- Cat:*puts paw on leg*
- Me:hoe dont do it
- Cat:*inserts claws*
- Me:oh m y g od
Author Archives: charissagrace
Mama’s
Those Razors Bloody
They were laying there on the ground
of my heart, bloody and gore-flecked
and dully glowing with the sheen of life
blood and the thrill of cutting to ribbons
the tenderest places of my heart.
I wrapped them in the ribbons of heart
you left intact, attached at one end
by the tenuous tendrils of flesh that
you either missed, overlooked, or flat out
just didn’t care enough to slash.
I hung those wrapped razors
those razors bloody with me and fading
up on the wall where your picture
used to be, and I straightened them
so they hung just so, and straight…
my mementos remaining of you
and my hopes for a future with you
dripping onto the floor
and then drying out and becoming
a static reminder of a moment
in a dynamic river of our lives.
“It’s A Healthy Little Baby!” (Gender TBD)
So Constance, on Sunday there was a birth announcement. A child had been born, healthy and mom was okay too. Everyone was happy and feeling good about a new little life in the world…and then came this:
“It’s a healthy little girl!” Followed by a smattering of applause and some coos and happy noises…
…and just like that a potential nightmare of dysphoria is begun.
Can you see it here? First of all, the very first thing we are told about this child is its gender, before anything else. Everyone wanted to know this, and from this point on, that child is going to be socialized and treated according to cultural customs and expectations that may have nothing to do with who that child really is, and could be quite harmful to the child in that they would run directly counter to the child’s identity.
And we know the child’s gender how? Why, because we looked between the legs…and now a human being’s first most basic categorizing has been accomplished in the name of genitalia. Never mind the fact that there are all kinds of intersex conditions that only show up upon chromosomal examination…no need for that, right?
Now…the odds are that this child will turn out to be female. But those odds are not as long as what everyone thinks. And just think…if that child turns out to be like I was, and learns that their very being is wrong, is naught and ought not…
Not to mention how I felt, sitting there…in the midst of allies and friends mind you! Who in all the reflex of the ritual sat there and gendered a human being less than a week old and without even having met the child let alone heard her tell us who she is! They would all say they support me…but it is sadly still a support after a couple of layers of thought and reminding themselves that I am “identifying female”.
And that makes me cry, because I identify as a human being.
I am female.
I get criticized often for being persnickety about words…I get anxious about what people mean and question closely and then feel like I am an irritant when others say that they were not speaking as specifically as I took what was said.
But I am that way because of things like this…when a whole identity has been rendered a done deal without even a word being said by the person thus sentenced.
When will it be natural for us to announce our healthy children, and the great anticipation that we have in finding out who they are? Think how they would be brought up! Think how much more balanced and developed they would be.
Oh, and don’t worry…they will tell us their gender. It is that basic. You can rest assured of that simply by reflecting on how you would react if someone sought to police you as a gender other than that which you are.
Gender is more than genitalia…when will our understandings of one another be so too?
Until then, I will find myself alone, and sitting embarrased while gender privilege is handed out right and left, and a certain ratio doomed by this policing to join me in the ranks of those of who sit in the pew together…all alone.
Lord Byron
And thus the heart will break,
yet brokenly live on.
yet brokenly live on.
LORD BYRON, POEMS
When All Seems Hushed (from Samuel Beckett’s “Molloy”)
And that night there was no question of moon,
nor any other light, but it was a night of listening,
a night given to the faint soughing and sighing
stirring at night in little pleasure gardens,
the shy sabbath of leaves and petals
and the air that eddies there
as it does not in other places,
where there is less constraint,
and as it does not during the day,
when there is more vigilance,
and then something else that is not clear,
being neither the air nor what it moves,
perhaps the far unchanging noise
the earth makes and which other noises cover,
but not for long. For they do not account for that noise
you hear when you really listen,
when all seems hushed. And there was another noise,
that of my life become the life of this garden
as it rode the earth of deeps and wildernesses.
Yes, there were times when I forgot not only who I was, but that I was, forgot to be.
SAMUEL BECKETT, MOLLOY
In Charissa’s Kitchen May 12th 2015
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
Not A “Sometimes” Girl
I am not a “sometimes” girl
a sometimes thrill or sometimes time.
I am not occasionally
or when you feel like coming round.
I’m not available just now and then
if that’s what you want, well I just grin
and fake it like it’s all the time
but I am gone around the bend.
I am not a kitchen drawer
full of batteries and more
to be wrenched open in your need
and taken from as seed to feed
an image of a self or time
when fullness is a masquerade
for decorating a fat heart
I’m a whole, not just a part.
I guess that means I run the risk
of standing lonely in the dusk
and looking on from the outside
but that’s okay…I turn and ride
knowing I am me and always
all the time an always girl
This Irony Is Too Good!
Omg…so I just wrote this poem about my hair…about my Cat-Hair (well, maybe it is about other things too…I will leave that to the more energetic of you)…
…and then I saw this quote and literally laughed, just guffawed!!
SHOUTOUT TO CATS
FOR GETTING THEIR CLAWS STUCK IN THINGS
AND THEN WHEN YOU HELP THEY GET OFFENDED
THAT YOU TOUCHED THEIR PAW
Me and My Cat-Hair
Me and my Cat-Hair go where we want!
Well, my Cat-hair does, anyway.
I just trail frantically, pulled right along
as it wanders and pries and looks into burrows
and lays in the sun and just licks its soft paws
with no care in the world but those mice!
Sometimes it looks really cool, and just perfect!
Purring there, cooing and wanting the touch
of a hand that will smooth its sleek soft furry pelt
and some fingers so friendly with their gentle skritch
skritch skritch and then a flat palm to do obeisance.
But then there are times when my Cat-hair just hisses!
Its eyes glowing green and just brimming with daggers
and it jumps akimbo and arches its back
and it dares me, just dares me to try to address it
with anything less than a rake and a hoe
and better get ready to wrestle a she-devil
scratches for skritches and clawings for pettings!!
My Cat-hair and me are sometimes called names
and sometimes called other and sometimes called mask
and sometimes called liar and sometimes called nothing
and that’s when my Cat-hair sits silent, tail lashing
and eyes focused into the void that is lurking
inside the accusers who say they hate cats
when what they really mean is that they just hate me…
well, Cat-hair is there, and I cannot do anything
to make it dog-hair or human or cow-hair
or sheep-hair or anything else that would walk
off the Ark on that day when the floodwaters drained
and the animals rambled in freedom again.
so I guess I will just go with Cat-hair, just sitting there
being itself, just my Cat-hair and me.
Untitled
the way Mama fills the void with light
the way Mama inhabits the space in my friend
the way my friend inhabits the holes in me
the way of Love
This Singular Grain
These musings, these poems…
can I even call them that? Poems?
Do they speak in pregnant words that
once swallowed go into labor
and convulse and contract
until they have birthed a living thing
within you
like a flame
that won’t go out no matter
how the winds blow…
like a wolf, sleek and proud
until it is lassoed by some slaver
and thrown in a cage and starved
and forced to feed on its own howls
instead, and grows ever skinnier,
ever more vital and
there?
But here is another day,
and my head full
of thoughts and fears
and feints and faints
and my heart singular
and immersed in Them,
Their Presence
with me
(this is what is called “faith”, actually
Their Presence everywhere…
faith is not some blind belief
like “it’s all good” or
“everything happens for a reason”
or “things teach you things until you learn things”)
Yeah…They are here
and they are here too,
those thoughts
and those feelings
and more…
these questions
about meaning
and value
and purpose
and significance.
When
I light a
bonfire of
branches and twigs too,
and I see the eager orange
hot tongues released from within
and licking those limbs and glowing
with their pleasure so hot and inviting,
I can hear the pop and crackle
of the disappearing of solidity,
the giving up of structure
in exchange for release
until all that is left
is ashes
and each branch, each twig
is indistinguishable and one at
last in its lost uniqueness.
I hear the pop and crackle all around me
and I feel the heat and tug
of straining release and the
chill of ghostly whispers
that nothing matters,
and I wonder
why I
write,
why I
sing these
notes of Grace?
Swallow, wipe my tears
bind up my bleeding broken heart
and rise to the day
reminding myself
unless a grain of wheat
fall into the ground
and die
it remains
alone
but if it dies
it produces much grain
it brings forth much fruit
Walk On A Spring Evening in May
I walk the gloaming path,
rain-drips fragrant whispering
to leaves, to rocks and kissing
moss with secret snikkle-nips
of spring flower nectar.
the night rises out
of dusky shadows
grown bold as the sun
shrinks first behind her
cloudy veil and then
sheltered behind hills
she drops her gown
to stand unclothed
hidden and revealed
solid and present (like me)
in the growing dark
and i think about you there
in boulevards of noise and neon
surrounded by staggering solitude,
aloneness in the conflaxity and klaxxon
streets of phony fire.
the ferns bend,
wave in winds
and breathe in
my loneliness
as I pass by,
sort of a
photosynthesis
of the heart, of soul,
of sorrow rebreathed
and transformed
into something
less than
and clean.
what was today?
what are these
days strange and
alien to me,
totally same and
labeled other?
totally different
and called
a mask?
but the path,
fresh and baptised
in the cleansing
of the sky
(become the river)
(become my tears)
(become my steps)
the path beckons
and mirth
tamped, banked
whispers from
under leaves
and rain
and wind
“follow, and be amazed.”
so I walk
in the rain,
in the growing
dark of fading day
and happy night
stars there
behind clouds
waiting to walk
the runways of
my hurty broken heart
gracing each jagged edge
with the light
behind the Rose
behind the sun.
i cry gentle
and I walk on
to the next rising.
Serious Question!
Why is someone who is considered an adult, or mature…
…now called “grown-ass”?
I am genuinely flummoxed by this, and absolutely have no idea what that slang even means…
…grown ass???
Are you serious? What does it mean?
Oh, what it signifies is clear…a lot of language now days is mere emoting and signifying, and I decry that, it grieves me.
But I just heard someone who should know better refer to themselves as “grown-ass”.
*the effort to conceal derisive laughter was significant*
Not Even Columbo
could figure out this riddle
could dissolve this mystery
of your love for me
not his slouchy raincoats
not his glass eye glinting
not his nasty cigar waving
(that wet wad wandering
don’t they all??)
there’s joy in them there hills
and gold in that there heart
that hides from every searcher
except for me
it’s there so certain
so obviously
and no one else
can find it
not even Columbo
White Male Privilege? The Epitome
burning the insides (For Jane)
i am burning
the insides, today…
for you i am
burning my cleansings
the insides of my veins
the insides of my organs
the hidden, the deepest,
the most secret
places i burn for you,
for your face
you are core inside core
inside me and the day
i chose to be
tattooed inside
by you inside
with you
was the day
my life was ever
set on high
and rendered ever
always
you see
you remember,
rags of past
times torn asunder
from their loom
where they were
so careful woven
to lay precious
ones under
well i have
made a fire of me
my insides (you)
and see the smoke,
how it cleanses
your self-recriminations
from your lungs
and replaces
them with us
my insides
which are you
pulsing thru me
coursing thru me
like wild horses
in spain
(see their flying manes)
under that rainy thunder sky
while torrents plunge
pelt pungent
onto the plains
so dry
and the smell
of hot rock
so dry
of heated flint
so dry
and flying dust
so dry
struck from sky
by fierce waters fallen
from on high
in our house
in us
we are made
clean in our love
forever.
the best decision
i ever made was you
in all your icy-fire ways
fiery-ice inside and me
ever entranced and held
ever committed to hold
both nurtured
i’d do it over again,
all again
longer than karma
(see her?
cruel imitation
with her puny wheel)
The Honey of Kindness
Transgender Today – Avery Jackson – NYTimes.com
Over 50% of transgender children try to commit suicide by their mid to late teenage years. A large number of them succeed. And the main reason that these children state that they try to harm themselves is the lack of love and support of their family and friends. My wife and I decided that we would much rather have a happy, healthy daughter than a dead son.
Dynamic Tension! Not “Balance”
I agree with this quote, if you understand that balance is the same as paralysis, because all is at stasis, and nothing moves.
Think about it: when you walk, when you bike, when you do most anything you place yourself in dynamic tension with being off balance and some sort of motion or momentum or direction.
Right?
Balance has a practical connotation, which means “don’t fall over” or don’t crash and burn”…but the culprit is not “lack of balance” (for balance is actually an illusion)…
The culprit is loss of direction! And thus one falls over. Remember! The right leg must follow the left…the arms must swing in harmonious yet dynamic tension…and the mind must be fixed on the goal, the prize so that the will can empower the legs to move, the arms to swing.
And now for the quote:
“Life is about balance. Be kind, but don’t let people abuse you. Trust, but don’t be deceived. Be content, but never stop improving yourself.”
| — | Nishan Panwar |
So how about this instead:
“Life is about dynamic tension. Be kind, but don’t let people abuse you. Trust, but don’t be deceived. Be content, but never stop improving yourself.”
| — | Nishan Panwar |
I LITrally Thought This When I Was Young!
“In school, I was taught that the word “men” could mean all genders—it was up to the reader to be inclusive with the word in their mind. The word women always just meant women. So maybe men just need to find their path to include themselves every time I say women.”
| — | Katherine Bernard, reading Maggie Nelson’s “The Argonauts” |
Impossibility Concealed
I saw this quote just now…and I want to comment on it afterwards. Read on:
“It annoys me so much when people take advantage of someone’s kindness.”
Please note: if a person is truly being kind, it is impossible to “take advantage”…you have already been given advantage. Any “taking” involved is just your mental gymnastics performed to justify something within yourself…the mere propping up of an ego-centered and self-oriented world view that fosters the idea that anything good must be taken.
The humiliation of receiving…it is a huge stumbling block for so many, and yet the privilege of being kind can overcome it.
Because kindness is only kindness if it is given with an open hand and a priori of any sort of reaction by the recipient.
How you respond to kindness given says nothing about me and everything about you.
Why not choose and act in kind?
Sleeping Easier
I am sleeping easier these days
though haunted still by each day’s fading light
and dread foreboding in the dead of night
that clutched my bones and left me in a daze,
I’m detoxing from terror’s ghosty ways.
The fear of sleep walks hand in glove with death.
The fear of not being awake is like
that cloying fear, the fear of not-being…
and who can really ever fathom that!
Because to not-be is to not know breath
or fragrance of red roses on the wind
or deep contented sighs at journeys end
or hearts melded forever with a friend.
I used to lie awake at night,
too scared to go to sleep
for sleep was so indifferent,
and yet so sinister, so threatening
cus sleep seemed to be no different than death,
you know? You’re there, awake, aware
and then you’re gone…not there…
Not moving, not talking,
not thinking.
Not aware.
Not aware
(but there were nightmares in the air
and battles with the most horrific enemy
the world has ever known
as I lay there in my bed….
so still and so unable to move
while trying to fight death
and trying to wake up at last
for good)
Sleep is that disquieting reminder
of that which we try to deny each day.
For how much of our lives and livelihoods
aim at outrunning death’s finality?
We stock pile emails, push for more
make productivity our shield
against the wrinkles, against time itself,
against the aging
against dying
But now I know that sleep is the reminder
that we all need to remember our beauty
and revere life in its brief brevity…
Sleep can wake us up to what comes after
we fall fast into its steadfast grasp
and death uncoils and slithers like an asp
to sting us with its fearsome fang and clasp
us to its chilling breast and putrid rasp
of its reedy voice doing its duty…
and there, buried in slumber’s cotton arms
we wake forever more to heaven’s charms
and smell the fragrance precious in the air
of dreams more real than this harsh life’s cold cares
of riches more true than the wealth of worlds
and these magnificent words at death hurled:
“I Am the Resurrection and the Life
and all who trust in Me, believe in Me
shall live, though that bell toll for thee”
Someday I’ll sleep for my very last time
I’ll drift into the dark and dread unknowing
and be wrapped in the horror of not knowing
but from this slumber I will finally stir
and death will finally be forced to concur
that I am dancing, finally awake
and yes, the Good Lord came, my soul to take…
See…I am sleeping easier these days
Yes, I am sleeping easier these days.
Footprints of Kindness
In Charissa’s Kitchen May 6th 2015
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
Outgrowths of Purposive Grace
“You’ve been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try accepting yourself and see what happens.”
| — | Louise Hay |
“Can’t We Just Be Us?”
This.
You’d have two completely different views of the trans movement if you either read all the recent articles, or just the comments on them.
Articles: Tipping Point! Hollywood trend! Rapid change in public understanding & acceptance! We love you!
Comments: Sick, disgusting, delusional, predatory harbingers of utter doom and destruction! Who are also ugly!
If there is a truth, I suppose it’s somewhere between. Trendy monsters perhaps? Loathsome darlings? Delusional seers?
When can we just be us?”
Neuroscience and gender identity: This video explains the ‘transgender brain’ – PsyPost
This is a worthy vid…easy to understand, energetic, and not too awful long.
Charissa sez “Check it OUT!”
Wisdom From The Ancients
Seneca writes:
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it.
You are living as if destined to live for ever; your own frailty never occurs to you; you don’t notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you had a full and overflowing supply — though all the while that very day which you are devoting to somebody or something may be your last. You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire… How late it is to begin really to live just when life must end! How stupid to forget our mortality, and put off sensible plans to our fiftieth and sixtieth years, aiming to begin life from a point at which few have arrived!
In Charissa’s Kitchen May 5th 2015
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
This…When It Is The Time To Speak
“Nothing haunts us like the things we don’t say.”
| — | Mitch Albom, Have a Little Faith: a True Story |
Answers In The Storm-Watch
“Sometimes, not saying anything is the best answer. You see, silence can never be misquoted.”
| — | Unknown |
The Power of Grieving, The Power of Time
I’m pretty sure that all of us have experienced sadness, but I really don’t know if all of us have experienced grief.
I’m talking about that helpless rage that is so great it is calm, so empty that you have never felt so full, and so sticky it seems you can never be expiated.
It comes from the loss of something or someone you were not designed to lose.
You do realise that, don’t you? Human beings were not designed to experience this sort of relational loss.
Loss is the result of something else that happened to creation due to the way free will was/is decided to be used.
But as with all forms of fracture, God is faithful to bring forth creative answers and counter-creations, in all Their faithful infiniteness…They always have a beauty that will come to you and weld with you and in you, and though the fracture is never “not have happened”, it is somehow made beautiful.
This.
This is the hope, and the glory of God. They are faithful, each and every time, if you will be patient, hold on, and keep your heart open.
-
I’m going to take this from you
but give this to you instead:
more space, cleansing tears,
better questions, compassion,
pathways to the center,
maps to deeper wells,
less distractions,
blankets of darkness,
little pools of light under your skin
where he touched you
but will never touch you again,
and holes in your heart
that nothing but pure love can fill.~ McCall Erickson
57 Things You Can Do to Be a Better Cook Right Now
You don’t need culinary school. You don’t need expensive equipment. You don’t even need that much experience. All you need to be a better cook today is a little bit of knowledge. Or, in the case of this list, 57 little bits.
1. BUY AN INSTANT-READ DIGITAL MEAT THERMOMETER.
The quickest way to ruin a perfectly marbled $25 steak? Cutting into it to figure out if it’s medium rare. Yes, the Thermapen is $95, but four steaks later, you’ve broken even.
2. WRITE IN YOUR COOKBOOKS.
Soup could have used more tomato? Chicken needed ten more minutes in the oven? Make a note of it and you’ll never make that mistake again.
3. MASTER THE QUICK-PICKLE.
Whisk a little salt and sugar into some white vinegar. Pour over thinly sliced raw vegetables. Wait 20 minutes. Eat.
4. GET YOUR KNIVES PROFESSIONALLY SHARPENED.
You may have a steel or a sharpener at home, but once a year, get a pro to revive those knives. Your chopping will get faster, more precise—and, believe it or not, safer.
5. FOUR WORDS TO LIVE BY: CHICKEN THIGH FAMILY PACK.
Chicken breasts are expensive and can get dull after a while; thighs are juicier, cheaper, and more flavorful.
6. TOSS MOST OF YOUR SPICES—ESPECIALLY THAT GROUND CUMIN.
Ground spices die quickly. So give them a whiff—if they don’t smell like anything, they won’t taste like anything. And if they don’t taste like anything, you’re cooking with a flavorless, brown powder.
7. JOIN A CSA.
At a minimum, you’ll learn how to cook kale fifteen ways. At a maximum, you’ll broaden your culinary horizons by finding ways to use up all that fresh produce.
8. REPLACE YOUR NON-STICK SKILLET.
Do your scrambled eggs slide off the pan if you don’t use oil or butter? They should. Might be time for an upgrade.
9. TREAT YOUR HERBS LIKE FLOWERS.
There’s nothing worse than limp herbs. Next time, trim the stems and put the parsley in a glass of water, fit a plastic bag over it, and stash it in the refrigerator.
10. GET A MANDOLINE AND DON’T BE AFRAID TO USE IT.
Want gorgeous scalloped potatoes or perfectly julienned carrots? Buy a mandoline. Are you a scaredycat? Wear a cut-resistant safety glove until you feel comfortable bare-handed.
11. DOUBLE THAT BATCH OF RICE (OR QUINOA, OR BULGAR, OR…)
Having cooked grains in your fridge means that fried rice, pilafs, rice bowls and robust salads are just minutes away.
12. MAKE SURE YOUR WORK AREA IS WELL LIT.
Look, the 40-watt lightbulb in your oven hood isn’t going to cut it. Get a cheap clamp light from a hardware store so you can see what you’re doing.
13. BUY PARCHMENT PAPER.
What else are you going to roast your vegetables on? How else are you going to make quick dinners of fish en papillote?
14. STOCK UP ON SUPER-CHEAP, RANDOM CUTS OF MEAT.
A freezer full of roasted turkey necks and bony beef cuts will ensure you always have what you need to make broth.
15. KEEP YOUR PARMESAN RINDS AND FREEZE THEM FOR LATER.
Remember that thing about super-cheap cuts of meat? Think of rinds as cheese bones.
16. BUY A NEW KITCHEN SPONGE.
Existential question time. If your sponge is filthy and smells, how can you expect it get your dishes clean?
17. PUT THE LID ON THE POT TO MAKE YOUR WATER BOIL FASTER.
Seems obvious, but if you don’t know, now you know.
18. DRY YOUR SALAD GREENS USING A KITCHEN TOWEL.
Salad spinners? So bulky and annoying. Instead, pile your just-washed greens into a clean dish towel, gather it by the ends, and swing that sucker around until your salad is dry (or your arm is tired).
19. SAVE THE SCHMALTZ.
Chicken fat is amazing stuff, whether you’re frying onions in it, sautéing greens in it or spreading it on toast. So after eating your roast chicken dinner, drain the now-cooled liquid fat into a plastic container and store it in your freezer. (Pro tip: This also holds true forbacon fat.)
20. USE A GARBAGE BOWL.
Hat tip to Rachael Ray. Buy a large bowl and keep it at the ready to fill up with egg shells and other trash generated while cooking.
21. BUY A NEW Y PEELER.
Like anecdotes about high school football games, peelers get dull, especially after a couple years. We recommend the Kuhn Rikon Swiss Peeler, which is just seven bucks.
22. FIND THE BIGGEST MIXING BOWL YOU CAN AND BUY IT.
You cannot toss a salad or mix cookies or make meatballs in a tiny cereal bowl. All you can do is make a bigger mess.
23. AVOID EVIL GLASS CUTTING BOARDS.
And they’re all evil. Glass cutting boards send shivers down your spine when you use them. They dull your knives. They’re slippery. And they’re hard to use. Use wood, bamboo or plastic instead.
24. BUY TWO LOAVES OF THAT AWESOME BREAD AND FREEZE ONE.
Bread keeps really well in the freezer. And there are always plenty of uses for it. Just remember: Air is the enemy! Wrap that loaf in foil (sliced or unsliced) and put it in a freezer bag before stashing.
25. STOP CROWDING YOUR PANS.
Food that’s crowded into a cast-iron skillet or sheet tray gets steamed—and soggy—instead of crisp.
26. TOAST YOUR SPICES…
A quick stint in a dry skillet over medium heat wakes dry spices up and releases their oils, which means your paprika will taste a lot more paprika-y. Use whole spices, watch the pan like a hawk, and stir constantly until the spices are fragrant, then transfer to a plate to cool before using.
27. …AND YOUR NUTS.
“These nuts are too crunchy,” said nobody ever.
28. …AND ALSO YOUR GRAINS.
It’s the first step to building roasty, warm flavor. (Using quinoa? Toast it before you rinse it.)
29. SEASON (SOME OF) YOUR VEGETABLES WITH SUGAR.
Carrots, squash, tomatoes—these vegetables have a natural sweetness that’s enhanced by a dash (just a dash!) of sugar.
30. DON’T BE AFRAID TO SET OFF THE SMOKE ALARM.
Especially when cooking meat. Smoke equals char, and char is delicious.
31. PUT A DAMP PAPER OR KITCHEN TOWEL UNDER YOUR CUTTING BOARD.
That way, your board won’t slip around as you chop.
32. WHEN A RECIPE CALLS FOR CHOCOLATE CHIPS, BREAK OUT A BAR OF CHOCOLATE INSTEAD.
Chopping your own chips creates pockets of melty chocolate throughout your cookies—some small, some large, all delicious.
33. SALT YOUR SALADS.
It adds texture. It makes the dressing pop. It’s proof that there’s nothing—nothing—you shouldn’t be salting.
34. COOL YOUR FOOD BEFORE PUTTING IT IN THE FRIDGE OR FREEZER.
If you don’t, the temperature in the refrigerator will rise. And the only thing that benefits is mold.
35. DON’T TOAST YOUR TOAST. FRY IT.
Warm some butter or olive oil over medium-high heat. Lay in bread and fry until golden on both sides. Sell your toaster.
36. BUY YOUR AVOCADOS AT A MEXICAN GROCERY STORE.
Those are the stores that sell them ripe.
37. ALWAYS KEEP LEMONS IN THE FRIDGE.
They’ll keep longer that way, so you’ll always be able to add fresh lemon juice to everything from dressings to cocktails. Plus, you can use the squeezed rinds to clean and deodorize your wooden cutting boards.
38. CARAMELIZE MORE ONIONS THAN YOU NEED TO.
A lot more—you’ll use the extras in omelets and sandwiches; on chicken, steak and pork; in pastas and stews.
39. GET A MICROPLANE.
Sick of shredding your knuckles instead of cheese? Buy a Microplane, which will provide years of shredding power for about $15.
40. SWITCH TO METAL MEASURING CUPS AND SPOONS.
Plastic warps over time, making them less precise.
41. STORE SALAD GREENS IN A RESEALABLE PLASTIC BAG WITH A PAPER TOWEL.
The towel is there to absorb moisture, which keeps your greens crisper, longer.
42. FIND (AND BUY) PROFESSIONAL-GRADE KITCHEN TOWELS.
Oh look, we just found them for you.
43. SOFTEN YOUR BUTTER…
Serving it cold and hard on toast—on anything, really—is the one way to make butter bad. (Need it soft in a hurry? Here are four ways.)
44. …AND MIX SOMETHING INTO IT.
A little shallot, some chopped herbs, maybe some lemon zest—boom. You just made compound butter.
45. MICROFIBER DISH-DRYING MATS ARE BETTER THAN DISH RACKS.
So is a decent dish towel. Who has space for a dish rack?
46. BUY BROWN SUGAR AS YOU NEED IT, IN AS SMALL A QUANTITY AS POSSIBLE.
The stuff just doesn’t keep very long.
47. BUT IF YOUR BROWN SUGAR IS ROCK-HARD, DON’T THROW IT OUT.
Revive it with a minute or so in the microwave.
48. ESTABLISH A SALT BOWL.
Having a stash of salt always within arm’s reach when you’re at the stove is the first step to better seasoner (see tip 57).
49. BAKE PIES IN GLASS PIE PANS.
It heats more evenly than tin, and when your pie is perfectly golden-brown everywhere, you’ll know it.
50. OIL, SALT, ROAST—IN THAT ORDER.
When roasting vegetables, toss them in oil, then season them with salt and pepper and toss again. This way, the seasoning actually sticks to your food.
51. KEEP YOUR VEGETABLE SCRAPS.
Toss fennel fronds, carrot ends and other vegetable scraps into a resealable plastic bag you keep in the freezer. When you reach critical mass, make vegetable stock.
52. MAKE YOUR OWN CROUTONS.
Toss cubed bread on a rimmed baking sheet with oil, salt, pepper and whatever other tasty thing you fancy. Bake at 350, tossing once or twice, until golden brown. Now see if any actually make it to your salad.
53. AIR-DRY YOUR CHICKENS.
After you’ve unwrapped and rinsed your bird, pat it dry, salt it generously, and let it stand in the refrigerator, uncovered, for a few hours before roasting. The bone-dry skin will cook up to a crackly, crunchy, golden brown.
54. PEEL GINGER AND KEEP IT IN THE FREEZER.
Not only will it last longer, it will grate it more easily.
55. MARINATE YOUR CHEESE.
Mozzarella, feta, and fresh goat cheese? Delicious. Mozz, feta and goat cheese marinated in olive oil, chile flakes, and fresh herbs? More delicious.
56. BUY A BETTER ICE CUBE TRAY.
The ice cubes that come out of the dispenser in your fridge? They’re watering down your cocktails. Cubes made in silicone ice trays are denser and keep your Bourbon cold for hours (or, you know, however long it lasts).
57. TASTE—AND SEASON—AT EVERY STAGE OF COOKING.
Because if you wait until the end, it’s probably too late.
Be Ye Not Lot’s Wife!
“Don’t stumble over something that’s behind you.”
| — | Unknown |
In Mama’s Sweet Relief
Those
broken shards,
*scream*
those brittle,
bright blasted shards
jagged and hungry and
so shockingly absent.
They yawn with full belly
and ravenous soul for more
death, more hurt, more
*unlife*
but I have them
in my sights, now.
I shall throw me down
on my sister’s wounds
I shall bleed my heart dry
with balm from Gilead and
I shall cry out
in constant consolation
from her inward parts
while our
Strong Soldier Sisters Stand
round about us outside and ringed
in winged-woman-might
and tender hearts
so knit,
so tight.
And in
your death place
I find
life transcendent
And in
my own
your laugh rings
so resplendent
we will survive
our screams,
our tears,
our grief
and rest together
in Mama’s Sweet Relief.
On Purposive Grace
Dear Constance…
Transition is the most incredible, revealing, testing and purifying crucible I have ever been in. It has taken every single area and facet of my existence into its cruelly loving, True Arms. Spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. It is revealing who I am and always have been, it is consuming who I was not and never was, and it is catalyzing all that I was/am/will be in that growth process that goes on throughout life.
The greatest gift it has given me, though, is the gift of being…and knowing that I am a co-author of this being, in ways that I previously had no arms and legs to embrace and carry. I also lacked a deeper awareness of just how little the leviathan gravity of the past chains me to itself, and how much that same past grounds me in my choice of who I am today, tomorrow, the next day, and the rest of my days…
I have received the gift of Purposive Grace. Let me explain.
So in the last 6 months, it has been shown to me very clearly that my experience of the last 31 years is totally divergent from that of other people in my life during this time. Words have been spoken to me, around me, about me that were/are very destructive, vitriolic, hateful, angry, cold, sarcastic, condescending, judgmental, derisive, and crushing.
Words from people that I think the world of and have endeavored with all of my might to love, sacrifice for, serve, and encourage. I had thought that in spite of imperfectness, I had done a faithful job in this…
…I have discovered that their experience was utterly other and that I am perceived as the most abusive, controlling, hateful, distant and absent person in their experience. I have been named things that hurt so deeply that I just went numb for a few days and then finally the indescribable pain was actually a relief because I knew that I wasn’t dead.
In short, it seems that I have been a complete and utter failure in every way and everything that I had as my guiding vision for how to live, and that is that, game over…see you, wouldn’t wanna be you.
Add in the other experiences come my way since I chose authenticity over mere existence, those wonderful accusations of being demon possessed, in rebellion towards God, back-slidden, a sexual deviant, etc. etc. and you have the sum total of the majority viewpoint of who and what I was and am.
But:
…my own experience of this time was very different than what I am hearing now, and it is in this disconnect that my sanity and my soul was truly tested and put into the fires of refinement.
I have asked myself: what is my mission in life, my own self-defined, self-desired one true and central throbbing purpose? Is that changed or different? The answer is no! I am still me, and I took the name Charissa Grace because of this vision/purpose/passion!!
Yielded vessel, yielding blessing.
Since I was a young child, I have had a 3-fold prayer that I have never stopped praying, though I have many times had reason to regret it due to the pain and suffering that have followed it in the preparation for its reality.
1. I freely chose to give up my free will as my one and only true gift of love to God…it is the only thing that I have that is mine and mine alone that no one can control or take, including God…so I reasoned that it was the most valuable thing I had to give Them in order to show Them my love and gratefulness. That has been since I was about 9 years old or so…
…the choice to have no choice but belonging to Them.
2. I asked Them to please let me be a real christian, and what that meant to me was that I wanted to live out the reality of being the most gracious and kind, most tender encouraging, gentle-hearted, faithful and patient person I could be. I wanted to truly live out loving my enemies, living a sacrificial life in joy (not that supercilious martyr-spirit sanctimony), being enthusiastic, being kind…always kind, and giving grace out as if it were as plentiful as the sands of the Sahara rather than so rare and precious as the most valuable pearls. I wanted to truly forgive everything and do so with the power to enable grace preeminent in a person’s life afterward.
“With the measure you use to measure out, so shall it be measured out to you.”
“You will be forgiven in the same manner that you yourself forgive.”
Those words haunted me then…and do so now as well. God knows how badly I screw up…everything.
*Sick, rueful chuckle*…God knows, and so do I, now…it seems that I have totally and completely utterly destroyed the lives of those whom I would die for without even a flinch…
…so you can see my deep awareness of the need to be forgiven, the utter necessity of grace for me…
…that is what my prayer to be a real christian meant/means.
3. I asked if I could know a true death to self and alive-ness to God. I took Philippians 3:8-14 as my life verses, understanding the “fellowship of His Suffering” to be that daily embrace of death to self, so that one day I could honestly say “it is no longer I who live, but Jesus who lives in me!”
So, all that…and now today, in the ashes of the reports about who and what I was, am and was thought to be…
Has anything changed, regarding my future?
Is there anything I can do to change the past?
Most important, do the experiences and judgments of others define me? Or do I retain the power to define myself and determine my own being in the midst of the future’s yet to be revealed manifestation?
The answer, of course, is that the words and deeds of others ultimately have no bearing on who I want to be.
Thus: there are 2 different possibilities:
A. I was completely guilty of every last accusation. I was an utter failure.
B. I was essentially who and what I thought I was, and given the fact that no one is without error and flaw I am not guilty of what I am indicted of.
I am confronted with a choice of what to do…how to respond, how to live, how to not respond and not live…and it is clear to me that my original 3-fold prayer and my current life mission statement are still viable and legitimate!
If “A” is true, then my daily quest is to learn from that bankrupt experience and use it as a platform to be a different person: to be
“the most gracious and kind, most tender encouraging, gentle hearted, faithful and patient person….truly live out loving my enemies, living a sacrificial life in joy (not that supercilious martyr-spirit sanctimony), being enthusiastic, being kind…always kind, and giving grace out as if it were as plentiful as the sands of the Sahara rather than so rare and precious as the most valuable pearls…truly forgive everything, and do so with power to make grace preeminent in a person’s life afterwards.”
If “A” is true, I have lost for the rest of my days in the earth the most important and truest treasures of my very marrow…and so that loss and pain shall become fuel to purpose to forever be better to others and give to them what I failed to give in spite of my highest and best efforts to my deepest hearts…that loss and pain shall make me tender and kind, and utterly forgiving of all wrongs, for God knows how deeply I stand in need of forgiveness.
If “B” is true, then I am dealing with the complex combination of intersecting vectors involved with the becoming of other people and their lives chosen and lived out daily…and I have the greatest opportunity any human being can be given: the power to disappear wrong and hurt and cold love! I have the chance to “bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things…”. The chance to discover a true love, and live out the fulfilment of my 3-fold prayer.
Constance, have you noticed anything yet?
In either case, the past is past and has no power to keep me from the future I choose for myself!!
There is nothing…nothing…that I can do to change, undo, redo, do the first time when it comes to the past!
But there is everything I can do in terms of going forward.
This is Purposive Grace. The things others think or say do not define who I am and want to be. I do.
And thus I chose to be…Charissa Grace.
May everyone who reads this understand this is the true meaning of my name: it is a promise of a hope and a future, and an undying commitment to choose God always, die to myself, and be a real christian who looks like Jesus.
My love always and ever, Heart, if you ever read here…ever.
Just know there is already forgiveness and welcoming heart, and utter commitment to giving what is in my power to give. Of course I am aware of your “aught against me” and I am utterly committed to taking responsibility for every wrong action, every action undone that should have been. But should it ever come to it, you never ever need to revisit any word spoken that you may later regret. It is already heard, received for what its heart cry was, sucked dry of all that is good and discarded into the seas of forgiveness for all that was other than good.
I love you always, and remain the one who treasures you for you and you alone, not anything you have done or did or not done or did.
Constance…how about you?
How do you choose to live? What hold will you allow the past on you? What vision will you grip and be gripped by? Please join me in this quest towards a life lived in Purposive Grace…ya never know: there could be miracles ahead!
Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly.
Charissa Grace
ESPECIALLY with transgender people…
“You shouldn’t point out things about people’s appearances if they can’t fix it in ten seconds.”
| — | Something my sister said once, that’s become an important thing to me |
How To Support A Transitioning Loved One
How To Support A Transitioning Loved One.
This.
Soo simple, really, and worthy of applying to everyone you meet, at the core of it.
Say On, Maya!
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
| — | Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings |
The Forest Dark Is Full of Grace
“dark is the forest and full of grace”
I read this line and it made me pause
as I recalled spanish moss lace
concealing all the oak tree’s flaws
and how the path did twist and flit
around the thickets dark and deep
to clearings where light does acquit
the night as my soul’s love will keep
you, in the brambles, in the brush
and lost in deepest forest glen
and blind to dusky quiet hush
or if not lost, well……wandering, then.
Full of grace…oh grace so sweet
and falling soft as snow on leaf
to wash and bless your tired feet
and lead you home healed of all grief,
this is the cry of my soft heart
cut from the velvet cloth of night
and covering every broken part
with grace like stars dancing so bright.
In Charissa’s Kitchen May 1st, 2015
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
The Mean Streets of Baltimore Look Like Human Hearts
I haven’t said much about Baltimore…others do it far better than I.
Clearly, something is very very wrong…and all the things I have been speaking about related to privilege and patriarchy pretty much determine whether you see this or not.
And let me (once again) be clear: my own eye-opening is a matter of about the last 5 years, and it has been accompanied by plenty of mourning and sorrow for the many lost years…just had to say that since there are those who think I merely ape the views of others and have a free pass from consequences…consequences I have been paying longer than these accusers have lived on this planet…but I digress.
Baltimore: what is there that the likes of I can say? So instead, I will post pics of the thing that makes the most sense as a response to what is taking place…and vicariously post this as my own cleansing ritual over my own soul and heart in order to be divested of the pollution and defilement of the past month.
Here is a novel idea…it would actually resolve Baltimore…and other matters as well:
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa
A woman burns sage on the streets of Baltimore –
Shameeka Dream walks along a line of Maryland State Troopers stationed on North Avenue while burning sage in the wake of protests for the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland on April 28, 2015.19
Please: Try to Grasp This, And Change…
Constance, this quote below…just this.
All you have is your experience in this world. The good…the bad…the whole and broken…add to that the sorts of experiences that the quote speaks of.
I would add one thing: dysphoria is a real condition that exists, of utter dislocation that transcends understanding, acceptance, and action. It can be managed and worked around, even built into certain things? But it can never be thought away, prayed away, or believed away.
The brain and body of a person with gender dysphoria will never flow together
They are oil and vinegar.
As such, they can be a fabulous and tasty dressing…but they will not find the congruence that is present with a cis-gendered person.
So all the crap and stuff that all humans endure? Differently abled people endure all that with additional conditions placed on their lives…dysphoria is one of them.
That doesn’t give me or any dysphoric person a pass…because each human has conditions on them that are invisible to everyone else.
So be tender hearted…understanding…full of forgiveness…and above all be kind.
Lives depend on it.
Of all the things I keep trying to tell cis people, “don’t presume your child’s gender” is the one that they consistently, deliberately refuse to understand and it is so deeply telling.
You cannot truly understand the transgender experience, and cannot count yourself an ally, until you accept that the trauma of being transgender is not inherent, it is a product of being coerced into thinking that you had absolutely no choice but to be the gender you were assigned.
Not “born with”, not “biologically”, the gender you were assigned.
The problem is assignment. The problem is doctors and parents believing it is their place to dictate their child’s gender, starting before they can even conceptualize what a gender is, let alone have the mental development necessary to object to what they’re given. This defines a child’s entire life, cuts short countless possibilities. It etches itself into the fabric of our developing minds and it is a ticking psychological time bomb for those children who are given a gender assignment that they cannot or do not wish to live with. This culture of dictated identity must end if transgender people are ever to be regarding as whole and equal members of society.
Trellis of A Future
Hush, Angel…
what? Oh, that…
yes, you are my angel
and always with that stardust
brushed on your heart’s eyelids
like Heaven’s mascara decorative and blessed.
I know you
built the walls
(you used my flesh
and blood as brick and
board and stone and mortar)
and your hands are covered in the stain and effort.
Never mind,
do not try to tear
it down, or dismantle
what you did not see you built.
I HAVE A PLAN! See, Ima grow
up and down and in my Lady’s Chambers
and cling
to divisive bricks
and cursing stones
and hangman boards
and bloody bones, in beauty
and covering all with fragrance
the fragrance of forgiveness
and love forevermore.
I Will NEVER Not Believe
I will never not believe,
my dearest one, who, sitting there
in lashings out and shifting blames
and broken memory
and cursed names…
you hate me for most everything
and hate the things I hold most dear,
the only Things that kept me here,
for that you hate the most, I fear
for I did by Them to Life cling
and midst death’s horrors tune and sing.
There is nothing I can say
I have no avenue or road
though if I could I would,
and time thus slowed
to return to each and every time
to lay me down and pray the Lord
my soul to take in payment there
to give you wholeness now, my dear.
but to not believe? Never…
it’s not that I would not give you
the gift you think you need, I would
but I cannot, because They can
in “my life”, this dead woeful run.
No matter what is said or sung,
no matter every fist that shakes
or heated voice above the fray
I always wait for coming day
to shatter this long “marish night”
oh this is me, Childe of the Light
and I ever will believe
that Jesus will my pain relieve
and heal the wrongness of my hands
and gather all the scattered sands
and run them back into the glass
and help you regain memories
of glad joy, life, of you-and-me’s…
I will never not believe
I will ever just believe
while ravens pull my innards out
may this restore something in you
if there is anything called grace
may it give you back your face
and everything that got ripped off
restoring everything to you…
mostly I wish you had your history true
and shared together with us but
I will never not believe.
Never
Give me Ayin Tovah!
Give me Ayin Tovah!
Please oh LORD!
I need that “good eye bright”
to see clearly in that glad light
the world and all that lives therein
more clearly than my dull blind sin!
I choose that which is most dear,
that which is higher than the rest,
that which is pregnant with the best of best,
OH! Give me river sight like waters
that rive out canyons deep and great
and beautiful in what has quick
been seen and then removed!
yeah, I admit it’s true, that siege
of heart and soul by warring sides
with all opinion to the south
and every thought discordant lurking
dead north in sly quick ambush!
But it’s okay, I’ll use this pain
to myself remind to keep my eyes
wide open, kind and wider still
than the mouth of Jonah’s whale
and my heart here open wider in this gale.
This is the key to our city on the dungheap
our city of ruins and all about is strewn
our cut off-ness from rich gold transcendence!
Because there is always persistence
of good, of beauty, and truth shines bright
and its pure light is all around us!
All I have to do is rest my naked eyes
on the most mundane things and not
blindly ignore that jarring exhibition
of our propensity for estrangement!
If I can manage to keep my eyes stripped
of fear and fig leaves, then I can manage
the gentle gifts and unveiled grace implied
in every true glimpse of beauty and wisdom!
“All human nature vigorously resists
grace because grace changes us
and the change is painful,”
wrote Flannery O’Connor, lost
in one of those times when God woos
slowly with beauty, grace, and grandeur, woes
like seeing evulsive rivers woe and woo
the earth, moving in a manner
that is missed so easily by busy lives
or critical lives so readily distracted
in a focused pointing elsewhere
(or any other where, for that matter).
In those mad times we are the mere
commuters between here and there
in Metro stations oblivious
to the works of Art before us, and
our estranged stony faces
miss the manifold displays
of a many-splendored God’s great graces
in such singular eternal entirety!
But other times, alas
it is we who find ourselves
moved nearly to blindness,
as we labor to take in
the glory of this God
in every startling moment,
like Moses or Isaiah lost
in deserts or in visions…
…Give me Ayin Tovah!
Please oh LORD!
I need that “good eye bright”
to see clearly in that glad light
the world and all that lives therein
more clearly than my dull blind sin!
Blue Beneath My Feet
this old stone house,
so grey and brown,
rough in texture,
tough in time,
shingled by
moments.
I finally got
the electricity on inside,
I finally see
from room to room
and everything
between,
and just when I found
the windows and
the verdant greens beyond and
the aqua blue beneath
it all went orange and then
began to change to red.
All red, all around
and blue beneath my feet.
The doors are locked (for now)
and windows blocked
and I am trapped inside
the stone and brown
beneath the shingles scratchy
and surrounded by the red
that fades to brown
and then to nothing
But it flows,
that blue stream
alive and cool and sweet
and whispers to me
of a place where all is true
a place where all is blue
blue beneath my feet
I Cannot Do This Alone by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I Cannot Do This Alone
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray
And to concentrate my thoughts on you;
I cannot do this alone.
In me there is darkness,
But with you there is light;
I am lonely, but you do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;
I am restless, but with you there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;
I do not understand your ways,
But you know the way for me….
Restore me to liberty,
And enable me to live now
That I may answer before you and before men.
Lord whatever this day may bring,
Your name be praised.
Amen
What Is Love?
Do you love someone?
What is that like for you? When they please you is it fantastic? When they hurt you, whether intentionally or inadvertently, do you want to just pull away and cut them off?
What is love?
I really don’t know what it is for other people. But I do know that love for me is constant and present in me for those I love, regardless of what happens. Regardless of words spoken, or words withheld. Regardless of indictments scathing and maybe not even true.
I am haunted by Love…it never leaves me. It burns true and sure in me, though it has the hardest time getting from inside me to outside me thanks to the plethora of flaws and foibles present in me. But it carries me…Love does. Right straight past the wreckage strewn pile-ups and blood everywhere.
I recently heard someone talk about how they couldn’t believe in someone anymore…someone they had professed to love…and I thought about all the times that my beloved has let me down, all the times I have let her down. I thought about all our times together in the midst…and how even in the pain, NO…especially in the pain Love burned even brighter inside.
Love is your choice to set stock on someone. Love depends on your choice, and it has nothing to do with the one you choose to love. And after that? Love doesn’t even really notice when it is wronged or misunderstood or maligned. It bears all things…believes all things, hopes all things…endures all things.
Love never fails.
Sometimes I feel like a fool, loving. That way lays pain and sorrow and let down. But that way lays truth too…lays joy…and ultimately lays victory.
Hey…if you are out there? If you ever stop in here to read? If you are curious, or if you need to stoke your rage? Just in case you ever stop in…
I love you. I will never stop loving you. Til my dying breath, with the last drop of my sweat.
And my one and only prayer is that God in Their Grace would give you a revelation of the actual state of being of that love, and maybe even a lil insight into the terrible tributaries it had to traverse to even get to the outside world.
I have so much more to say, Loves, and yet there is nothing I can say or do right now that isn’t bound up a priori…so I am swallowing, and holding my face bare and still, and brazen in its love for you
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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