There is a boatload of
breadfruit coming in. I can sit on the couch out on the balcony that I got free from the Christiansted freecycle and stare for an hour at the breadfruit tree's amazing, enormous leaves, like huge green fans, so identifiable by their jagged edges. So very healing, for the sight of the tree arrests all thinking, stops it in its track. Breadfruit is healing to eat too, loaded with fiber and protein. It was a super food for slaves, brought over to the Caribbean from the East. In Tahiti it propelled the Bounty into mutiny because of the preference to care for the plants and provide it water over the crew.
Tonio peeled a breadfruit and boiled it for me. I mashed it up like a potato, threw in what other herbs were growing in the garden - oregano brujo, rosemary and bay leaf. While cooking and tasting it I had a sudden overpowering impulse to add gorgonzola cheese to the mix. I have tried to be vegan since age 19, however, at 45 the passion and powerful urge for cheese that my body and Dutch DNA have overtakes any prolonged vegan attempts. I decided to honor my Bohemian mother who obsessed over gorgonzola,
and named the dish Bohemian Breadfruit. Perhaps it was her spirit nearby, eager for retroactive healing of the ancestors and a craving to taste gorgonzola one more time. Now it is a clear comfort food, cooked in her memory, and mashed potato substitute, a healing food that grows smack out o the backyard.
I'm eating as much from the garden as possible. Going to heal myself with whole foods and juices, yoga and stories. I had my biopsies on my cervix last Tuesday and will hear the results in another week. A friend said any lesions will have to be zapped off with freezing. “Don’t be a fool," he admonished me on the phone. "You have to get this taken care of. Natural stuff won’t cure it. You know how Bob Marley died right?” I didn’t know, but my friend related the story of Bob Marley's spot on his toe that expanded despite his prayers and that the cancer spread and killed him. “He died of stupidity,” my friend said.
My female doctor, however, said she had proactive patients who forewent the typical treatment, focused on whole foods and less stress, and the tests came back clear. So by doing nothing but meditating, practicing yoga, growing and cooking my own food, hanging the laundry out on the line in the Caribbean sun, hanging out on the beach and floating in the sea's soft salt water, making art and supporting my kids in their school and life, by returning to motherhood, to the home life, stopping too much work, that is the key. And I believe I will be healed. I believe the yoga and the stories and the garden all heal. I'm becoming a good cook, too. What my kids rejected repeatedly for years as "too healthy," get gobbled up by my adult friends and Tonio.
My goal is to grow most of what I eat, so the recipes include lots of gazpacho and pesto. I had a dream a few months ago in which a voice in a dream said, "Spanish vegetables will heal you." You really can't go wrong with gazpacho. Not just that it's such a great word to speak and weave into nursery rhymes, but it's a colon cleanser and infusion of vitamins for sure. Chopping up the celery, green bell peppers, green onions, cucumbers and hot peppers is a meditation in itself. Blending it down to a puree then slicing avocado for a garnish an act of worship, an offering to Krishna and the gods (can't wait for the yellow flowers on the trees to start bulging with fruit.)
Of course my body is not the only thing to heal, but my heart as well, for my little sister's December 29 suicide hangs over me like a dull drug, a ghost knocking at my practice door that wants to be heard, its story told so that we can all cross over to the other side, so that we can all be at peace and rest. The healing stories we tell are for all of us so that we can continue living, lest the grief and loss and sorrow swallow us up completely and dump us out on the other edge of a river of death. I found a coconut in the garden that reminds me that she is still alive somewhere. She is reborn somewhere out of the soupy depths of our psyche. There is the agricultural society's myth of one thing dying; returning to the fecund, dark depths of the earth; and then it is recreated as something else. Usually it's somebody who dies, the head is buried and a coconut tree grows from it. The evidence is in the face in a coconut. I believe. That is all that is required. To believe. I feel her, too, in my yoga practice, her face arises, comes out of my body, urging me to tell our story.
So I work in the garden, cook up a few recipes and write. It's amazing how much progress Tonio made in the garden, all by sitting on the edge of an old paint bucket and digging it up with his machete. I stopped by the Virgin Islands Department of Agriculture and picked up some seedlings from Wayne, who has a marijuana leaf symbol on the side of his black sunglasses and dreadlocks down to his thighs. For $2.60 I got four watermelon plants, five swiss chard, five mustard greens and five celery. I wasn’t sure if any of this was going to mix with me according to ayurveda but I figured it was the most healing to grow things and cook with them, walk in the garden and show my kids the lemon grass shoots, the smell of the bay leaf and the touch of the dirt than anything else. Of course it's all good survival food in case things collapsed tomorrow in one economic meltdown.
“Come down here!” Tonio waved to me down at the garden this morning. He had driven the car down to the garden and opened up the back hatch. There fidgeted four wiry chickens, struggling over each other and pecking inside a black mesh bag. The dogs gathered around as if they all knew a new baby had arrived and there is now more competition for attention. Sergeant Pepe nipped at Jupe. “See, he jealous,” Tonio said.
So my dream came true. To have a yoga farm and to have chickens. Of course I said, ”You can teach Paloma and Hondo how to care for them.” Now we just need a goat, to mow the lawn of course, like Google. That will have to wait until later.
"Cholo gave to us,” Tonio said. Tonio's Puerto Rican friend Cholo stops by occasionally. A walk with him in the garden and he identified all the trees in the garden: soursop, custard apple, lime, coconut, banana, mango, bay leaf (put in rubbing alcohol and good to massage into the scalp for headaches.) My daughter and I visited Cholo's house in Glynn once, when he had a tree full of carambola fruit to give away and we were still looking for a place to move to. Tonio said, “There a good place next to Cholo. Cheap and lots of land to grow!” My daughter loved looking at houses on the internet, so wanted to come see the house. Of course we ended up in one of the worst neighborhoods in St. Croix. Run down, lots of garbage around. Paloma was afraid to get out of the car. "Lock the doors," she said. But I coaxed her out, locked the car door even when Tonio said it was fine, and waded through Cholo’s outdoor mess of metal, car parts, an overturned boat and cages of chickens. Turns out he raised his chickens for cockfighting, which is legal on St. Croix. He reached in to touch one of the chickens through the cage and it gave a good swipe and there was blood on his hand. Another chicken was blind and a pet to Cholo now. It is my secret plan to convert him from cockfighting, and I figured my dream to have chickens came true, and it’s mystically tied up with being a rescue mission. Getting juvenile chicks out of there before they have enslaved and savaged.
Regardless Cholo is a great guy, a simple fisherman who gives away more food than he sells. I made gallons of carambola juice with what he gave me. He gave Tonio a bed of sweet peppers along with the chickens. “We grow all these peppers and, like gold, you watch, people buy." I wonder if my penchant for gardening will turn into anything professional rather than merely survival. Around here you can throw anything in the back of your car and sell it on the side or the road or in the K-Mart parking lot. We shall see. Because I'm writing the memoir AND I created seven new collage art pieces this full moon weekend. Didn't I just say I was slowing down? Yes, I'll just stick to cooking and yoga and storytelling for now.
Which reminds me. Today there was an
article I read about 150-year-old newly discovered fairytales have been published. Never before seen. There's a wonderful new
Turnip Princess to read about, a prince, an old woman, a young woman, a bear, a curse, a magic nail in the cave wall. Such excitement to find new fairy tales! Those images bump around in my body's flesh like a pinball machine, bounce off of the skin and muscles, leave a little bit of psychic residue behind for me to absorb into the heart and cough out as a dream, a word, a thread of imagination and insight into this world and existence.
The Queen of Bohemia’s transformation into Agent Garbo is complete. Her new mission is received and understood. Along with her new identity she has a new outfit too, complete with wig and sunglasses, and she frolics in her compound hideout ready for action, fully confident with the knowledge that things will never be the same. So she is ready. She knows beyond the shadow of a doubt what is coming. And she’s not afraid, for she understands the instructions, that there is never any light without shadow, so don’t forget the shadows. And don’t linger too long in the light, because then the shadows are deeper and a little harder to climb out of then. Just hang out somewhere in the middle, watching both. And don’t forget where they both come from. She knows; she has no control. She just goes along with the assignment and listens for the instructions from Mother. And the best part is that she knows she is not alone. Slowly everyone and everything falls into place, like stars falling into alignment as the universe spins its vortex and opens the door to eternity for all to witness.
I finally got my computer repaired after six months of issues, a reason why I couldn't post new blogs. The electric here is extremely volatile, so ultimately it ate my Mac’s motherboard in January right after my sister died. I then switched to using my son’s computer, but its motherboard, too, succumbed to the fluctuating current, as did my daughter’s. That left me with an I-pad and an I-phone, which I obsessively typed up lots of poetry and memoir on the beach to get over my grief of such difficulties. Amazingly I also and conducted limited business as the I-Pad was old (2 years, ha!). Yet the I-pad was the latest casualty of the WAPA hit squad, dying on the Monday morning before I picked up the two computers that I ended up repairing or replacing from repair shops. What strange synchronicities! What severe frustration! But I figure that after so much bliss that I have experienced in my life the effect here in duality is that one always makes the shadow. It's expected and accepted. All those dark, difficult things in life are not to be denied but allowed and moved with down the river of time and yoga and meditation help navigate and teach my mind to temper its reaction to the difficulty.
Certain things about living here on St. Croix can periodically get my goat and drive me nuts though. The electricity problem and expenses are real, as is slow Internet, which drives my son mad. Today it is completely out. Additionally, the phone service interruptions and dropped calls can make doing business difficult and tempt me to indulge in screaming fits.
At some point, after being here a year and a half, I get a little nuts over the potholes, insanely stupid death trap of roads and bad drivers. I get tired of the bored, bad-attitudes of people in these dreadfully void of soul stores we have to shop at, such as K-Mart and Plaza Extra. The monstrosity of American bane architecture is exemplified in its parking lot culture translated down here Caribbean style mess, and I avoid it most days. But other times I must venture in for things I can’t get elsewhere.
The cultural attractions are absolutely wonderful, but the library is all but dead. But there are pockets of wonderful people and some interesting things to do. Poetry readings pop up here and there, and there are some spectacular food and wine events. And of course I live for Art Thursday, and had a high point of my life, at the Maria Henle Studio in Christiansted with my first solo exhibition of photo and paper collage titled, “Order from Chaos.” It was the recognition of a dream achieved, and felt like my birthday, received by friends, art afficionadoes and tourists alike in the sheltered walls mottled by Hurricane Hugo some 22 years prior. Even though the rain outside dampened turnout, I was in bliss with my babies hanging on the wall, my Bohemian ancestors beaming with pride and nodding from the spirit world in approval of my dedication to the cause for art.
Even so, briefly I thought of leaving. I can’t take it anymore, I thought. I need civilization! Intellectuals! Lower living expenses! The ability for my kids to ride a bike somewhere! But when I think of having to return to the concrete, car insanity of white America with its racism and hatred and materialism, when I think of leaving the night and morning sounds of birds, crickets, lizards and frogs, when I think of leaving the lush green palm trees and ubiquitous glimpses of turquoise blue water, I know I can’t leave. Living so close to nature has changed me for good and my heart is woven into its fabric and pulse of creation. This summer time is exceptionally full - the greens and basil all thicken from the rains, avocados and other fruit begin to weight on the trees and pull the branches down. Summer's fullness is felt as the goddess heavy with life and fruit here, as things heat up and mosquitoes flourish, and the flamboyant trees all begin to explode red and gorgeous. The avocados are getting large, the lemongrass is thick and the eggplants, tomatoes and peppers are all coming in. Passion fruits drip on the vines wound around the carambola tree. Beets too are coming in and ready to dig up and eat. Beets are my next food to work with. And I will miss the chickens! They are my pets!
When I first arrived I loved this little island, settled in to work on sustainable living and prepare for the fast-approaching economic collapse. I have succeeded in that respect: I have a lovely home on an acre with loads of fruit trees. We just got a couch from a moving sale, so now we are not sitting on beach chairs any more. Tonio has materialized a prolific garden here in less than three months. I have so much basil and greens I have to give them away, and everybody is sick of pesto. Next thought is to start selling surplus and trading with friends – as the world is going to need it. I enlisted Cholo and his beat-up truck to drive out to the East End and pick up a free chicken coop from the same people who sold us the couch along with two American laying hens – Huevos and Chiquita. They are happily scratching around the yard, gorging on centipedes and cockroaches. I am reading a lot about raising chickens! But I must stay put, develop roots - deep roots. Into the depths and see what's there.
Considering there are bank runs going on in Europe and the financial outlook is dire there, I remember why I came here in the first place and why I left the US mainland. This is a good place to ride out the economic collapse and social unrest. The King and I predicted this more than two years ago. First I checked out Argentina and learned how they survived the collapse. Then settled on St. Croix because A) there is abundant agriculture to live off of. Food scarcity is a real issue when oil prices skyrocket. B) Few people even know where St. Croix is, so it’s pretty much off the radar. This is a great place to escape to and start a farm and ride out the collapse! C) You won’t freeze here. Some people in Maine and the UK are freezing to death because they can’t afford the heating oil or it’s scarce. Of course we get hurricanes, but so does the US! Along with tornadoes, fires, earthquakes.
I have learned to adapt my lifestyle to simple needs and eating. I don’t buy apples or spinach anymore. They don’t grow here and why would I buy them when I have such a plethora of exotic fruit here to eat and other things grow bountifully here. I have a whole menu of my original recipes that I can cook with produce from my backyard.
Caribbean Gazpacho
Avocado lime soup
Pesto on cheesy croquets (gave up being vegan. Cheese spirit won't let me go!)
Breadfruit potato salad with Gorgonzola and herbs
Asian stir-fry with mustard greens, chard and Chinese cabbage
Curried Pumpkin
The Aunt Jean – passion fruit and carambola juice
Limeade
Bush tea
Coconut muffins
I have succeeded where my childhood failed. My mother’s idea of cooking was microwaving an egg. She never showed me how to cook, other than how to open up a box of frozen Banquet fried chicken and shove it in the oven, or boil a plastic bag of pink-flaked chipped beef. I do remember her teaching me to cook one thing: hamburger. Because it was zero carbs and she was on the Atkins diet in the early 80s before it became a huge fad by the late 90s that my late husband was on. So my mother taught me to cook only to diet, not cook to live. And that’s what I really wanted. To eat and cook to live. And to eat and cook to live as a family with others.
My father cooked fantastic Indonesian food and gave me foolproof instructions on cooking rice perfect every time: 1 cup of water and 2 cups of rice. Bring to a boil, lower to a simmer until done. He taught me to make “super eggs” a fried egg sautéed in lots of butter, the yolk delicately bathed in spoonfuls of melted butter until done.
By high school I became a vegetarian at my Hare Krishna sister’s behest, and along with that came bulimia. Yet I cooked non-stop. A lot of it was fudge made from recipes culled from Better Homes and Garden magazine ads for condensed milk. I passed it out to my friends backstage during our theatre productions en masse. But I cooked all those things alone.
I remember once making a vegetarian Thanksgiving and worked all day on a tofu turkey. I labored to make crepes from scratch, getting white flour all over my clothes, and baking a cheesecake. My mother had gone to her Unitarian Church’s feast for lunch, however, and was too full to eat my food by the time I finished that late afternoon. I sobbed at the edge of my bed, until my father came into my room and said he would eat with me. No other family members were around. My youngest sister was in a group home by then, my older siblings gone. I yearned for family, for community, to eat and connect.
When my late husband was alive I had a lovely garden and had a Mormon friend whom shared my passion for home and cooking. We made homemade carmel corn for Christmas presents, canned jam from the French strawberries from my garden. I made eggplant Parmesan from scratch with the eggplants in the garden in my Betty Crocker sized cherry-cabinet enormous kitchen. My husband couldn’t understand though why I wanted to make bread from scratch or anything else when it was available cheap already made from Costco or another store. I said it mattered to me to make my own. But ultimately I acquiesced, cutting down an enormous, red amaranth stalk that grew towered over the front door of our suburban home. But I yearned still to connect to my food. There is something about connecting to the food we eat by growing it and making it ourselves.
So I do that here in St. Croix. My kids occasionally help cook, but there are not so interested and preparation can be lonely for the King has been on extended absences which make doing everything myself overwhelming at time. My son will dice up onions or garlic for me, my daughter stir the homemade mac and cheese roux. They are not fond of my breadfruit potato salad or quinoa stir-fries, and they are slow to like the guanabana fruit and mustard greens from the garden. I silently prepare food for them, proud of myself that I can now make from scratch enchilada sauce, barbecue sauce and taco and chili seasonings. No MSG! No corn syrup! And at a fraction of the cost. So silly we all think we have to go to the store and buy it in a can or package! No trash to throw away, no disconnect. It’s remarkable that we have allowed corporations to take over our food supply, package it up and we have to buy it back. We sacrificed great skills for convenience and novelty. Now America is obese, sick and broke, disconnected from its source – food and the nature it came from. Yet my old life I always bought those packaged products. Never shown how to make them myself let alone that it was possible. Now I see packaged food in the stores and it seems so odd. I remember that first time I noticed how odd packaged food was, standing in the long lines at Disco food store in Buenos Aires, having had cooking and baking lessons from our tutor, Laura and beginning to make everything from scratch.
My backyard food has more prana – life energy – because it’s locally made. There really is a difference you can taste and notice. Friends who come over and eat love my cooking. Tonio gobbles it up. He says there is always too big of servings. Americans eat way too much, he says. No wonder they are fat. And no wonder the world is starving too, we eat more than we need or that is our fair share. Such strange gluttony seems to have been subliminally programmed into our value system to our detriment and the planet’s but not to corporate profits.
I’m getting ready to leave for the mainland. It will be nice to eat at an Indian restaurant and a Chinese restaurant I trust. A real Middle Eastern restaurant (a food truck just opened up here with great shwarma!) and other variety of food. But I'm a little afraid too. The frenzy of the mainland will likely be depressing. I will miss my simple life.
Ultimately I believe when the collapse comes we will all be forced to return to what matters: love, family, the earth and our relationship to it. Instead of the world’s resources and food owned, packaged up and sold to people via corporations, we will reclaim this for ourselves and find our freedom once again. Obesity will vanish, as will depression, ADHD, eating disorders and other problems, as we reconnect to our vital threads of meaning and awe in life. We will heal as once again we will have a relationship to our families, food and environment. For it is the simple things in life that give us the most joy. It is the memory of these joyful and meaningful life episodes that we carry with us to the grave, and that satisfaction and contentment reflected on the deathbed is what sets our souls free at death, rather than bound for another karmic leftover of unfulfilled desires and lingering fears.
