That January Rush
Countryside adventures, challenging reads, & good eats
what i’m up to
I’m up to so much lately that it’s been really hard for me to let myself slow down enough to write it out. I had last week perfectly planned out and scheduled, but a last-minute change of plans had me rearranging 6 meetings and a dentist appointment to go out to the provinces on a whirlwind two-day, one-night trip to help capture and produce a film for work. We dashed off in the company pick-up truck before 6 am last Monday, spent a whole day interviewing people and filming and then doing that some more, and then the second day more of the same before jumping in the truck to get back in time for an office farewell party for another colleague that night. We slept in the village in a container room at our office location, ate on-site, got to see a beautiful sunset and sunrise, got a couple of fire-ant bites (ouch), managed to entice a whole hoard of little house ants to move into my backpack since I had some gluten-free goodness in there (oops), and didn’t get much sleep overall - but it was worth it. I love being out with people, catching a glimpse of their lives and figuring out the questions to ask that help them open up. And in this case, we are producing more of an actual short film/artistic story, so that means artistic content as well as story and interviews, which meant mapping out scenes, actions, settings, timing, who, and more. I loved it, every bit of it (aside from the bugs).
This week I’m working on finding a place to get my COVID-19 Booster shot (and I hate hate HATE shots and always get a bit sick from them), going back to the dentist, contemplating just how long I’ll leave my Christmas tree up, catching up from re-arranged work last week, and trying to remember to leave time for myself besides the bare necessities or squeezing it into the cracks of my schedule. Today, I started the morning with a cold swim, and it was glorious.
what i’m thinking
Do you ever think about how we work really hard to grow as our own persons, but then we also weirdly put limitations on ourselves? Even things like, “I never could eat or liked that [food item] so I clearly will never,” which is perhaps a bit of an absurdity when you think about it, since our bodies actually never stop changing even if we lock our opinions up? Or did you ever think about how we want people to acknowledge us for who we ARE and have grown into versus who we were once or how we behaved that one time, and yet we struggle to do the same for those around us or in our lives?
Are we all cats, squeezing ourselves into boxes all the time? Or have we all drawn a beginner’s sketch of ourselves and others and considered it to be the final portrait forever and ever, amen?
Allowing change in ourselves and change in others are two of the scariest things in the world, but there is magic in it. Who knows who we could all become if we dared explore the infinity of possibility alight within and expanding out from us?
what i’m reading
I finished that collection of poetry and you can check out my thoughts on it here, and now I’m forcing myself to read a painfully poignant memoir called “First They Killed My Father” by Loung Ung. A friend here recommended it to me and it is apparently a story that Angelina Jolie made into a film, though I cannot imagine watching it. Imagining is more than enough for me - especially now that I’m living here and getting to know the places and things described. Oof. As hard a read as it is, I am so glad to be working through it, and it is really something to have developed a personal memory or experience with so many of the places here referenced in it or the other descriptions throughout it.
I also spent my Sunday morning just past in the most delightful way; enjoying a theatrical, live read-aloud via Zoom of the 1941 play, “Blithe Spirit” with my sister-in-law once removed and some of her friends. We had such fun and I’ll note the fact that Zoom filters allow for grayscaling your video image was just perfect for reading the ghost bits… It’s a good reminder not only how much I love theatre, but also how brilliant scripts themselves can be and the brilliancy of reading aloud - and in community!
what i’m learning
I’m working on diving deeper into the history and culture of Cambodia lately, which is one of the reasons I picked up the memoir I’m working my way through right now. However long I’m here, I want to really be here and get to know this place that is hosting me. Those of you readers out there, don’t hesitate to share book recs (fiction, creative non-fiction, and otherwise) that you read or know of to this end!
what/where I’m eating
I’ve been eating at home mostly recently - but that doesn’t mean I haven’t ordered delivery! Last week, I treated myself to one of my favourite types of food - Ethiopian, from our one and only (that I’ve found) such restaurant here in Phnom Penh, Sara Ethiopian Restaurant & Coffee Shop. Hello delicious njera and doro wat and gomen and kik alicha!! And yes, all their njera is made entirely with tef, so it’s gluten-free!
My colleagues also cooked meals for us while we were out in the provinces, all delicious and incorporating entirely local ingredients - and gluten-free just for me! I’ve discovered that I actually *can* eat mushrooms - just either prepared differently than I’ve ever had them before or maybe just this one type of them or perhaps some combination thereof, but they are delicious and I’m so thrilled to finally get to enjoy them, too.
what i’m making
Besides endless varieties of dim-sum? I’m on a real kick with trying to learn new dim sum options. Throw your favourite filling recipe at me!! Now that I’ve worked through frying and boiling, next up on my list to attempt is figuring out how to steam some.
I often recommended a YA novel (based on a true Cambodian advocate's life) called Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick to my students. It's short, but I learned a lot.