Staying on track.

I've been having Big Days, in which I do Things, that were previously daunting and scary and seemed like forever. But they weren't forever. Or at least they aren't when you have the energy to do them. I credit Norwegian Kelp and finally, for some reason I'm not sure what, getting some sleep.

Yesterday was a Big Day.

I found authors* on twitter, added their books to my goodreads list, and burned again with a passion for stories.
I took out the elastic on one of my favorite shirts so that I could finally wear it in comfort (and its even more favorite now).
I ate an amazing lunch while watching Captain Janeway save all the days.

That amazing beef soup is based off of this recipe for Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup by Dang That's Delicious and let me tell you, it was. Unfortunately for me, I didn't have half the ingredients (no bean past, no garlic chili paste, out of anise, womp womp) so I just made due with what I had and followed the recipe otherwise (basically it was just beef soup). Boiling the meet with the green onions, garlic, and ginger made the BEST broth I could ever have hoped for. I used mung bean noodles and sauteed a handful of mushrooms, with a pinch of cilantro to top it off. This soup lasted us three days and we're making it again real soon. After the soup I cooled off with cucumber salad, dressed with olive oil, cilantro, and a squeeze of lemon.

Straight from my cousins orchard, I look forward to these lemons every year. My mother sends them to me from Southern California and I make lemon jam out of them that takes me from one summer to the next. (this year I added rose hips to that jam. No scurvy here.)

When I sliced into this lemon to dress my salad I found, with a gasp, four sprouted seeds complete with developing cotyledons and roots. The root of one particularly determined seed had gone as far as to hit the rind and, finding it impassible, traveled back up towards the center to find another way out.

see those two green blobs? those are my lemon twins,
saying hello to their new lemon sibling. 

Carefully, and under sufficient lighting, I birthed this little one (a citrus c-section, if you will) fairly confident the root brain (err, I mean root cap) is still intact. The four seeds are planted and at the time of this writing two have already peeked their heads above the soil and a third is about to make its debut. Soon I'll have my own orchard. I'll call it Eight Stories Up.

Then I cleaned. In order to understand the mountainesque nature of this task I'd have to show you before pictures which I wont, because it will be softer on my pride to show them alongside the after photos, which aren't ready yet. Yesterday's job was the bedroom, which we don't use, which looks like Jumanji just happened. In one day, I got about half way done. All the clothes up off the ground, some sorted out to be given away, the carpets freshened and vacuumed. The contents of each box was handled, turned over in the light, to see if they should stay or go on.

I'll be honest, a lot of them stayed. I'm a creature of familiar things, steeped generously in nostalgia and remember whens. Things that were once precious to me often stay precious forever, even if the reasons have been lost to time. Like the brown bag full of ribbons and one two dollar bill, kept together in that same lunch bag for years, since back when I used to wear ribbons in my hair, tied in bows. I never wore these, but I loved them. And I always kept them with that dollar bill.

Like my Baboonya's clothes filling almost a whole drawer, some waiting to be altered, some waiting for a special occasion, some waiting for me, too, to turn 80. Three slips, two silk one cotton with the straps held on by safety pins, a paisley dress, a red cotton sweater, a pink sweater, a sweater full of flowers, a button up sweatshirt with the sleeves chopped off at the elbows. That was her Saturday Cleaning Sweater, my mom said as she handed it to me, tearful.

That was almost a year ago. I tried it on again, one humble button left at the collar. I thought about her, tapping the comet against the edge of the sink without money to buy more. I put my hands in the pockets and pulled out two wadded up pink tissues and burst into tears. Is this wrong? -I couldn't bare to throw them away. Instead I took a picture and put back in the pockets, thickly lined with lint from countless other tissues forgotten and thrown into the wash.

These are things that help me keep track. This is how I trace a line through history, connecting the dots of stories and memories, as deep as DNA, and just as impossible to deny.

If you're reading this, thank you.
-A.H.

*the authors I "found"
Kathleen Alcala @katkat_alcala
Sofia Samatar @SofiaSamatar
Andrea Hairston @AAhairsto
Karen Lord @Karen_Lord
Zen Cho @zenaldehyde
Naomi Jackson @thenaomijackson
seriously, check them out.