Flying Like an Ostrich

Since November, I’ve been flying like a wide-eyed ostrich caught in the jet stream. At 40,000 feet. At 500 MPH. All legs, all neck. And a flabby core that can’t keep the gangly body aligned. Moving those little flaps of wings as if they should carry this body the way a 777 carries its own weight. Praying it smoothens out but only feeling turbulence and ongoing tumultuous motion as a big flightless bird tumbling ass over appetite at high altitude. Tuesday I felt the painful ping of muscles in my thighs and the burn of cold air in my lungs while I plodded and huffed up hills. I have been walking on flat land for weeks, but the hills make me work harder -- physically and mentally.

Panting up a hill, I realized that I’m not built to fly at high altitude nor to cover hundreds of miles in such a short span of time, but I have strong legs. And I can consistently put my feet one in front of the other. Mentally. Physically. Soulfully.

Taking one step at a time on ground I can feel beneath my feet, I find more calm, more power, and more endurance.

Wishing you solid ground this hump day.

Chicken and Rice Soup

Tuesday, Liam woke up with a headache and a canker sore. With the consequences of staying in bed until 9 a.m. and no electronics all day, he stayed home from school. At 3 p.m. when Will came home from school, Liam went to the screens. He must have interpreted the ban as effective during the hours school was in session. A Nor’easter-like rain sat over our house that whole day. It felt more like an English winter day than a New England winter day. Knowing the forecast for Tuesday, on Monday I had grabbed a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store – chicken and rice soup sounded good. It’s one of my few back pocket recipes which three out of four Malcolms will eat. When I got home, I took the plastic lid off and saw what had been hidden under the large label on top.

I don’t usually get rotisserie chickens from this particular store. I double checked the label to make sure this was a whole chicken. It was. I know what a featherless chicken should look like; this wasn’t fitting that picture. I turned the meat around looking for proof that it was a whole chicken. Indeed, I found puny wings hiding behind an over-sized breast and tiny lower legs attached to gargantuan thighs.

This creature had never walked a day in its life. It had been a living rotisserie chicken, somehow raised to grow an abundance of the best white and dark meat. My mind has been playing word association games ever since I bought it. Barbie. Dolly.

I felt discombobulated as I pulled the meat off. What sicko raises birds like this? (Thanks to Dad for that noun...) I tossed the bones and skin in a soup pot and filled it with water. It was good not to be looking at it as a whole.

Onward. My goal was to make chicken stock Monday and chicken soup Tuesday. Monday evening, Bill was sitting at the kitchen counter on a phone call with China as I was pulling the chicken meat off the bone. I quietly rustled the carrots and celery out of the fridge and took them to the laundry room where I laid them on the lid of the washer. Out of earshot, I snapped three carrots into thirds with my hands and walked them back to the kitchen and dropped them in the pot on the stove. I returned to the laundry room and broke three stalks of celery the same way and dropped them in too. Back in the laundry room, I pulled an onion from my baker’s rack, quartered it in my hand with a paring knife, and put it into the pot. No one likes watching that cutting-vegetables-in-the-palm-of-your-hand procedure. Mom has cut fruit and vegetables up for years like that. I watched the pot come to a boil then turned it to low and let it simmer away for an hour. From there, Bill took it to the porch to let it cool overnight.

With Liam home Tuesday, I recruited him to help cut up the vegetables for the soup. He doesn’t like cooked carrots, so we left those in big rounds so that they would be easy to pick out. Liam decided the celery should be finely chopped and took great pride in completing that job. I turned my eyes to my own cutting board to chop up the onion. I didn't want to watch every move Liam made with the 8” chef’s knife. But he had the right grip on it: thumb and fore-finger steady on either side of the blade, with the other three fingers wrapped around the handle.

I brought the soup pot containing the broth in from the porch, took off the lid, and inhaled. The only word I can find to describe that smell is comfort – a result of simple ingredients and a little time. I strained the old vegetables and chicken bits out of the broth, and we put in our freshly chopped veggies, together with a half teaspoon each of rubbed thyme and black pepper, plus a bay leaf. The broth rolled in a gentle boil until the flesh of the carrots easily gave way to the paring knife. I added a couple cups of cooked rice and the chicken; brought it back to a simmer; and added some salt. The grand finale was a small once-around-the-pan squirt of lime juice. It’s the something-something that makes this soup a little different from other chicken soups. Liam and I marveled at how good it was as we slurped up bowls of it as a mid-afternoon snack.

I knew I wanted to write about chicken and rice soup today, but I wasn't sure why. I thought it might be a piece about responsibly raising animals for food, but it’s not. I thought it might be a piece about Liam wriggling a day at home out of me, but it’s not. Bottom line, I think it’s about comfort.

I can depend on this soup. There are no surprises with it. It’s sound nutrition. It’s nothing fancy. It’s an easy dish to share with friends; it only needs to be heated up. I can freeze it at any stage -- as a completed soup, just the basic broth, broth with veggies, or seasoned broth with only rice.

And, in the future, my chicken and rice soup will only be made with a well-balanced real rotisserie chicken.

Lunar New Year 2017

Yesterday morning, as I was bent over heaving a box out the back door, bright colors caught my peripheral. I looked back and up at the wall near the wood frame inside the house. Four bright Portuguese clay fish, hung in a tight little school, reminded me that my children are Korean and that the Lunar New Year is approaching – even though I’m still chasing the last of the Christmas decorations throughout the main floor. When we traveled to South Korea to bring Will home in 2004, we learned about the symbolism of animals in Korean culture. One story that stuck with me was about fish: Since fish never close their eyes, pieces of art depicting fish are often found displayed near exterior doors to keep watch and protect the people inside. So in the house of Malcolms, we have four fish facing the back door that were made by an artist in Portugal, and they are protecting two Koreans, an Englishman, and an Iowan.

This year, the Lunar New Year is January 28th. The celebration is based on the lunar calendar, so the date changes every year. For the past couple years, we have barely acknowledged this holiday as we’ve fallen into the patter of Malcolm weekend life. Whether robotics class, band lessons, skiing, or gymnastics – or maybe just hibernating on a cold Saturday afternoon, we haven’t ventured out as a family to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Admittedly, it may have even passed unnoticed for a year or two.

When Will and Liam were in grade school, every year I went into their classrooms around the Lunar New Year to do activities with their classmates. I’ve taken our traditional hanboks, worn on special occasions, into school for the teachers and students to try on. I’ve made traditional tteokguk, rice cake soup, with thirteen 1st-graders. The rice cake sticks to your ribs, and Koreans eat it on New Year’s Day so they will have good luck and a fresh start in the New Year. I’ve recreated Korean kites, which are often flown by kids on New Year’s Day. I showed the kites to Will's 4th grade class, then gave them a tub of materials to make one themselves, only there were no directions. That was the last class project I did with Will.

Looking back, I see these activities were two-pronged. First, I wanted my kids to know the history of and to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Second, and most importantly in this setting, I wanted their classmates to learn about the Korean culture. Their classmates were intrigued. When Will was in second grade, I went into his class every day for a week so the kids could work through five stations of Korean culture crafts. I have a tub in the basement with all the original patterns and samples, but I’m crafted out, and the boys are in middle school now where they use less Elmer’s glue.

This year, with 11- and 13-year-olds, we are going to carve out time to celebrate our sons’ culture – in the greater scope of how other Asians celebrate. While museums in the area celebrate the Lunar New Year with indoor performances and crafts, we will be heading to the Chinese New Year parade on February 12th in Boston’s Chinatown. The event description says there will be lion dances, drumming, and fireworks, plus a culture village – scant words to describe what will surely be an authentic celebration that appeals to every sense.

In Chinatown, our sons will see reflections from faces very different from their everyday lives. And, our little multi-cultural microcosm will celebrate what one-fifth of the world’s population celebrates every Lunar New Year: Family.

Writing in 2017

Christmas decorations are slowly coming down. Very slowly. It could happen more quickly if I spent the day at home carting tubs up the stairs to fill then back down when they are fully packed. But I’m not doing that. I’m spending most of the day in my favorite place: the quiet room at the library. And it’s only Monday. Generally, Tuesday is my day to write at the library. On most Tuesdays, I spend two or three hours writing a Hump Day Short, formatting it to send to you, adding it to my blog, and linking it to my “Linda Malcolm – Writer” Facebook page. I’ve been sending the Hump Day Short to you for a few years now, and other than you and the readers on my mailing list, plus a few loyal readers on Facebook, not many people have read my work.

Late last winter, I felt winded from the want to write for a larger audience and the slowness that this process was taking. Actually, I felt that process was non-existent because the only writing energy I was putting out was just enough to send out a weekly Hump Day Short. My creepy perfectionist tendency was sneaking up on me: if I can’t get my writing in front of a bigger audience, why continue?

That was short-lived. Within days, I’d chopped that ugly saboteur off at the knees and re-spun the story. In March, I submitted two pieces of my writing to two different magazines. In short, I explained to the editors that for six years I have been ebbing and flowing between parent and writer, writing weekly Hump Day Shorts and sending them to my 200-plus subscribers; then dutifully posting those pieces in my on-line storage unit. I have it all in one spot: nearly 300 stories sitting out there on lindamalcolm.com. In an open vault waiting for the day something might happen with them.

Neither piece was published, but the rejection letters were friendly. One editor asked me to submit more of my writing. The particular pieces I submitted weren’t perfect for the publications, but the editors weren’t mean about the rejections. I took another swing at that saboteur. It wasn’t as painful as I had thought to receive a rejection letter.

In April, I joined a writers’ group in Boston. Once a month, we critique one another’s work. Each of us sends in about 15 pages of writing prior to the meeting. Then, sitting around the table, each author listens to critiques of their work without adding to the conversation. After the critiques from the five or six other authors, the author of the work joins the conversation. That first meeting was unnerving. I sat and listened then managed a meek “thank-you” when they finished. I don’t remember much of the feedback; I just know that they took my work seriously – as I did theirs. Now, nearly a year later, I crave those comments back from the writers sitting around the table. I know being in this group is the propellant I needed for the next stage of my writing: publishing.

When I first joined, I sent a smattering of stories to be critiqued. From the Laundry Maven and bras to cow manure and enduring pain, the scattered subject matter left the group scratching their heads at my goal of publishing a collection of stories. “You need a theme” was the consensus.

Now, with feedback from the group – and over the years, from my small dedicated tribe of readers -- I’ve decided to publish stories that pivot around Iowa. Whether comparisons of my kids’ life in the city to mine on the farm or reflections on butchering chickens or teaching Bill the aromatic difference between cow manure and pig shit, the touchstone of these stories is Iowa.

How goes it, you might ask? Now, I’m culling stories from my on-line storage unit and writing some new ones that have been only ideas simmering on the back burner. I’m working with a company that helps independent authors publish. To do these things means I need more time than the Hump Day Short allotment.

I’m pushing my days toward hours of writing, editing, and researching. Consequently, the Christmas decorations gathered in the dining room will take longer than a day to put away. Perhaps, there will be more eating out and taking out. Maybe I will distribute the reins of the house and encourage a more consolidated effort to keep the house functioning; spreading more of the power to the hands of everyone living under the roof as I see how capable Will and Liam are at 13 and 11 years old.

Can you hear me justifying more time with my fingers at the keyboard? Since 2010, I’ve spent concerted and sometimes painful energy on the smallest of steps. Early on, the words “I’m a writer” did not pass easily over my lips. The answer to “what do you write?” tripped right behind that first line.

Today, I sit at a table with writers where I’m still surprised to be included, where we identify ourselves as authors – complete with published books and working manuscripts. Perhaps that’s why when at the meeting the leader says, “Which author would like to go first?” I fling my arm into the air.