Of Thee I Singh.

Because I was raised essentially without religion and aggressively sheltered by my parents as well as the confines of my affluent suburban community, I was slow to learn much about the outside world and the varying belief structures that exist in it.

I should have caught on a little just thanks to the diversity of the greater Detroit community, but I was still protected by a wall of enforced innocence, and, so, it was all lost on me.

When I traveled to Venice Beach when I was in college, I met a woman on the shuttle bus to my hotel. She was dressed entirely in white, including stark socks pulled up to her knees and pale, nearly transparent hair that hung below her waist. I learned that she was a Sikh, not because I was boorish enough to ask, but because she offered it. Maybe in response to my inability to hide my surprise at her appearance, or maybe out of friendliness, or the joy she felt in her personal discovery.

That’s about all I remember about that interaction. It was a short drive and there would have been much more to explain to me than a few moments of conversation would allow. But I never did forget her, and when Sikhism is mentioned, she is my initial reference point.

For the purposes of this post, I tried to find out why she was wearing all white. It may have been that she was a convert—she was Caucasian after all—or, it is possible that she was a Kundalini yogi. I found little to explain this, maybe because my search results have been flooded with news stories about recent events, rather than information that might inform or educate. What a damn shame of a way for us to expand our awareness, anyway.
 
I did find this article, which details the tenets and practices of Sikhism. Good information for any of us who want to understand and know what we don’t already.

And on a much less serious note, I found this recording of a band we saw live back in the spring of 2011. (Whee!)

The trumpeter, Sonny Singh, is a Sikh and the dhol player & singer, Sunny Jain, is a Jainist. I don't think these are the ones to worry about, eh? 
 

Free to be...for now.

While I was in Saugatuck last Saturday, I noticed that I was picking up one after another flowy, artfully-designed garment and waving it approvingly in front of my mirrored visage. I paused for a moment of reflection and admitted that I was going to have to force strict austerity on my shopping behavior. It seems no matter how many What Not to Wears I’ve seen, I have lately been gravitating toward the bohemian, neo-hippie styles that the shops in this earthy, laid-back lakeshore community are known for.

Part of it is a mind that still thinks my body needs to hide under layers of fabric so that my extra layers of bulge won’t be betrayed. Except that those days are gone, and with them the three dress sizes I’ve lost.

I also think I am yearning for the feel-good days of my twenties, especially more recently as my professional life and what I see as its evolution become more complicated. As my heart rebels at the ideas of conformity and maturity, my hands grab for those flowery remnants of my youth.

I finally settled on nothing for the area above the ankles, but picked up two rewards for my feet, which have always behaved themselves well enough that they continue to enjoy un-reined liberty.

When I showed this pair to Ben, he said, “Yes, they are cool. Very much in keeping with your current aesthetic.”

And I said, “What do you mean?”

From Nose to Tail.

It was at the same international grocery where I found fava beans and raw Ethiopian coffee that I came across a snack I’ve never seen before: roasted watermelon seeds. Hmmm. Why not? We roast the seeds of their family members at Halloween, after all.

I’ve always found the slaughtering of a whole watermelon to be such a wasteful process, keeping only the pleasing flesh and discarding the skin and innards. Finding those seeds gave me the idea to see if I could use every part of the melon, which I attempted today. Here’s what came out of it:

I followed these instructions for a method of butchering that easily separates the insides. 

That worked, so I scooped out the seeds from each section and divided them from the pulp, sorting them into two containers. Then I cut up all of the watermelon I wanted to preserve for eating. 

After that, I took all the rinds and scooped all of the remaining flesh into my bowl of already reserved pulp. (The rinds should have little or no flesh left on them when you’re done, by the way.)

I continued by peeling each rind, then slicing them into thin strips. I was left with five containers when it was all over: seeds, chopped watermelon, sliced rind, pulp with juice, and a fraction of the waste. 

The excess went into my garden to feed it, and the rest played out like this:

I roasted the seeds using these instructions. I added lime juice and a pinch of Aleppo pepper to the water to give the seeds some zest. Otherwise, I followed the recipe exactly.

I made a salad dressing with the pulp and juice (recipe below), started a batch of watermelon rind pickles using this recipe (it takes several days, so we’ll just have to trust these folks), and then I ate the watermelon, except for about a cup that will go in a spinach salad with sliced red grapes, roasted watermelon seeds, and my new dressing!       

For the dressing, here's what you need:

 

1½ cups of watermelon pulp with juice

The juice of one lime

2 tablespoons of honey

⅓ cup grapeseed oil

½ cup of champagne vinegar

½ -1 teaspoon of ground sea salt, to taste

Several pinches of ground green and pink peppercorns or peppercorn mélange

Several small slices of a cherry bomb chile

Here's what to do:

 

Puree watermelon with the lime juice and honey in a food processor or blender. Strain to yield about 1 cup of juice. Pour juice into a dressing jar and add the remaining ingredients. Shake well and refrigerate for several hours. 

All taste and no waste—woot! 

This title should have something to do with watermelons, right?

You should know I’ve been drinking. Ben actually suggested I forewarn you, though he may not know that I’ve successfully posted in this state before. Care to guess which post?

There’s a lot of mush-fingering and backspacing going on here, but I’m determined to write something tonight, despite the four Strongbows I had at a friend’s cookout this afternoon and several wines (most of them in a glass) I’ve had thereafter.

Earlier today, before all of this silliness, I was out in search of a watermelon. One with seeds, specifically. I picked one up at an organic grower at the farmer’s market today. It promises to have yellow flesh, a more pleasing texture and flavor than your typical pink, and a thin wall that begs not to be smacked too hard while trying to detect the resonant sound that signifies its perfection.

This is the one, and tomorrow is its big day…

Clean Living.

Just in the last week, I started following Harvard Business Review at work. Since then I’ve been receiving one to three emails per day on different topics. Good stuff—all of it—yet there’s something about this relationship that makes me feel like a filthy sellout.

I also follow Fast Company, specifically Co.EXIST, which, somewhat conversely, consistently leaves me with the inspiration to be a cleaner (or at least more free-thinking) person.

What’s going on here? HBR is a respected and reputable publication, so why the distaste?

I think the problem (that is: MY problem) with HBR is that even though it is teaching me new ideas and new ways to play the game, its concepts still exist within the confines of the standard business archetype. It doesn’t ask me to dash my perceptions about what work can be, it tells me how I can manage inside the walls of what it is. This is probably a good thing, considering I am required to at least pretend I’m in touch with reality.

But what if I weren’t?

I think about this quite a bit, actually. I very often feel like I am on the verge of greatly expanding the possibilities of my life. I have incredible freedom because of the choices I’ve made, and so there is little holding me back. Except, quite honestly, the fear of being extraordinary. Or maybe, more realistically, the fear of discovering that I am not actually extraordinary, even after giving it considerable effort.

Hmmm...what do you think about that? Or, I mean, what do I think about it...?

Anyone else see what I see?

  

He kindly stopped for me.

So yesterday’s post was kind of heavy. I didn’t really plan on that, but recent events: the loss of our friend from cancer, the shootings in Aurora, and news of a friend of a friend killed in a car wreck, not to forget my own freakish ill wellbeing, have all made the notion of mortality more apparent to me than maybe it has ever been in my life. To further aggravate things, the realities of being an atheist and childless leave me no place to run when I have these moments of fatalism.

I’m it and this is everything there is.

Sounds like a challenge to me... :)    

So it goes...

I’ve been not seriously ill, but not seriously healthy either for the past two months. Saturday night I was awake later than usual and then had a terrible time getting to sleep, even though I should have been really tired. Maybe you know this feeling: it’s like your body and mind are layered on top of one another, separated, rather than dissolving in unison (the way that I imagine is the precursor to sleep).

Every once in a while I would feel myself start to liquefy, then jerk awake—not involuntarily, but in panic. At one point, my body erupted in sweat and my head felt dizzy and peculiar. I am accustomed to feeling normal and well almost all of the time, which greatly exaggerates my sense of hysteria when I am not. So I convinced myself that I was dying and that if I did fall asleep, this would be the end of it. I would not wake. My husband would find me when he returned home in the morning, which I decided would be really horrible. So then I made a great effort not to slip into slumber, which, naturally, had the opposite effect.

I woke in the morning as I do every day, minus the occasional afternoon exception. I told Ben about it when he got home. I told him I didn’t want to die and I didn’t want him to die. And then I cried, this time because I was sad.