Building Blocks
ANDALUSIA, SPAIN // Moon: FULL // Recipe: Roasted Sweet Red Peppers with Hazelnut and Avocado
There is a specific, sharp geometry to life changing all at once. The clock becomes a sphere, a sun, a square, a belly. Time holds on with its arms.
Lately, I have been thinking about blocks. The heavy, frustrating kind that stall a paragraph mid-sentence. The physical, stubborn kind that make food—even the most gorgeous, seasonal ingredients—suddenly lose its logic, turning appetite into an aversion. And then, the miniature, smooth wooden alphabet blocks we are stacking, spelling a new name.
We signed a lease on an apartment near the hospital here in Spain, where I am planing to have our baby. What we could live with at the cortijo before won’t work now that we have a little one on the way. And, as much as I’d like to stick to my plans while in the midst of so much change— to make it work off-grid in our rustic little ruin— the apartment is necessary.
We signed the lease for the apartment on the exact same day Gordon, my husband, got laid off from his job of the last 4 years. It felt like a joke, or a prayer, or both. Irony and poetry. Exciting, as in: This is what it is to be alive… What can we do but keep sailing? Just as we reach out to steady ourselves against a sudden gust of change, we realize the only way through is absolute adaptability. We tack like a little wooden boat. We just keep moving, even when seasick. I can’t help but admit that I am thankful to have practice learning how to gulp the swell, practice in not giving up when the going gets tough— we keep our eyes on the horizon, we surrender when it’s time to go horizontal, we heave what we can no longer hold.
The hospital sits right near the sea, a massive concrete anchor against the endless blue that stills me. Everything about the geography of our current stress strikes me as privilege and blessing, even as I experience the challenges of transition in my body, identity, culture, geography, medical treatments, finances, etc. How will we make this work, I wonder? Will we be able to chew this massive mouthful of change and ambition? Can I find rest in this unsettled season? These are the roadblocks I figured we’d face eventually (with culture shock setting in), part of the learning curve we were craving… We chose this life here knowing this reality check would come. Still, living the life you want on your own terms is worth it. My heart cracks open as it grows, beauty and grief in lock, joy and emotion—a waterfall off the edge of yikes.
The hospital is a strange landscape for me to return to. I wish the somatic flashbacks were a sandcastle that would erode. Instead, the memories seem to be anchored. I have cried before and after each appointment of the trauma and the joy. As a cancer survivor, the sterile corridors always carry an echo—a reminder of a time when my body was lost, confused, and scared. Pregnancy, too, holds its own complicated viscera. I feel butterflies and moths. For a survivor of SA; the heightened interoception requires a radical, brave reclamation of my senses, moment at a time. There is a quiet resilience that takes over somewhere in my breath, even if it feels like a survival mode. I am alive. I look out the hospital windows at the water, and I am reminded that healing isn’t the absence of gale. We buoy ourselves as the winds shift, the thunder cracks, as the sun and shadow wrestle for sky. Yes, even the sun burns.
Gale
Wind Speed: Sustained speeds between 34 and 54 mph (30 to 47 knots or 62 to 87 km/h).
Effects: Twigs and small branches are broken off trees, and walking directly into the wind becomes highly difficult.
Marine Impact: High waves develop with white foam blown into streaks.
Right now, we are finding a rhythm that stretches between the olive grove and the sea. We go over the mountains, then back again. We take care of the trees with sea legs. We trim as the gale prunes us. We weed, we watch the soil and water, we plan for the early harvest. We kiss the dust and mist. We miss the familiar. I need the pattern. I need a grip. I hold the branch high.
There is a beautiful, terrifying synchronicity to the calendar this year: the trees and I are due at the exact same time. While the olive fruits swell on the branches, heavy with oil, a life is doing the same inside of me. Two kinds of labor to peak in the very same season. I tremble beneath the ripening hope as I learn in real time what it is I can endure.
To balance the weight of it all, I find pockets of deliberate luxury. Yesterday, it was an outdoor shower after a walk through the olive trees.
There is a beautiful juxtaposition in stepping out under the open sky into water, drenched, completely exposed to the elements, washing with products that smell of crushed herbs and quiet indulgence then wrapping myself in the thickest towel I packed from home in NY. These external practices are a reminder that even when everything is shifting, we can still curate our comfort.
My baptism was followed by a bite that finally landed me: body, mind, and stomach— which is rare lately. (I’ve included the recipe below.) Why is it the meals we conceptualize when the fridge and pantry are nearly bare that feel the most satisfying and magical?
We are building a life out of gleaming fragments, carving the puzzle pieces from these mountains, the grove, the sea, the blocks, the branches, our bodies and hearts. I can’t wait to teach baby how to re-stack the blocks that topple. How to crush a sandcastle… or watch and wait for the tide come wash it down. Over and over, we build and then we rebuild. Ever lucky. We make plans, and then we cry and laugh.
Fire Roasted Peppers with Hazelnut and Avocado
This salad/dip really checked all the boxes: sweet, sour, savory, salty, creamy, crunchy.
Fire roasting your peppers at home really takes it to the next level, but I’ve already recreated this with a jar of roasted red peppers and it was still superb. This would be good with more avocado, if that’s the mood. We scooped mouthfuls onto Spanish potato chips as a late afternoon snack, but we could have eaten it on it’s own as a salad, or on top of meat or fish. It’s a super versatile little side dish.
INGREDIENTS:
6-7 Sweet Red Peppers, fire roasted and chopped (or one large jar, drained)
1-2 Avocados, Diced
1/2 a Red Onion, minced
1 clove Garlic, minced
Handful (1/3 c.) of Roasted Hazelnuts, crushed or roughly chopped
1 tsp. Honey
Salt, generous pinch, to taste
1-2 Tbsp. Sherry Vinegar, a generous splash
3-4 Tbsp. Olive Oil, generous pour
Borage Flowers, optional as garnish
METHOD:
In the bottom of a mixing bowl, whisk together minced garlic, honey, sherry vinegar, olive oil, and a generous pinch of salt until fully combined.
Add the minced red onion to the dressing and give it a quick stir. Letting the onion sit in the vinegar for just a minute takes the raw edge off.
Add the fire-roasted, chopped sweet red peppers and diced avocado to the bowl. Fold everything together gently so the dressing coats the veggies without mashing the avocado.
Just before serving, add the crushed roasted hazelnuts for crunch, and scatter the optional borage flowers and more hazelnut over the top. Serve immediately.
Tip: Adding the hazelnuts right at the very end ensures they stay perfectly crunchy instead of softening in the dressing!