Uncategorized – Kelly Yandell

(Or not)

By Kelly Yandell

Homemade yogurt is the epitome of simplicity in the kitchen. All you need is milk, and a culture.

(This is certainly true compared to, say, performing a triple bypass surgery. After hours of research online and several failed attempts with different varieties of culture I settled on a “traditional” type of yogurt starter. Here you will also like to know the difference between thermophilic and mesophilic. You will also want to consider whether to purchase an heirloom culture which can allegedly be used forever, provided you keep making yogurt with regularity, or a non-heirloom which is a one or two use affair. I opted for the non-heirloom after several attempts with heirlooms which seemed to have a personal grudge against me, my family and my kitchen, and refused to become anything but grainy milk. I admit that this was a personal failing and had nothing to do with the product or the culture of culturing. Not every being will thrive in my home. Now that I’m an addict, I will be a customer of the freeze dried culture company forever. Regardless, at this point you will need one All-Clad saucepan, one Le Creuset small Dutch oven filled with ice for cooling the milk, a digital thermometer, a stainless steel All-Clad stirring spoon.)

Learning to.

Softer
More Vulnerable
No Armor
No Shell

May immense suffering
Rip your heart open
Not cause it to close

May it open you and soften you
To feel each moment of beauty in its moment
And love deeply and abundantly

May you see and work on your own path
And not mistake another’s path as your own
Though they run in the same direction

May you love and counsel
But not interfere

May you warmly offer wisdom
Without trying to control

May you offer knowledge
Without taking over the challenge
And depriving your friend of their opportunity to learn
Even if in doing so they may fail

May you receive counsel without
Feeling controlled or judged

May pain be your guide and teacher
May you see pain as such and not as your enemy

May you pass through suffering swiftly
But not so swiftly that you don’t see the lesson

May you recognize all of your teachers
And be compassionate to your students

May you feel deeply without being hurt
When you are hurt may you not heal completely
But increase your capacity for compassion

May your scars remind you of love

Kinder
More open
Still
Alive

This poem, prayer, meditation, or prose…whatever it is…was the result of a writing session when I was trying to make sense of the anxiety of being a mother of two college children on opposite coasts, to whom I am very attached and who were arguably over-parented. Also, I was cataloguing some of my hopes for myself and them, in no particular order. My contemplation is rather non-theistic these days as I try to take responsibility for that which I am able to control and let go of the things I cannot control, as well as the things I should not control. Being a parent is such a training ground. Being human is such a training ground. I hope that if you are reading this, that it finds you well and open to the challenges of the day.

Someone Has To

Someone has to love them.
Why must it always be me?
Why do I love the ones
With all the ticks and fleas?

I’ll take the ramblers and drunkards,
The tired, the sick, the lonely.
One like a malnourished street dog,
All surly and bony.

The broken, the beaten
The hated and cursed.
Downtrodden, dishonest,
The god awful worst.

Crazy Man

Snakes and bones and musical thrones.
Wife’s long gone. The son won’t come home.
Here you stand, king of the hill.
Miserable and angry, a bitter pill.

You set it afire to watch it all burn,
Now all you can do is sit and yearn
For the things you had fore you run them away.
A love, a child, and friends that would stay.

Poems From Ecuador #23

Why, aren’t you a haughty bitch
In a nasty mood?

Slinging words like razor blades,

Tearing down simple beauty
Because you have failed,

In your desire for a life free of effort.

Close Your Eyes

“Close your eyes momma,” the little girl said. She held a small chunk of concrete out in front of her. Her mother had just taken a seat on a stone bench in the neighborhood triangle. This space was too small to be ever called a park, a green space in theory, but the neighborhood garden folk had planted such good trees that there was no grass to be found. More often the triangle was a salad of dried leaves and rocks, chunks of concrete fallen from trucks, various stones from the drives of this stately home or that one, carried down the road by a heavy rain. But they are nice spaces. Roughly the size of a two car garage are these several triangles scattered about our meandering neighborhood. But they are a break from the pavement. A little more shade. A place to let a child or dog wander for a moment and stand on a rock and jump down. To climb up and jump down. To climb up and jump down. Again.

The woman turned to her husband who had taken a seat beside her. They were young, handsome, content looking, but one never knows. They looked like characters from a novel. Oddly lovely. With a blonde headed doll of a daughter with curls and bumptious glee. The child was now ordering to her father, “Cover your eyes, Daddy.” He closed his eyes. Insufficient. Clearly. Even to me. A lurking voyeur. He was practically cheating. She needed him to buy in completely and that meant picking up his hands and covering his eyes, peek-a-boo style. Read More