Documenting the Quarantine ed. 6: Stress + Strawberry Pie

When I was in labor with Tatum, I could feel his head trying to come out, but his head was sort of too big for the chute and I was sweating so hard that anything touching my skin made it feel like it was burning and I cried to the nurse I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE and she was pretty much like, SAME, BOO. But we gotta persevere. Because keeping that baby in your belly is not a legitimate Plan B right now.

I've thought a lot about that time particularly during quarantine. This too shall pass, but sometimes it doesn't pass through the chutes we want it to, with the ease we hope it will. We're strong enough for this, but this is very, very intense. Like everyone I know, I have wanted an exit hatch from this madness at every turn. I want to go out to eat and not oscillate between wearing a mask and sipping through a straw. I want to hug my friend’s children. I want to go sit in a dark movie theater and eat so much popcorn and not give a single thought to catching the ‘rona from the bathroom/reclining seats/doorknobs/air molecules we breathe. History reminds us that it rhymes, and right now this great unknown is rhyming with other great wars, depressions, and other epochs whose ending was always indefinite to those wandering through.

July has been hot and filling me with homesickness. I miss seeing my family in the summer and eating fish tacos on their back patios and swimming in their pools. I am trying to cultivate a rich outdoor life but it has been stupid humid here, so mostly I bop around to different beaches where the dog can splash and boop the noses of other dogs. I feel stressed that the kids are stressed and I’m learning my codependence on their moods is really unhealthy. I am working on this.

It’s pretty much too hot everywhere to turn on an oven, but we did find a lot of joy in picking strawberries last month, and I adapted a strawberry pie recipe to make it gluten free, so I’ll share it here.

Gluten Free Crust:

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups (184g) King Arthur Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour

• 1 tablespoon sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon flax meal

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 6 tablespoons (85g) butter, cold

• 1 large egg

• 2 teaspoons lemon juice

• 1 drop cinnamon essential oil
  

Instructions

1. Lightly grease a 9" pie pan.

2. Whisk together the flour or flour blend, sugar, flaxmeal and salt.

3. Cut the cold butter into pats, then kneed the pats into the flour mixture until it's crumbly

4. Whisk the egg and vinegar or lemon juice together until very foamy. Mix into the dry ingredients. Add drop cinnamon essential oil. Stir until the mixture holds together, adding 1 to 3 additional tablespoons cold water if necessary.

5. Shape into ball and refrigerate for an hour, or up to overnight.

6. Allow the dough to rest at room temperature for 10 to 15 minutes before rolling.

7. Roll out on a piece of plastic wrap/ silicone rolling mat. Invert the crust into the prepared pie pan.

8. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line the pie with tin foil and bake for 25 minutes. Remove the foil, and bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, until the crust is a light golden brown. Allow to cool.

9. Fill with pie filling:
   

Strawberry Pie Filling

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup sugar

• 2 tablespoons cornstarch

• 1 cup water

• 1 package (3 ounces) strawberry gelatin

• 6 cups sliced fresh strawberries

• Whipped cream, optional

Instructions

• In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, cornstarch and water until smooth. Bring to a boil; cook and stir until thickened, about 2 minutes. Remove from the heat; stir in gelatin until dissolved. Refrigerate until slightly cooled, 15-20 minutes.

• Meanwhile, arrange strawberries in the crust. Pour gelatin mixture over berries. Refrigerate until set. If desired, serve with whipped cream.

Documenting the Quarantine ed. 4: What I Miss

I was inspired by writer Austin Channing Brown to consider what I missed from Ordinary Time that is not Quarantine Time. In no particular order:

• Riding the subway to work and listening to a playlist that I curated in order to take my mind far, far away.

• Not being aware of how my TMJ appears to think it needs to hold up the entire North American continent with a tautness that is, frankly, admirable. (Also, if anyone has any pain relief for TMJ, I am all ears).

• Dairy Freeze. I think 65% of my grumpiness is knowing it will soon be warm and I will not be queueing with all my neighbors and their dogs in wait of a Reese’s Razzle in a waxy cup with a tall white spoon.
  

• Clear breaks from caretaking. Each and every day feels a bit like parenting babies where there is no weekend and no real guarded sanctuary of rest. There is just caretaking: for my children, my students, and my dog (who has regressed to new levels of diva infantilism). It is interrupted by moments of having to do administrative things or clean the bathroom floor or walking through the cemetery. I miss going to night class and buying myself a coffee just because. They were little totems in my week, little flags in the sand of where I staked my territory of being a human with singular interests and joys, and not merely a mom in servitude of others.
  

• Massages. Not that I got one very often, but merely the possibility of paying a stranger to kneed my back like a stubborn slab of bread dough is a huge luxury I took for granted.
  

• My students and their three-dimensional human forms and colorful ideas and incisive questions. This semester started out difficult and it persists in being really difficult but I miss the living, breathing, electric classroom experience.
  

• The library. The dining hall. The buskers in Park St. Station. The sweaty barista at the Arlington Starbucks. The hopefulness I felt about Election 2020 and which I hope I might feel again depending on whom Biden taps as a running mate (?). Concerts. Holding other people’s babies.
  
  I could write endlessly about the things I miss, but the present reality is blessed and full all the same. My house is rarely quiet, a reminder that there are people in this house laughing and FaceTiming and making friendship bracelets to deliver—delivering us indeed to a little freeze frame when we all were as tightly wound as the embroidery threads my children cross and loop and knot with conviction. We are still good friends, same as we ever were, we are just a few threads unslipped through knots for now. Ready and waiting for the chance to wrap around one another’s wrist again soon.

Documenting the Quarantine ed. 3: My students are in prison, no for real prison

I have struggled to write at all at this two weeks-in-quarantine mark. It’s as if the creativity has drained out as I wade through so much content! Digital resources! Zoom chats! There is no lack of input. The output, however, is harder to synthesize.

The liminal space we are occupying is difficult to describe. I know that I cannot have this Introvert Nirvana without our doctors and nurses and mail carriers and pizza deliverers out there risking their lives, placing themselves in the direct path of the virus. I live between coziness and the dread that continues to knock on my door. I live in the security of being able to continue to receive a paycheck while others, including my stepmom who works in event planning, have filed for unemployment. I am occupying two zip codes at once, the one of safety and the other of anxiety. I don’t think any of us can have one without the other. Because if stress is not our present reality, we know our peace is preserved by someone else’s stressful present reality. And that’s so damn unfair, as is all of this. The racism and xenophobia and lack of PPEs and the kids in New York who are living in shelters without wifi and therefore access to their education. The great underbelly of injustice in our country is being readily exposed by this virus, and it’s not all bad to call the ugly into the light. But it’s still heartbreaking.

In my own online classroom, I also am dealing with the very real ramifications having students who are in prison. Not the symbolic prison that is quarantining and social distancing. I have some students who are in pre-release programs who have limited access to video, etc. All the online learning tutorials in the world have not prepared me for reaching students who are surrounded by literal bars and the figurative bars of lacking steady wifi connection or even quiet places to read and research. These are luxuries that should not be luxuries. They have helped me to be successful in my life. I’ve spent the majority of the week sighing because I cannot be sure my students are getting anything they need. Even though good people are trying to support them. Sometimes it’s not enough. My heart beats loud for my students, now more than ever.

When I’m not walking around wringing my hands and sighing the sigh of futility, we’ve been having a pretty good time with the kids. Each day, we go somewhere to breathe the fresh air and let the spazz dog sniff the scent of God knows what. Rock quarries, beaches, cemeteries—wherever it’s not too crowded. I’ve played one mean game of Monopoly, I dominated Scrabble, and have watched the entirety of “High Fidelity” and “Atlanta” so far. And I have finished one book.

I think the best thing that merits documentation this week are these masks that my MIL sent. Pantyliners, our first defense against viral infection.