Infinite

It occurred to me as I considered whether you ever stop loving people, because you break up, because they die, maybe because they are just gone from your life, that you never do stop loving them. Sure, you can get over someone, but how can all those feelings, all that love, just go away? Where would it go?

And then I realized that it doesn't go away. That we are able to continue on, to keep loving, to keep creating love for others. Our love doesn't transfer from one person to the next, it gets created anew. Therefore, we have an infinite amount of love to feel, to give.

This has changed my perspective on a whole lot of things. First of all, it made my past loves feel validated. I was always trying to justify my feelings, thinking I was so infatuated or that I didn't really know what love was at that time. And now I feel like, hey it's ok to have loved that person and no, it didn't work out, but since my ability to love is infinite, I think I'll be ok. It feels great to admit that I was really in love with those people, that my feelings were genuine.

This infinite love stuff has also allowed me to let more love into my life. And why not since love is an amazing feeling and I want as much of it as I can get. I'm not afraid to love someone, a friend, a cat, a cup of coffee, too much because even if I get hurt, I know I have more and more and more love to experience and to give. It's kinda revolutionary in my mind, no longer do I need to feel apologetic about my feelings, I just go ahead and let myself feel it. It's not like allowing yourself to love takes something away from you, in fact it's given me the ability to create even more love.

Yet still I'm caught between knowing this, having these feelings, and not knowing what to do with this information. There's a definite divide in social acceptableness here.

Take my friend "Leo." We met in college and had a great battle of a time defining our relationship because there was a part of me that loved him very deeply, but another part of me that knew he was destined for much greater things than to be my boyfriend. (I know, like there are greater things right?) So I let it go, my dream of our love. Yeah right, that's not quite how I saw things then because I faintly remember clutching to this dream like a starving, caged animal. But hindsight tells me my intuition was pretty good at restraining me from getting involved with him. He now lives very far away, and really is doing pretty great things. But the problem is I still love him. And not in the "I wish we were together," kind of way, but in the "you are such an amazing person and I love everything about you" kind of way. Now you can maybe see how I'm starting to cross the divide here. I'm married, he's in a relationship, and you just aren't supposed to love other people. And you definately can't tell them you love them. So it makes it kinda hard sometimes to have these feelings and well, just have these feelings that aren't shared. So here I am, sharing them. And maybe my husband will read this and wonder where my sanity has run off to and maybe Leo will read it and be a little creeped out, but guess what? I love him anyway, no apologies.

So here is the first word I can add to my definition of love: infinite. So far, I know that love is infinite.

I Want to Say That!

Here is a list of crazy, funny, poignant, absurd, and brilliant words and phrases my 10 year old student with autism says on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Keep in mind he is barely verbal, so these phrases are about all he can say.

Happy Halloween!
Bonjour
Get offa me
Gimme back
Give me a hug, give me a hand
Mono
Hey!
Stay back
Why do you TALK
Get back here
Run boy
Open the door, no. Open the door, no.
No, no, no
Jana wait
A-Alex
Scooby dooby doo, where are you?
This! (with cat walk style pose)
Who are you?
Alright, alright, alright
I'm sorry boo
Eat the bread, eat the bread
Stupid dog
Crazy cat
Excuse me, no kekaki
Waka willi kaka key
Hi sigh-o
And my personal favorite: Suck it!

Mission: Revamp Biscuit Recipe

From grandma to mom to me, the original biscuit recipe was getting a little tired. Here's my version.

Makes about 10.

2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 or so grated parmesan cheese
1 TBL chopped fresh rosemary
2 TBL chopped fresh italian parsley
4 TBL chopped fresh chives
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup oil

Preheat oven to 350. Combine first 7 ingredients in a medium bowl, mix with a fork. Add milk and oil, mix again until ingredients come together in a big dough ball. Sprinkle some flour on counter top and press dough flat by hand to about 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into rounds (I use a small water glass as a cutter). Place onto ungreased cookie sheet, bake for about 20 minutes or until barely browned on top and bottom.

Variations: herb amounts listed are never exact, if you don't have these herbs, use sage, oregano, thyme, or whatever sounds good. If you only have dried herbs, use about 1/2 the amounts listed above. Regarding oil and milk ingredients, I use olive oil and rice milk and it works just fine. Use whatever oil and "milk" you have.

Additions: garlic, green onion, sun dried tomatoes, chili flakes/powder...

Love at First Sight

I believe in love at first sight, here's why. There are plenty of good looking people in this world and you don't go around falling in love with every pretty face you see on the street. Love at first sight is when you feel something for that person, it's more than a "yeah I'd do him," reaction, it's gotta be more. We tend to write these feelings off most of the time. It's just infatuation. But infatuation is a really strong kind of love, just because it doesn't last forever doesn't mean those feelings weren't real, weren't life altering in many cases.

My definition of love at first sight is that spark, that moment of magic after you first meet someone or see them, a connection you feel and you know they do to. Simply attraction? Not when you can't stop thinking about them, when you think you see them around every corner, when you truly believe in running into them again, when logic flies out the window in a pair of ruby slippers.

And yes, of course I'm speaking from experience here. According to my definition above, it's happened to me numerous times in this life, including when I first saw my Hubs. Sitting in a college statistics class, I'd noticed him before, but he'd never looked at me. This is key because you both have to feel the connection for it to work. And then one day he sat right next to me and we looked at eachother, wow, his eyes seemed a neon blue as they met mine. "This weather is bullshit, I'm moving to Florida," he said and I was irrationally hooked. That day after class he clomped a few yards ahead of me in his big, black boots as "Today I met the man I'm gonna marry..." rang in my ears. Seriously. This is crazy right? Well this was love. The highest high and the lowest low. Just exactly how was I going to get this guy to marry me? And the rest is an even sappier love story.

But as we all know it doesn't always, well nearly never, work out in marriage or even a relationship. The fact is that the love is there, but why? Where did the love come from? Did we know eachother in a past life? Was my heart open just enough, and theirs too, to let our souls sneak out at just the right moment? When this type of love works out we say, oh well it was meant to be. But what about when it doesn't work out? Where does that love go? The other times I've experienced love at first sight were no less real than the love I felt for Hubs. So what is to be done with this information, that we can love people at first sight, that's what I want to know. I just don't have a good answer at all.

Swiss Chard and Feta Quesadillas

This is the fastest (and one of the healthiest) recipe in my repertoire. It's perfect for those nights when you just don't feel like making anything but still want something nutritious.

serves 2

1 bunch Swiss chard, torn into small pieces
4 tortillas, whatever you like
1/2 cup or so feta cheese
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
salt & pepper
few splashes Franks Red Hot sauce
1 TBL or so water

Place one tortilla in a pan over med heat. Add 1/4 of the feta on top of tortilla then 1/2 of chard. Sprinkle 1/2 of garlic, hot sauce, and salt & pepper to your liking over chard. Add another 1/4 of the cheese. Place another tortilla on top of all this. Add a small amount of water (about 1 TBL) to the pan and cover for a few minutes. The water will steam the chard. Flip the quesadilla and cook, uncovered, for another few minutes. Both sides of quesadilla should be slightly browned. Cut into 6 triangles. Repeat for 2nd serving.

Subs: spinach for chard, any cheese for feta

Add ins: mushrooms, tomatoes, cilantro, sausage or any cooked meat, salsa, corn...

A New Year

So it's a new year and I suppose another chance at getting this writing thing right. Right? So it's with a certain boldness and a Kerouacian confidence that I venture once again into the writing of a blog.

I've retired from caring for the elderly. It taught me a lot, gave me a great deal of stress, and I've since decided to not become old. Maggie, I hope the rest of your life continues toward some purpose, that of which I am obviously too ignorant to see.

This New Year's Eve was spent in New York city with a couple of my very best friends. It was so much fun my heart beat extra fast for several days after and joy seeped from every pore and folicle on my body. This phenomenon can only be explained with one word: love. Thus my revolation and resolution for this 2010 became the pursuit of the meaning of this thing we call love. Never, never have I been this crazy in love with everything around me: my friends, the books I read, the color of the sky, the songs on the radio, that lump that lays beside me each night, a cappuchino with a foam heart, old and dear emails, a random smiling face. I even love the keyboard this is typed with. And so the quest begins, whatever was ingnited in my heart in New York sometime after the clock struck twelve, I've vowed to find it, define it, make something with it.

As anyone knows who has ever been in love, it is terrible and wonderful all at the same time. I can't sleep, my mind races, I make irrational comments and subsequent blog posts, and yet the joy I feel is so great I'd trade it for nothing. So what is this? God? Insanity? I need to know in any event. So join me if you care to as I march along with the great masses who have ventured into this very same pursuit. Just what exactly is love?