You can't really see the sunrise today, there's a thick fog because it's right around freezing and high humidity so the snow sublimates right into vapor. But I know the sunrise is there. Even when I can't see it, my body knows it's there and I wake up in the predawn for the gloaming. Or I don't go to bed at all because I know I'll wake up for the dawn and be groggy cranky from the wrong amount of sleep of interrupted rem cycle so I figure I will just wait til the other side of the sunrise to rest. I don't know why, but my whole life this life, I find myself wide awake and watchful at the gloaming. I can go back to sleep afterward, but I can't sleep DURING the liminal hours of twilit when the day and night exchange places.... My parents and friends/family and exes always remember me as the early bird first one awake, but it's not that at all -- it's that I can't sleep across the gloaming so I wake up for dawn and depending on when I went to bed and what time I'm expected to do anything I decide to get up (or at least read in bed) or snuggle down to sleep after sunrise is finished. When I visit my sister's family in Seattle area during the winter months or when I visited the UK and Ireland in winter months, I always have had to set alarms to get me up and going because of how late the sunrise is. I also wake up extra alert at the sunset gloamings, but that's less obvious to people unless I was tired or taking a nap or something. I don't have an explanation for it, it's an instinctual response in me to be wide awake then -- though I have always heard from shamans and mystics and spiritual seekers and woo-woo new age types that the veils are all thinnest at the liminal hours of dusk and dawn. So maybe it's a protective spiritual response to what could come through when the doors between realms are widest. Also though, I can't say I mind at an aesthetic or a philosophical level that this life I never miss seeing a single sunrise or sunset.
I like the winter fog this morning, for all it meant a gradual brightening to the grey but no vivid sky paintings for this dawn. It makes me feel like I live in a cloud or on a mountain. Granted it's a freezing fog and when I took the dog out last night around midnight, there was nearly invisible black ice coating everything that didn't have salt sitting directly on it. (Yesterday I stayed home all day with my fur babies because we had ice storm freezing drizzle all morning before it turned to snow. I definitely saw some neighbors fall trying to go anywhere in the morning. And then I considered heading to work later in the evening to get hours in during the night after I finished the slow cooker dinner I was making. But when I took the dog out late afternoon/evening, there was black ice and slush sloppiness everywhere and I saw multiple vehicles fish tail turning on/off or changing lanes on the well plowed and salted Gammon Rd so I said "O eff dealing with that!" And then I looked at the overnight forecast and it was freezing fog between 31-33F and I decided I didn't need to risk getting myself/dog/car seriously hurt by late night driving home on black ice from freezing fog....
So I went back inside and finished making my dinner of a spicy burrito stew (I had some older things to use up, a soft but no rot spots poblano, a bag of dried pinto beans I forgot about in the pantry because I've been using up CSA organic dried beans that was best by the fall, my last bag of local frozen sweet corn until farmers market starts again, two things of frozen pre seasoned taco meat and frozen pepper jack cheese that got buried in the work freezer instead of uses for a company meal and my mum told me to take it home while we were cleaning out the freezer on Tuesday. So I decided that with a poblano and pinto beans and taco meat and pepperjack cheese but no tortillas at home, I could make up a delicious spicy burrito soup (not really chicken enchilada or tortilla soup though because ground beef and beans and corn and rice) if I just added in an onion, some dried rice, my remaining box of beef broth, and some of my frozen stash of summertime surplus of my homegrown tomatoes and death peppers (habaneros, Trinidad scorpions, ghost peppers, and carolina reapers that I grew in pots all near each other and also near some sweet barons and poblanos and they all cross-pollinated; this year even my sweet peppers had heat and the spicy ones are INTENSELY hot but with some complex almost fruity flavors.) Flavors turned out incredible but it would be texturally better if I had been using fresher dried beans and frozen meat, not ones that I'd forgotten about til past their best by. Not bad, just texturally the meat was a little tougher and the beans a little drier than they ideally should be. That said, food multiples when I cook it and I have so much leftover soup in the fridge and freezer right now! Like, 8 or 9 more meals of soup without stretching it by like adding avocado or baking a squash or sweet potato/potato or tortillas/chips to go with the soup leftovers, lol.
Honestly, any time I'm using the wok or frying pan or slow cooker, expect that I will end up with 2-5 times the volume I should..... Multiplying food is one of my specialties as a kitchen witch. That and my cooking always tastes like the mood I was in when I went to make it. If I cook when I'm sad, everything tastes excessively salty even if I don't add any salt to the dishes. If I cook when I'm angry or irritated, everything burns and glass shatters and sometimes metal pans fall apart and utensils either melt or get scorched or break in my hand. Seriously, never even let me attempt to boil water to try to make coffee or tea if I'm in a foul mood. If I'm in a bad mood, someone else cooks or order something in but don't let me any damn where near a kitchen until my temper breaks so I can reset. Not even to boil water or try to make tea or coffee.... It's not worth the broken cups, kettles, and coffee makers.... That said, when I'm happy (which is most of the time) I cook fucking amazing meals and in vast quantities even when I didn't start with much to put into it. You will never have anything as delicious as what I cook or bake while singing and dancing while I made it. You will also never be able to repeat the complexity of flavors I achieved even if you follow step by step exactly, I can't even do it unless you can get me back in the same head and heart space to make it again. I can literally cook the exact same thing every morning for breakfast for a week (usually veggies with eggs or when I have the makings and get cravings for it, breakfast quesadillas are one of my favorite things) and it will taste different every time.... My cooking just always tastes like my mood I was in while cooking it. Every time. It's just something to know about me, lol. Also, maybe don't give me any bad news or get me overthinking or stressed or upset me while I'm in the middle of cooking.... Ain't none of us want to eat the flavors of those emotions -- just save it til the meal itself not while I'm cooking, lol.
Anyway. I didn't have anything to say other than quotidian catching up on the stillness of the sunrise and recent crazy weather and food. I just sometimes feel when I'm really centered and connected tranquil that even if I have nothing to say which is deep or IMPORTANT or an epiphany (I wanted an adjective form of epiphany, but epiphanic is definitely NOT an actual word, though in speaking I'd probably have just used my made up word and kept going) that sometimes there's just a need for a little bit of my stories and the every dayness... Just that little reassurance of "hi yes, I'm good here. No need to worry or miss me. Here, have lots and lots of words about nothing of overwhelming importance so you can't possibly miss me and my ridiculous wordiness." I don't know why, but sometimes I just get that sense in me of wanting anything at all rather than silence and it will be real strong inside me when I don't write here because I don't have anything new to say or to work out in word forms. So I figured I'd write a little note of my ordinary every day world and stories now before returning to my book I'm currently reading (Alphabet of Thorn written by Patricia A. McKillip; fantasy novel, under 300pgs, just started it this morning but I'm loving it very much can't put it down, I'm so happy I have it and saved my first read of it for today's vibe/mood -- at this rate, I expect to finish it before I head to work later today) and while waiting for my tea to cool (Nutcracker in New York green tea blend from Churchill's) and watching the grey-whiteness of the fog and fresh snow in gloaming grow brighter and brighter!
Also, on a personal tangent, I'm very grateful for a couple days of gloomy fog and rain and snow in the forecast -- I quite stupidly forgot to put gloves on before I started cutting up death peppers for the soup last night and it's going to be a couple days til I can get contacts in and out again, lol. I got some pepper near my eye then automatically went to brush it off last night while cutting them up and so much searing pain I had to blindly set the knife down on the counter then eyes closed get to the bathroom to grab tissues to try and relieve the pain because my fingers were just spreading more pepper oils.... It was a solid five to ten minutes before I could get that right eye to open again without the fresh oxygen causing so much pain I had to close it again and press a fresh tissue against the eye to gather up all the tears of my eye trying to flush out the capsaicin oils.... I also got such bad aerosolized capsaicin chemical burns on the backs of my hand from the steam off the soup adding in other ingredients and stirring the soup that I couldn't use hot water at all to wash my hands or dishes until I has slathered on after sun balm and aloe vera gel on my hands..... So anyway, even after using carrier oil and soap to try to get all the capsaicin off my fingers, I don't trust with how sensitive eyes are to capsaicin that just because my hands don't hurt, my eyes can handle it. I'm gonna be in my glasses, no contacts at all for me for the next couple days, lol. And a LOT of using butter and olive oil and balms that will bind to any remaining capsaicin oil on my hands then washed away with soap. (Soaps bind to oils, using a carrier oil that can grab onto capsaicin oil and bring it along with the soap is the best way to get the burning to stop. From a biochemistry perspective. Water of any sort will actually react to increase the burn... It's not actually the pH of milk or dairy that helps cool spicy burning, it's the lipids that help.) But there will be no putting my contacts in or taking them out til Saturday when I will need the peripheral vision correction for highway driving to Milwaukee. Just in case.
Okay. That's words and plenty of them and reassurance via everyday stories about how I'm doing in this moment in time. As I hope you have realized after reading all this, I'm burbling over inside like a spring or fountain of cheerful happiness and the words are easy flowing through me. My typical me state when I'm not grappling with my overthinking or stoicism or exhaustion or need for introvert recharge time. I hope you found all that reassurance in word form giddy and cloyingly bubbly like champagne to start off your day. Now I'm going to go put my phone to charge and then back to reading my book and drinking my cuppa tea now while the animals sleep. And after this cuppa tea I should probably make me set aside my book so I can have coffee and breakfast before back to reading -- I'll save the second steep of this tea for after the coffee is all done. Or I'll be too into the book to want to pause for eating food so second steep of tea first and more a brunch into lunch for coffee and eggs and veggies, lol.
Have a beautiful wondrous magical day! Do something with your today to happy surprise yourself (or someone else) just because you can! The world and everyone in it always needs more happy surprises. Just make sure it IS a happy one -- there's already enough bad surprises in these interesting times. That's why the delight of happy surprises matter so much you see! So make an unexpected brand new happy surprise, for yourself or someone else, with the time and energy you've been given today! And if not springing the happy surprise, start it in motion today something for a future happy surprise. K? K!
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