Beautiful Harvest

There is little more beautiful than picking a vine-ripened tomato.  It is a delight for the senses: the deep red colour with an undertone of orange, the warm weight of the fruit in your hand, and the perfume of sunshine, green leaves, and slight earthiness. The taste, too, can not be beat.  The orange ones (heirloom varieties) in the below picture, are the sweetest I have ever tasted.  They resemble more of a peach than a traditional red tomato. The red ones are a Roma variety called "Mama Mia" if you can believe it.

Multiple that beauty many times when you harvest 20 pounds of vine-ripened tomatoes from just one picking.  It is a "tomato year" as they say. 

This photo is just a section of our tomato harvest.  I have dealing with another shoulder injury, so my daughter, Chelsea, helped me pick them and then she chopped them all to make a roasted tomato and balsamic vinegar sauce that was inspired, although not exactly followed, by a recipe we found on Pinterest.  You can find it on a board of mine called "My Fall Kitchen."
http://pinterest.com/hkuttai/my-fall-kitchen/

Shoulder injury or not, I know there are many people who would frown, or perhaps call social services, to know that I let my seven year old use a knife.  In my defense, I taught her how to use it properly and she is always supervised.  Plus, she needs to know how to use a knife.  Everyone does.  It is a parenting goal of mine to give my children the tools they need to live well and because living well includes cooking your own meals, they need to know how to chop.  If he were here, my Dad would back me up on this.  He and my mom taught me to cultivate many of the skills and tools necessary to be able to solve my own problems and live well and happily, so I can, among other things, grow my own vegetables, fix a flat tire on my wheelchair, use a compass, forage for wild mushrooms, find North without a compass if I get lost foraging for mushrooms, filet a fish, bake bread, and make fresh sausages and even link them.  He has been gone for three years, but somehow he is with me every time I do any of these things.

And although I know that once my kids are on their own they might not have the space in their home or even in their lives for a big vegetable garden, I suspect there will be at least one little cherry tomato plant growing on their balcony or in their windowsill, and a sharp knife (that they know how to use) in their kitchen.  And I hope they will think of me a little when they use it.

wishing you a beautiful harvest,
hk

Love Your Tree

I am reading In The Body In The World by Eve Ensler.  I have not been so transformed by a memoir since The Breast Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde.  An author (she wrote The Vagina Monologues), playwright, activist, feminist, and speaker, Eve Ensler is an inspiration.  She is extremely quotable, but one of her more famous statements is, “Stop fixing your body and start fixing the world.” 

She’s right. It made me think.  At what point exactly did my body become unacceptable, something that needs fixing?  When did yours?  And it might be that I am approaching my 44^th birthday and have lived with a body with disabilities for most of that time, but I have grown tired of thinking of my body as a problem, or parts of it as problems that need fixing.  I am done with that.  This idea has gotten me absolutely nowhere.  There are so many more things in this world that need fixing and it is time to put my energies into far more useful endeavours.  It is time for a re-frame, a change, a new way of being in the world.  So, instead I am going with this: This is the only body I will ever have and it is just fine.  It is beautiful.  And I promise you:  so is yours.  Your body is beautiful.  Not “your body is beautiful flaws and all.” Just, “Your body is beautiful.”

Yes it is.  Don’t argue with me. 

Let me leave you with this, from Eve Ensler’s The Good Body: “Do you say that tree isn't pretty cause it doesn't look like that tree? We're all trees. You're a tree. I'm a tree. You've got to love your body, Eve. You've got to love your tree. Love your tree. (Leah)”

Wishing you a day with beautiful transformations of your own,

hk

Enough

In the library in my house that I wrote about earlier this week is an entire section of Toni Morrison novels.  I have been a fan since the early 90's when I was a University student reading Beloved (often in the dark by the light of a candle because I was creepily dramatic that way).  While The Bluest Eye is my favourite Morrison book, I want to share this quote from Morrison's Tar Baby with you as the principal message of my blog entry today:

 

At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough. No record of it needs to be kept and you don't need someone to share it with or tell it to. When that happens — that letting go — you let go because you can.

wishing you a day where, at least once, you take an opportunity to breathe deeply and appreciate the beauty of a present moment because it is (and always has been) enough,

hk

Beautiful Kale

Let me tell you about another beautiful thing, readers.  It’s Kale.  Yes that capital K is intentional.

I know what you are thinking.  Kale, schmale.  Why do we keep hearing about kale (small k)?  Let me tell you why. 

It’s delicious.  It is easy to grow.  It is one of the “healthiest foods of all time,” according to Time magazine (What to Eat Now issue, 2013).  “Kale is a cruciferous vegetable, a cancer fighter that is full of fiber and antioxidants.  It is rich in vitamin K, which aids in blood clotting and cell growth.”  And did I mention it is delicious?  You can barbecue it with a little olive oil and salt; prepared this way and roasted, you can it like chips; you can add it to a salad.  And even if you don’t think it is delicious (although it is, really), here’s the thing: you can hide it in stuff!  It disappears and the health benefits remain!

Proof:

Yes, that's about 3/4 cup of kale in my delicious smoothie, (just before I whizzed it), right alongside the raspberries from my mother's garden, some canned peaches (she helped me can those peaches - a good mom), carrots, greek yogurt, and although you can't see it, ground flaxseed.  A very happy smoothie.  Sweet.  Delicious. Beautiful. 

More proof, and made in the same day:

I put some kale in my (award-winning) chili.  Yes, I sure did.  It's the green flecks you see that make this chili look especially pretty.  Chili that made my family happy yesterday.  Delicious.  Beautiful.

Kale.  With a capital K.

wishing you happy taste buds and delicious, beautiful health,
hk

Beautiful Books

I know.  It's been awhile.  Thanks for being patient with me.

I don't know about you folks but the summer is always busier than I expect it will be.  For our family, there were camps to attend, vegetables to grow, company to feed, books to read, home projects to start and finish, and people to visit.  For me, I did some writing on my next book and some reflecting and planning about where I want this blog to go.  You see, when I started this blog, I did it on a bit of a whim.  I was looking for two things: a means to push myself to write more often, and as a means to work through some difficult times I was having.  Finding perspective on how precious and beautiful life truly is helped pull me back towards the light.  I did not expect to have readers from all over the world, or such a demand for the stories I told. Thank you, dear readers, you humble me.

Beauty, I decided this summer, is still an important theme to me.  In a process that is not unlike a marriage vow renewal, I have re-committed to Uncovering Beauty in the every day.  That beauty, however, may come out in different forms in this blog than just my stories - possibly a recipe, a song, or a photograph - but the stories will still come too, I promise.  It is just that Beauty is everywhere!

That said, today I am compelled to write about my new library.  We installed IKEA Billy Bookcases into our living space, and we are adding trim and molding to make them look "built in."  This cost a fraction of having them built, my husband installed them in a few hours, and it was painless enough that the divorce papers did not come out even once.  Staring at it now, it is a dream come true for me, someone who has always loved to read.  What I did not expect though, was how organizing our collection of books would inspire me.  With every book I touched and categorized (classics, non-fiction, spirituality, young adult, kid's literature, disability, cooking, First Nations, history, sport, etc.) I re-visited the influence it made on me, and where and who I was when I first read it.  When I was finished (this took much longer than the actual installation of the shelves), I reflected again on what these books say about each of my family members individually, and what they say about us as a collective.  It was a happy, affirming project that left me feeling more grounded and secure in myself than I have in some time.

You will see some empty spaces.  That means we are not finished of course.  None of us ever really are, right?  Aren't our homes and we supposed to be continual works of art, beautiful projects that need continual overhauling or pruning or smoothing?  Just like aspects of ourselves, this library will see parts discarded, recycled, re-purposed, and added to when the time is right.

Wishing you the beauty of an on-going project,
hk

The Wheelchair is not the Problem!

Upworthy.com tends to be a great website that delivers good news stories that are happening in this beautiful world of ours.  The stories they tell will make you smile, laugh, and maybe cry, but they are stories we undoubtedly need to hear more often.  This week a story about a new technology for people with mobility disabilities was posted.  The technology is called an Ekso (http://eksobionics.com), "a bionic suit, or exoskeleton, which enables individuals with lower extremity paralysis to stand up and walk over ground with a weight bearing, four point reciprocal gait. Walking is achieved by the user’s forward lateral weight shift to initiate a step. Battery-powered motors drive the legs and replace neuromuscular function."

Getting people to weight bear has a lot of advantages: pressure relief, bone density, and digestion to name just three.  It is exciting to see this kind of technology and I look forward to seeing where it goes from here.

I bet you can sense a "but" coming up.

But.  The title of the upworthy article is"The Wheelchair is 2, 300 years old. There's finally a better option. Go home wheelchair.  You're obsolete."  While the Ekso will bring provide many good things for people with mobility disabilities, at this point it certainly can not eliminate wheelchairs.  While I can see some newly disabled folks who could benefit, there are some people who will never use an Ekso because of secondary disabilities (like me), plus as it stands (no pun intended) there is no way it can replace the quick manoeuvrability of a wheelchair.  In case you haven't noticed, wheelchairs are pretty fast and take up less space than ever before.  My own chair (and I know I am not alone in this feeling) is rarely a barrier in my world and feels instead like an extension of my body.  My wheelchair is a beautiful thing and I love it. It is not the problem to be eliminated.  What needs to be obsolete are outdated attitudes about what it means to live with disability and the physical inaccessibility of our world.  In my humble opinion, these are the things that disable us the most.

I applaud technological advances.  From computers to catheters, they continue to make the lives of people with disabilities better.  So will the Ekso.  Let's just keep it in perspective. 

wishing you many beautiful good news stories today,
hk

102 and a half

She's 102.  And a half.  The half really counts when you are 102 years old.

I am speaking of my paternal grandmother, who until about 18 months ago, lived independently.  At her new care home a few days ago she had a heart attack and is currently in hospital recovering.  Some people, whether caregivers or family members, say she is confused, while others claim that she does not "look good."  When I visited with her the day before yesterday she was happily seated in a wheelchair just outside her room, chatting with her granddaughter and the nurses who have already befriended her.  She was breathing on her own, no need for an oxygen mask.  We had a lively 45 minute conversation that made perfect sense to me: she talked of how proud she is of her great-great grandson who just graduated from high school and she excitedly told me about how one of the nurses surprised her by wheeling her to the hospital canteen so she could visit with her granddaughter who works there.  She also reminisced about a tall handsome man she once had a dance with, and for someone who loves music as much as she does, this also made perfect sense to me.  When you are 102, you should be able to talk about any of the precious memories you want.

I guess it all depends on what you choose to see.  From my perspective, I don't think I can expect much more from this woman who has lived for 102 and a half years.  She "looks good" to me!  In fact, I think she is a picture of beauty - a white-haired woman with a wide smile and an easy laugh who has lived through tragedy (she has lost 2 of her offspring as just one example) and more blessings than she could possibly count.  She craves attention and love so much that she cried when we eventually had to leave her.

I was reminded of my friend Kara who recently sent me a video on Alice Herz-Sommer who is a 109 year old holocaust survivor (www.rawforbeauty.com/blog).  Alice was interviewed by Bernard Hiller in December 2011. When she's asked about the secret to feeling good, “Optimism,” she said, “and looking for the good. Life is beautiful. You have to be thankful that we are living...Wherever you look is beauty.”


I told Kara that this is what I expect she will be like when she is 109, a positive and wise old woman who always sees the beauty.  Because if you omit the "old" part, that is exactly who she is now, a vibrant young mother of two who runs her own coaching business (www.ninelions.ca) in Calgary.  Affected by the recent devastating floods there, and because she is a good neighbour, she has not surprisingly been helping her community and she wrote about the beauty she saw, heard, and felt while helping clean out a friend's basement.  I encourage you to read her blog: http://www.ninelions.ca/2013/06/25/the-best-of-humanity-from-the-front-line-of-calgarys-flood-clean-up/

I do not know how many more days or years my grandmother has, any more than I know how many I have, but I do know that Kara and Alice are right: life is beautiful and everywhere you look there is beauty.  

wishing you at least 102 and a half blessings today,
hk