Monday, September 13, 2004
My new love came to stay with me this weekend. And I pulled out all the stops and cooked. I cooked my little butt off.
Friday night we had angel hair pasta with roasted red pepper and balsamic vinegar sauce, with chopped basil and grated cheese. This sauce is amazing - I've actually been known to call it my "secret weapon" sauce. It's just tomato paste, roasted red peppers, olive oil, a clove or two of garlic, balsamic vinegar, and salt. Throw it all in the blender and puree it - it's heavenly.
Saturday night I made thai coconut chicken with basil and cilantro over brown rice. My secret ingredient here is organic lemongrass oil - fresh lemongrass is hard to come by around here. Olivier liked it so much he ate too much of it and couldn't dance until later. We also had a baby spinach salad.
Sunday morning I made french toast with organic heavy cream, eggs, nutmeg, cinnamon, and vanilla. O made a fruit salad with peaches, pears, nectarines and apples with orange juice. I must note here that this is the first time I've ever had breakfast at 5:00 pm.
O had brought me two kinds of chocolate tart - peppermint and cappucino. He also brought a bar of my favorite Rapunzel chocolate, and another with hazelnuts.
I sent him off on the bus late last night with an avocado and irish cheese sandwich, a nectarine and some chocolate.
I'm writing about the food because I don't even know how to begin writing about the relationship itself - and somehow the food seems symbolic of the abundance of this brand new thing, the variety and joy and care and deliciousness of it. Especially the deliciousness of it.
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Friday night we had angel hair pasta with roasted red pepper and balsamic vinegar sauce, with chopped basil and grated cheese. This sauce is amazing - I've actually been known to call it my "secret weapon" sauce. It's just tomato paste, roasted red peppers, olive oil, a clove or two of garlic, balsamic vinegar, and salt. Throw it all in the blender and puree it - it's heavenly.
Saturday night I made thai coconut chicken with basil and cilantro over brown rice. My secret ingredient here is organic lemongrass oil - fresh lemongrass is hard to come by around here. Olivier liked it so much he ate too much of it and couldn't dance until later. We also had a baby spinach salad.
Sunday morning I made french toast with organic heavy cream, eggs, nutmeg, cinnamon, and vanilla. O made a fruit salad with peaches, pears, nectarines and apples with orange juice. I must note here that this is the first time I've ever had breakfast at 5:00 pm.
O had brought me two kinds of chocolate tart - peppermint and cappucino. He also brought a bar of my favorite Rapunzel chocolate, and another with hazelnuts.
I sent him off on the bus late last night with an avocado and irish cheese sandwich, a nectarine and some chocolate.
I'm writing about the food because I don't even know how to begin writing about the relationship itself - and somehow the food seems symbolic of the abundance of this brand new thing, the variety and joy and care and deliciousness of it. Especially the deliciousness of it.
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Friday, September 03, 2004
In all the excitement I forgot to mention that I had a breakthrough after my first contact improv class - at the jam that night I suddenly GOT it somehow. A true Helen Keller moment ("water!!")
First I danced with some friends I was comfortable with, then suddenly found myself dancing with strangers - people I'd always thought of as "experts" - completely at ease and confident. Giving and taking weight, spiralling and flowing, flying and doing crazy things I hadn't thought I could do.
The next day I was stretching before contact class, and a guy sat down next to me and asked "Is this a beginners class?" When I answered yes, he said "But you're not a beginner - I saw you dancing last night!" I had to laugh - I told him I had been a beginner up until last night's dance, and that I still didn't really know what I was doing. But I was getting the hang of it.
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First I danced with some friends I was comfortable with, then suddenly found myself dancing with strangers - people I'd always thought of as "experts" - completely at ease and confident. Giving and taking weight, spiralling and flowing, flying and doing crazy things I hadn't thought I could do.
The next day I was stretching before contact class, and a guy sat down next to me and asked "Is this a beginners class?" When I answered yes, he said "But you're not a beginner - I saw you dancing last night!" I had to laugh - I told him I had been a beginner up until last night's dance, and that I still didn't really know what I was doing. But I was getting the hang of it.
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Thursday, September 02, 2004
*
Fairy Story
Hunt, hunt again.
If you do not find it, you will die.
But I will tell you this much: It is not under the stone
at the foot of the garden, and it is not by the fig tree
by the garden wall.
I tell you this much to save you trouble,
for I have looked. I know. Hurry, for
the terror is, all promises are kept,
even happiness.
*
This poem by Robert Penn Warren was my inspiration and mission for the last two weeks. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but I was sure that if I didn't find it I would die.
Consciously, I was looking for a break from my life. I wasn't sure I wanted to move to NYC, I was afraid of all that entailed, and I wanted time to really do some soul-searching. I wanted to come back clear, refreshed, and full of direction.
Unconsciously, however, I had made a little deal with myself. If nothing unusual happened, fine, that meant that I was supposed to move to NYC and make the most of my relationship with Scott. But if something happened - something definitive, something life-alteringly huge - if I were swept off my feet, for example, then that would mean that my life should change directions.
I've made deals like this with myself before, and usually the result is rather vague. I would have to think things over afterwards, look at it from different angles, to see if what I was looking for happened or didn't happen.
This time, there was no confusion. I was swept completely off my feet - and I'm still whirling, spiralling, flying - I haven't landed yet.
You see, there was this man. I had taken one of his classes years ago, and developed a crush on him. It was just a little crush, a friendly "everyone thinks he's attractive" kind of crush. His French accent. His long black hair. His fusion of French and Japanese features. His quiet clarity. He was completely out of my league, so I put him out of my mind.
He is a master teacher, teaching contact improv around the world. He was teaching a beginner contact class at camp, so I decided to take it. I have always wanted to become more comfortable with contact, and somehow felt like I'd never really gotten it. I hid my crush, and took the class. Afterwards I complimented him on his clear directions and suggestions, and he said "Perhaps tonight, if it is appropriate, we could dance together at the jam."
We didn't dance together that night. Later he told me he felt really shy around me. The next day on the dock by the lake, however, he said he thought I shouldn't leave camp the next day - that I would really regret it. So that night I danced next to him, and from the moment we connected, it was one long slow sweet lightning bolt. We connected on every level - we curled exquisitely slow on the floor, then were leaping and flying off a wall, then circling each other like panthers and angels.
The next morning Molly said everyone was mesmerized by our dancing and someone cried out "I can't watch anymore! It's too much!!"
We were inseparable for the rest of camp. He carried my dishes back into the dining hall for me. He wanted to get a psychic reading to find out why I affected him so strongly. He said he felt so comfortably familiar with me, like I was the one he'd been waiting for his whole life. He didn't want me to leave camp. Now he wants to come kidnap me and bring me back there. He can't wait to see me again. He said he doesn't want to scare me, but he feels like he's falling in love with me. He said he doesn't feel single any more - he realized he'd been planning his life like a single person and now he'd have to change that. Me, I'm still stunned that this magnificent man is so nuts over me - and that we create a connection with such impossible voltage together.
The morning I left, we cut off locks of our hair for each other. It's the only thing I have that I can hold and look at to tell me that it wasn't a dream.
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Fairy Story
Hunt, hunt again.
If you do not find it, you will die.
But I will tell you this much: It is not under the stone
at the foot of the garden, and it is not by the fig tree
by the garden wall.
I tell you this much to save you trouble,
for I have looked. I know. Hurry, for
the terror is, all promises are kept,
even happiness.
*
This poem by Robert Penn Warren was my inspiration and mission for the last two weeks. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but I was sure that if I didn't find it I would die.
Consciously, I was looking for a break from my life. I wasn't sure I wanted to move to NYC, I was afraid of all that entailed, and I wanted time to really do some soul-searching. I wanted to come back clear, refreshed, and full of direction.
Unconsciously, however, I had made a little deal with myself. If nothing unusual happened, fine, that meant that I was supposed to move to NYC and make the most of my relationship with Scott. But if something happened - something definitive, something life-alteringly huge - if I were swept off my feet, for example, then that would mean that my life should change directions.
I've made deals like this with myself before, and usually the result is rather vague. I would have to think things over afterwards, look at it from different angles, to see if what I was looking for happened or didn't happen.
This time, there was no confusion. I was swept completely off my feet - and I'm still whirling, spiralling, flying - I haven't landed yet.
You see, there was this man. I had taken one of his classes years ago, and developed a crush on him. It was just a little crush, a friendly "everyone thinks he's attractive" kind of crush. His French accent. His long black hair. His fusion of French and Japanese features. His quiet clarity. He was completely out of my league, so I put him out of my mind.
He is a master teacher, teaching contact improv around the world. He was teaching a beginner contact class at camp, so I decided to take it. I have always wanted to become more comfortable with contact, and somehow felt like I'd never really gotten it. I hid my crush, and took the class. Afterwards I complimented him on his clear directions and suggestions, and he said "Perhaps tonight, if it is appropriate, we could dance together at the jam."
We didn't dance together that night. Later he told me he felt really shy around me. The next day on the dock by the lake, however, he said he thought I shouldn't leave camp the next day - that I would really regret it. So that night I danced next to him, and from the moment we connected, it was one long slow sweet lightning bolt. We connected on every level - we curled exquisitely slow on the floor, then were leaping and flying off a wall, then circling each other like panthers and angels.
The next morning Molly said everyone was mesmerized by our dancing and someone cried out "I can't watch anymore! It's too much!!"
We were inseparable for the rest of camp. He carried my dishes back into the dining hall for me. He wanted to get a psychic reading to find out why I affected him so strongly. He said he felt so comfortably familiar with me, like I was the one he'd been waiting for his whole life. He didn't want me to leave camp. Now he wants to come kidnap me and bring me back there. He can't wait to see me again. He said he doesn't want to scare me, but he feels like he's falling in love with me. He said he doesn't feel single any more - he realized he'd been planning his life like a single person and now he'd have to change that. Me, I'm still stunned that this magnificent man is so nuts over me - and that we create a connection with such impossible voltage together.
The morning I left, we cut off locks of our hair for each other. It's the only thing I have that I can hold and look at to tell me that it wasn't a dream.
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