Today We Have Basil

It’s bitterly cold here today.

I love winter.

But this wind, well, it knocks the wind out of me. The snow is LITERALLY coming down horizontally.  And it’s like freezing cold in my office.

Needless to say, I am switching back and forth between listening to Sarah McLaughlin’s Christmas album, which seems very appropriate with said weather, and the song “Desert Rose” by Sting, which makes me feel very Moroccan and summer-y. Which is nothing like it is today.

What a confused girl I must seem.

I was perusing some of my writings from this past summer before I had this here little blog and came across one that I love in particular.

And it talks of summer.

And since Sting happens to be on at this moment, I am going to grace you with this little token of a summer past.

Warm Wishes. I love you all. Thanks for reading.

~

This summer two things happened:

1.       I started spending a lot of time with my friend Eliza and

2.       I started thinking a lot about basil. And then Eliza started thinking a lot about basil.

I think it started with a conversation about how we both had good feelings towards pesto.

I know, maybe most people don’t have conversations about pesto, but we definitely did. Numerous times. And our conversations elevated. “I just want to be awesome some day and have an apple cider press and make my own bread and grow my own basil!” While this isn’t a seriously strange thing for me to say, I found myself saying such trivialities quite often this summer. Then one day, I was attempting to describe my friend Loretta to my friend Eliza and I knew the only adequate explanation of Loretta could possibly be, “Let’s just say that Loretta grows her own basil. IF you know what I mean…”

Eliza knew. I knew: If you grow your own basil there is a good chance we think you are awesome.

(Loretta, if you are reading this, I think you are awesome.)

Last week our summer was finally satisfied. Ella, who grows her own basil both literally and figuratively, had a great plant of it all in full force in the yard. There was nothing left to do. Eliza and I had to make pesto.

Not to be put off by the obnoxious price of pine nuts (hint: they are not native to my Midwestern climate), we opted for walnuts (which are native…and thus they do not have an obnoxious price). And can I say that I am glad we did? I don’t know how pine nuts would have changed the flavor but I can’t imagine it to be too much. So go ahead, use the cheaper walnut. Whatever kind is native…J

All I will elaborate about the resulting pesto is that Eliza and I have more fond feelings towards pesto now than we did at the beginning of the summer.

What great goodness! Nice job, God. You again know what you are doing. Those potent leaves are brilliant. And delicious.

Then we did a "We grow our own basil" photoshoot.

For my weekend last week I went to my parent’s house. They were not home, but my brother and sister-in-law came home to keep me company. Since the green leaves were still in bloom and since I still like to cook for my family I thought I would make them such good pesto pasta. Not surprisingly, I found myself all nostalgic in being home. Visiting the haunts I used to frequent, seeing the people who used to be my only people, it all makes me go, “Darn. My life is different now, and I think I prefer this old one. Life was beautiful when I lived here; I wasn’t so terribly skeptical.”

If I am being honest I got into a little bit of a funk.

Being an adult changes the way I see the world, and I still don’t know if it is for the better. I will sadly admit that I am more skeptical, less soft, a little more bitter, more given to worry. Characteristics I hate.

The state of the world, seeing things I never needed to see, having hurts I wish I never had to have; all of these things caused me to go, “God! Will everything be ok?!?! What is going to happen to me in the next ten years? Will it all be so bad I won’t know what to do? Will I see famine and hunger and conquest and devastation?!? WILL IT ALL TURN OUT OK??!?”

There was no thunderous boomage.

 I was not bolstered by a sudden surge of confidence, but a removal of concern.

There was just a still small voice that came as I continued with dinner preparations and stood over that stove doing what I love to do for those I love most.

“Bethany, today we have basil,”Jesus said.

C.S. Lewis would say that the present is “the point at which time touches eternity.” Right now, in this Present, in this today, we can spend our time “meditating on our (their) eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.”

Giving thanks for today’s basil.

I sigh.

Maybe the world will go even more crazy. Or maybe it will continue the way it has for thousands of years.

But today.

Well.

Today I have basil.

Happy day to you peoples. The harvest is plentiful.