Three Beautiful Things 12-20-20: Yam and Couscous, What We Do For Love, Successful Family Dinner

1. Saturday, I baked three yams and cooled overnight, in preparation for the side dish/salad I made today for our family dinner. Today, I let the cooled off yams get to room temperature while I chopped up a red pepper and fixed a pot of pearl couscous. I diced about two of the yams and seasoned them with cinnamon and allspice. Before I combined the red pepper and yam, I poured the couscous into a strainer so the pearls could cool down. Into the combined red pepper and yam, I added equal parts of fresh squeezed lemon juice and olive oil (about 3 tablespoons) and salted it. Once the couscous cooled, I blended the pearls in with the yams and red peppers, making sure the olive oil and lemon juice were distributed throughout the side dish/salad, put a lid on the bowl and put it in the refrigerator to rest until I headed over to the Roberts' house for dinner tonight. 

2. I poured myself a double Yuse (bourbon, Cointreau, sweet vermouth, and orange bitters) and joined Val, Colette, Diane, and Bill for our once every two weeks (or fortnightly) ZOOM talk. Val, Colette, and Bill all deal daily with chronic pain and the first part of our discussion involved strategies for how to treat and live with pain. I think I had one question, but otherwise I listened and just took into myself, as fully as I could, what Bill, Val, and Colette described. All three have sought out both pharmaceutical and their own non-pharmaceutical ways (e.g. yoga, supplements, acupuncture, and others) to relieve the pain and to be able to function day to day. Learning more about  the pain each of them lives with, how the pain demands their frequent, if not constant, attention, how it exhausts them, and knowing that they persist in doing all they can to live well, be creative, give time and energy to their spouses -- and Colette to her teenage daughter --, enlarged my understanding of their endurance and determination, not just to make each day productive, but to bring goodness to the others in their lives. Big props. 

We also talked about what we are reading. We discussed ambition and the great demands writers like both Colette and Bill and a singer/songwriter like Bill face if they want to get their work out into the world and the even greater demands they face if they want to make a living selling their work and  performing or reading. This led us to discuss all we do for love, as amateurs, for the sake of the undertaking itself. I, for example, have no ambitions to write for publication. I love writing in this blog. It gives order to my days. The writing keeps me touch with friends and family. It helps me organize my thoughts and I enjoy expressing myself. I write as a dedicated amateur. I performed in plays as a dedicated amateur. Back in my days as a lay preacher, I gave sermons as a dedicated amateur. 

If I could have somehow supported myself and my family without earning money (in some utopia!), I would have loved to have been a teacher for no pay. I'm grateful for the money and benefits I earned -- don't get me wrong! --, but I would have loved to have experienced the freedom I imagine I would have experienced as an amateur teacher, teaching, facilitating discussions, reading others' writing free of institutional mandates, imposed work loads, course objectives, program assessment, and, above all, free of grading and credits. 

I'll draw upon help from W. B. Yeats and say that the institutional obsession with program assessment, all moves toward uniformity in teaching, and the experience of being managed as a professional often "dried the sap out my veins, and rent/Spontaneous joy and natural content/Out of my heart" (from "The Fascination of What's Difficult"). 

Writing in my blog, taking photographs, giving sermons, teaching adult courses back at St. Mary's Episcopal Church, talking about beer, narrating Shakespeare Showcases, performing in amateur (not amateurish) plays, cooking, reading books as an amateur, for the love of it-- this is what brings spontaneous joy and natural content to my heart. 

I thought in our ZOOM talk today, Colette, Bill, Diane, and I all encouraged one another's lives as amateurs, encouraged one another in a world that can seem relentlessly transactional, to do it all for love.

Too bad the orchestra in the pit didn't suddenly strike itself and accompany the four of us as we sang together, putting the lyrics in the present tense, the most memorable song from A Chorus Line:

Kiss today goodbye

The sweetness and the sorrow

Wish me luck, the same to you

But I don't regret

What I do for love, what I do for love

Etc.

3.  Tonight's family dinner was a great success. Zoe is in town and joined us. Christy was in charge of cocktails and the main dish. She mixed each of us a cocktail combining Peppermint Vodka with cranberry juice, garnished with cranberries. It was the perfect Christmas-y drink. Christy also prepared a Friendsgiving casserole, drawing upon a recipe published by Joanna Gaines. It was a chicken casserole loaded with creamy textures and layers of deliciousness. Carol made a vegetable salad and I offered up my yam and couscous salad/side dish. We ended our dinner with Christy's pear liqueur and Christmas cookies.

Our conversation roamed all over the place. For a variety of reasons, we are not having our traditional family dinner on Christmas Eve. I will get on Zoom on Christmas Day and join the members of the family who are in town for some gift opening. We have our plans made for our next family dinner, on December 27th -- we'll have our traditional holiday season prime rib dinner.