A New Feeling

As the 21st week of gestation begins, I find myself overwhelmed with this new feeling.

I am not the same Mabel before our little Claire, nor I am the one I turned out to be after she was born, nor the one after she died. I see a new me, with different new feelings and doubts about motherhood as a whole.

I do not know if I will be able to protect her from everything, not even from herself, once she is a grown up. However, while I do know that little L is ours to be - she is ours to stay - I am afraid of a shadow of my former selfs, shadows of the love for Claire. I am afraid this love could somehow overlay the love I feel for the little L inside of me. I am afraid to compare the one we lost with the one we have now.
I am afraid of this new me. I am afraid of this new feeling...


#She could also hear# The House of  The Raising Sun – The Animals

Empty

A lifeless room full of never lived moments.
The moonlight kisses my cheeks as trying to stop the sobbing. Sometimes I can feel a warm hug around me, but most of the time it is just me. Talking as if she's there. Like mother and daughter, except that my voice is the only sound one could hear.
The longing comes in waves, trigged by daily events, by daily conversations.
My womb is empty, my arms are empty. My life is losing the meaning and I lost the track of things, walking around on the autopilot.
Still, I am trying to reconnect.

Myself

It hurts knowing I've been trying so hard to fit. To belong. To do my best.
But it is never going to be good enough.
I am never going to be good enough.
I am always wrong no matter what.


I disappoint myself.

Mistake

I am a mistake.

Pain

We are parents now.
We are parents of a little angel, who is with the Lord now.

Our little Claire was born last November. We already knew she was not ok. She underwent a surgery after her birth, but her lungs were just too weak.
And she left us two days after bringing her light to life.

It feels like a life. I have always known she was coming, my Claire Bear. So tiny and pretty...

It is just so hard go through the everydays... Thinking about her every moment. So many IFs...


The pain will never go away.


#She could also hear# The Head and The Heart – Gone

Sweet Thursday

It has been almost a year since I got married, and many things happened. Thursday was no exception.

Above all, I let my driving for growth on my career run wide. I let it own me. Yes, it was a way to forget the outside world, the problems and desappointments (and heart breakings).

When I met my D., I was again planning on  going abroad (again and again), with job, housing and everything already set. I did not quite understand that young man affirming that I was going nowhere. He was so convinced I was to stay exactly where we were.
Time passed, and we found ourselves in love with each other, soon starting with a relationship. We got married, and we have been happily married since then.
Yesterday, I got a call from a restaurant owner. She wanted me to move back to where once I lived, and work at the restaurant. I was so excited, that, for a few minutes, I felt the old rush through my veins. That feeling of adventure, and the unknown knocking on my door. I even thought of going, if the job was to stay weekdays, so I could come home on the weekends.
However, the first minutes passed, and the idea sank in.

Wake up in a different bed, not seeing D. there. Going to bed without him. Not having him to laugh with me, nor hug me when I need, nor I hug him when he need me.
How could I live this way? I remember our vows on the wedding day, and this... Adventure... Did not fit.

So, not even looking behind me, I chose the right. And I am blessed for doing so.

Cheers.

#She could also hear# The Head and The Heart – Cats and Dogs

Completely

I’ve been meaning to write to you for quite a while already. But it seems that the outside world conspires against it.

Things have changed here. I’m no longer working as a restaurant manager, but as an English teacher (ESL). Cooking occasionally, while I prepare everything for my new house and wedding reception. Yes, I am engaged.

I am engaged, and completely in love.

Petrified.

limbo. an imaginary place for lost and neglected things.
numb. so frightened as to be unable to move; stunned or paralyzed with terror; petrified.

Oh, hi there!

It is been a long while, I must say so. As much as I tried to write in here, those past months went hard on me.
Now, I find myself on a already four months job, and despised the fact I am a restaurant manager, not a cook, I have been surprisingly enjoying it.
That is all for now.

Not all

Today, I wrote a letter.
I wrote a letter about distance and time, loss and victories. A letter about love and forgiveness.
An overwhelming wave of emotions crushed my heart like a tsunami. Like a tsunami, it gave me back all the good memories of a time I could no longer live. A time of pure joy around these people of mine. However, I realized this was not just another goodbye, nor the last one. "Yours, Mabel." had a different meaning. I felt that the knot tightening us up is not gone, a bit loose perhaps.
I see the time ahead of us all. The experiences which we may be able to share with one another. But not all is unforgivable. Not all is lost. Not all is dead by the distance.

And if…

I was thinking about writing and cooking. Not writing about cook itself. I thought about the place both have in my life.
Well, I like to talk, this is a fact though. However,  as time made me enjoy the silence even more, I have also took pleasure in the power of my imagination. More precisely, to really listen to those thoughts of mine. When I was about eight years old, I got a Mickey Mouse diary (with a locker) as a birthday gift from a cousin. She told me to not waste the pages with silly school (e.g. John & Mabel) stuff. I took it as an order, and after a few days leaving the heartily pages book aside, I wrote my first letter to Kitty* talking about my views/doubts on religion. As I ended it with “Yours, M.W.”, I could not help myself with the felling of secrecy and self-wisdom which I still hold even while I am writing this not so secret letter. In my teenage years, and all the joy and melodrama that the menarche brings, I started to write poetry. Some I can say were good, some where so silly as my thoughts about John a young man I knew. I even had three poems published on a local newspaper, and won a physics book for another one**.  College time made me forget writing, and not until late twenties I restarted with a non-MM diary. I could not go through it longer than a month. I discovered the blessings of creating people (at least in my head) and listening about their stories, while I was playing owl one late night. I have never stopped doing so.
Cooking is in my life, for no surprise, since childhood. I was not a pick child, and loved tasting different flavors. I found it as profession, not only after graduated from college, while studying abroad. And it is been my life long lost vocation.
The fact is I could not imagine my life without doing those things. I think about it a lot, I mean, I make up stories in my mind, and I also create recipes more often than I eat. I find myself often playing with “and if…”.

Well, aufedersein!


* ”Dear Kitty”
** Why not History, Literature or Philosophy?!! Even Latin!

#She could also start shake her Sunday with# George Michael – Faith

The one who has flour at home, does not need massage

Who said that eating is a good way to overcome problems have not tried to knead a bread dough yet.
Let the gooey mixing for the children, and get to business! Pounding, pushing, and pulling the bloody thoughts that are bothering without mercy*!  Then bake it. By the time it’s done, it may not be the prettiest bread you have ever seen nor tasted, however you will feel yourself so much lighter while digesting all the troubles.

And then, there I was enjoying my stress-out bread with homemade jam (yes, I had to tell you about it too), the phone ringed. It turns out I got a job, and I am already packing my stuff for moving again.

New horizons are waiting for me, folks! I could not be happier!
Why do I need a massage when I have flour at home?

Cheerio!


*PLEASE, do not let the dough dry out!

#She could also hear# Cat Power – Living Proof

Onion soup does not make me cry

Well, guess I have been so tremendously interested that I lost the track of time… It is been a month.

It is been a month, and no sight of a job.

Days, weeks passed by… I am unaware of it all; cooking, studying and writing, on what make myself busy and productive. So often, I found myself on a Friday morning, thinking it may be a Tuesday, or even a Wednesday morning instead. Always lost in thoughts, minding on my own business*, going out/sending e-mails with my résumé, and reading. Late night, I can hear the sounds around the house; the wood cracking, the wind passing through the trees outside.
Tonight, I made myself an onion soup. Simple and savory enough for the type of comfort I was looking for; chop-chop-chop**, sautéing, stirring, wait, grab the bowl, bread plus cheese. It is 1:27 am, and , as I type this brief letter, I am having this amazing warmth.
The house sleeps.
I do feel lonely here and there, even though most of the time (ninety-fiveish percent) it is not a bad loneliness-confusing-depressing-frustrating, but a nice felling of getting to know me better. To a better understand of the real meaning of patience, and exercising it.

So long!


* Pinterest.com
** “Bon appétit!”

#She could also hear# Cat Power - Back Of Your Head

No, Bob. It is not porn.

"Find something you're passionate about, and keep tremendously interested in it."

          (CHILD, Julia) 

Now, school is been over for three weeks almost. And I am back home (is it really?).
I have been searching for a new job (yes, the other one was not as good as it sounded at first). And I also took this time to play around with my new knives, reproducing some of the school recipes, as well as creating a few more.
Eating, folks. That is something I just can not give up. Oh, Ms. Nutritionist, by that I mean good food. I could think about ingredients and techniques all day long... I know! It seems that I've got some new thing to go insane for.

The good news is I found out tonight (after a delicious chinese-kinda meal) that I am going to get published. Wow! No, no, no! Not me, nor The Book. One of my short stories* will be in an american magazine.
Hurray! It is a nice feeling, I must say so.

Cheers!


* No, Bob. It is not porn.

The clam delusions

"Please, please somebody help me!"

The clam screamed to the cook, who did not noticed  and opened the shelf killing it.

How was I supposed to be able to hear its pleading? How was I supposed to know its pain? Where its story began? Well, I may not know the answers to those questions, but I know how it ended. Twenty people fully satisfied with the clam and its similar taste.  :)

====

Besides the clam's pain, I complain now my own. My whole body is sore. The lunch at the restaurant was pretty crazy today, and we had to deal with three missing members of our team. But, at the end, everything was just fine.

First things first

First things first. I am a culinary student about to finish school. Going through the waves of emotions (yes, I am a woman) of the Balzac age, as well as the doubts of my own knowledge of what I've been proposing myself to do as a profession.
I do not doubt my culinary skills, however I do feel a little insecure. Insecurity, that is (probably) the right word for some of my problems. Maybe so.

I've been losing control and I no longer have control of some, big, part of my own. What would I do? I keep trying to endure things on my own, over and over again.
This kind of behavior could be the end of my sanity.

Sometimes, More often than I wish, I feel myself going crazy.
Am I crazy?

Clear and fluffy cream

Whisk the egg whites with 100g of sugar until  it is a clear and fluffy cream...
That's how I started my day today. It was a Piedmont' savoiardi recipe, which was quite easy in fact, even though it was my first time baking these delicious cookies. Followed by a food cost class, and a job indication. Yeap, a job indication!  :)

New?

I've decided to start my new story, not from the beginning, neither from the end, but from the part that holds most interest to me. I've been trying, I've been studying, I've been learning, I've been crying, I've been laughing. I am now on the first step to the end. Or am I on the first step to the beginning? To a new beginning?

Now she could see flies

"We are all like flies trying to crawl over the edge of the saucer, Mabel thought, and repeated the phrase as if she were crossing herself, as if she were trying to find some spell to annul this pain, to make this agony endurable. [...] If she could say that over often enough and make herself see the flies, she would become numb, chill, frozen, dumb. Now she could see flies [...]."   

(WOOLF, Virginia. "The New Dress")