In The Blood

Tonight I was chopping up red bell peppers and I was in heaven. I have been buying only organics for my fresh fruits and vegetables (trying to counterbalance all of the drugs that my body is loaded up on, not trying to be annoying) and there are certain items, like bell peppers, that I have almost stopped buying because of the expense. It's hard to choke down $4 for a red pepper. Today I found a store that sold them for half of that price, so I splurged on 3. As an extra bonus the check out girl did not ring them up right and I saved and additional $2.5o. I was feeling rich!

So of course I cut into one of them for our dinner. I very sparingly only used 1/3 of it. I think organic bell peppers are the vegetable that I can tell a significant difference in over the conventional ones. They smell so much more fragrant and their taste is more pronounced. Yummy. Jane has a pepper addiction and went crazy when she saw me pull it out of the fridge. I waited until I was sure that I was not going to accidentally drop a piece on the ground while transferring them to the pan before I selected a slice for her. She was also in heaven.

Feeling over the top about any fresh food, and actually any treat food that I feel over the top about, reminds me of my dad. That guy had passion. Thankfully, mercifully, he had been sober for the last 16 years of his life, so it was much easier to appreciate him for that. Dad had a true love for food. He could grown anything anywhere. The plants and the earth knew that he loved them.

I am awful at remembering to call people. Great at remembering to think good things for them. There are several people that I love that I think of constantly, but cannot remember to make the time to write or call them. If you are reading this, then you are most definitely included if you live in California, Washington, Oregon, New York, Alabama, Texas, Virginia, Canada....

This week I finally remembered to call my step-mother and my aunt. A true success for me. Both conversations made my soul feel better. I love hearing their voices. During the conversation with my step-mother I mentioned how I ache to see Clinch Mountain again, the place where she and Dad had lived. That place calls to me. If the hospital was less than 40 minutes away, I would have begged my husband to move to the mountain with me.

A couple of nights later, I talked to my aunt. Poor girl had been sick for awhile, but thankfully is recovering now. Because of the cold/flu that she had, the conversation that she tried to relate to me had a few fuzzy spots in it. The important part is that she has connected with a family member that she has never met. Another person whose number I have that I have already forgotten to call. And I am excited to talk to her.

The part that made me stop in my tracks (Jane had been behind me and actually ran into me) was that this new person may have told my aunt that her father's (my grandfather's) family had lived on Clinch Mountain.

My father was born with an extremely rare blood disease. Every month for one week he would lose almost all of his white blood cells. We think that possibly his mother died from my condition, so for obvious reasons, I'm not planning on having children. When he was diagnosed, there was only one other person in Texas that had it. Or was it that the other person lived in Oklahoma? Anyways, in 1999 there was a conference in Chicago that he drove to which was a gathering of about 12 people that had this disease. They came from all over the U.S. He left that conference elated. Dad was very big in people coming together to connect and heal.

On his way back home, on a lark, he decided to explore Virgina, and he fell in love. He drove up to Clinch Mountain, and bought the mountain top. He said it was like living in The Last of the Mohicans. But without the fighting. Then again... he did save that mountain from deforestation and defended his home from drunken hunters. He didn't mind the hunters that played fair and were respectful, he did have a problem with drunk guys with guns that wouldn't have a problem shooting his dog. No worries, Consuela Chile Pepper and Maggie Moon never had a problem.

The home that he created with Alona up there was magical. I've never seen so many hummingbirds in my life. I can understand why she can no longer live there, and it may be the same way for her, but it feels like a piece of me is still up there, just waiting for me to return and reclaim it. My most peaceful thought when I am most distressed is gently rocking in a hammock that they didn't have, looking up at all of those trees with the light shining through.

My aunt may have misunderstood what was being related to her, but knowing that it is possible that my kin once lived there before my father did is a slightly haunting thought. Is the love of that mountain something that was passed down to me through my blood, or is it just that I yearn for a return to a time that I cannot have?