PAIN FOR A DAUGHTER

Blind with love, my daughter
has cried nightly for horses,
those long-necked marchers and churners
that she has mastered, any and all,
reigning them in like a circus hand --
the excitable muscles and the ripe neck;
tending this summer, a pony and a foal.
She who is too squeamish to pull
a thorn from the dog’s paw,
watched her pony blossom with distemper,
the underside of the jaw swelling
like an enormous grape.
Gritting her teeth with love,
she drained the boil and scoured it
with hydrogen peroxide until pus
ran like milk on the barn floor

Blind with loss all winter,
in dungarees, a ski jacket and a hard hat,
she visits the neighbors’ stable,
our acreage not zoned for barns;
they who own the flaming horses
and the swan-whipped thoroughbred
that she tugs at and cajoles,
thinking it will burn like a furnace
under her small-hipped English seat.

Blind with pain she limps home
the thoroughbred has stood on her foot.
He rested there like a building.
He grew into her foot until they were one.
The marks of the horseshoe printed
into her flesh, the tips of her toes
ripped off like pieces of leather,
three toenails swirled like shells
and left to float in blood in her riding boot.

Blind with fear, she sits on the toilet,
her foot balanced over the washbasin,
her father, hydrogen peroxide in hand,
performing the rites of the cleansing.
She bites on a towel, sucked in breath,
sucked in and arched against the pain,
her eyes glancing off me where
I stand at the door, eyes locked
on the ceiling, eyes of a stranger,
and then she cries...
Oh my God, help me!
Where a child would have cried Mama!
Where a child would have believed Mama!
she bit the towel and called on God
and I saw her life stretch out...
I saw her torn in childbirth,
and I saw her, at that moment,
in her own death and I knew that she
knew.

So I've been gaining some progress on moving in to Mountainview (key word here: "some"). I never realized how much stuff there was in the other house, and how much work it would be to find places for all the things I didn't decide to get rid of. Luckily, I've gone for the keep-most-of-everything-in-boxes-in-the-cellar method, and the house isn't too cluttered as of now. I've got a lot of decorating done in my room, which I figured was the best place to start because it's out of the way of everyone else and there's no painting or wall-papering to be done.

Because the walls and floor are all wood panelling, it's already got a nice warm aura about it, so I kept the color palette toned down and rich. I found a gorgeous coverlet at Moghul Gallery on ebay -- it's a quilt made of vintage Indian saris in shades of bottle green, a burgundy/wine color, and some teal blue, embroidered in gold thread with beadwork. It's very elaborate so I made it the centerpiece of the room and worked around it, bringing in the colors to other areas and complimenting it as best I could. I've got a Chinese painted parasol in the far corner, which ties in the white of the filing cabinet and nightstand, and white muslin curtains to brighten the window area. I haven't brought out all the books I want on the shelves yet, but I did fill in the empty spots with some of my favorite earth-toned pottery pieces, a green carved incense burner, and a collection of 18th-century glass bottles in clear, green, and blue that were found around our old house. To brighten it up I also draped one of the shelves with the yellow dupatta Nadia brought me from Pakistan. There was no lighting other than the lamp I had on my nightstand, so just today I added a string of Chinese lanterns across the ceiling slant.

It's looking better, but there's still a lot to do. I need:

• bulletin board on wall next to filing cabinet, so I can keep writing in plain sight for revisions
• to make prints for French memo board and hang it on the wall
• full-length mirror for the back of my door
• some kind of pictures or flat decorations for my closet doors
• CD rack
• rug
• floor cushions
• backrest in dark green or maroon
• chair for corner by closet and window
• jewelry box for countertop by shower, and
• a more decorative mirror
• shower caddy

"You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone."

~ Andrew Largeman, Garden State

This morning we went to Chenango Bridge for a walk-through of the new house. Until today I'd only ever seen it from the outside. I'm not really sure what I was expecting.

Of course, I had just downed a Starbucks doubleshot espresso on the way so I was able to remain very optimistic, but ...

The living room and dining area were carpeted in a hideous shade of grass green, and the matching drapes looked like they had come straight out of a Lemony Snicket book. But I was forced to admire them, because the owner (who had grown up there) thought they were the greatest thing ever, and had them especially cleaned before selling the house. Dry-cleaning the drapes alone cost him over $400. And it's a terrible waste because they will be the first thing to go -- I'd rather have newspapers over the windows, they are truly that ugly. They remind me of that monster on Sesame Street who lived in the garbage can. But, at least they are better than the curtains on every basement window, stamped with a pattern of the Kool logo.

And speaking of the basement... above the door to the basement is a little light like the kind you see outside television studios when they're filming something. Apparently the owner's father, who built the house, got really mad when anyone left the adjacent hallway door open while he was in the basement, because if he came out of the basement and opened the door it would hit the other door. So he installed the light, which is on whenever anyone's in the basement, so whoever is upstairs knows not to leave the adjacent door open. Seriously. When I saw that light and heard the story I wanted to burst out laughing.

This guy who built the house also tried to dig a bomb shelter in the backyard, until one of the walls collapsed and his wife yelled at him and made him fill in the hole. Which is why there is now a random concrete slab off the back of the house. Some porch.

The bathroom upstairs is really tiny and built into the back dormer, and has no shower because the owner's parents "never took showers." Instead they built a shower for him set into the wall of what used to be his room. Just a random shower not connected to the bathroom at all. And speaking of, this bedroom is completely lined with wood floor to ceiling, no paint or wallpaper anywhere, so we've been referring to it as "the wood room". It's really weird because none of the other bedrooms are like that, it's just so random.

And the kitchen countertops are bright blue. Like, blogger blue.

Then there's the fireplace. A family of raccoons had been living in the chimney until a week ago when the people came home and discovered them, and the mother and 3 of the babies climbed out. There's still one baby left, that's apparently too small to climb out of the chimney yet, and the mother keeps bringing it food. But there's nothing to be done yet, because the piece won't come off the bottom of the chimney so no one can open it up to get the raccoon out. And the regular-sized ladder doesn't reach to the top of the chimney. So all they can do for now is wait and see if it gets out on it's own.

Have you ever spent some weeks looking for yourself, only to turn around and realize that you've been there all the time but now everyone else has gone?

I've done it again.

It's like searching everywhere for a pair of glasses that have been right on top of your head, and when you finally notice and put them on, you wonder why you ended up here, as if you'd forgotten you knew your way by heart because in your panic you thought you relied on the glasses. And now you're here for absolutely no reason. And it took so long to find the glasses that now you can't remember what it was you needed them for, no matter how pressing it had seemed in the moment.

I feel very, very alone.

Today while browsing the latest headlines, I noticed an article on the BBC news about the House of Lords rejecting a law which "would have removed the threat of prosecution from those who go abroad to help an 'assisted suicide'". So because assisted suicide for the terminally ill is illegal in the UK, if a person were to travel to, say, the Swiss clinic Dignitas to die, their spouse could not accompany them or they would risk prosecution under the Suicide Act.

All this controversy about physician assisted suicide etc. etc. really makes me angry. In my opinion, it's almost ridiculous. It's hard for me to comprehend how government can possibly have this much say over an individual's rights, and I don't know how people stand for it.

Assisted suicide is illegal in the U.S. as well except for in Oregon and Washington, and even in those states there are strict laws concerning when this can be legal. How can the state place these kind of limits on personal liberty? Isn't the choice concerning time and circumstance of death a highly personal matter, and shouldn't we each have the right to make those sorts of decisions? When one is terminally ill and death is imminent, why can't one have the choice to die with dignity? Those opposing PAS talk about the effect it has on family and friends. What is the effect on family and friends who watch their loved one waste away, or discover them dead in much worse circumstances than the person would have chose ... or those who go tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt to keep their loved one alive, when the last thing that person wants is be kept alive to suffer through another day? What if said person doesn't even recognize his or her family, and isn't really even aware that he or she is alive? Who are we to lock anyone into that sort of half-existence?

True compassion would require that assisted suicide become legal. Of course it could be abused, like any law in the legal system. But the bottom line is that when we are already dying, and our quality of life is hastily declining, we should have every right to avoid needless suffering and choose a peaceful, painless death. I don't see how any argument can really be made against this. Of course it is hard on families. Death is never easy to deal with. But isn't it easier to know that your loved one has died in the time and place they wanted, with everything in order and their wits about them, than to have it on your conscience that you fought for another few weeks or months that they never wanted and couldn't enjoy? And after all, if it were you, what would you want?

I remember one morning getting up at dawn, there was such a sense of possibility. You know, that feeling? And I remember thinking to myself: So, this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And of course there will always be more. It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment. Right then.

~ Clarissa Vaughn

Dear Leonard. To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away. Leonard, always the years between us, always the years. Always the love. Always the hours.

~ Virginia Woolf

It would be wonderful to say you regretted it. It would be easy. But what does it mean? What does it mean to regret when you have no choice? It's what you can bear. There it is. No one's going to forgive me. It was death. I chose life.

~Laura Brown

I wrote this poem today, inspired by Red, the poem by Ted Hughes that I recently posted. I know it's pretty similar in concept, and the first lines are practically identical, but I don't think it's necessarily considered plagiarism. I hope not. Because I sort of like the way it turned out.


Yellow


Yellow was your color.
Yellow
Was the thing you made hold onto you,

Wound around your finger.

You always liked the way honey
Wouldn't show you your reflection,
Were fond of the way caramels
Melted against glass.

You
Were yellow.
Mornings, the way
Roman shades filtered sunlight

And at night, the lantern
Burning scrolls of fog.
They came to you like moths
You, death with a halo

Lifting buttercups to your chin.

I remember
Sand in your shoes
And the letters you cut out of
The yellow wallpaper.

Did you ever tire of admiring
How amber meant forever
To the insect caught inside?

I wanted you to see
The glory of red,
The innocence of white,
The mystery of blue.

But you wrapped yellow around your finger
Again, twice,
Like marriage

And rubbed lemons over your freckles,
Because you were tired
Of connecting the dots.

Red was your colour.
If not red, then white. But red
Was what you wrapped around you.
Blood-red. Was it blood?
Was it red-ochre, for warming the dead?
Haematite to make immortal
The precious heirloom bones, the family bones.

When you had your way finally
Our room was red. A judgement chamber.
Shut casket for gems. The carpet of blood
Patterned with darkenings, congealments.
The curtains -- ruby corduroy blood,
Sheer blood-falls from ceiling to floor.
The cushions the same. The same
Raw carmine along the window-seat.
A throbbing cell. Aztec altar -- temple.

Only the bookshelves escaped into whiteness.

And outside the window
Poppies thin and wrinkle-frail
As the skin on blood,
Salvias, that your father named you after,
Like blood lobbing from the gash,
And roses, the heart's last gouts,
Catastrophic, arterial, doomed.

Your velvet long full skirt, a swathe of blood,
A lavish burgandy.
Your lips a dipped, deep crimson.

You revelled in red.
I felt it raw -- like crisp gauze edges
Of a stiffening wound. I could touch
The open vein in it, the crusted gleam.

Everything you painted you painted white
Then splashed it with roses, defeated it,
Leaned over it, dripping roses,
Weeping roses, and more roses,
Then sometimes, among them, a little blue
bird.

Blue was better for you. Blue was wings.
Kingfisher blue silks from San Francisco
Folded your pregnancy
In crucible caresses.
Blue was your kindly spirit -- not a ghoul
But electrified, a guardian, thoughtful.

In the pit of red
You hid from the bone-clinic whiteness.

But the jewel you lost was blue.

What really confuses me is being in a situation where I think, out of the blue, "it would be really weird if ___ showed up right now," and I have just enough time to wonder why I even thought of that person, and then he/she appears? Or when for no reason at all I picture people doing or saying something that has nothing to do with anything that's going on at the moment, and I ask myself why I even pictured that because it's so bizarrely disconnected from anything I'm experiencing in the real world, and my mind seems to answer that it's because I just had a dream about that recently -- and then it actually happens, even though it's completely unexpected?

Situations like this happen so often, many times weekly, even daily. And I should be used to it by now, but every time it totally messes up my mind. Like back in first grade when I'd have just completed a complicated picture on an Etch-a-Sketch and then somebody would accidentally shake it a little and even though most of the lines were left on the screen I just couldn't picture in my mind what it had looked like.

Or like when you see a tiny stray thread on the hem of a skirt and you try to break it off, but instead it pulls so the entire skirt is bunched up, twisted, and bruised-looking. And you wonder why you didn't just let it go.

God, this life is strange sometimes.

I've decided my primary goal throughout the summer is to become healthier. I'm going to drink eight glasses of water a day so I'm not dehydrated anymore (and so I stay away from the temptation of bowl after bowl of ice cream). I've also heard increased water intake is good for the complexion, another incentive to stick to this resolution. And speaking of healthy skin, even though I don't really care whether or not I look tan, I'm going to make myself get some sun every day because I know it's good for me.

I'm also going to do Yoga every other day. My muscles are way too inflexible right now -- most of them barely get used, and my leg muscles are so tight that I can't even keep my heels on the floor during the Adho Mukha Svanasana pose. My arms are so weak from not shooting archery anymore, that halfway through the routine they start shaking when I use them for support. I am determined to get more fit and more flexible. Plus, when I get good at Yoga, I can use it as a stress reliever. Which I am probably going to need next semester. I've decided that once I have had sufficient practice following instructional videos, I'm going to reward myself by signing up for a legit class.

And finally, to make sure I get enough exercise over the summer, I'm going to continue walking in the mornings and go jogging every 2nd or 3rd morning. I've never tried to go jogging before this summer, and the one time I tried it didn't go so well. But I'm going to not eat breakfast first next time. And I'm going to start with intervals so it's not as hard. The lower my expectations, the better I'll feel I did. We'll see how long this lasts.

On a brighter note. Today I bought the album "Taller Children" by Elizabeth and the Catapult. They did a brilliant cover of Leonard Cohen's song "Everybody Knows", which I immediately fell in love with. I wasn't crazy over the rest of the album, because I didn't think the lyrics to their own songs were anything amazing, but it was still enjoyable to listen to and I have a feeling it'll grow on me.




Everybody Knows

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

And everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when you've done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows

And everybody knows that you're in trouble
Everybody knows what you've been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it's coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Oh everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows

<
rant>

If there is one thing that hurts more than anything else, it's when my mother can't stand to see me happy. It's when her endless thirst for drama, conflict, and war comes running after me, teeth bared, long after I've backed away from the challenge. It's when I'm accused of "romanticizing" the life she's forced me to live, because I've brought resilience out of the wreckage of the past two years, and begun to pick up the pieces as I learn to survive on my own -- because I'm finally starting to realize that I'm the only person I'll always be able to rely on for the rest of my life. It's when she repeatedly informs me that I've made her life hell. It's when she starts to shed tears for her own entertainment, and makes me feel overcome with guilt even though I am the one being victimized. It's when she denies the words that are etched across my mind for the rest of my life. It's when I tear myself away from the temptation of apologizing for nothing, of trying for the millionth time to make everything better, and instead trudge to my car to face another day knowing that our relationship will turn out the same as the one she has with my estranged grandmother. It's when I lie awake at night staring at the rocking chair she used to sing me to sleep in when we were mother and child, in that different life we had fifteen years ago. It's when I wish I had a mother to give me advice and hold me while I cry and believe in my dreams. It's the sick jealousy I feel when I see my friends' mothers, and the guilt that floods my mind when I become aware that I am jealous. It's the embarrassment I feel when anyone asks.

If there is anything I have learned from all of this, it is never to become that person. The person who thrives off of other people's unhappiness, who stumbles through life bruising other lives. I will never be like that. I will never do this to my child.

< /rant >

In response to this post by Susanna at Dreaming as the Summers Die:

I feel like my life is a house whose front door hardly anyone uses. Other souls come climbing through the windows, waltzing in the back and side doors, slinking up the cellar stairs, seeping under cracks and creeping in through crannies, scuttling around the attic and down the chimney. They never come out the way they came; they find another way, leaving a trail through my life, patterns in the dust on the floor. But the few who enter the front door -- who come into my life in the most obvious ways -- step into the foyer, wait, and are gone.

I was just thinking today about how some aspects of my character haven't changed very much throughout my entire lifetime. It's almost like my personality now is founded on who I was as a child and even a baby. I'm sure the examples I thought of are just strange coincidence, a pattern that only appears to exist, like the monkeys typing theory. But still, now that I've thought about it I bet there are some people out there who theorize that we are born as who we will be, that our personalities and character traits are already a part of our soul, that environment and circumstance have nothing to do with our development as a person. It's strange to think about. But anyway, here are the examples I thought of, just as curiosities:

• My first words were when my parents took me for a walk and I saw a bird fly past. According to the story, I pointed and shouted, "Bird! Pretty bird!" For my entire life, I've had a fascination with birds and anything with wings. When I'm bored, I can stare at a backyard birdfeeder for hours on end. I pick up feathers that I find outside and use them as bookmarks. Once when I was 10 I found a flamingo feather in the bird room at the Syracuse zoo and begged the zookeeper to let me have it. I have an inkwell on my desk with quill pens in it as a decoration. I love feather jewelry. And I don't really care that much if any other animal gets run over (yes, I know, that's terrible of me to say) but when a bird gets hit by a car, I'm depressed for the entire day. I saw a sparrow get hit by a semi-truck once on Route 369 on the way to class, and it was so upsetting I burst into tears and even now I sometimes see it replayed like a video clip in my head. It's one of the worst things I think I've ever seen. As ridiculous as that sounds. I think its because birds are supposed to be free from all the lowly things down here -- they're supposed to fly and sing and be careless and detached from everything. When I see an eagle or something soaring high above the earth, I feel weightless and alive, and the world seems right again. When I see a dead bird by the side of the road I feel dirty and corrupt and caged in by my very existence.
• The other interesting thing I noticed about this story -- if it is true -- is that immediately after speaking my first word, I strung together an adjective and a noun. Since then, I've gone through many plans for possible career choices, but I always come back to being an English major. Always. I wonder if it's possible to be born with one's brain wired in a certain way, so that linguistics come especially easy.
  

• My favorite movie as a toddler was Beauty and the Beast. Belle was pretty much my childhood hero. I always wanted to dress up like her in my "belle dress", and I had a bunch of mini plastic "belle dolls" from the disney store that I took with me everywhere I went. I think it's funny that I ended up being a lot like the character of Belle. I had a vivid imagination and was always daydreaming about things being different than they were, and I learned to read really early which is why I hated kindergarten and persuaded my parents to homeschool me. By the time I was 10 I had read the entire childrens' section in the Moore Memorial Library. I always dreamed about having a library like the one in the Beast's castle, with ladders I could swing on. I still want to have my own library when I get a house of my own. And there will be ladders on the shelves, just wait and see.

• My favorite color when I was about 2 years old was red. All of my coloring books were monopolized by red crayon. I wanted to wear red all the time, and I painted one of my belle doll's blue dresses red. I cried and cried when we moved from our red victorian house in Tully to the white one in Greene, and according to my parents, I had a tantrum when I found out we were moving and shouted "I don't want Carly [the daughter of the people who bought the house] to have my red house!!!" I swore I was going to have a red house and a red car when I grew up, and I told my parents when I was old enough to dye my hair I would dye it red. Well, I've never looked particularly good in red because of my skin tone, and truthfully I don't even care for the color that much anymore, at least in terms of clothing and accessories, so I hardly ever wear it. But I think it's really funny that my first car coincidentally ended up being bright red, and the first time I dyed all of my hair instead of just streaking it, it ended up being red (though that was mostly unplanned).
  

So I was wandering around Binghamton on my way home from Vestal tonight, shopping for father's day and just trying to think of stuff to do in general so I wouldn't have to come back here and be bored again... When suddenly I started thinking about books and got the distinct urge to write. I didn't know what, I just really really wanted to write. It seemed like forever ago since the last time I just sat down and wrote something worth keeping. So I hurried to check out and drove home in the rain with the radio blasting, thinking the whole way about how I was going to plan out some amazing plotline and write this really stirring, thought-provoking, philosophical, character-driven story that I would be so proud of.

Of course, I didn't actually plan it, I just planned that I was going to plan it. When I got home.

So now here I am, at home, staring at a blank notebook wondering what the hell I was thinking. And wishing I hadn't been in such a rush to leave Vestal so I could've remembered to bring some charcoal and chalk for my collage. Or remembered to get some cash from the ATM. Or gotten the hair conditioner I so desperately need right now. Or brought something back to wear to work tomorrow.

Couldn't I at least have had the presence of mind to stop at a Starbucks and write instead? At least somewhere where there are people around to use as inspiration. Instead me sitting alone inside this huge empty house and its silent, brooding atmosphere, staring out the windows at the gloomy rain-blurred view.

Now seems like a pretty good time to curl up on the couch with a movie.

Why do my days so often come to this?

All day today there have been trucks driving up and down our road delivering cow manure to be spread on the fields of nearby farms. The smell seems somehow worse this year, maybe because it's so rainy and overcast. Usually I can stand the slight whiff of dried manure in the distance, even, almost, welcome it as a familiar scent unique to the country. But this is so disgustingly fresh and overpowering that it has made me lose my appetite every time I step outside.

I could go on complaining about it but I am not, in fact, in a negative mood today. So instead, as I am about to light a stick of incense, I have been thinking of smells that I do like. As far as I can think right now, these are my top ten:

1) Coffee
2) Campfires
3) Horses
4) Books
5) Leather
6) Tangerines/ Clementines
7) Lilacs
8) The Ocean
9) Cedarwood
10) Warm home-baked bread

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Discovered this recipe at Grace's yesterday when we were looking for something to bake for Great Gram's birthday. It's really easy to make, takes less than 10 minutes to prepare, and even though it takes a while to bake it's worth every minute. Maybe it's just me cause I haven't had homemade shortbread in I-don't-even-know-how-long, but I ate one of the corners as I was putting it on the plate yesterday and I thought it was the best ever.

So anyways here's the recipe:

Preheat the oven to 300.

Mix together:
1 and 1/4 sticks (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons regular sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

Beat on medium speed until fluffy. Then, gradually sift over the top while stirring:

1 and 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

Knead until well-blended. Press into 8x8 inch pan. Create a decorative pattern with a fork (insert all the way through the dough). Bake for 45-50 minutes, until lightly golden with the edges slightly darker.

Remove from oven and place on rack to cool. When barely warm, cut into bars or squares, almost all the way to the bottom. When completely cool, retrace cuts. If you like, you can sprinkle sugar over the top.

My world has been turned inside-out.
I hold my soul like a balloon, the inner workings of my mind reflected on its surface.