Enchilada Lasagna

I love enchiladas, there is a local eatery called Alto Cinco that makes really good ones.  Alas my financial situation made it so that I could not really buy take out so I decided to make enchiladas myself.  Problem is, that they are a pain in the beep to make.  The corn tortillas are always too small and they come unwrapped and it is really time consuming.  Today I decided to make an enchilada lasagna.  All the yummy goodness of an enchilada without all the fuss.  My daughter who eats like a bird who only likes frozen dinners and candy (how did I ever give birth to such a child I will never know!) said “Mom, this is the best thing you have ever made!”

Here is the recipe:

Open a can of enchilada sauce.
cut up one chicken breast and saute in oil until it is done through, add about 2 Tbsp of enchilada sauce and a diced onion, two chopped cloves of garlic and about 1/2 of a red, orange or yellow pepper.
Meanwhile spray the bottom of a round cake pan, and then add a thin coating of enchilada sauce.  Place corn tortillas so it covers the bottom.  I used 3 cut in half and placed so the bottom doesn’t show through.  When chicken and veggies are done add about half to first layer.  Cover with another layer of corn tortillas.  Cut up about a cup and a half of spinach and put on this layer.  cover with another layer of tortillas.  Then coat the top of the tortillas with more enchilada sauce.  Add the remaining chicken mixture.  Another layer of tortillas and a thin coat of enchilada sauce then about a cup of cheese (I used soy cheddar) Place a final layer of tortillas on top and then cover with a generous amount of enchilada sauce.  Top with sliced pickled jalapeno peppers.  Cover with foil and cook at 375 for a half hour.  Serve with sliced avocado and diced green onions.

Yummy!

 

Feels like home.

There was a time in my life when working in the outdoors was the last thing on the planet that I ever wanted to do.  Give me housework or getting wood ready for winter, I would chose housework.  But as I have gotten older this has changed.  The pivotal moment was that first Thanksgiving, right after the ex left, when my brother and I puttered around his yard, and shed and garage pretty much all day.  I suddenly felt closer to the men in my family, to him, to my grandfather, to my dad.  There was also the intense woods time I got in those first months, now years.  The peace and calm that it brought me, the momentary quiet in the chaos of my broken heart.  It was not a new thing, but a returning, like coming home after a long absence.

The pirate is a hunter and he has a piece of property in a nearby town.  And on a previous occasion I mentioned that I would like to see it.  We went up on Sunday and he showed the piece of land to me. He was preparing paths to the various tree stands he has. He went ahead with a larger machete and cleared a path in the long weeds and shrubs.  I was behind with another machete practicing the technique.  I am sure he could have done it himself, but I widened some areas that he left narrow and he weed whacked out the bits the machetes didn’t touch and I pulled out some thick deeply entrenched root balls and strands from some shrubbery that had taken over the main path. It took all of my body weight to pull those roots out.  For once in my life I am thankful for being a fatty.   I got a pretty good work out.  This morning my arms, and abdomen, my lower back and the backs of my legs are sore from the labor of it.

I struggle with understanding where things are going and what I mean to him.  I only know that when I am with him I have that same feeling, a feeling of returning home after a long absence, and as I stood in the middle of his property loving the sweat and the easy interaction of being with him I whispered to God, see this is what I want.  This.  Is. What. I. Want.  And for a moment it did not feel like I was asking too much.

I told my Mom, who reads this blog and will undoubtedly comment later in a way that I that makes me feel ashamed, that I don’t know what is happening with the pirate.  I only know my own heart.  And my heart I have learned is a damned undependable thing.  It lied to me for years.  I can no longer trust it.  I also was snotty to my Mom because people who are in long term committed relationships, don’t know what it is to try and make do all by yourself.  Sometimes it downright sucks.  I am comfortable sewing alone all day, or watching Mad Men until every last episode has run out leaving me jonesing for the next release, I am happy writing and reading and filling up the bare moments with a solid internal life.  But I want to share a home with someone, want to cook for someone because I waste so much food, I can only eat potato leek soup so many times before the last of it is thrown away. I want to work side by side with someone, want to share the financial burdens and workload with someone.  It can be so overwhelming.  In the end I have to sell my house and downsize. I wait for my daughter to finish school, our proximity is worth the remaining two year struggle.  But I can no longer afford this living situation.

What I do know is that he thinks of me when he is away from me, judging by the thoughtful token gifts.  What I do know is that he brings me an unexpected bucket of blackberries when he stops by to drop off the fudge for my daughter that I forgot, and later he remembers all on his own.  That he shows me the wallpaper on his phone a picture of cobwebs in the setting sun that I sent him. That when I delete his digits from my phone to force myself to stop calling and texting and getting no response which leaves me feeling stupid and needy though I am smart and independent and I just want to leave the ball in his court, but I do not wait long before he calls and texts.  That when I am all hot and sweaty he pulls me close and kisses me, more than once, passionately.  That we joke about the excellent practice we are getting for the slow moving zombie apocalypse.  And the sweet little picnic we make of shared food and drink.  That when we talk about his hunting in the season to come, he promises the neck so I can make mincemeat.  And that when he sees the work I did he softly tells me, good job on that.  And high fives me for the work well done.  I feel valued.  Though like it was with my dad the words of praise are few and far between, when they come they are worth so much more to me.

See God, this is all that I want.  I won’t pray for more than that I find the ability to trust in you and have faith in you.  And in the meantime, I cross my fingers and toes.  I watch him as he works in his old blue jeans a shirt in a deep forest green, a color that rivals my favorite purple.  I don’t know if he will find me to be an acceptable mate, but I have to say either way.  I want to be right here, with him, in my life, just because he feels like home.

Isn’t this love?

” The path includes all experience, both serene and chaotic.” Pema Chodron

I decide I am done with the lying about wide awake.  My thoughts are messy.  I am tired of listening to them.   I meditate on an insight I had many years ago about us being like atoms in a stream, bumping against the rocks, swirling around together flowing ever onward in a vast pool of water.  I am pretty sure I was high at the time, but that has changed now and I am not high, the idea remains.  Only I meditate that I am a rock, not a specific one, just any rock in the stream and my thoughts are the water.  I have to let them flow past me.  Sadly I have a big enough rock that the water seems to eddy in this one particular way that is wearing me down.  Its messy.  But I have to have faith that all this messiness is for a reason.  I laugh derisively as I write this.  A snort.

It is the messiness that wakes me.  It is the messiness that keeps me awake.  It is the messiness that sometimes makes me cry.  It is the messiness that generally makes me laugh, even if it is a derisive snort.

I write in my journal, because apparently the spreading of the noise of my head on the internet is just not enough for me, that I have to learn to be a warrior.  A notion brought to me by my slow and gentle reading and rereading of Start Where You Are by Pema Chodron.  I have to have enough bravery to risk my heart being broken.  I think I want my body to be strong and as I do my 15 mile bike ride in 1 hour, pushing hard for two minutes out of every 3 in the second half of the thirty improving my time by 1.5 miles, looking down as I do weighted squats at the firm muscle on the outer edge of my lower thigh, bulging.  Strong.  To be a warrior your body must be strong.  I am working on that.  I don’t want to say it is for someone else, it may have started that way, but today I realized it was, in the end, to help me deal with the messiness.  And to make it possible for me to be a warrior.  But what makes a person a warrior of compassion.  How can one be a warrior for love.   It is through meditation practice.

My meditation tonight was messy and chaotic, that damned eddy of thoughts.  Go away.  I say.  But I know better, I know go away won’t work.  I just have to sit with the thoughts.  Even though it is messy and chaotic, and it is screwing with my Zen bliss.  And my sleep.  Though what woke me was a mess of a different kind.  Though what brought me on this path was also a different mess.  And here is opportunity for finding some sense of the sacred of life.  Being thankful even for the messy stuff.

I suddenly see another person’s fear.  I can almost feel it.  And I find myself suddenly crying not for myself but for another.  I am kind of blown away by this revelation.  He tells me he has to protect his own heart, and I find myself wanting to protect it too.  Isn’t this love?

Either way.  I am a warrior.  I have done battle and though I sustained an injury, I am recovered and willing to do battle again.  No I will not bear a sword or a pistol.  I will bear instead my open arms.  And my loving heart.  This is love.

And this is all just thinking

I do not want to lose my footing, in flip flops on the sand covered artificial wood ramp that we are walking down.  I try to take his arm because the railings are too wide to grip.  I don’t want to lose my footing because of my knee injury, if I hyper-extend the knee it will not be good.  He instructs me to put my hands on his shoulders, and baby step by baby step we make our way down the slippery ramp.  I try to look beyond him to see what is ahead, but I cannot see, his body is blocking my view, which I find frustrating.  I realize suddenly that this is a potent symbol.  I have to trust him, I have to accept being blind for the moment for my own protection.  In that instant I gave up control, and I gave over total trust.  It was a relief.

I give up control, for I know I have none.

Later after writing the above and after sitting in the Zen Center, I take a drastic step to stop myself from continuing on the path I have been walking.  It is like the old saying “if you love someone let them go…”  I feel like I have to keep letting go.  I am letting go for my own sanity.  I am letting go because I cannot keep feeling confused.  I am letting go because I have to see what comes back to me.  If anything.  It is the calm moment where you realize you are squeezing the hell out of your mudra hands, and you suddenly realize that they just need to nest and rest within each other.  It is like this calm moment when you realize the reason you are gripping so tightly is because you are afraid that if it is gone nothing else will fly in to take its place, and though you are resigned to that notion, that you will no longer seek out what you want most of all.  Though people always say if you stop looking it will come, I am not letting go for that reason, and as I understand this, briefly, fleetingly it is as though a dove has flown from between my fingers and I feel more free.  I cannot say I feel completely free, because my heart knows what it wants.  But there are so many things I want that I just don’t have.  One of the things I have that I just don’t want is the constant yearning.  I have to accept even that.  I have to.  I am still gripping so tightly to my mudra hands.  I release them again.

I do not want to lose my sense of place, unsteady, uneven ground, the challenges of this world, it is all the same.  I try to get a grip, I reach for whomever is near with my own expectations of how it will go.  I don’t want to fall, I have been hurt so badly in the past, I don’t want to be hurt again.  If I close my eyes and learn to trust it I may find it, like Luke Skywalker finding the force.   I want to know what is ahead but of course it is impossible to see the future.  Its frustrating but the frustration doesn’t change the fundamental truth of it.  I have to accept each moment baby step by baby step.

And this is all just thinking.