this weekend i was mostly alone in the house and it put me in a great mood. i miss quiet times, when i would not have to hurry, when i can take my time and organize my days according to mu wishes. family life is important, lonely time on a beautiful day is invaluable.
saturday morning i spent in a hospital where i volunteer. i incorporated it in my bike exercise, cycling there and back fast. it is near my usual route, i only change way at the very end, so it felt more like free ride than an answer to a task how to get there on time. using a bike takes half an hour, taking train and bus/a walk – at least forty minutes. only that, this year, this was the first warm saturday when it was not raining. i came home around two, having stopped by two shops to buy some cooking ingredients and drinks for the weekend, including a huge bottle of aloe vera that i spotted in my local shop, half cheaper than everywhere else.
just when i got off my bike, it started raining. the sky was blue with little clouds, but rain was heavy and lasted for a few hours; i looked out for a rainbow but there was none i managed to spot. so instead of taking alexander and continuing to ride, i stayed home with windows open to the scent of warm air and rain and it’s singing on all tin roofs in the neighbourhood. i made some cookies, marshmallows, an amazing coffee cake with duck eggs that i’m introducing today, and soaked cashews for a raw vegan ‘cheesecake’ that i wanted to try. there was loud music playing from my radio, alternated with news every half an hour, and random advertisement. i hummed to myself, dressed in shorts and a tshirt, running around the kitchen. not having to worry about keeping it clean for once was nice and i managed to get my multitasking to an admirable level. the sky cleared before seven and i decided to go cycling some more. it was strangely warm and lovely, scarce people walking slowly around puddles, umbrellas in their hands, and i rushed down the streets manoeuvring to avoid water that would splash all over my bare legs.
i went to sleep at three, after a bath that lasted two hours and a half, listening to an amazing soundtrack reputedly all the time, imagining i am in a ghost world movie. three songs of skip james, including devil got my woman, and jaan pahechaan ho. i even contemplated myself in an emerald green hair, like enid, but i decided that, if anything, blue would blue much better. i was too lazy though, and too comfortable in the deep warm rose-scented water to fetch blue hair dye that is in in my cupboard, waiting to be used.
i woke up ay seven, unhappy with myself since i planned to go out of the house at half past six. it was beautifully warm, for april morning, and there was an amazing fog. for half an hour i didn’t meet a single soul, just a few cars passed me. the streets were quiet and mysterious. birds were singing so, so loud, and i couldn’t keep myself from sliming. i don’t think i need to describe it.
and, the weekly bike update: 160 km of fast cycling. i didn’t bother with slow this week, there was not enough time between rain and rain.
‘it is years and years and years and i am afraid to do anything because there is no way to be assured that what i do will make me happy. and fulfilled. i do not care about much more. we are taught to care about so much. too much. i want simplicity. newness. comfort. i want to be satisfied with the present. i want to make myself assured, like saint augustine, that i do not care too much about the past and the future. i want to concentrate on the present, not be afraid of what is to come. but when i think about those wastelands, about that vastness, endlessness of hours and hours and hours that are yet to come, i do not have any idea what to do with myself. since i know that, they way i am now, i can never find rest. i am too tired already, already when i am young, and i cannot imagine what will i be in two, or five, or twenty years, how deadly tired and heavy i could become. but i do not want to be ignorant either. i do not want this burden to be taken from me because i learn how to dismiss and hate and overlook things, or that i grow accustomed to being a failure to myself. i do not want to become such a pitiful creature. i cannot see the point of living if i cannot be myself. really. no compromises, because it feels like fooling yourself. if i am not myself, what makes sense? how can i know that anything else is real? though the distorted me i can only see the distorted world. but i do not know how to forget. i do not think i want to forget. or change, but i do not know how to change. i have no strength. the nothingness paralyzes me.’
‘yesterday i was in my room, at night, after i left you, and i though: it is a warm spring evening when everything seems to bloom and the air smells of newness and calmness, and the soft wind brings hope of sunrays and the breath of other earths, remote universes. the ground is pulsating slowly with the rhythm of blood flowing steadily though veins, following the heartbeat, following the tune of life. a lot of stars, i knew without looking up. the air smells of no mist, there must be so many stars out there, another universes, mirror universes, maybe unending places where things went differently, where things went better, where there was no death. but maybe not. would you take a chance?’
duck egg coffee cake with pear recipe
110 g butter / margarine
1/2 c sugar
4 eggs (i used 3 duck eggs)
1 3/4 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 c sour cream
4 pears, diced (you could use apple, mango, berries – as long as they are not very juicy)
2 tbsp flour
cream soft butter/margarine with sugar until pale, add eggs one at time
sift flour with salt and baking powder
add flour and sour cream, alternately, mixing at lowest speed
mix diced pears and 2 tbp flour delicately, to prevent the cake from getting too wet (you can omit that if the pears are not very ripe)
pour into a pan – this makes a medium sized cake
bake for 50 min to 1h in an oven preheated to 170°C /340F, check with toothpick to see if it is done
sift flour with salt and baking powder
add flour and sour cream, alternately, mixing at lowest speed
mix diced pears and 2 tbp flour delicately, to prevent the cake from getting too wet (you can omit that if the pears are not very ripe)
pour into a pan – this makes a medium sized cake
bake for 50 min to 1h in an oven preheated to 170°C /340F, check with toothpick to see if it is done
dust with powdered sugar, serve cooled down
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