Winter Joy Retreat: Comfort Food

 

recipesPrompt: Tell us about your comfort foods. Where do they take you? What houses, seasons, cities, and life changes circle around those foods that made you feel everything would be OK?

Homemade bread still warm from the oven. My grandma was magic when it came to making bread. She had 12 kids to feed, so got lots of practice. I especially loved her cinnamon swirl. When I was older, sometimes she’d bake a loaf for me for Christmas.

Chicken noodle soup, homemade baking powder biscuits with butter and jam. That year when I had pneumonia and missed so much school I was worried I’d have to repeat the fifth grade.

Annie’s macaroni and cheese, white cheddar shells, supplemented with grilled ham and peas, with a biscuit or toast on the side.

Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Always, at every moment of my life these two have been absolute perfection — store brand canned and fake orange slices on white bread, or made from tomatoes grown in my garden and sharp fancy cheese on thick organic bread. Either way, it just works.

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Quesadillas, my current favorite. They make everything better.

Honestly, anything bread or potatoes, any time. This is and always has been my go to, bread or biscuits, soft and warm straight from the oven, or toasted with butter and maybe some jam. I also love donuts and cake and pie crust, which are breadlike enough to count. And potato chips, yes please. And my mom’s crescent rolls? I can’t even talk about them. I might cry.

 

#reverb15: Surprises

reverb2015

Prompt: What surprised you this year?

I didn’t have to think too hard about this one. It came to me pretty quickly. I am surprised how comfortable I’ve become with teaching, specifically yoga.

There’s a history here. As an introvert and a highly sensitive person, teaching is an extreme sport. I quit one of my first teaching jobs 15 years ago because I made myself so anxious I couldn’t sleep, so nervous I could barely eat, so upset I was making myself physically ill. I was a graduate teaching assistant at CSU, my first year of graduate school, teaching my own section of our “first year” composition course. Every student who graduates from CSU has to take this course, so it’s not limited to English majors or even people who particularly like reading or writing. It was a tough crowd. I was adjusting to the rigor of my life as a student while at the same time trying to figure out what I was supposed to be doing as a teacher. By the end of the semester, I convinced myself I just couldn’t do it and I quit.

That’s a long story short version of what happened. More long story short, I eventually went back to teaching at CSU and was able to find my way, find my teaching voice. Interestingly enough, the most important thing I had to do was BE MYSELF. In particular: smart, compassionate, and funny. I also learned to have good boundaries and set clear but reasonable expectations.

Ultimately a university classroom isn’t the best fit for what I have to offer, which brings us to now — teaching yoga, as well as workshops that are a combination of yoga, meditation, and wild writing. Teaching yoga is something I never really thought I’d do much, even as I was doing teacher training. I thought I’d be too nervous, too self-conscious about the limitations of my body, too uncomfortable about my weight. Thankfully, that’s turned out not to be true. My weight and limitations have actually been an asset — I’ve become more accepting of myself, and better able to cue modifications for my students, empowering them to become their own teacher. I still have a lot to learn, but what I am doing feels natural, like an embodiment of who I am and what I know.