when choosing death, choose the death that expands

on gardening, cooking, and friendship

Harvest, August 2023

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300 faces swirl around one as I let a stranger spin me. It surprised me, he’s been one of my best friends for nearly 10 years, and despite living across the country for 7, we’ve only grown closer. I thought I’d know more people at his wedding, but I hardly knew anyone. Tipsy talk two afterparties deep, I get to know them. As I do, I notice slight glimmers of all his subtle changes I’ve admired from afar refract from new faces. He is so much more him than he was 10 years ago, and this crowd of 300 is so much more him than the crowd of 300 that would have shown 10 years ago. Still, I see missing faces spook the swirling dance floor. I’m thankful our relationship changed, but never died.

Sometimes loving from a distance feels sad. If it were up to me, all of my people would live in some form of communal housing and we’d, idk really, maybe just like be there… chill….love what we love…create good things for joy….drop weighty tears…eat lots of good bread??? It’s a fantasy I’ve let die. But folding into the pitchy mass singscreaming a Brittney banger, I feel overwhelmed that someone I love is loved well, day in and day out, by these people who I don’t know or love. I feel thankful for the ways they’ve changed him. It feels open, expansive. So much is happening in the name of love.

*

How does one inhabit an already murdered world? My resolution is to nurture it. I’ve left a garden in every house I’ve ever lived in, including short term rentals. My friends gift me rare seeds for my birthday. I usually have dirt under my fingernails. My roots run Alabama Southern so for weddings I get french tips to cover, but they’re quick to break from clawing soil. At one point, I had 283 species under my care, not counting all the weeds whose names I may never know. I still thanked each one for her sacrifice—if only a garden were a wilder thing. But it’s not, it’s a tedious defense against death. Clawing at earth’s soft heart, I try to imagine what this San Marzano Heirloom might feel. Did the toil of life feel painful? So much is happening in the name of growth:

A Shun knife ruptures mother’s flesh, seeds fingered from her to drown for three days in a wet ferment. The ferment dehydrates in the sun and shriveled seeds lie in dormant darkness until it’s time. Time bends forward on heating pad and artificial PAR at ~600 nanometers. Time sprouts. Time turns the shocking perils of environment into leaf, stem, root. Root sifts through moist warm soil, and time unfolds towards collapsing sun.

The practice of gardening changed my relationship to death. I once feared death so much that I’d overcrowd beds so I didn’t have to kill sprouts. Killing on the cusp of potential somehow felt more criminal than surviving stunted only to die. For a long time I saw death as end (threatening) rather than change (neutralizing). Shun knife in hand once again, I try to imagine what this San Marzano Heirloom might feel. Did the pluck of death feel painful? So much is happening in the name of alchemy:

500 degree broil with unpeeled onion and garlic until flesh blisters limp. A blade breaks all to juice. Melt milk in the form of butter, render juice, melt milk in the form of cream. Time simmers. Slowly release extracts from freshly cut oregano, basil, parsley. Melt milk in the form of pecorino. Serve with bread.

How does one inhabit an already haunted house? My resolution is to nurture it. The practice of cooking changed my relationship to life. I’m a home cook, but I train like I’m not. I’ve moved eight times in the last ten months, and carried 57 spices with me to each stop. I have over 1600 recipes pinned, but I mostly cook from memory or make-shit-up-as-I-go these days. I think about how you can taste bone marrow rice in your heart at least once a week. I’ve made hundreds of meals for friends old and new. I like how food not only nourishes, but plays. I like to study what my people are drawn to (M likes sour notes, J thinks he likes umami but actually likes salt, M actually likes umami), and tweak recipes to dance on their tongues. I gather them like a brief bouquet and try to imagine what they’re experiencing. So much is happening in the name of connection:

M pokes at a blueberry, trying to place it in chili where it doesn’t usually belong. We like the sour undertones, what is it? We’re not laughing at the joke T made because we’re still thinking about what she said. We look down and to the left when she does this. We’re the only ones still thinking about it. T is eyeing the cooler, we’re deliberating a third beer. R throws her fork on the ground and laughs, a game we like to play. We look at dad every time she does it. We’re having the most fun.

A friend of mine once said “beauty is symmetry, and symmetry is change without change.” Everything alive changes, it’s a property of alive. And change ultimately moves toward symmetry, toward balance, toward equilibrium, one way or another. Even death is beautifully programed to balance a complex system. A complex system in balance still changes, but never does.

How does one inhabit an already beautiful life? My resolution is to nurture it. The practice of friendship changed my relationship to myself. Something about being loved well, day in and day out, by changing people lets me love my changing self. And I am changing, but I also never will. I’ll still relish weathering the care and chaos, the pain and change, the life and death that goes into co-creating beautiful relationships. I’ll still carefully choose the deaths that expand, and defend against the ones that don’t. But more than anything, I’ll still savor the teary enjoyment in simply witnessing you unfold like something brief and wild and Southern sunned. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? How we’re still changing, how we never do. So much is happening in the name of a gift of god.

*

I see god laughing, we’re having the most fun.

***

Dinner Party Notes
June 29, 2024

• The best ligurian focaccia you ever did have & so simple too

• Miso glazed carrots with carrot top pesto

• Homemade hummus

  • 1 can chickpeas

  • 1/3 cup tahini

  • 1 lemon, squeezed

  • 11 ice cubes (makes texture fluffier than water)

  • 1/4 cup olive oil

  • garlic cloves to taste (I like 4)

  • salt, then add more

  • crushed cumin if you like that

  • mix in a food processor, if too thick, add some water/ice, if too thin add oil/tahini/lemon juice until you get a consistency and flavor you like

• Moroccan spiced salmon with lemon yogurt sauce