings with it a sense of family, closeness, love, friendship. Even now, far from the commune where I grew up, I dislike eating alone; growing up on the farm, meals and snacks were generally group activities. Someone was always hungry. The rustle of a bag or the soft whooosh of the refrigerator door could draw a crowd even if you started out alone in the roomy kitchen.

[This seems like a good place to mention that if you really just want a recipe, not a long reminiscence, you can scroll way down to the end for instructions.]

So, for me, chai (my preferred method of infusing caffeine into my veins) is a drink fraught with memories. When I took my first life-changing sip, I was nineteen. I was in the dreamy yet awkward stages of undeclared (and, according to the strict rules of the communal college I attended, forbidden) love. Just outside Haines, Alaska, the farm we lived on was a college destination predominately for youngsters like me who’d grown up in a network of communes across the world – mostly in North America, mainly in the North. I had left Ontario the previous year to attend the Christian college for a degree in education.

Now, here we were, a gaggle of sheltered kids freed from the early-morning weekly duty of helping in the commune’s bakery in Haines, basking in the freedom of an unsupervised stroll to a coffeeshop. Mountain Market was dubious territory. It was frequented by the “granola” crowd, modern-day hippies wearing natural fibers, sporting natural body odor, and topped with naturally unwashed hair. We, on the other hand, typically wore modest business-casual attire. Girls in skirts ranging from prim to trendy, but all below the knee, tops carefully buttoned to three fingers below collarbones; boys with shirts neatly tucked; all scrupulously clean. Not a beard, tie-dyed garment, or matted lock of hair in sight.

I’d never had an espresso drink, didn’t care for coffee, had certainly never seen a headful of dreadlocks like the one on our friendly (yet terrifying) barista. “I don’t know what to order,” I whispered to my crush Aaron, who was at the college for just one year “for the experience.”

“You need to get a chai. You’ll love it.”

“A what?” At least espresso was identifiable as coffee. I had no idea what a chai was. It sounded as unfamiliar and scary as the tentacle-headed blond barista behind the counter.

“It’s a spiced tea with steamed milk. It’s really good.”

I wanted to impress Aaron with my willingness to try new things, with my bravery, so I tremulously ordered a chai. I don’t know if he was impressed with my daring, but my first sip drove out all thoughts of wowing the love of my life. It was the best thing I’d ever tasted. I was hooked.

And now the taste of chai is inextricably intertwined with the painfully agonizing delight of new love.

Fastforward a decade. On a frosty winter weekend morning, baby snugly tucked into his car seat carrier, I was meeting my best friend for coffee and gossip at a cafe in Anchorage, Alaska, exactly seven minutes from my home and two minutes from hers. I usually ordered a chai – why change a perfectly pleasing tradition? But I perused the menu anyway, because I’m a compulsive reader and menus contain words. And there it was. CHAI CITRUS SPRITZER. Made with spiced tea, citrus flavors, and ginger. I ordered. I sipped. I was transported. From then on, I was completely hooked. It was cool, it was spicy, it was fizzy, it was a perfect meld of complementary flavors.

At some point I stopped exclaiming over the amazing taste experience I was having and restrained myself from forcing Gracia to try the new drink, and we went on to our comfortable routine of comparing work stories, discussing politics and philosophy, noting tiny Niko’s milestones, and laughing uproariously together. But secretly, in the back of my mind, I was deconstructing the drink with each sip. A little orange…a little lime…a bit of ginger…I was sure I could recreate this.

And of course I did. And now I’m sharing it with you. Here, for your sipping pleasure, is the flavor of deep and lasting friendship; of Alaskan winter turning so very slowly to spring; of the burdens of new motherhood lightened by the irreverent hilarity of a childfree friend; all laced with that original chai flavor of new love on an Alaskan commune. I give you: Chai Citrus Spritzer.

1. Collect your ingredients: prepared chai, crystallized ginger, orange juice, lime juice, sparkling water, a tall glass. I drink chai routinely; I used to get my Oregon Chai at Costco in packs of three. You can get it at Fred Meyer, a Kroger store, too. Or you can brew your own from tea bags, as I do these days. (You can see my recipe here.) The crystallized ginger is usually available in the bulk section of a grocery store. It adds flavor, but if you can’t find it, don’t let that stop you from enjoying this drink. It’s not crucial. For the carbonated water, I like to use the store brand cans of lemon-lime flavored sparkling water from Fred Meyer. The mild citrus flavor helps merge all the flavors of the drink, and it just happens to be really really inexpensive. If it’s not available, just use any plain seltzer water.

2. Grate, crush, or use a knife to trim small pieces of crystallized ginger into the glass. How you prepare it depends on how big the chunks of ginger are. When I started making it, the crystallized ginger I found in the bulk section at Fred Meyer came in very small pebble-like pieces, and I just crushed them between my fingers as I dropped them into the glass. Now that I’ve moved and get it at a different store, it comes in big 1/2 inch cubes, and I have to cut pieces.

3. Add about two fingers of orange juice and a dash of lime juice.

4. Fill the glass just over half full with the prepared chai.

5. Top with carbonated water.

6. Close your eyes and slowly sip the cool, sparkling, ginger-and-citrus concoction. Breathe deeply. Relax. Ahhhh….DSC03305

Birthday Angst

| Hope

Niko has turned four. It was a bit of a letdown for him, I think. It seems he was expecting to be noticeably bigger, and to FEEL different. Instead, here he is, still himself. Maybe he’ll feel better after his little family celebration today, with balloons and hats and dinosaur decorations on cupcakes he helped make.

For me, his birthday is a source of anxiety. I don’t know how to celebrate birthdays. I certainly don’t feel up to organizing a multi-family celebration like the one we recently attended, which was lovely but would have left me a distressed mess of nerves if I’d been in charge of it.

I remember my own fourth birthday. I was allowed to wear my favorite dress: green gingham, topped with a white pinafore with an apple embroidered on the front. I walked with my parents and brother through the frosty winter early-morning darkness from our small house to the commune’s main gathering area (known as the Tabernacle – this was a religious commune) for breakfast. I was so full of excitement that I hopped up and down as I announced “I’m four!”

To my astonishment and distress, this was greeted with a unanimous refusal to believe my news. “No way!” “You are not!” “You’re still three! You’ll be three FOREVER.” I was on the brink of tears as I wondered if my mom had been misinformed. However, these were kind people who knew me very well and loved me as much as my own family did, and they quickly saw my worry and surrounded me with hugs and congratulations. I remember the smiling faces, being swung high in the air by a pair of strong friendly arms, the feeling of warmth fizzing inside at the rare display of excess attention.

And that was it. No birthday song – for years, I thought that was a fiction, something that authors invented for the benefit of their book characters. No hats, no balloons, no special meal. I had my first birthday cake two years ago, when I announced to Aaron that, despite being in my thirties, when many people are happy to stop counting the years, I wanted a birthday cake. He came through with a lovely pink grapefruit confection, topped with shimmering pink frosting and candles. I ate far too much of it and was satisfied that I had now had a birthday experience.

So I really don’t know what birthdays should be like. And I worry that I’m not coming through for Niko. For me, it wasn’t a big deal. None of my friends had birthday celebrations, either – or Christmas, Halloween, or any other “worldly” or “pagan” celebration. I didn’t feel left out or deprived. But Niko’s friends have moms who fling themselves into birthdays with joyous abandon. His friends have large gatherings with party favors, games, and excited kids shepherded by cheerful parents. I worry that, at some point, Niko will notice that his mom – with the social anxiety that comes from a constant sense of feeling like a cultural transplant, plus, thanks to ADHD, the difficulty focusing enough to plan an actual party – isn’t up to par.

I don’t mean this to be a depressing post. Niko is a happy little boy. We will conclude a fun, Niko-focused day (ToysRUs! Lunch at McDonald’s!) with a small family celebration. We’ll wear hats. He’ll have balloons. We made fondant dinosaurs for cupcakes. He will get to tear into a few gifts, some of which he chose himself. And we have a tentatively planned play date with his best friend, for later this week, at which he will have yet another dino cupcake. More importantly, he has a family who loves him.

Yes, my sweet boy will be fine. But still, the anxiety persists. Maybe it always will. All I can do is keep on trying. Trying to act like a normal person who wasn’t raised on a commune. Trying to pretend these new cultural activities make sense to me. And, most of all, trying to be a good mom to my kids. After all, isn’t that what we all want? And I’m pretty sure, from talking with other parents, that we all feel inadequate. Anxiety-ridden. Filled with self-doubt. We all second-guess ourselves.

Maybe I’m not so different, after all. Commune girl or no, when those feelings are distilled and examined microscopically, that’s what I’m left with. I just want the best for him. Just like you.

Summer’s End Iced Tea

| Hope

When I was growing up, I lived on a commune in Northwest Ontario (for those of you paying attention, this was both before and after the homestead/trapline but before being an Alaskan city girl). Anytime there was a gathering, there was iced tea. And, as I said, this was…a commune. There was always a gathering. By definition, we were, in fact, a gathering. I’m sure you can imagine we went through a lot of Lipton’s tea bags. We always made it the same way, starting with a great big metal pot half-filled with water on the back burner of the enormous stove. You had to carry the water to the pot from the faucet, both because it wouldn’t fit under the faucet and also because, once full, it was hard to carry. A big wad of tea bags floated on top after the water boiled, until someone judged it strong enough. Then, industrial-sized scoops of sugar stirred in with a wooden spoon. Haphazard squirts of lemon juice. Topped off with fresh cold water. Thoughtful tastes. More sugar. More lemon. Ooops…more water. Finally, perfection. That is, unless someone (who shall remain nameless – but it wasn’t me) accidentally scooped from the salt container instead of the sugar container, despite the black Magic marker label. Big oops.

I learned to make sun tea when I lived in Haines, Alaska (in, yes, another commune). I do recognize the irony of learning about sun tea in one of the greyest, dampest, chilliest (but also one of the most majestically beautiful) places in the world. When you live in Southeast Alaska, you take full advantage of every drop of sunlight you can get. And one thing that means is sun tea. Basically, you get a glass pitcher or jar – it needs to be clear – and put cool water and tea bags into it, and let it sit outside in the sun till it’s done. This has to be done in the summer, really, because you need the sun’s warmth to speed the process. You can make cold-brewed tea any time of the year, but if it’s cold out, you don’t bother with the sun or with putting it outside. You just set the pitcher in a semi-warm place and give it lots of time to steep.

Last week, we had weather in the 80s. I’ve never experienced this in October before. My Canadian/Alaskan soul thrilled with the warmth, and I realized that it was absolutely necessary to celebrate with iced tea. Now, I could have made basic iced tea with boiled water and Lipton tea bags, but where’s the fun in that? No, what I needed was something that tasted like a sunny day at the very end of summer. A little fruit. A little spice. This is my very favorite method of making iced tea:

Fill a clear glass pitcher with cool water. Clear, for the sun; glass, not plastic, to resist staining. Add 8 teabags for a half-gallon pitcher: one per cup. (If you’re making a whole gallon, you really only need 10-12 teabags, but for a regular pitcher I follow the one-per-cup rule.) Half your teabags can be plain black tea. Then, you need 2 bags of chai tea and 2 bags of peach or orange tea. Cover the pitcher to keep out bugs and dust. Put it in a sunny spot where rampaging puppies and preschoolers won’t knock it over. Let it sit until the water has turned a deep, rich red-gold color. On a really hot day, this can happen in under an hour.

I don’t sweeten my iced tea in the pitcher. I like to leave it plain, and let everyone choose their own level of sweetness. But if you’ve ever tried to stir granulated sugar into an ice-cold drink, you’ll know that this can be an exercise in refraining from flinging your glass to the floor as the grains swirl implacably round and round in the tea. So, while the tea steeps in the sun, I like to make a simple syrup. Really simple. Stir one cup of sugar into one cup of water. Heat it in the microwave until…well, until it’s hot. Let’s say 3 minutes. Give it a good stir and watch the last grains of sugar disappear. Pour the simple syrup into a bottle to keep in the fridge next to the tea. Depending on what I plan to drink it with, I like to add some citrus zest or fresh herbs to the bottle before pouring in the hot liquid. You get a lightly flavored sweetener that can be used in cocktails, too. (Ideas: fresh lavender, basil, mint, orange zest, a juniper twig…)

There you go. Perfect iced tea, sweetened however you like it, from a pretty bottle with a colorful coil of orange zest. Just what you need for an end-of-summer day. Below, some pictures of the procedure:

Start with 4 Lipton black tea bags, 2 peach tea bags, and 2 chai tea bags.
Put them directly into a pitcher full of cool water.
Set the pitcher in the sun (covered) for as long as it takes to become a rich dark amber.
Simple syrup: One cup sugar. One cup water. Heat till dissolved.
I make plenty to keep in the fridge. Some orange zest adds a little something extra.
The perfect end-of-summer iced tea.

It’s amazing how something as simple as the whiff of a familiar smell from a yellow box with red lettering, or the glimmer of light through a dark amber liquid, can bring the memories rushing back. We always drank iced tea when we gathered… As I sat alone in my kitchen, looking at the sunshine through my glass, I remembered how far I’ve come and how much I’ve given up to be here. I don’t regret my choices. I have a good life. But when I lift a glass of iced tea, the memories rush back, and I so badly crave hugs from all the “aunts” and “uncles” and friends I left behind. I want to sit on the front porch of the big white house with whoever else happens by to snag a glass of tea before the crowds arrived, feeling the sun on my face as we gossip about who sat next to whom in church yesterday, who might possibly be expecting yet another baby, whether we might need to pick those peas again tomorrow…

Iced tea is the flavor of gathering, of family, of closeness. It tastes like voices raised in song, bodies swaying together like trees in a breeze as a family of over a hundred souls worship together. It tastes like the faintly scandalous square dances (“But the girls and boys will be touching!”), like bringing in the hay while dust hangs in the shafts of sunlight, like snapping beans in the kitchen while stories fill the air. It’s just a glass of tea. But for a minute – just a quick minute – I am so homesick I want to cry.

And I want to tell them all: I miss you. I love you. I promise I’ll come visit soon.

Save some iced tea for me, will you?