Getting my bearings: Take 2

Another way I need to get my bearings is to try and figure out where I am in the passing of time. Time is funny because it passes yet loops back around, sets the pace yets seems to change paces, seems straightforward but can be really disorienting. It marks our lives. Dormancy breaks and gives way to growth. Growth gives way to fruition. Fruition gives way to harvest. Harvest gives way to death. Death offers dormancy. I move through the cycle again and again, each time finding my bearings within each season.

Ritualistic repetition saves me. In the spring I hunt morels and take my first plunge into the vital icy water. It is spring. Mid summer Sally and I visit Mount Mitchell and pick Hypericum graveolens. August 2 I swim in the French Broad at dark after launching a raft with morsels of the garden harvest. At Thanksgiving I cook greens, bread and pumpkin pie to contribute to the family dinner. We eat the same things every year. The same people prepare the same dishes. I jump in the creek before or after dinner, and everyone asks "Was it cold?" to which I sometimes reply, "Does a wild bear shit in the woods?"

In December Sally and I set aside an entire day to bake a large batch of biscotti. We 10 times the recipe that Jude gave me years ago. We both bring a mix cd that we made and snacks to carry us through. We run a tight ship. Each year we choose a secret ingredient to put into the biscotti that our recipients are to guess. The recipients expect this and guess with enthusiasm. Our biscotti day is always called The Biscotti Bake-Off. It is supreme fun. Certain individuals always stop by the Inn where we are baking and sample the end pieces.

This year's biscotti bake-off fell early due to travel plans. I realized that traditions like this one not only warm my heart (and fill my belly), but they give me my bearings. Another year has passed. We are doing what we do again, and we are different and the same as we were last time. Somehow it really helps.

Biscotti recipe is here:  biscotti recipe click here!