jumble.

I don’t have any one specific point to make today, just a few thoughts to offer, and as I haven't posted for so long, I feel quite alright forgoing my usual attempt at a thematic post. I hope you all are well, and many apologies for my brief absence!

Life continues, and it really is good and altogether quite lovely. I recently celebrated a birthday, enjoying the company of my parents and lunch at my favorite restaurant ever (free of charge as a birthday gift from the kind owners of said restaurant!) the weekend before, a peaceful dinner with a few of my dearest friends at another favorite the night of and a small potluck this past weekend, which also served to christen my new home--more on that in a moment. I love potlucks. At this particular potluck, I gave very few specifics when asking people to bring a dish to pass, which resulted in a meal consisting of my big pot of vegetarian chili and batch of Dorie Greenspan's World Peace Cookies and guests' contributions of eight bottles of red wine, five types of bread, two batches of hummus and Dave's promised package of Oreos. As one friend very aptly put it, it looked like a glorified communion. But the 20-or-so of us ate well, laughed much and were happy.

I am feeling somewhat old, in the most positive sense, of course, at what I realize is still quite a young age. As I begin this new year of living, I have once again been thinking about everything I have learned in the past few years, but particularly in the past few months, and how very glad I am to be in this post-collegiate, great big world before me, young single and free, idealistic and hopeful stage of life. Honestly, my friends, the world is glorious! There is so much life to be lived! There is so much hope to be held! It is not always easy or beautiful, I know, especially at first glance, but I am convinced more and more each day that we must indeed choose joy if we are to have it.

In other news, I have been working full-time since the start of the month at a job that most days I like reasonably well, and I recently poached my first egg. Today I am wearing dark pink tights, which, as always, is making me feel a little better about the world, and I wrote/edited up a storm at work today. A storm, people. And finally, most excitingly, I have moved yet again and am now happily settled into a new little place in a big old purple house. I love it. I think it is absolutely perfect. The space, the location, the hardwood floors and brightly colored walls, that amazing little hutch in the kitchen, the fact that the kitchen is so adorably tiny, the pocket door between the two biggest rooms, the footsteps of my upstairs neighbors, the bay window above my bed. With all respect and love to past roommates, I have not been this happy to come home in a very, very long time. Goodness, I haven't felt this at home while home in a very, very long time. Furthermore, when one of my landlords asked me to be sure to regularly take out the trash because they do not have mice in this house and told me that they have all of the paint colors to touch up my walls once I’ve decorated and explained that I could call if it gets too cold and they would come adjust the heat, I wanted to throw my arms around him and embrace him and then burst into tears of pure joy. I didn't. But let me tell you, I was very close. All that to say that I love this new little place of mine. Come visit anytime. I have a fold-out couch. And leftover wine. Just saying.

To close this post, as it is Martin Luther King Jr. day, I offer a few of his own beautiful words, with somber reflection on our soiled human history, recognition of the inexplicable and confounding tragedy that has now fallen upon Haiti, awareness of our brokenness and the brokenness of this world and persistent hope for the future:

“Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long-but-beautiful-struggle for a new world.”

Amen. Let us begin indeed.

cocoa almond meringues and a new year.

Happy New Year, dear ones! I hope that you are enjoying this close of the holiday season, celebrating the year that has ended (and possibly that the year has ended; that’s okay, too) and looking ahead with hope to 2010, a new year promising new adventure, new joy, new beauty.

I have learned so much in this year, mostly adult/real world kinds of lessons that were not always enjoyable but brought new and beautiful depth to my life. At the end of four years filled with good, solid academic education (which I loved), I learned how to finish well and how to close and then open chapters of my life, how to say goodbye well and how to stay in touch (an ongoing lesson). I learned how difficult it really is to find a job in this economy and how to piece paychecks together and how little I really need to sustain myself. I learned how to best fit all of my belongings in my car when moving and how to ask for help. I learned more about loving well and about making hard decisions (although I still have a long way to go on both of those).

This year, I have come to see more clearly that in every situation, there are difficult and painful things as well as beautiful and very, very good things. I have learned how to first see that whole honest picture of my life and to then cling to and give thanks for the good things... a job, a roof over my head, food on my table, people to eat it with, the amount of justice and freedom I’m afforded. It could all be otherwise.

And this year, I learned the truth of something I always knew in my head but maybe not deep in my bones: that God is always faithful, regardless.

To celebrate the old year and welcome the new, here is what I would call a celebratory recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s big and incredible cookbook, Baking: From my home to yours. I got this book from my cousin for Christmas, and I’ve already paged through the whole thing at least twice. Great recipes, beautiful photographs. I made these meringues first, and they are delightful: light and airy on the outside and dense and slightly chewy on the inside. They are craggy and beautiful, rich with chocolate and a hint of almond, and they are amazing. AMAZING. Happy new year indeed.

Cocoa Almond Meringues

Adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From my home to yours

Ingredients:

1 cup confectioners’ sugar, plus extra for dusting

1/3 cup finely ground almonds

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

4 large egg whites

Pinch of salt

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/3 cup finely chopped bittersweet chocolate

Position the racks in the oven to divide it into thirds, and preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats (I just purchased my first silicone baking mat with Christmas money from my grandparents, and it is incredible!).

Mix together the confectioners’ sugar, ground almonds and cocoa.

Using a stand mixer with a whisk attachment or a hand mixer in a large, dry bowl, whip the egg whites and salt at medium speed until the whites are opaque. Increase the speed to medium-high or high and continue whipping, adding the sugar about a tablespoon at a time. Whip until the whites are firm, hold stiff peaks and are very shiny. This will take a very long time, up to 15 or 20 minutes (so don’t panic if it seems like nothing is happening!). Beat in the vanilla.

Quickly and gently fold the dry ingredients and then the chopped chocolate into the egg whites. Work with a light touch to minimize the deflation of the egg whites, but realize that they will deflate somewhat, regardless.

Drop the meringue by tablespoonfuls onto the baking sheets, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Dust them lightly with confectioners’ sugar (very pretty).

Place the baking sheets into the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Then, without opening the oven door, reduce the oven temperature to 200 degrees F, and bake for one hour more. Remove the baking sheets from the oven and allow the meringues to cool. Peel them off of the parchment paper or silicone mats. Marvel at their loveliness and enjoy!

Store the meringues in a cool, dry environment, either in an airtight container or uncovered in a basket at room temperature.

Yield: about 30 little chocolaty mountains

So may this year be filled with laughter, new lessons to humbly learn, community and good meals shared with friends, and much beauty and thankfulness throughout your days. May this year bring more justice and more peace in our homes, neighborhoods, cities, countries and world, and may we live and love with more compassion and grace and hope.

It’s a new year.

changing seasons.

Hello there, dear readers, and welcome to my (new) blog!

As I sat down to write a terribly belated post for my old blog this afternoon, I felt disheartened by the fact that my posting there has been so very spotty and perturbed by the resulting randomness of my writing. ALSO, due to my minimal and inconsistent posting, last summer’s posts appear on the same page as this summer’s posts (ahem... pardon me, post), and so I once again found myself bemoaning my less-articulate, not-quite-as-mature, only-one-year-younger-but-still-clearly-younger self.

And I was just not in the mood to begin yet another post with an apology for my lack of diligence and sincere-but-tired promises to write more faithfully.

So I decided that I would begin afresh! And what better time than now? I have burst out of that clear and structured pathway that is the pursuit of a four-year undergraduate degree at Calvin College and into this great big beautiful chaotic wonder of a world. I am learning so much and finding out how very little I know. I haven’t a clue what the future holds, and let me just say, I am FINISHED trying to figure that out. (Because I can’t.) So here we are, my officially post-collegiate, (becoming) grown-up blog.

At the beginning of the summer, on the old blog, I listed my reasons for returning to this whole blogging business. For posterity’s sake, I list them again:

1. I want to communicate better and stay more closely in touch with those that I love.
2. I said, over and over, that when I graduated from college, I would write for myself, for pleasure, for practice, for the shear joy and beauty and growth that come through writing. Not to fulfill requirements, achieve the “right” GPA, please professors or impress conference panels... just to write.

So that’s why I’m here. To share with you, and to write for me. This will be more than just a running update on my life, which would be something more in the spirit of my adolescent diaries, and we don’t want that, trust me. I WILL give those updates, fear not, extended family and long-lost friends, but I also plan to reflect on life, on this journey of faith, on passions of mine such as justice, food and feminism and on whatever else begs reflection. And we will see how this evolves along the way.

On another day, I will summarize in more detail what I am doing these days, but in brief, to tide you over until then: I am still in Grand Rapids, I still live in the Eastown flat with the twins (along with the addition of a new roommate) and I have a (part-time) job (!!!) for which I couldn’t possibly be more thankful. All of this will last at least through December, an amount of stability that the woman I refer to as the new Stacy finds incredible. (She is much more flexible and significantly less concerned with plans than the old Stacy.) I think that I am close to securing part-time job number two and am possibly looking for part-time job number three. Everything is more complicated and harder than it used to be, but in the complexity there is beauty and depth and reality. In the end, I wouldn't want it any other way.

And it’s officially fall. I’m finding crazy-new hope in this. A few weeks ago, I was talking with a friend of mine that works at Baxter Community Center, the local nonprofit where I worked this summer. At that time, I felt as though everything in my life was up in the air; everything was chaos. I was unemployed. I had been, until just a few days before, on the brink of homelessness. The relationship that I had been in (with, for the record, a really wonderful man who remains a very good friend) had just ended. I was detailing this list for what felt like the hundredth time, trying to be cheerful but feeling kind of awful. And my friend responded by marveling at how the changes in our lives so often coincide with the changing of the seasons. She said that when she sees this, she thinks, praise God, he’s bringing change in my life also. And she told me that she was excited for me. Now I’ll be honest, that blew me away. Excited? No, no, this is not exciting. In concept maybe: oh look at the great big beautiful open future! Anything could happen! Anything!! However, I needed to pay the rent and buy food. And I was sad. And nothing made sense. But this dear friend of mine somehow managed to infuse my spirit with hope. Things are ending, things are changing, but something is coming...

Something is coming. And so I open my arms, open my heart, open my mind, and welcome this new season with hope.

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

--Frederick Buechner