Have you read anything lately that you’ve loved? I’ve read some great things, amidst many others that have been inconsequential (e-mails) or uninteresting (e-mails) or anxiety-producing (all of the news?). Like, say, these lines from a poem by Suzanne Frischkorn: “we are in the changing days, crisp mornings and afternoon’s swelter visions that summer is still here. Goldenrod pushes us towards autumn with promises of richness. Something I can’t name blooms alongside it and promises royalty.” Or a novel with some particularly memorable passages, like—“So much of becoming an adult was distancing yourself from your childhood experiences and pretending they didn’t matter, then growing to realize they were all that mattered and composed 90 percent of your entire being.”
It’s not all poetry and high-minded fiction. Any old jumble of words can thrill you. The menu outside the pizza restaurant reads white pie with fontina, cold Deep Roots Farm heirloom tomatoes & basil and sweet corn cake with husk cherry jam. How beautiful is that? A text message from my dad reads, “I am phone available for the rest of the afternoon”—also pretty beautiful words, in the father department.
I read the back of the cereal box while waiting for my tea water to boil. A flyer for a local design store. The weather report (100% humidity, 100% humidity, 100% humidity). The directions for dinner tonight (add the chickpeas, coconut milk, cashew butter, garam masala, coriander, turmeric, ginger, garlic, and 1 cup of water and bring to a boil). I read the first sentence of a Joan Didion book I bought months ago and haven’t opened yet: This is a story about love and death in the golden land, and begins with the country.
I do not read the following: the 12 emails in my inbox with the word SALE in the subject line, any Google search result for best baby high chair, the sign posted “park permit only” at the Orient State Beach (whoops), the instructions on the back of the basmati rice bag (also whoops—you like undercooked rice, right?).
I do, however, read the suggested cooking time on the fresh fusilli package. I cook it for only 3 minutes before pouring it—along with about 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water—into a large skillet on the next burner, in which I have sautéing away a blend of leeks, slivered kale, garlic, and paprika. After I add the pasta, I stir in a few handfuls of grated cheddar cheese, some Greek yogurt, and a spoonful each of Dijon mustard and grainy mustard.
I read, while my pasta cooks, the poem “The Republic of Motherhood”, which brings me to my knees. It’s the fourth time I’ve read it and each time I start to feel, right in the middle, whoa this is getting way too dark and dreary and old-fashioned and then she hits you with the “wild fucking queendom” line and that (pardon my French) fucking makes it all perfect and suddenly you’re desperate to fling printed pages of this poem at everyone you know so they can read it and get it. So they can understand, in some small and far-off way, one small piece of the wild and wonderful and fiercely beautiful but new world you’ve wandered into. And it’s certainly one of the darker and more difficult pieces, while so many of the other bits are aglow with a deeply rooted rightness you’d hoped for but weren’t sure existed.
Read it, then recover by making—and eating—cheesy kale pasta.
I crossed the border into the Republic of Motherhood
and found it a queendom, a wild queendom.
I handed over my clothes and took its uniform,
its dressing gown and undergarments, a cardigan,
soft as a creature, smelling of birth and milk,
and I lay down in Motherhood’s bed, the bed I had made
but could not sleep in, for I was called at once to work
in the factory of Motherhood. The owl shift,
the graveyard shift. Feedingcleaninglovingfeeding.
I walked home, heartsore, through pale streets,
the coins of Motherhood singing in my pockets.
Then I soaked my spindled bones
in the chill municipal baths of Motherhood,
watching strands of my hair float from my fingers.
Each day I pushed my pram through freeze and blossom
down the wide boulevards of Motherhood
where poplars bent their branches to stroke my brow.
I stood with my sisters in the queues of Motherhood—
the weighing clinic, the supermarket—waiting
for Motherhood’s bureaucracies to open their doors.
As required, I stood beneath the flag of Motherhood
and opened my mouth although I did not know the anthem.
When darkness fell I pushed my pram home again,
and by lamplight wrote urgent letters of complaint
to the Department of Motherhood but received no response.
I grew sick and was healed in the hospitals of Motherhood
with their long-closed isolation wards
and narrow beds watched over by a fat moon.
The doctors were slender and efficient
and when I was well they gave me my pram again
so I could stare at the daffodils in the parks of Motherhood
while winds pierced my breasts like silver arrows.
In snowfall, I haunted Motherhood’s cemeteries,
the sweet fallen beneath my feet—
Our Lady of the Birth Trauma, Our Lady of Psychosis.
I wanted to speak to them, tell them I understood,
but the words came out scrambled, so I knelt instead
and prayed in the chapel of Motherhood, prayed
for that whole wild fucking queendom,
its sorrow, its unbearable skinless beauty,
and all the souls that were in it. I prayed and prayed
until my voice was a nightcry
and sunlight pixelated my face like a kaleidoscope.
[Liz Berry]
See? You need some pasta now. I know it.
Cheesy Kale Pasta
8 ounces fresh pasta
1 leek, rinsed and sliced into half moons
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 pound kale or Swiss chard, slivered into ribbons
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon whole grain mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
freshly ground pepper, to taste
Bring a medium pot of heavily salted water to boil. Add the fresh pasta and cook for 3 minutes, then drain, reserving 3/4 cup of the pasta cooking water.
In a large skillet over medium heat, add the leek and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until fragrant—about 3 minutes.
Add the kale or chard and paprika and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until the greens wilt.
Add the cheese, yogurt, both mustards, salt, and cooked pasta and stir for 1 minute until the cheese begins to melt. Add the reserved pasta cooking water, salt, and pepper—remove from the heat and stir until well-combined and the sauce is smooth.
Serve hot.