Author: mstturpin

Writer in Texas trying to get the words out of her head and onto the page.

Communion with Cornmeal

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I come from generations of gardeners. When we moved into our house last year, it was too late in the summer for planting. I vowed an early start in the next season. This year, however, brought mostly failed experiments with container gardening. My tomatoes grew weary in the dry heat, dropping leaves and blossoming worth with small, wrinkled fruit. I tried summer squash – remembering the butter yellow vegetables my mother grew. My plants protested confinement in pots, however large. But one hardy vegetable flourished in the ten square feet I allotted it. Okra, that heat-loving Southern staple.

It’s one of the easiest plants to grow, and it makes an interesting addition to your garden. The yellow blossoms with their deep red centers reveal the plant’s place in the mallow family, a relative of the hibiscus. A little water, lots of sun, and you’re rewarded with hardy, heat-loving stalks and enough okra pods to share with your friends and family. Okra is best right after it is picked. The stuff you see in a grocery store most likely will be soft and wilted. If you don’t have a spot to grow it yourself, pick it up at a Farmers Market. Okra is delicious roasted. Boiled it makes a tasty thickener for stews and gumbo. My favorite way to cook it is to bread it in either corn meal or flour and fry it.

Okra

The blooms open in the early morning sun, around the time I set aside for harvesting the pods. Bees circle the plants, landing and picking up their fill of pollen while I brush aside the broad leaves and search for the tasty green okra. I’m growing Clemson Spineless – a kinder variety from the one I picked as a child in my mother’s garden. Those plants and their pods were covered in prickly spines that raised red welts on the tender flesh of my arms. The rash, however, was payment for the reward – plates of crunchy, cornmeal breaded and fried okra.

Okra plants in my garden

As I pick the pods, I can imagine the taste of the crispy chunks. Okra has a flavor that reminds me of cool green grass. It tastes like summer. I remember my mother, setting the table with fried okra and red slices of tomato. She pan-fried her okra in shortening with a little bacon grease mixed in for flavor. I cook mine in canola oil and skip the bacon grease. Like my mom, I use a cast iron skillet. Each bite I take I taste the past.

New Year New Goals

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Unlike my friend here, I don’t have an excuse for not writing more.

The past year has been a series of “if only” – If only I didn’t have to work full time, if only I had more time, if only I had a dedicated writing space, and on and on and on.

It’s the end of the year and I’m still working a full time job. We have bills to pay, just like most people I know. Whenever I begin to feel sorry for myself and wish for more time, I remember reading about Ray Bradbury toiling away each night, writing short stories after he worked to support his family. He wrote Fahrenheit 451 on a rented typewriter, in the basement of the UCLA library. I have a laptop I could take anywhere to write – including my office in the house we bought this year.

I’m grateful to the group of writing friends I’ve made. I wouldn’t have completed the works I have done this year if it hadn’t been for their support and encouragement.

With 2022 upon us, I’m wishing for a more productive year for everyone. In the meantime, here’s a link below to an older short story of mine that I think turned out well.

Old Long Since

Happy New Year!

Thankful for Small Steps

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I turned 60 this year, and for the first time in my life I’ve realized I have far fewer days ahead of me than behind. It’s a startling revelation, one that leads me to portion out my days like a miser hoarding gold. A very small stack of gold. One that I should have appreciated much sooner.

There is no good time to live through a pandemic. I wonder if I would have felt the theft of days as acutely if Covid had happened when I was 50, 40, 30. Be thankful, I tell myself, you don’t have small children at home. I’m fortunate that I have a job that can be done remotely. The only health damage my husband and I have sustained is the extra pounds that have crept up on us. I’m not replacing the batteries on our digital scale. When it dies we’ll stop monitoring our gains. That, at least, will have a finite ending.

We decided to forego any gathering of friends and family for Thanksgiving and instead reserved admission to Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas. It seemed safer to spend the time outdoors, passing strangers on trails.

Outside, with the clean scent of juniper and cedar surrounding us, it was simple to tie my shortness of breath to the steepness of our hike, and not to the irrational fear of illness. Worry dissolved with each step over tangled roots, each rustle of leaves blanketing the trails.

We stopped at an overlook to admire how high we’d climbed and I ate an orange, impossibly sweet, from my pack.

I snapped a picture at a spot I’d stopped at a few years back, intending to look up that photo and compare it to the present, but I decided I’d rather keep the current image in my mind without regret for the changes brought by time.

The trek downhill was harder, perhaps because it marked the winding down of the day. My knees complained and my ankles, not to be outdone, insisted on wobbling with each step. Someone had installed a small wooden step at a particularly steep portion of the trail. As I tested the sturdiness of the steps I clutched the trunk of a cedar tree leaning over the path. The usually shaggy bark was worn smooth, polished by the thousands of hands that had gone this way before me.

At the end of the trail, as at the beginning, we had to cross the slow-moving Paluxy River. Andrew hopped across the stones laid in rows in the shallow water while I, not trusting my balance, decided to take off my boots and go barefoot through the crossing.

I tested each step, carefully navigating over slick, moss-covered stones worn smooth. Cold water up to my knees, I felt both a child-like joy and the very adult fear of falling. If I made it back to dry land safely, I decided I would devote time each day to the yoga tree-pose.

I find gratitude in nature, for the ability to set out on larger journeys with small steps. I forgive myself for the ennui that has gripped me this past year and I realize that instead of wasting time I’ve been healing. So that when this pandemic is over I can go out and face the world like the bad-ass, mature woman that I am.

“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.” Henri Matisse

Leave the Right Trace

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Whispering Pines Nature Trail at Tyler State Park – Photo by the author

I’ve been wondering, lately, what I’ll leave behind. What mark will I make on the world? Not that I’m planning to kick off anytime soon, but recent events have certainly brought that to mind. When you have to gear up for a Target run like you’re preparing for the apocalypse, it brings home the certainty of your own mortality.

Mushroom Along the Trail – Photo by Andrew Shaw

Andrew and I have determined the safest space for us is outdoors. We might encounter a snake, have to brush off a tick, or bring home a rash from poison ivy, but there’s little risk of inhaling a deadly virus, as long as we keep our distance from our fellow hikers. There’s plenty of room for all outside.

Loblolly Pines at Tyler State Park – Photo by the author

We traveled down Interstate 20, to Tyler State Park. As we grew closer to our destination, the earth beside the highway changed from the blackland prairie soil to the red clay dirt of East Texas.

Hiking Trail at Tyler State Park – Photo by the author

Like many of our beautiful national and state parks, Tyler State Park was constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) during the Great Depression. Andrew and I hiked along a trail and climbed steps laid into the ground over eighty years ago.

Steps and Waterfall Built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1938 – Photo by the author

Outdoor etiquette instructs us to be careful, to leave no trace when we hike. Our footprints on the trail, stamped into the dust, will be swept aside by the next traveler. We take nothing but peace from the space. As we trekked along, under a canopy of green, I thought what a wonderful trace the young men of the CCC had left behind.

Whispering Pines Nature Trail at Tyler State Park – Photo by the author

How fortunate our land had Franklin Delano Roosevelt as president during that trying time. When FDR established the Civilian Conservation Corps, he created hope and opportunity, not just for the men who would lend their labor to creating a legacy that would live on past their lifetimes, but for all who would visit the parks in decades to come. The challenge then, for each of us, will be to examine our steps and determine what trace our actions will leave for future generations.

Tyler State Park, Tyler, Texas – Photo by the author

Finding Fossils in Ladonia, Texas

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Sign outside Ladonia Fossil Park in Ladonia, Texas, Small Town Big Future
Ladonia Fossil Park – Photo by the author

On a sunny Sunday afternoon Andrew and I drove to Ladonia, Texas to look for fossils.  They’d been waiting for discovery some eighty million years, so we were in no particular hurry to arrive. Small towns with quaint names peppered the map along the path we traveled – White Shed, Honey Grove, Allens Chapel, Pecan Gap, Wolfe City, Birthright, Ben Franklin, and Flat Prairie. I ignored the blacktop road beneath our tires and focused on the fields flashing past. I imagined we were retracing the route of an Old West stagecoach.

The North Sulphur River
The North Sulphur River

We turned off Highway 34 and into the gravel parking lot at the entrance to the park. There were no facilities – no restrooms, no ranger station, and most important – no ticket booth and no admission charge.

To reach the riverbed we clambered down a steep concrete staircase, more suited to goats than late-middle-aged women.

“I can hold your hand,” Andrew offered.

“I’m afraid I’d just pull you down with me, and we’d tumble off together,” I said.

The steep stairs descending to the riverbed
The “Stairs”

Erosion had carried away the bottom portion of the staircase. We were able to sidle along the side of the embankment and reach the riverbed. The buzz of passing cars and trucks sounded beside us, on the bridge spanning the river. Once we reached the bottom the noise filtered away.

Partially dry riverbed of the North Sulphur River
The View from the Bottom of the Stairs – North Sulphur River

We brought a garden trowel and a plastic grocery bag to carry away any treasure we unearthed. Visitors are allowed to collect anything they find along the banks or in the riverbed. While Andrew sifted through the loose shale that lined the bank, I strolled along beside the shallow water.

Shale banks of the North Sulphur RIver
Shale Banks of the North Sulphur River

The clear water carried the boiled-egg stink of sulphur, so I resisted the urge to wade in the river. We found fossilized oyster shells and imprints of pre-historic plants, immortalized in the soft, grey rock. The shale crumbled, like cake too soon from the oven.

“We’ll have to come back, and bring more tools,” Andrew said.

I imagined the trek down those stairs, while weighted with shovels, trowels, buckets and brushes. “Maybe,” I said.

Right before we left, a group of people – three adults and a dizzying clutch of children – stopped to chat. One of the men told us he’d heard the park would soon be closed. “They’re going to open the dam upriver,” he said, “and this place will be underwater.”

Pausing at the top of the staircase, I gazed back the way I’d climbed and imagined, instead of the thin stream of water below, a vast spread of sea.

Here We Go A-Wandering

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Photo by the author – Ammonite fossil on the hiking trail at Cleburne State Park, Texas

There are times when you just have to go somewhere. I imagine every unmasked stranger carries not just Covid-19, but some alien spore that will launch from their chest like a special effect in a John Carpenter movie. We are living in a badly plotted horror flick. When I heard the Texas state parks were open again with limited capacity, I signed up for a day pass to Cleburne State Park.

My husband Andrew and I arrived at the park just before noon. Texas in June is more suited to early morning or late-night hikes, but we had packed plenty of water in our CamelBak hydration packs. Andrew chose the trail. Although it was marked on the map as “Challenging” it also appeared to be the one with the most shade. Equipped with boots, hat, and hiking staff – I felt I could handle the route.

At the start of our hike, as we trod smartly along the tree-lined path, I hummed the tune to The Happy Wanderer.

Photo by the author

If you went to school in the 1960s or early 1970s, I bet you know this song. We sang it at every choir practice or music class. It was written by Florenz Friedrich Sigismund (1791–1877) and since I’m sure the copyright has long since passed, here are the lyrics:  

“I love to go a-wandering,
Along the mountain track,
And as I go, I love to sing,
My knapsack on my back.

Chorus:
Val-deri,Val-dera,
Val-deri,
Val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha
Val-deri,Val-dera.
My knapsack on my back.”

We passed a little stream as I reached the second verse.

Photo by the author

“I love to wander by the stream
That dances in the sun
So joyously it calls to me
Come join my happy song”

The trail Andrew and I climbed, while not exactly mountainous, did have enough elevation change that I felt compelled to stop every few feet and rest. Panting might help dogs to cool off, but it did not work for me. I would have collapsed on the juniper needles blanketing the path, but for the green poison ivy poking up in every level spot.

“How much farther?” I asked Andrew.

He pulled out the map and considered it. “I think we are a little less than halfway to the scenic overlook.”

“I hope there’s a bench there,” I said.

We continued along, Andrew in the lead and me following. I stared at the trail, carefully avoiding anything resembling a stick that might turn out to be a snake in disguise. We spotted a lovely ammonite fossil and I stopped to take a picture.

The fossil reminded me the area we hiked was, in prehistoric times, the floor of an ocean. The limestone we walked on was made up of the skeletal remains of marine life that inhabited that sea. If only we were wading through that cooling water now.

“Do you still have plenty of water?” Andrew asked as we paused and I soaked a towel with cool water from my pack.

“I’m good.”

“We don’t want to get heat-stroke,” Andrew said, “but I’ve heard that’s a pleasant way to die. You just pass out and go.”

“I’ve never thought of any sort of dying as pleasant.”

“Well, yes, but of all the ways to go,” Andrew continued, “I think if you kick off first, I’ll just head to the desert and walk until I’m gone.”

The trail leveled out along a stretch of wildflower filled, sunlit fields. I sipped my water and mentally checked off the symptoms of heat-stroke. I occurred to me that worrying over heat exhaustion had so consumed my thoughts that afternoon that I hadn’t thought once about dying in the pandemic. Not even when we passed other, unmasked hikers on the trail.

At one point we scrambled down an incline of loose scree, our feet sliding almost from under us. I grabbed at the cedar tree branches bent over the trail, in order to slow my descent. Andrew waited for me at the bottom, then held my hand and helped me climb up the other side. I studied Andrew’s back as he pushed on upwards. His hiking boots kicked up tufts of dried leaves and gravel.

“If I die first and you decide to go off hiking in the desert,” I said, “box up my ashes and take them with you. That way you won’t be alone.”

“All right, I suppose that could work.”

Right after, we discovered we’d been on the wrong trail. We ended up at the point where we’d begun the loop, not a bad thing as we were near the trail sign that pointed to the exit.

I’ll be back inside next week, waiting out the pandemic. I’ve never liked crowds, or crowded places where large groups congregate, so I don’t miss those types of gatherings. I do like my solitary pursuits – reading and writing, but I’m always glad of Andrew’s company. When you’re on a journey, I think it’s nice to have someone by your side. Or leading the way, watching for snakes.

Did I Say That Out Loud?

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Photo by the author

My husband Andrew and I have both been working from home the past few weeks. There have been some adjustments related to space. We’ve agreed all pooping is to take place in the bathroom farthest from where our desks are set up.

It’s funny the things you notice when you spend 24 hours a day with another person. Andrew discovered I have a “work voice.” It’s like a secret identity where my superpower is cursing.

I binge watched Tiger King last week. I’ve decided Carole Baskin did kill her husband, but it probably didn’t have anything to do with them working together. Maybe. There are no tigers at our apartment complex.

We do have squirrels. They’ve grown used to the both of us being home everyday and they march right up to the glass door on the patio. Like they’re ordering food at Jack in the Box. We’re giving them names. I call the one that knocks over my plants You Bastard.

While we’re in quarantine I’m trying new things. I’ve got a sourdough starter going. Everything I’d read made the process sound pretty easy, but I’ve found it’s like raising a third child. I have to feed it twice a day and keep it warm. I’m knitting it a scarf.

Are You Going Bananas?

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Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment I know this is the only moment.– Thich Nhat Hanh

Photo by the author – image enhanced with the Waterlogue App

We got our produce delivery today and the box included four bananas. I still have two bananas left from the previous week. Bananas, it seems, are not in short supply. I haven’t been able to find flour anywhere, and I’ve gone so far as to put a 50 lb bag in my online cart at a restaurant supply store. I would have ordered it too, despite the $20 delivery fee. But it was sold out.

I see folks selling flour on Ebay, for twice the price at the grocery store – if the grocery stores actually had flour in stock. I’m not a charitable person. I’m wishing weevils on all those Ebay capitalists.

Andrew suggested we plant wheat, but our balcony is too shady for large scale farming. I’m trusting my 5 lb bag of flour will last until the current crisis is over.

I have, however, started a crop of a different sort.

Sprouts!

Andrew and I are fortunate. We both have jobs and we’ve been working from home, our only inconvenience the inability to just run out and purchase things. This would be tolerable and healthy for our budget, if it weren’t for the stress the loss of control brings.

This morning as I unpacked our produce box and considered the two sad bananas left sitting on the counter from the previous week, I decided I wanted banana pudding.

“Do you want to go to the store and buy ‘Nilla wafers?” Andrew asked.

I considered the logistics of grocery shopping. Gloves, mask, hand sanitizer, dodging crowds of shoppers who can’t seem to grasp the concept of social distancing – “No thanks,” I said.

I decided instead to make the entire dish from scratch. It turned out pretty well, plus I had the satisfaction of creating something I wanted. Who knew cooking could bring back some sense of control to my life? (I guess the people buying up all the flour already knew about the power of baking.)

I found the recipe for my made-from-scratch banana pudding here: I Am Baker

I’m trying my own sourdough starter next, acting on faith that flour will be back in stock soon.

I found the sourdough recipe on I Am Homesteader.

Stay safe at home.

Where Do You Go When You Can’t Go Out?

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bridge
Photo by Terrye Turpin

I hope everyone is safe and snug at home. I’ve given up the search for toilet paper. Instead I hear my mother’s ghost warning me each time I approach the bathroom. Toilet paper must have cost more in the 70s.

“Don’t use so much! Stop spinning that roll!”

Mom grew up in the Great Depression. She told me they used the Sears Roebuck catalog, but not the slick pages. Also they’d save corn cobs after they ate the corn, then stock the outhouse with the dried cobs. She claimed they burned them later, for fuel.

We aren’t quite there yet, my husband Andrew and I are well provisioned with most things, except eggs and bananas. I’ve found a local 7-11 that stocks bananas so all that is left is for me to adopt a chicken and we will be ready for any apocalypse.

So what do you do all day when you shouldn’t go out?

Books

Better World Books – Purchase a used book here to help support worldwide literacy programs.

Thrift Books – Another cool site for used books. Free shipping on orders of $10 or more. They also support a prison literacy program.

Nowhere Bookshop – If you’re a fan of author Jenny Lawson you’ll be excited to shop her store before it officially opens. Order a book online and support a great independent bookseller.

Any independent bookstore in your area. Amazon will survive the pandemic but small, local stores will struggle. These places also employ staff and contribute to your local economy. Consider shopping local online before you send your money to Amazon.

Food

Farmbox – If you’re in the Dallas Fort Worth Area they deliver a selection of local organic produce. I was able to order a good variety of fruits and vegetables. If you’re outside DFW, search for local produce delivery. Chances are they will have a decent selection available and can restock faster because they are buying from area producers. There’s always 7-11 for bananas.

Imperfect Foods – I’ve just started with this service. Their first box had a very limited amount of produce available, but I was able to add yogurt, ground beef, and ground turkey at a reasonable price. Higher than my local grocery store, but I won’t have to go fight infected crowds. If you’re interested in checking them out, here’s a link for $10 off your first box – http://imprfct.us/v/terrye_3

Minimus.biz – They sell tiny travel size products. They’re out of hand sanitizer, but take a look at all the other products. I love ordering the individually packaged salad dressings for when I take my lunch to work. These will come in handy when we are allowed back in the office.

Entertainment

Louvre Museum Virtual Tour – Visit the Louvre in Paris without getting on a plane.

Future Learn – Take a class for free. You can purchase unlimited access or view the courses for free for their duration plus 14 days.

The Great Courses – They have a 14 Day Free Trial. Or check out your public library. Mine offers access to the Great Courses for free, through the Rb Digitial app.

Kanopy – If you run out of things to binge on Netflix, check out Kanopy. If your public library or university is a member (most are) you can stream free movies.

Audible – They’re offering free stories for children for as long as schools are closed.

Drive-in theaters – If you’re not under a stay-at-home order, you can visit an old-fashioned drive-in theater. Many are open now, but they might not be able to offer a snack bar and probably will have limited restrooms open. If you’re willing to travel and stay put in your car, you can bring your own snacks and have an adventure.

Social

Zoom – Hang out with your bookclub, writer’s group, study partners, friends and family for free video conferencing.

Postcrossing – Connect with the world the old-fashioned way, through the mail. Join here for free and they’ll give you addresses around the world. Send a postcard and you’ll be added to the list to receive one. Don’t have postcards at home? Make your own. Use up those fancy notecards, index cards, or stacks of Christmas cards you never used. Make sure anything you send meets the postal regulations for size. Order stamps here without leaving your house – USPS.com

Good luck friends in isolation, drop me a comment below and share your favorite way to spend time during the pandemic.

The Music You’ll Hear in Heaven

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janderson-tulio-eenKAWF2dw8-unsplashPhoto by Janderson Tulio on Unsplash

I wandered into the dark room at the museum and stepped through into another dimension. Sound surrounded me – soft voices lifting in song and sweet notes issuing from musical instruments. The experience of viewing The Visitors, a video art installation by Ragnar Kjartansson, haunted me long after I’d left the Dallas Museum of Art.

The piece features nine screens, eight of them showing individual musicians in separate rooms of the same house, performing the same song. They shot the ninth screen on the front porch of that house, the Rokeby mansion in New York, a historic site once owned by the Astor family.

I wandered up and down the room housing the exhibit, pausing at each projection to marvel at the beauty of the setting. The rooms in the video, with their gently fading wallpaper and antique furniture, reflected a vision of loss and regret that echoed in the lyrics of the song. Later I discovered the words were based on the poem Feminine Ways, written by Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir, Kjartansson’s ex-wife.

The music built and swelled, rising in a crescendo then falling to whisper quiet. Standing in front of each of the life-sized screens, I felt like a voyeur, viewing ghosts instead of recordings. In one scene, a man sits on the edge of a bed, electric guitar in his lap. Behind him on the bed we see a woman’s bare back, the curve of her shoulder lifted into the lamplight. As I paused at each screen—the cello, the accordion, the pianos, the guitars—I felt as though I were the ghost, wandering through an afterlife of such intimate moments.

Art touches our soul, reminding us we are fragile and alone. At the end of the video the musicians gather in one room. They sing around the piano, the words this time joyful. One artist pops a bottle of champagne in celebration, another lights a cigar. The troupe strolls out across a broad green lawn, singing. I am left with that last image – of individual lives come together to create something beautiful.