Love is Actually

I had to make a quick pickup at the mall this evening, which is a lie, because even in pandemic times, a quick pickup at the mall in peak holiday shopping season on a Friday night is One. Big. Oxymoron. The holiday rush was so different, still loud and rushy, but it was masked up and spaced apart.

When I saw the Mall Santa wearing his shielded mask, sitting six feet behind the bench where children could supposedly meet him, something caught in my throat and I found myself oddly choking back tears. Shuffling by, I tried to unpack why I was so moved by the Socially Distanced Santa. I think it was partly due to how dystopian all this seemed, and how frankly unfair it is to the kiddies. We could have given them a virus-free holiday season as they are able to in, say, Australia which has effectively beat the ‘VID. I’m mourning the holiday that could have been.

But the Socially Distanced Santa also reminded me of the scene from “Love, Actually” when all the anonymous people are hugging in Heathrow Airport. We hear Hugh Grant intone that “Love is…actually…all around.” In spite of the film’s problematic relationship with curvy women, I’m a fan of the ways that it normalizes turtlenecks for all mankind, as well as its dismantling of the hierarchy of people needing love. Yes, the Prime Minister gets lonely. Yes, the widow and Claudia Schiffer and the married couple and the folks living in developmental care facilities are all dying to be well-loved. If we train our eyes to see, so says Hugh Grant, we’ll see the love all around.

I’d like to add a Covid in America Asterisk to that adage, if I may. In this quaky season before anyone on the stateside is vaccinated, I think it’s important not just to look for love, but to look for opportunities to love. Those are actually all around. They are found in the spare change jars we’ve been meaning to empty and turn into gift cards for the mail carriers and crossing guards. They are in the shoebox of stationery we’ve been meaning to bust open to write a letter to our granny in the home. They are in all the places we can exercise extra patience. True, no one can see our smile because it’s hidden by a mask, but that, too, is an opportunity to show love.

As for self-love, I will attest that I’ve been staring at this same mug for 40 years and, well, I don’t fully know how to love that lady. But she is looking for ways to love being herself. I can’t imagine learning to love being alive in one’s own body and not wanting it for one’s neighbor. Maybe it’s a radical notion, but wouldn’t we want for others the same measure of love we have experienced? Self-love, when it translates to love of being oneself, wants for others to be a part of that whole joyful equation. Self-love negates itself when it does not show that same love for others. In other words, stay home, drink egg nog, look for ways to love from a safe distance so that Mall Santa can live his best life next year and get back to handing out candy canes and judging kiddies’ wishes for ponies.

How to Practice Radical Self Care in 26 Easy Steps

1. Spend 214 days with offspring in some version of quarantine.

2. Do all the emotional labor of parenting. Every time the emotional labor cart wheels by, look at the emotional labor offerings like they are chocolate mousse or key lime pie and point to them and say, Yes, that. I’ll have a big slice of that emotional labor. Please just make sure my co-parent/spouse gets none, as that would mean he knows what I’m dealing with and we cannot possibly have that.

3. Engage not with rando hate soldiers on social media, but by all means, do get into a verbal tussle on Twitter with that dude you met eleven years ago and go deep into the stacks of his thinly veiled Tweets about white supremacy because this is what will serve all mankind in this present age.

4. Sleep not.

5. Eat all Halloween candy in freezer and purse and all secret hiding places by October 2nd.

6. Become so haggard that when you go to get your highlights updated, your hairstylist says, “Okay, so just so you know, highlights won’t cover all this gray. Like that’s not what highlights are able to do.”

7. Teach and write and walk the dog as these things are your actual jobs.

8. Clean the bathroom but only whilst listening to the most sad-ass podcasts where the endings are all an ambiguous muddle or unimaginable tragedy. Bathrooms are only at their cleanest when you have cried human tears into the sink over a stranger’s story.

9. Now this part is really critical so don’t mess it up: Lose all contact with your therapist. Don’t you dare think your problems in the midst of a global pandemic are worth talking about because we are ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.

10. Exercise only if it’s useful to someone. Like oh, you want to mail that package? Let me just walk it to the post office and stand in line like I’m in a socially distanced meet and greet at ComiCon.

11. Order some more stocking stuffers for the kiddies on Poshmark because retail therapy.

12. Look at husband, open mouth and say, I think I need to actually run away from home?

13. Hear Husband say, Yeah. Why don’t you do that.

14. Believe what Husband actually says was, Oh, are you sure you need to do that now? Because we might all perish like a bunch of trampled dandelions the second you leave us.

15. Double check that it’s okay to leave for the weekend.

16. Secure room in most amazing AirBnB in Western MA.

17. Secure rental car for getaway.

18. When asked if you mind what kind of car you’re given by Enterprise, say, Oh heavens no, and when given the keys to a white minivan, take that hot rod and get the hell out of Dodge.

19. Secure appointment for hot tub + massage (wearing mask, obv). Luxuriate like you are posing for the front of said spa’s brochure.

20. Watch a gazillion hours of “Gilmore Girls” as if you don’t know what all shakes out with Luke/Lorelei/Rory/Logan.

21. Take a hot shower and another and another.

22. Download book on Codependency. Expect to see picture of self as you turn every page. Highlight some things. Ponder codependency.

23. Eat vegetables cooked by another human. Eat more! Drink them even, you crazy veggie crazed rascal!

24. Frolic in leaves and among them, swirl in all their splendor like you are Fraulein Actual Maria.

25. Momdance in minivan while driving home.

26. Return home so happy they barely recognize you.

Documenting the Quarantine ed. 6: Stress + Strawberry Pie

When I was in labor with Tatum, I could feel his head trying to come out, but his head was sort of too big for the chute and I was sweating so hard that anything touching my skin made it feel like it was burning and I cried to the nurse I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE and she was pretty much like, SAME, BOO. But we gotta persevere. Because keeping that baby in your belly is not a legitimate Plan B right now.

I've thought a lot about that time particularly during quarantine. This too shall pass, but sometimes it doesn't pass through the chutes we want it to, with the ease we hope it will. We're strong enough for this, but this is very, very intense. Like everyone I know, I have wanted an exit hatch from this madness at every turn. I want to go out to eat and not oscillate between wearing a mask and sipping through a straw. I want to hug my friend’s children. I want to go sit in a dark movie theater and eat so much popcorn and not give a single thought to catching the ‘rona from the bathroom/reclining seats/doorknobs/air molecules we breathe. History reminds us that it rhymes, and right now this great unknown is rhyming with other great wars, depressions, and other epochs whose ending was always indefinite to those wandering through.

July has been hot and filling me with homesickness. I miss seeing my family in the summer and eating fish tacos on their back patios and swimming in their pools. I am trying to cultivate a rich outdoor life but it has been stupid humid here, so mostly I bop around to different beaches where the dog can splash and boop the noses of other dogs. I feel stressed that the kids are stressed and I’m learning my codependence on their moods is really unhealthy. I am working on this.

It’s pretty much too hot everywhere to turn on an oven, but we did find a lot of joy in picking strawberries last month, and I adapted a strawberry pie recipe to make it gluten free, so I’ll share it here.

Gluten Free Crust:

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups (184g) King Arthur Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour

• 1 tablespoon sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon flax meal

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 6 tablespoons (85g) butter, cold

• 1 large egg

• 2 teaspoons lemon juice

• 1 drop cinnamon essential oil
  

Instructions

1. Lightly grease a 9" pie pan.

2. Whisk together the flour or flour blend, sugar, flaxmeal and salt.

3. Cut the cold butter into pats, then kneed the pats into the flour mixture until it's crumbly

4. Whisk the egg and vinegar or lemon juice together until very foamy. Mix into the dry ingredients. Add drop cinnamon essential oil. Stir until the mixture holds together, adding 1 to 3 additional tablespoons cold water if necessary.

5. Shape into ball and refrigerate for an hour, or up to overnight.

6. Allow the dough to rest at room temperature for 10 to 15 minutes before rolling.

7. Roll out on a piece of plastic wrap/ silicone rolling mat. Invert the crust into the prepared pie pan.

8. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line the pie with tin foil and bake for 25 minutes. Remove the foil, and bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, until the crust is a light golden brown. Allow to cool.

9. Fill with pie filling:
   

Strawberry Pie Filling

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup sugar

• 2 tablespoons cornstarch

• 1 cup water

• 1 package (3 ounces) strawberry gelatin

• 6 cups sliced fresh strawberries

• Whipped cream, optional

Instructions

• In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, cornstarch and water until smooth. Bring to a boil; cook and stir until thickened, about 2 minutes. Remove from the heat; stir in gelatin until dissolved. Refrigerate until slightly cooled, 15-20 minutes.

• Meanwhile, arrange strawberries in the crust. Pour gelatin mixture over berries. Refrigerate until set. If desired, serve with whipped cream.