Pie and More Pie

Mother-in-law was in the kitchen right up until her knee replacement surgery, and pies plural were some of the results of her efforts--Transparent Tarts and Cushaw Pie. For those living somewhere other than Northern Kentucky, both are regional favorites not well known outside this area. In fact, I hadn't heard of Transparent Pie until I moved to the neighboring county, or of Cushaw Pie until I married into this family. They both deserve some attention for their simplicity and authenticity, being examples of true country baking. They use simple ingredients and formulas and could be done many ways, but I want to share with you the way they're done here, by one family's farm wife. It's where I start, being new to both, until I see where I take them in my turn.

Transparent Pie (or Tarts if baked in individual pie shells as my mother-in-law did) is usually a simple concoction of butter, sugar, and eggs plus a touch of vinegar and vanilla, with many versions adding cream. After making the pie crust (You do make your own, don't you?), you really can't get much easier than Transparent Pie. It's a stir and bake dessert that yields way more in richness than you gave in effort. If the description sounds a lot like Chess Pie, it's very close, except that Chess Pie contains a little cornmeal. I think they're sisters separated at birth.

From all the possible incarnations of Transparent Pie, I'm happy to start with Aunt Geneva's because you can't get more homey than recipes passed through family. I also think it's a good introduction because it's so utterly simple--the most basic version I found, using pantry staples only and no more work than melting butter and stirring. Aunt Geneva's version didn't even call for cream, which would seem to me to detract from the whole transparent idea anyway, although it does sound tasty. I'll try a cream version later, if only to see if that's the kind made by Magee's Bakery in Maysville, which is famous around here for their Transparent Pies. (George Clooney from nearby Augusta is rumored to be a fan, in case celebrity connection sways you.) For now, here's Aunt Geneva's Transparent Pie or Tarts.
Transparent Pie

Makes 1 9-inch pie or 12 individual pies

1/2 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Stir all ingredients together in a medium bowl until well blended.
Pour into a 9-inch unbaked pie shell.
Bake at 300 degrees until starting to set.
Raise temperature to 350 degrees and bake until brown on top.
**I have no idea if the two-step baking is necessary. We did
nothing like it at the bakery where I used to work. That's
just how Aunt Geneva did it. And that's what I'm interested in
today.

Don't let the short ingredient list and plain appearance fool you. This farm's Transparent Pie is simple yes, but very rich. It has heft from the butter and singing sweetness from the sugar and an almost-gelatinous feel from the eggs' partnership with the other two. With this deceptively simple dessert, more richness is really not necessary, but when we ordered Transparent Pie at Caproni's restaurant in Maysville, they brought vanilla ice cream with it. The two together were a bit much, although a little lightly sweetened whipped cream might by workable. Alternatively, My Beloved and I immediately imagined it served with an acidic fruit sauce like raspberry (me) or strawberry (him). One website went so far as to declare that the only official accompaniment to Transparent Pie was black coffee. Were I a coffee drinker, I would probably agree.

Before I expound on the subject of our other pie, I 'll identify the cushaw itself, since I had never heard of it before meeting this family. There may be a cushaw-loving underground for all I know, but before my internet search (about two minutes ago), the only other reference I had seen to cushaw was in Barbara Kingsolver's wonderful book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, (She's a Kentucky native born of farming folk much like my in-laws). For the record, the cushaw is a large, long-necked winter squash with a hard, green-striped shell that father-in-law grows every year in the garden. If stored in a cool place like the unheated garage (here) or the basement stairs (Kingsolver's family home), it will last through the winter. A hunk is sliced off as needed and the cut top covered with foil. Here's our cushaw.What's left of him is about the size of a small basketball, and probably half of his length has been removed already. As I said, they're big.

As for the pie itself, when I asked my mother-in-law where she kept the recipe, she just pointed to her temple. That's right, it's only in her head. There is no measuring to speak of and no exact cooking time, so until I can make one along with her and get a recipe down, I can only tell you the story of the pie--approximately--the way food instruction was probably handed down centuries ago when cooking was a basic skill you learned from your people, not an optional art or a nutritional science. Do something a hundred times, and you can get away with this method, which goes something like this:

Mother-in-law removes the peel from a piece of cushaw and cuts it into chunks. The quantity is enough to fill the pot she always uses to the level that she knows is enough for a 9-inch pie. The squash gets boiled til tender, drained, and mashed. She then adds to it 4 tablespoons of butter, one cup of sugar, a little salt, a generous sprinkle of cinnamon (she thinks this might be about a teaspoon), and one egg. After mixing everything together well, she pours it into an unbaked pie shell and bakes it at 300 degrees til it starts to set. She then increases the temperature to 350 degrees and bakes the pie until the filling is completely set. Baking takes almost an hour she says.


The finished pie has a slightly fibrous texture, not nearly as smooth as pumpkin pie, but pleasantly so. The flavor profile is very simple, with a balance between squashiness and a gentle influence of cinnamon, not an out-in-front spice announcement. Like all squashy pie, it practically writes you a note requesting whipped cream. I tried to eat it plain but couldn't do it, even though all we had on hand was Cool Whip, to which I am philosophically opposed. Maybe as I make Cushaw pie my own, I'll try it with fresh ginger or a praline topping. I get to decide.One of the food truths I've learned since being in culinary school is that once some basic techniques are learned there are a hundred different ways to do anything--pancakes, pie, you name it. For someone who struggles to be free of crippling Platonic ideals, this is a liberating revelation. If there is no one ideal, then the job of a foodie is to start somewhere that calls you, find your own ideal, and do it well, whether that's foie gras-heavy gourmet or ace diner chow. In my limbo between lives, I'm beginning my real and personal food journey right here where I find myself, with family recipes, random inspirations, and the hope that someday I'll have my own repertoire to hand down. And I get to make it myself.

Common Ground in the Meat House

Last weekend, My Beloved and I went out for a walk around the field, during which he suggested we take a peek into the meat house. In case that sounds like a strange location to visit or have on your property, as it did to me when I was first getting to know this family that would become mine, let me assure you that it's a fine thing to have in one's life, even if it is mildly creepy at first.


The meat house is an unassuming, windowless building in the back yard to which I've never paid much attention, the kind in which suburban folk might store yard equipment. Out here on the farm though, it holds meat in production. Back in the fall, my father-in-law purchased two hogs on the hoof from a local farmer, had them slaughtered (also locally), and cured the hams from them himself. They are now aging in the meat house. Basically, father-in-law is making country hams in his back yard, carrying on an old tradition, one of the last vestiges of the food ways with which he was raised.

The hams get plastered with a curing mixture (I think it's a secret recipe, but there's salt, sugar, and yes nitrates involved) before being hung for months to reach the official status of cured. At some point they go into pillowcases to protect them from bugs, probably when the weather is warmer. Accidentally bumping the back of my head against one of the fabric-clad hams while trying to photograph hanging animal haunches speckled with spices and tiny mold spores in a damp, semi-dark hut was the mildly creepy part. I'm over it now. City folk just aren't used to being around dead things, especially dead things with mold that you will later eat.


Country hams have always troubled me that way. They're quite moldy and ancient looking, not appetizing to the eye at all. (Those in the picture look pretty good compared to some I've seen.) On the other hand, I have always loved eating them, if I just don't think about the looks. As with bacon, that salty bite is just so good, even though I am definitely not a saltaholic otherwise. And a little country ham is wonderful flavoring for a mess of beans or a one-dish meal of collard greens and noodles. I even like it fried up (which is a good thing while I'm living here), as long it's soaked beforehand, which mother-in-law always does.

Aside from taste, I admire the work and waiting that go into country hams, especially when they're done the old-fashioned way by our very own family member. There is a deep satisfaction in knowing that one of us made it himself. A better writer than I will have to get all flowery about it. I just know it's true.

I am consistently amazed that my parents-in-law, just one generation ahead of us, grew up with these kinds of country ways that I, being a city girl, thought were gone long before their time. They remember fall hog killing time, drying apples on the porch roof, bathing in a big tub filled with water heated on the wood stove, and taking lunch to school because there was no school lunch program. In rural Kentucky, electrification, road building, and other modernizations were only just happening as they reached adulthood in the late 1950's and early 1960's. Farming was still what almost everyone around here did. If you wanted something different, you took off to Ohio or Indiana or Michigan and got a factory job.

I am also amazed at how quickly change can be incorporated in one generation. My parents-in-law grew up with the Old Ways but seemingly embraced all the New Ways that came along--pesticides, TV, central heat and air, county water, and freezers in the garage of a ranch-style house. Their children grew up pretty much the same way I did in a city far away--at least in terms of technology and conveniences.

Nowadays, a growing number of people are talking about, writing about, and trying to bring back some of the Old Ways, especially those used for food. There is much nostalgia for time honored practices that are harder for us in the short term but better for the environment in the long run. Interestingly enough, I have never heard my parents-in-law wax misty over the good old days. They have never spoken of porch-dried apples as being so sublime that they really should go back to doing that again. They garden every year, but have no snobbish complaints about store bought winter tomatoes. Their freezers are full of their own beef and local pork, but the pantry is full of convenience products.

All those contradictions remind me that industrialization occurred for a reason and in a time of innocence. At the time, cheaper and/or easier must have seemed indubitably better, since no one could guess at the unintended consequences. Maybe the developments that the cognoscenti of today decry as damaging and which my in-laws have taken to without trouble were, back then, a relief from the fluctuations of weather and insects or the deprivations of seasonality or the annoyance of hot, sweaty work. Hindsight may have revealed nature-besting efforts as self-defeating in the long run, but they didn't know that then.

The point here is to avoid judgment of people in whose shoes I have never walked. Fifty years ago there was a lot even the experts didn't know. Fifty years from now it will be the same. We are always doing the best we can with what we have. Being nostalgic for hard work or patience I've never had to endure is just a little patronizing.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for biologically sound farming methods, seasonal produce, minimally processed food, and reduction of resource pillage--all the latest thinking on sustainability. I'm a product of my time, too. I just want to be respectful of opposing beliefs (especially while I'm living with them), even as I try to live by my own. I want to be enlightened, but not smug. Change can sink in fast and become, we think, the only way to do things, but there's always more enlightenment coming. The apparently benighted have reasons for their ways, whether still valid or not. Those reasons must be respected before they can ever be affected, not that changing family is even my job at all.

Besides, even while my parents-in-law live happily with modern ways and products that I want no part of (pesticides in the garden, store bought white bread, etc), they keep some things on which we can agree. Like a loving spirit and Dad's hams hanging in the meat house. Those are pretty good common ground.

Rainy Brain Drain

For a while the exciting refrain was "It's still snowing." Lately, the daily update has changed to "It's still rainy." It's basically looked like this
for daaays now--a world of greeny-brown with a lid of gloomy clouds. I try to stay out of the business of complaining, but a little sun would be nice for variety's sake--especially during these shorter days of the year. We've had enough rain to last for a while, surely.

It's rained so much, in fact, that Locust Creek across the road from the house became more like an elongated pond yesterday; the low lying fields contain shallow lakes; and then there's the mud. The muddiness has progressed to the point that even four-wheel drive is incapacitated by the slick hillside between man and herd, and the high water prevents creek-crossing overland travel by four-wheeler. Father-in-law has had to visit the cows with the tractor. On the way home today, I saw dark tracks in neighboring fields, gashed by the tractor tires that are necessary to get the job done but hard on the land in its delicate condition.

All this rain also creates more mud, to which I've already decided that I must accustom myself. Snapping a picture of these over the weekend


reinforced my commitment to a mud entrance in our future home. Rows of banished footwear beside the door are another of those country things to make perfectly normal. They need a home away from home, so to speak. I will plan for it.

In other breaking farmification news, my son got to ride the four wheeler for the first time. Stepdad showed him how to shift gears and turned him loose. He asked where he was supposed to go. Stepdad said "Anywhere you want, as long as it's in this field." So he tore off and had a blast, looping through his personal race track over and over again. He only knocked the grain bucket off once.

I was trying to hide from this latest risk (He's also learning to drive cars, but that's another therapy session.) by helping mother-in-law with the dishes, when I saw him fly by at the top of the field. I started yelling through the window to Stepdad about slowing him down but just decided to forget it and go back to hiding, pretending that ATV rollovers were absolutely not a possibility, no matter what three out of four medical helicopter pilots say. He lived, and is duly one step closer to being part country boy. He really wants boots now.

There are other points of interest from the past few days involving pie, more pie, driving practice, and strange out buildings, not to mention surgery, but they will have to wait. It's close to bed time for the Future Farmgirls of America, my brain is drained from playing junior accountant all day, and my husband's evening has descended to such crap status that he's resorted to watching TV on purpose. I can't take any more excitement.

Love Muffin

Today, I find myself about to wax surprisingly rhapsodic over another household staple around here--Cinnamon Muffins. I say surprisingly because I baked them for years without tasting them. Normally baking something without eating it, or baking something that I didn't want to eat in the first place, would be unthinkable, but I made them for my son, not for me or my husband. These goodies were produced not for consumption but to express motherly oven-love that had for many years been crowded out by hours of baking for pay and to wean him off PopTarts while humoring his simple palate.

My dear young man has always been a picky eater who knows what he likes. He started life by rejecting bottle feeding quite clearly. (Good thing I didn't want to go back to work.) Then, after a compliant infancy in which he would eat any fruit or vegetable baby food that I made for him (Isn't there some kind of award for making your own baby food? I'd like to win an award for something.) and any meat that I bought (Wait, there goes my award.), he proceeded to live on a diet of about five foods until toddlerhood. Once he broadened his tastes a bit, he still showed a marked preference for plain foods. He rejected both blueberry banana bread and chunky tomato sauce because they had "fruits" in them. (Apparently, he's brilliant, too. He knew tomatoes were a fruit before I did.) He never got into dipping foods in sauces like some children. He preferred just cheese pizza. He accepted no nuts in homemade brownies and carefully picked them off the packaged ones. He basically has a history of eschewing all chunks, condiments, extras, and toppings. His favorite ice cream flavor is--you guessed it--vanilla, and he still orders his burgers plain at fast food outfits.

I suspect parental payback here, because I was also a picky britches as a child. My idea of a sandwich was American cheese-like food and white bread--only. My list of safe vegetables contained just green beans, corn, and potatoes--not that the last two are even vegetables. I too rejected crunchy interruptions of smooth things like brownies and peanut butter. I was a senior in high school before I ate a salad, and there was probably more ranch dressing on my plate than salad.

Basically, I would have felt like a hypocrite if I'd given him grief. No one made me eat foods I didn't like, and I turned out to be a fairly adventurous eater. Why have a power struggle over it? I figured that with enough time and education he'd expand his menu choices on his own. So I preached the virtues of nutrition and variety, made sure there was something he'd eat on the table each night, and waited. He made it to ranch-soaked romaine way before I did and requested green beans for his birthday feast. My plan is working.

But despite the progress, he still leans toward plainness. When I was belatedly able to begin spoiling him while I still have him by replacing the offensive PopTarts with Mama-made muffins for breakfast, his choice of flavor was cinnamon. That's all. Just cinnamon. He wouldn't even go for chocolate chip, which I would have enjoyed, too. (Wait. He used to call his mother The Queen of Chocolate. Maybe he was just being brilliant again.)

I dug up a plain muffin recipe in a cookbook at the little bakery/cafe where I worked at the time and prepared it with a generous amount of added cinnamon. (It was, ironically, written plain to allow the baker to stir in additions. Shows what they know.) I don't remember even tasting them. They were for him. He liked them. That's all I needed to know.

All, that is, until we found ourselves here at the farm without our own stock of chosen edibles and with a need for a snack. Those muffins suddenly looked mighty interesting. Plain and designated for the child, yes, but at least scratch made and replaceable in my new free time. So hubby and I poured some milk, split one (I make the jumbo size since they're an athletic 16-year-old's breakfast entree), and were pleasantly surprised.

We both agreed that we had given these plain gems short shrift. I immediately elevated them in my mind from plain to simple, which is to me a virtue (This belief is probably why I'm garnish-challenged at school.) I was also gratified to note that they were sweet, but not too sweet--another virtue, since I contend that muffins should not be cupcakes by another name. And is there any homier, more soothing flavor than cinnamon? They were absolutely uncomplicated comfort food, a testament to the powers of the pantry. No wonder my son loves them so.

For now anyway. Another thing about my boy: he'll choose a food, live on it, and forsake it entirely when he's had his fill of it. Someday I may be nostalgically making these muffins for myself when I want a snack like a nap with blankey.


Cinnamon Muffins
Makes 6 jumbo or 12 regular muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup granulated sugar or brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3/4 cup milk or 1 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup oil
1 egg

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees (375 if you have a dark nonstick muffin pan).
2) Mix all dry ingredients together in a medium bowl.
3) Mix all wet ingredients in a small bowl.
4) Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ones just until moistened.
5) Divide the batter between the muffin cups.
6) Bake for about 15 minutes for regular muffins or 20 minutes for jumbos.
7) Turn out and cool completely on a wire rack.

Girl Meets Herd

Today started out foul. I woke up still tired from the manic week and proceeded to be draggy and groggy all day. Not even a nap helped. So when my husband volunteered to check Dad's cattle this afternoon (He has a baby--I mean, calf--with pneumonia) and asked me if I wanted to accompany him on the four-wheeler, I agreed, partly to be with him and partly in the hope that being outside would perk me up.

One of the great surprises for me since falling in love with a farm-raised man is that I like riding on that four-wheeler with him. Before being around one in use, I associated them with what my husband calls redneckery (muddin' and tearing up land) and accidents (the local hospital helicopter crew called them "donor cycles"). But snugged up to my new love while flying across the pasture on our first official date, I had to admit that it was fun and, well, kind of sexy. In those courting days, I would rest my head on his back or gaze around at the gracefully draped hills and wonder if I'd found my destiny. The answer was and is yes.

Although it was good to be out in the fresh, above-freezing air on our growling metal steed with the good memories attached, that wasn't the reason for our mode of transportation. Now that all is a "river of January melt" (I just quoted myself!), we needed the ATV to get to where we were going. Even with it, we didn't make it up the hill to where the cattle were clustered around their hay. We began spinning into the mud and had to back down to the bottom of the hill and park there.

One of the missions of the trip was to try to encourage the cattle to move away from that muddy hillside, so My Beloved called to the herd and spread some grain treats on the ground near the parked ATV. When that didn't entice everyone in our direction, most notably the sick calf and its mother, D informed me that he would have to walk over to the remaining cows and I should just wait there, since I hadn't worn my mud boots.

Here is the part where I started feeling like the city girl I was born and making many observations about my new life. I confess that I never got off the four wheeler. I felt safer staying astride the machine during my thoughtful time. Besides, it was muddy, remember.

My first thoughts were about mud, in fact. I found myself thinking "I have to get used to mud," while carefully removing a flipped clod from my boot using a stray leaf that had stuck to my laces. I won't be able to avoid the stuff when we have our own farm with our own animals, nor be delicate about dealing with it. The mud entrance in our new house will be literal, so a zen acceptance of mud must be achieved.

After the mud check, I just watched and listened to the cows from my escape vehicle (Well, it would be if I knew how to start it). I was struck again, as I first was, by their size. Cows are big. I mean BIG. Hundreds of pounds of potentially dangerous flesh. And we puny humans are supposed to tell them what to do? My husband suddenly seemed small off in the distance compared to the crowd of bovines surrounding him, but he wasn't scared. He knows cattle the way he knows family: He may not have seen them daily in years now, but he remembers how they are. He has the confidence of familiarity that I will have to acquire.

I was relieved when the bull of the herd had his fill of grain and wandered off. I really fear--I mean, respect--them. That left just cows and a couple of calves close to me. I took the same tack with these cows as I do on a busy city street: Make no eye contact and look like you know what you're doing. They went on about their simple business, and I relaxed a little, listening to their munching and lowing and puddle-slurping sounds that punctuated the country silence. (Love that! The silence, that is.) I also heard a bird call, a treat in winter, especially after being indoors so much lately watching bird-feeder TV with no sound.

While trying to be inconspicuous to my new neighbors, I noticed something caught in the bottom of the carrying crate strapped to the front of the four wheeler. It was a tiny stuffed tiger, the Happy Meal toy kind. Where father-in-law found it I don't know. If it was on the farm somewhere, how did it get here? I had no answer to that question, only a tiny mystery to ponder while I kept the little toy in my hand just because, I sheepishly admit, it made me feel better.

About this time, I began to feel that the cow to my right with her nose buried in a puddle was watching me without watching me, just as I was her. It was weird to have the same knowing and avoiding in a field with a cow that I've had on subways with city people. Maybe she was the decoy, because right about then I noticed that one of the larger calves was moving in behind me for closer inspection. I made some kind of universal shooing-off gesture with my little tiger in hand, which took care of that curiosity.

Now, when my husband left me, he had instructed me to just "shoo off any nosy cows." At the time I wondered exactly how that was done, but decided I would rely on instinct if the need arose. Instinct worked. It turns out that humongous cows respond in pretty much the same way as dogs or cats. Good thing for me.

With the harassment issue settled, I could again turn my attentions to my husband and the herd on the hill. I got to see for myself today some things he's told me about. Like how cute new calves can be. And how fast such a big animal can move when it wants to--say, when it hears the grain bucket rattling. And how when one starts running others do, too--just because--which is disconcerting when it's toward the nervous city girl left alone at the bottom of the hill they're pelting down. Not that I was in any danger. It's just, shall we say, impressive when hooves start pounding and movement begins spreading through the herd right in front of the uninitiated.

Basically, the rest of the visit was awkward but uneventful. I remained an observer only, because I'm a greenhorn and because I am not an animal-loving person. Why I want to be a farm chick is one of the mysteries of the ages. Maybe I'll be the kind of farm wife that my mother-in-law is, ruling the house and only visiting the farming operations. (Ironically enough, she swore that she would never marry a farmer until she fell in love with one--52 years ago.) Or maybe I'll get past the awkward stage and come to love caring for animals in ways that I could never have previously imagined. I'm aiming for chickens. I'm bigger than they are.

Watching my husband moving gently among the cattle, checking on each and every baby, enjoying his time outdoors with them, I agreed with his father that My Beloved would make a good farmer. I don't know about me. The truth is that all our dreams and ambitions could painfully and expensively flop. There is undeniable risk in any new venture. But there's only one way to know. When I'm an old lady in my rocker, I want to know, not wonder about what might have been.

So next time I'll wear my rubber boots (even though they're cutesy, girly ones ). I'll get to know cows and mud and chickens, mortgages and gardens and barns, and see how it all suits me. I'm trusting my inner voice that hasn't steered me wrong since I started listening to it. We'll leap and hope that a beautiful green net appears.

Nostalgia for Nothingness

Last week's blissful snow days of baking and writing and plentiful sleep have already become a nostalgic memory. This week has been filled to capacity with work that exemplified Parkinson's Law (which says basically that work will expand to fill any time available for it), with extra driving to transport my son around, and with nights back at school. And I was just getting good at doing next to nothing.

In fact, after the shock of Christmas break boredom, something I haven't experienced in well over a decade, I settled into a lovely groove of quiet days in the kitchen and at the keyboard, with time for brisk walks, stretching, observation, reading, and pursuit of both internal goals and calmness. Frankly, I want it back--sort of.

Here's the rub. I had to first let myself enjoy the gentle time with which I was gifted. In our current culture, doing nothing is not too highly regarded, so it caused me feelings of guilt and insufficiency. I got past them, but there they were, reminding me how things are around here. America has always been chasing after something--political independence, the other shore, the moon. We became a country not by evolving from long habitation but by a declaration, an act of will. The very first white people here were in search of something, and we haven't shaken it off yet.

You could argue that striving is human nature, but there are other parts of the world where people aren't so eaten up with it, countries with traditions like siesta and two hour lunches--at home. That just isn't done here. For instance, French citizens enjoy a mandatory six weeks of vacation. Most folks I know with anywhere near that generous amount of leave don't use it all. Even my own husband, who is no fan of a frenzied way of life, has vacation days in the use-or-lose category. He's really good at taking it easy, but still feels blocked from using all the time off available to him. As I see it, employers offer the perk to look good, but there's a tacit stigma to taking too much of it--anything more than two weeks of it anyway. In this country, we may admire Thoreau, but we also worry that anyone who builds a shack in the woods and doesn't seem to do much might be the next Unabomber.

Maybe our fear of doing and being nothing is the bad flip side of our belief that this is the Land of Opportunity. We're supposed to be able to work our way up to the top of whatever heap we choose, so if we don't, there's no one to blame but ourselves. We must be slackers, with no excuse for not being on the success track--getting a college education, landing a "good" job, buying a big house and shiny new car, and amassing a small retirement fortune by the time we're 60, at the latest. We're supposed to be ambitious, chasing a fancier and more expensive way of life. Puttering or wandering require justification--like illness or retirement.

There is a backlash brewing, however. Just today I read a blog post about the art of doing nothing, which referenced two new books on the subject. My current daily reading book (when I can keep the quiet time in the schedule!) has a section on the topic. Maybe we as a culture are finally tiring of perpetual doing. After all, it's pretty sad when even children don't know how to enjoy time without an organized event or an electronic appliance. Apparently they're supposed to be developing themselves in some way with athletics or gymnastics or piano lessons, not just laying and playing around.

It's a shame that we avoid emptiness of time and spirit in the way we do. As I discovered in my few vacuous days, once the wall of resistance is broken through, life's essence--just being--is more valued and available. True desires take shape in the mind and transform into considered activity. With less happening, the inner voice--who can now be heard--has more to say. The bonus is that time, or our perception of it, seems to move more slowly and gently, no longer racing by until, as I am doing this week, we wonder where the days went, it's suddenly Friday, and we're too tired to enjoy the weekend fully.

Here's where I must concede that we do have to deal with annoying complications like making enough money to live and being responsible grownups who fend for ourselves. I am in no way suggesting that we all become hippie bums, living on free love. That experiment failed. I just suspect that we could all be happier by doing next to nothing as regularly as possible and being less attached to contemporary ideas of achievement. There might be room for thought and inspiration that change the world far more than all the busy work we make for ourselves.

I suppose that, like anything else, doing next to nothing just takes practice. Once I started to get the hang of it and let go of the idea that I wasn't (Horrors!) doing enough, I didn't want it to end. Actually I now have a sneaking suspicion that I could be a champion recreational slacker in the making. I'm even hoping to challenge the status quo by crafting a life someday that contains work but isn't consumed by it. I'm quite contrary about that goal. Until then, I hope that I get to practice the art of doing next to nothing again really soon.

My Stressful Day Gratitude List

Things for Which I'm Grateful on a Stressful Day

1. We left late after a bumpy morning. I was worried about the skiff of...something...on the road. I finally asked my husband if he would slow down if I cried. He solved that problem with a test. He laid on the brakes, we didn't slide, and I was fine after that. Knowing is sooo powerful. We laughed and joked the rest of the way.
2. I'm glad there are CPA's to do W2's and end of year taxes and be so nice about it.
3. My son had to hang out most of the day in the lobby of my office because school was out--without complaint. How did I get one of the angelic teenagers? (Uh oh. Did I write that out loud?)
4. I was able to take my boy with the shiny new driver's permit out for a little practice during a brief break in the non-stop action. We didn't even make each other nervous (much).
5. One thing about living with parents: I didn't have to cook dinner after getting home late.
6. I'm pretty sure my misdirected Excel worksheets can be moved some way. Later. Like next week.
7. School is already on a one-hour delay tomorrow. More sleep!
8. The sneaking temptation to leave for class in the city early tomorrow and spend my Target gift cards (on me!) or shop for pants (for me!).
   
9. Writing anything at all when I feel like hiding in a cave instead. Maybe Julia Cameron is right. Real artists show up when they feel like it and when they don't feel like it. Take that moody world. We have remedies.
   
10. We met with our pastor/architect for the first discussion of our new house plan!!! The first step in making a dreamhouse real is taken. The important made it in there after all.