A little weekend vignette

Pre-holiday rambles, a post vaccine haze, and moments in between seasons.

This morning before sunrise, my feet touched down from my bed onto cold hardwood floor and I stumbled in half darkness to rummage through my drawers to pull out my favorite pair of sherpa-lined socks. I’m sitting here, writing to you, my feet still ice cold. I tuck them under the warm body of my cat who loafs conveniently within reach. He lets out a small squeak but doesn’t flinch. We have a mutually beneficial codependency, he and I. A reciprocity of comfort and warmth.

Winter, it seems, has arrived. Which wouldn’t normally be anything extraordinary to write about during the week of Thanksgiving, except that it’s been an extraordinarily dry and warm Fall.

A few blissful but chilly rainy days later and the smell of smoke and burning leaves has dissipated from the air. Three hundred brush fires in NYC is unnerving, but the smell wasn’t entirely unpleasant if I’m being honest. I do love the nostalgia of campfires because it reminds me of summers when I was 20, living a life inbetween college semesters like a nomad camping out in the woods. I tried to fall completely off the grid one summer. I lasted 33 days in the mountains of Vermont, which for a city girl like me was no small feat. But these days, my sensitive disposition registers smoke as an irritant that travels down to my lungs. I can feel it burn, along with anything else that my body renders an inhospitable foreign intruder—mold, chemicals, even an innocent enough spray bottle of household cleaner—so I avoid going outdoors when the fires are burning.

So it’s not surprising the way my body reacts to my first shingles vaccine. It took me out all weekend. It’s something that I’ve been putting off for years for no reason in particular except pure procrastination and a dread of side effects. The specter of what’s to come after January 20th, however, has lit a fire to get all the shots jabbed into my arm. While I lay on the couch, half here, half not from a crushing headache and general malaise, I try to be productive and read. I give up half an hour later, unable to focus.

In contrast, I am married to a person who has boundless energy. He spends all weekend prepping for Thanksgiving and filling the fridge with home cooked meals that our college kids wax nostalgia over in family chats. Homemade biscuits, homemade kimchee, chickpeas, paneer, and spinach, a casserole of layered potatoes, and gingersnaps. In the back of the fridge, tucked away out of reach (for now), a pumpkin pie and a cheesecake. Homemade everything to greet the kids as they come home from college for the holiday. He tells me that he’s been to seven different stores and markets already this weekend tracking down various ingredients. Frugalness is not about convenience; this is what you do when you’re an ambitious cook on a budget.

I finally feel a little more human again on Sunday afternoon so I venture out and am greeted with Christmas tree stands that have popped up overnight. This fall was a time warp of illusions, disorienting in its stark reminder of climate change. The dissonance of leaves still on trees next to rows and rows of evergreens restrained tightly with twine, like straight jackets stacked against buildings, fences, and makeshift wooden frames leave me questioning whether it was always this way. Maybe the leaves really are hanging around longer, or could it be that the appearance of Christmas trees is arriving earlier every year? I don’t know which it is, but the scent of pine and fir that hits my nose walking past these stands are one of the rare times when I deeply inhale while walking on the streets of NYC.

The sun and cloudless blue skies have returned today, but it didn’t bring back the warm temperatures with it. That’s okay though. Winter needs to come so that nature can hibernate and rest. Plants need the cold to achieve hardiness; fruit trees need the cold to fall into a period of dormancy. They require a certain number of days that fall within a scientific threshold of cold temperatures in order to have a productive cycle. This period of rest can directly correlate to how much fruit a tree can bear next growing season.

And isn’t that an apt metaphor for life.

🍂🍁

Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate. I am grateful for you all. And before the season ends, here’s a little appreciation for the colors of fall.

A little gingko leaf arrangement for you

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Related reading

How an iconic American dessert wove its way into our Korean American Thanksgiving

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A few links for this Thanksgiving week

• Salty Like Tears A beautiful creative nonfiction piece by Grace Hwang Lynch.
  “In Taiwan, I hoped to find a connection to the land and the traditions, and to know deep in my bones who I was and where I came from. But in the back of my mind, I heard the uncomfortable whisper that even in the motherland, we were descendants of migrants and settlers.”

• Too Good to Go An app with a mission to end food waste.
  The premise is simple: find a participating restaurant, cafe, or grocery store near you and get a discounted deal on their surplus food. Mark’s worked in the restaurant and food industry long enough to know all too well about food waste, so naturally, we love this idea. We’ve done pickups from businesses in our neighborhood and the element of surprise makes it kind of like a game. We once paid $6 for two dozen bagels that we kept in the freezer and enjoyed and shared for months!

• Do you find the 21st century overstimulating? Try ‘longstorming’ (psyche.co)
  “…natural splendour seems to put us in a headspace that lets us reflect on our short lives as ephemeral organisms dwelling on a fragile planet floating in a vast cosmos.”
  I always turn to big nature as a way to heal after trauma or periods of transition. Now I know what to call it—longstorming.

• Can DIY Clothes Unravel Fast Fashion’s Climate Disasters? (Dame Magazine)
  “Being on trend has never been more destructive to our sense of self, to the labor force, and to the climate. But a growing movement of crafters who post their clothes-making process on social media are inspiring us to reconsider the way we build our seasonal wardrobes.”

• Too much stuff: can we solve our addiction to consumerism? (The Guardian)
  “Alarmed by the rising tide of waste we are all creating, my family and I decided to try to make do with much less. But while individual behaviour is important, real change will require action on a far bigger scale.”

• Grocery stores that donate expiring food − instead of price discounting or discarding − make higher profits (The Conversation)
  Retailers donate as much as 30% of food they can’t sell to food banks, representing one of the best uses of leftover or surplus food.

• More New Yorkers using food pantries than before 2020, including many with jobs, study says (Gothamist)
  Speaking of food banks, a study just released revealed that “about 14% of New York City adults and 18% of families with children visited a food pantry last year.” Our entire family has volunteered off and on with our local food bank here in Brooklyn since the pandemic. This past weekend saw a record number of visitors and the need continues to grow. If you’re looking for places to donate this holiday season, Camp Friendship is seeking donations to help continue valuable pantry and free community programming right here in Brooklyn.