Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgandy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries.
― Jack Kerouac

The Gouda Life: New Homes, Routines and Fiddleheads [Crispy Baked Fiddleheads with Spicy Lemon-Sumac Yogurt Dipping Sauce] →

thegoudalife:

So, we made it.

After one of the longest weekends of my life, we are in our new apartment, our life piled high around us in teetering boxes, taunting us constantly.

I don’t always adjust to change well. I like my routine and I get a bit loopy when it gets adjusted. I feel a bit out of…

A new adventure. And really good food.

"@CalamtyJane: The scary thing about being honest and putting yourself out there, is the idea that you won’t be loved for who you are."

She recognized that that is how friendships begin: one person reveals a moment of strangeness, and the other person decides just to listen and not exploit it.
- Meg Wolitzer, The Interestings

Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, “whores, pimps, gambler and sons of bitches,” by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, “Saints and angels and martyrs and holymen” and he would have meant the same thing.
― John Steinbeck, Cannery Row

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
― Oscar Wilde

Just Do It {Olive Oil Strawberry-Mint Frozen Yogurt with Dark Chocolate}

Find yourself. Discover who you are. Be the change you want to see in the world. These phrases have plagued high school, college, graduate, and post-grads for as long as anyone can remember. They’re supposed to be motivating phrases, filling us with the desire to go out into the world and seize the day. Carpe Diem!

Like most things in life, it’s easier said than done.

My personal finance teacher once told me that more than half of my high school class would return home after college. “You’ll return to the nest and rely on your parents,” he said matter-of-factly. Return to St. Louis after college? Impossible. No. Not for me. If I was moving away from home I was going to stay away from home.

I’ve always dreamed of moving out west. Boulder, Denver, Fort Collins, any place that was surrounded by mountains and within 10 miles of a hiking trail.

Life, however, had a different plan for me. Instead of Colorful Colorado, I traveled to the Dairy State where I immersed myself in cheese, beer, and a sub-par career.

There were ups and downs—good memories and bad memories. In every story there is a new chapter, a twist in the plot. Mine was unexpected. My chapter was California.

I’ve talked often about new adventures, about leaving the fear and past behind. Overcoming demons and lightening my pack so I can start down a new path, one that is unknown and holds a new cast of characters and experiences. For a long time it’s always been talk. A dream. Well, I did it. I actually did it—and to be brutally honest, I still have to pinch myself to make sure this is really happening.

A cross-country move seems quite simple in theory. Oh, sure. I’ll be happy to move to California. No problem. No problem at all. 

When the day came for me to say goodbye to a city that I knew so intimately, a city where I had built a dysfunctional, yet loveable family, I scrambled to find a way to take it all back. A part of me wanted to stay in Milwaukee, wrapped in the ragged blanket that was filled with more heartache and pain than I could stand. A blanket that was familiar and comforting all the same.

Follow your heart. This, too, is easier said than done. Our heart whispers so softly, it often gets lost in the brash monotony of our day-to-day lives. Learning how to tune into that part of my heart, the quiet place where my deepest desires lie, I finally, for the first time, feel like myself. This is who I am supposed to be.

My move to California has become a beautiful and rapturous assault to my senses. A kaleidoscope of cerulean blues, neon greens and soft sandy browns; a symphony of roaring highways, the gentle rush of the ocean waves, a sigh of wind as it blows through the trees; bold spices, buttery oils, sugary berries and flaky pastries; a bouquet of honeysuckle, the sting of salty mist, a singe of burnt wood—it all seems like a hallucinogenic dream.

While I’ve become submerged into a world of different dialects and cultures, I find myself changing – bending and folding into an easy, diverse lifestyle. No longer am I constantly on edge, in fear of letting the unknown into my life, of not meeting the expectations of others. I’m comfortable. Calm. Safe. I take life it as it comes. One day at a time.

I did it. I looked out over the edge and leapt, using my hidden, inner-strength to regain my control, my sense of self. Now I’m doing what makes me happy. I’m learning what I’m capable of doing. I’ve tossed the idea that I have to please others before pleasing myself. I listen to my heart and I really like where it’s leading me. There is no going back. Only forward. It’s time to just do it, and do it well.

In my family great milestones are celebrated with ice cream. My friend Jeanne Ambrose was the source of my culinary celebration with her Chunks o’ Chocolate and Strawberry Frozen Yogurt, from her cookbook  Heartbreak Recovery Kitchen. I made a few tweaks to the recipe, threw in some mint and drizzled in some Arbosana olive oil (trust me). 

Celebrate life. Celebrate your own leap with a scoop of ice cream.

 Olive Oil Strawberry-Mint Frozen Yogurt with Dark Chocolate

(Adapted from Heartbreak Recovery Kitchen)

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of Chobani plain non-fat Greek yogurt
• ½ cup sugar
• ¼ California Olive Ranch Arbosana olive oil
• 2 cups fresh strawberries
• A handful of mint, finely chopped
• ½ cup coarsely chopped dark chocolate chips

Directions:

Combine the yogurt, sugar, mint, and half of the strawberries in a large bowl. Blend until almost smooth. Pour mixture into an ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions.

As the yogurt begins to freeze, slowly drizzle in the olive oil.

Once the yogurt has become almost firm, remove from machine and stir in remaining strawberries and chocolate chips. Serve immediately or freeze in an airtight container.

Moving Forward

Looking back at the beginning of 2013, I was hopeful. My Mom had sent me my horoscope and it was nothing but positive. Financial stability, happiness, love and contentment, all things that I have somehow lacked in one way or the other.

I wanted this mystical forecast to be true. I threw myself into the daily predictions of an unknown oracle. I wanted to leave my past behind and not let my future be haunted by illness, decaying relationships, rape, and job loss. I didn’t want the darkness to define me.

There are no smooth paths in life, especially in the search for happiness. There is self-reflection, reopening of wounds not yet healed, and a nearly impossible climb out of a cave filled with loneliness. But with each step, with each revelation, you shed a piece of yourself. Revealing a you that’s pale and raw like a new born baby.

With patience and a well stocked tool box, I’ve been able to claw my way out of my own personal darkness. Where there was hopelessness, there is strength. Where there was unworthiness, there is love. I’ve uncovered my assertiveness and squashed the need to please everyone but myself. I’ve learned the importance of me - how I, Sarah, matter as a person, a daughter, a sister and friend.

The fragile pieces of myself are healing and my heart, though bruised and scared, beats with unimaginable strength. For the first time in a very long time I like the real me.

Like the first American settlers I have turned my sights westward, to California, in search of a fresh start. With the promise of new challenges and new adventures, I leave Milwaukee with a fire in my belly that is all-consuming, driving me to continue to grow as make a change in the world. There is no one to hold me back, no one to hold my hand. There is only me.

For the past year I’ve been standing at the edge if a mountain, my feet at the beginning of the trail. My pack, impossibly heavy - weighed down by a beast with thick talons and dagger sharp teeth that bore down into my hips as shoulders. But I’ve wrestled this monster to the ground, leaving it cold and dead in my wake. With my enemy beaten, a wave has washed over me - baptizing me with hope, taking away the anxiety, fear, shame and anger.

Now I look ahead. There is only forward. There is only a very bright future.

"A sense of calm came over me. More and more often I found myself thinking, “This is where I belong. This is what I came into this world to do."

Jane Goodall

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
― Barack Obama