French Style Butternut Squash Feta Pasta

Typing up this recipe on request of my dear Thameena.

 Ingredients 

(these can be eyeballed and adjusted to your preference - no hard rule on measurements

tbsp = tablespoon)

1 block of feta

Cubed buttternut squash - 2-3 cups

Minced garlic - 3 cloves

Red onion - 1 small diced (or any onion and amount of your choice)

Chopped fresh basil - 2 tbsp

Herbes du Provence - 2 tbsp

Butter - 2 tbsp

Olive oil - to drizzle (approx 1/4 cup - be generous)

Salt and pepper (both black pepper and chilli flakes) to taste

Pasta of your choice

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 C

Place your block of feta in the middle of casserole

Toss in butternut squash, onion, garlic, basil, herbes du provence, olive oil and season with salt and pepper to your preference. 

Tip: be generous with your olive oil so that it melds all the ingredients together for a saucy base (we will be adding a little bit of the pasta water to make it more sauce-like, as needed).

Because you want the butternut squash to retain its moisture and melt down, cover your casserole dish with aluminum foil so all that flavourful goodness is trapped inside and the contents don't dry out.

Place in oven - let cook for 20 to 45 mins. 

Check in from time to time to see if the butternut squash melts under pressure from a fork and if the feta is melty - don't be afraid to let it stay in longer just to get it more sauce-like (think butternut squash soup!)

Bring pot of water to boil and cook your pasta as per package instructions. (remember to keep some of your pasta water)

Once you've decided your oven contents are done, take it out of the oven, mix it up with a fork until you've got a nice cheesey-squashy sauce texture. 

Add in your pasta and toss so the pasta is coated with the butternut squash feta sauce - if it's thick, add in a bit of the hot pasta water so that it becomes more liquid.

Garnish as you prefer (parmesan cheese, chives, chilli flakes, chopped bacon, etc.) and enjoy! 

upset

 "I'm sorry," he said, "If this upsets you."

"Nah, I'm good." I responded lightly.

Upset was too small, diminutive, a word for what raged through me. 

I found myself blinking in the dark at 5 a.m., wondering what I was still doing awake. Days without sleep became weeks. What was food? I would cook it but then give it away, unable to swallow. My Amazon packages arrived. I found myself staring at 6-pack box of tissue paper, wondering when I ordered this, and why -- and then staring at it in dry emptiness as the tears that tore tsunamis through me, twisting in torrents through my very inner self, refused to tip out. I went running in the night, the comfort of wild animals -- the sweetly smiling coyote as it ran by in the dark -- making me feel safer than the way he broke me apart.

I found myself asking so many questions. Wondering what ever actually was true, if anything? All the sweet pronouncements about wanting to make me laugh and smile always, and to do anything it took to fight for us. Did he actually ever mean it when he told me "I love you"? Or was he just drunk out of his mind. Was I just a past time, something to occupy his boredom while cooped up inside during the pandemic?

Was that all I ever was? 

No, I am not upset. I am fine. I'm good. You did your damage don't worry about the aftermath buddy. Get on out of here. 

Ushering him out of the premises with a polite smile and a little joke. He seemed pleased in a surprised kind of way, how easily he got off.

He pulled out his phone as he left and went on his way: a free man.

Behind him, a large explosion erupted, and there was nothing more.

Adieu but not really

Today, I lost my entire team. In a time of social distancing and isolation, I am not able to express how hard-hitting a loss this is for me. Whereas a lot of people have found these unprecendented times have meant more free time, somehow the inverse has been true for me: work has increased multifold in the last month. Insomuch that, those I work with have become even more my support system.

And that's on top of them already being more than just work colleagues. Imagine having no familial support system whatsoever. Imagine being so overworked that you're only sporadically in touch with your other friends. Friendships built over time have also been diluted from having taken unconventional routes where they've stayed the traditional paths: friends have gotten married, had kids, moved to the burbs. Me? Not so much.

Over the years, these people have seen me through so much. They've been there for me when I've gone through health issues, when I've been emotionally low. They've let me put my head on my desk to quietly cry and let me have my space. They've let me be loud and joyful, singing random songs whenever I so chose to. They've let me be the rude bitch, knowing deep down I'd drop everything to support them at a blink of the eye.

They've been there through heartbreak, feeding me popcorn chicken or letting me walk around yapping nonstop, venting about this or that - my lack of a lovelife or whatever. The point is I've yapped nonstop about everything under the sun and they've listened (like kudos to these guys for listen to me talk about girly stuff).

I've been lucky to have a boss - actually not just one but two over the last 2 years - that let me do things my way because they respected the end value I always produced. (For not just one boss but two using the word "genius" to describe me.) They've applauded my audacity to say the most irreverent things and gave room for me to be unfiltered and blunt in expressing myself.

They've let me dance on tables (bought me more drinks to encourage me!) or drag them to karaoke, knowing I would always cheer them on even if they didn't believe in themselves. Because they believed in me. They've let lead the group because they trusted me implicitly. They've let me get away with pranking them to no end. They've let me have quiet days where all I want to do is listen to music and tune everything else out.

They've paved the way to ensure credit was given to me when I was forgotten, and have gotten furious when I was made to work 16 hour days. They've fumed when I left my own birthday party to come to work to resolve an "emergency". They've listened to my arguments in strategy sessions and respected my input, seeking my guidance on projects they were working on because what I thought mattered to them.

It is kind of funny: Where I gave up on the idea of that perfect soulmate, I found a support system right at work, of all places, that collectively gave me what that one ideal person should. It's no wonder that today I found myself breaking down in the woods, in the very same spot I always go to when I feel that gaping void of loneliness open up and I fall and fall and fall, not knowing when I will actually hit rock bottom. It's no wonder that I find myself sitting and writing about this gaping void, simply because of how much this loss has impacted me in these times, despite me knowing that there's going to be a better day tomorrow for all of us.

Thank you - you have given me a family and friendship in a place where typically you shouldn't find it. Thank you for letting me shine, for always having my back, for letting me rage and laugh without reservation. I will always have yours muchachas, even if you're not sitting on either side of me anymore.

The Persistence of the Present

I woke up today with a few messages on my phone. One from one of my oldest and dearest friends, stating he was going to MOMA to see his favourite painting.

I reflected, as I am wont to whilst languidly taking in the sunshine-spackled view of my French garden through my bay windows; I remember that Dali was one of my all-time favourite artists, how Persistence of Memory was my the one painting that called out to me, watching the slideshow my art teacher was presenting when I was 11.

And yet, now I realize the difference in me. Whereas the old me, the one who is mostly all over this blog and my poetry blog, was so very much deeply entrenched in memory—the idea of living, reliving, not forgetting, cherishing, not relinquishing—the me today is so much more content to simply be here now.

In fact, I am so actively propelled into the moment I am living by my sheer joy in rediscovering what it means to do so. No more wallowing in old memories, no more wishing for times long gone. There is a very high-energy happiness that goes into rediscovering this very moment for exactly what it is. It is the spirit of simply being.

Be happy for this moment; this moment is your life.

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up the Heart

"So what are you thinking or feeling now?" she asked.

I sat there in the quiet boardroom, with my face in my hands. I could hear the muffled sounds of the rest of the office building going on with it's regular business things.

"I don't know," I said.

"I don't know?" she mimicked me gently.

I looked up and peeked at her, "I don't know. All I can think is the L word."

"Ooh boy," she shook her head.

"It scares me so much, how much this is affecting me. I don't know how to let go if that's what I have to do, because it is killing me right now even to consider not..." I flicked away a stray tear that found its way down my cheek.

"Do you think you should let go?" she asked.

I took a breath and considered how to phrase what I felt.

"It's like that Marie Kondo thing," I started.

"Huh? Marie Kondo?"

"You know how she has that system of purging things and keeping a minimalist, simple life..." I tried explaining. "Well it's like you consider what you have and how that thing makes you feel and if you can let it go."

She nodded at me.

"Well," I looked out the window lost in thought.

"Well that's the thing. It isn't what I may or may not have promised for tomorrow.

It's just that, when I think of him, when I am with him, when he's being whatever the hell he is even the most annoying version of himself, but when he is there with me....he sparks joy."

The autonomy of sufficiency

This evening I went out running as I have been doing each day this summer, alone on the trails in the middle of the ravine and surrounded by trees.

There, alone, I stood on an incline, watching the candy pink and orange sky dim as the sun ceded. The air was moist and heavy, and I stood there as the first drops started pattering down on my head, raising my arms over my head and tilted my face up to the gentle downpour.

I can never express in enough words how much these moments touch me. Giving me space to be at one with my thoughts - however torrentuous, tormented and melancholy they might be.

As I stood there for a moment, in a silent dance with the summer wind, suddenly I caught a whiff of a certain scent which I can only describe in how it made me feel: poignantly bereft.

It smelt almost artificial, cosmetic; as if it were a perfume belonging to someone. I opened my eyes and looked around: I was still very much alone. But as the overlaying boughs of the trees swayed in the wind awaiting the truly violent storm to break, I also spotted a park bench somehow deep within the trees. It sat there alone, almost unseen, strangely far off the path. And a whimsical thought occurred to me: perhaps there on the bench sat a ghost, waiting and waiting for the beloved who never arrived.

But even as this romantic thought crossed my mind. I took another step forward and suddenly the scent hit me again, and I closed my eyes as I had a very strong and vivid recollection. All of a sudden, in one fraction of a breath I was thrown back years to my childhood when I stood at the casket at the funeral home, wherein my mother lay.


To say that this scent is what has hinged me on to this memory is difficult to explain. There have been a myriad of odd moments when I will catch the slightest scent of this and something will trigger within me but I never know why...until I do.

And, I stood there in the rain, letting the skies cry down on me, reflecting: perhaps that's where memory lies; through my senses my five year old self relayed on a capsule to my older present self. Loss often comes at us from places we don't expect it, and at times we don't see it coming.

space

I wasn't supposed to expect anything.

And yet I fell into the rabbit's hole, and did.

I don't know how to express myself here anymore. I'd fallen into a weird conundrum of taking pen to paper and writing my thoughts and feelings in a notebook, ostensibly to that one person who gave me inspiration through letting me see my words through his eyes.

I'm at this weird rocky line now where I look at this book with so many feelings - part of me isn't able to touch it again, part of me wants to throw it hard across the room and perhaps light it on fire. Part of me just wants to throw it away or rip out the pages and toss them to the wind.

So here I am. I don't know why I asked for anything for myself again. I keep making this mistake and it ends up with me hating myself for ever opening up again. Letting someone in again. Letting them hurt me again. It's a cycle isn't it? And I keep thinking that the only way to break the cycle is simply to stop doing the same thing. Which is what I had tried doing for the last several years: just not letting anyone in.

I don't know why it happens; how I let anyone in through all the armour and walls I've built up. Even now, all I want is to have a long discussion with this one person who's made his way through and discuss this very strange thing. But I can't.

Once again I'm here alone. Sitting on the doorstep waiting to be let in again.

The thing is, and I have to keep reminding myself this... we weren't promised happiness or love when we came into this world - were we? It's not expected, it's not a given. And yet we keep somehow selfishly assuming we are owed this much. These things are illusions and fleeting at best. I wasn't promised happiness, I wasn't promised love. Move on. Live on.

Expectations of Empathy

This morning at work, I was returning from a meeting and passed a colleague. As she passed, I sensed it.

She was asking someone on my team a question when I sidled up to her and waited for her to finish her query. As she turned, I simply put my arms around her. 

"Hi Nadia," I said quietly, "I think you need a hug right now."

And she just started crying. There in my arms, she held on and sobbed. 

I think it's because I know what it's like to hold in so much pain, and contain all the grief in a very tight vessel that you think you've buried deep inside that I am able to sense it so acutely and tangibly in others.

I recall recently talking to someone very important to me and we were discussing our lives, and also that thing about being empaths. I recall pondering the idea that I sometimes tell myself that I am able to absorb all the pain that is out there in the world and perhaps help mitigate the anguish and despair that is out there, if perhaps somehow, even a little bit, it makes the world we live in a better place.

I don't know. Maybe it's a way of surviving for me. I've done my share of locking out people and pushing away those who care simply from a deeply entrenched emotional claustrophobia that maybe everything that comes my way is just a way of me getting my share.

Then again, just the way I spotted Nadia throughout the day chatting with colleagues, making jokes, cackling to her own surprise, I can smile to myself to know that perhaps just by my own small gestures I can provide comfort to others and help lighten the loads they are carrying just by acknowledging that I care.

There'll always be the people who will make sure you know that they care, not by assuming you know, but by their behaviour. It's also ok to let go of the naive idea that you can ever be so important to be someone's #1. Be your own #1. 

Canopy of Change

Sometimes I forget how easily the sight of a bird in flight, in flit, in air fills me with contentment. 

In the same way that soaring along a ravine path under the canopy of the newly-adorned trees fills me with a certain type of ecstasy: wind rushing through my hair, against my ears, into my face, with the sweet soundtrack of serendipity that is nature.

Or the whimsical pleasure of having random grandmothers - throughout the day, and quite independent of one another - strike up conversations:

"We ought to get a discount for this, don't you think?" says the white-haired little woman, as we disembarked off a bus that stopped 15 feet from the actual stop, making us walk further to the intersection.

"What soup is that?" enquired a smiley lola, "... oh, I've never had lentil and kale soup in my life!" 

"yes darlin', is the weather of romance I tell ya," winked a Jamaican momma, upon catching me smiling as I walked home, swinging my bag.

Maybe it's the season: Spring has always filled me with a burgeoning sense of joy. The beckoning of warmth, the tendrils of hope, the aroma of a beautiful tomorrow tantalizing our senses from around the corner. 

Maybe it's more. I've always pondered about my relationship with change. I've written about it often enough...and sometimes I wonder whether it's a love-hate relationship. The idea of new things, new ideas, new possibilities, new opportunities fills me with a sense of being. It's hard to describe. Sometimes I just put it down to my innate sense of curiosity and irreverent urge of pushing boundaries.

Maybe its - well, that's for another post. Before the next thunderstorm drops, I've to don my running shoes and hit the ground running for another dose of ecstasy.

The Chaos of Reckless Loneliness

Lately, she's stopped being alone. And yet, she finds herself lost in a starker, darker, loneliness than she's experienced in a long while.

How did she allow this door to open again? She's kept it shut, locked tight, waterproof—almost—for a very long time.. and somehow, without realizing, the door's eased its way open again.

She's put up too many guards over the years — successfully building out an empire of aloofness and detachment that's only served exceedingly well. And in the blink of an eye, somehow she's allowed it all to vanish, evaporate, in the blink of an eye.

And yet this loneliness seems the worst sort. It's addicting, calls her name in the middle of uneasy dreams, whispering into her ear whilst she's otherwise occupied. She's constantly seeking it out. It's a strange ache: she's catapulted head over heels into a black hole of chaos. She's not sure if its killing her or she's only revived.

And yet, despite it all, she's always been one to jump into the deep end, launch herself into the air without a parachute ... so maybe this time, despite the agony, despite the reckless hope — perhaps, she'll finally fly.

Crossroads

I woke up today with a dull, but intimately familiar, sense of melancholy. I am feeling the twinge, that effervescent strumming of heartstrings that resound in a song of hope yet with an underlying whisper of torment.

I find myself once again at a crossroads, or rather, in one of my favourite spaces: a state of liminality. I've broken free of the cage that has held me from fully stretching my wings to its utmost to truly soar. And still there is something that makes me hesitate; for I have flown beyond expectations and broken ceilings...nevertheless, I still find myself as guarded as ever with this strange feeling that's so familiar and yet so different in the best of ways.

I've wished that I had been able to return here - my comfort zone where I can pen my feelings and thoughts in the comfort of my words. But in the last several years, this too has been tainted with that disconcerting sense of peering eyes; watching and prying. It's a feeling that has prevented me from truly returning to writing the way I have before.

I wish, as always, that I had been able to record those moments that were less melancholic. I've put myself more into living in the moment - and in doing so, I've detached myself from dwelling. Dwelling in the form of sitting here and writing, dwelling in nostalgia, or perhaps running away from the possibility of hope. Perhaps I've been running from myself even whilst saying that I've focused on the now, at the cost of sacrificing the one vehicle that has always been my sanctuary. It's now the stirring in the air, coupled with this strange stirring that I find within that's yet again spurring me to write.

I recognize that I am now on a threshold. I'm trying to pace myself in enjoying things at a slower pace even while experience a crazy rush of strange emotions coming at me all at once. It's driving me crazy but I think it's safe to say that underneath it all I am enjoying every moment of it.

Entropy

What will it take for us to understand that love will resist all definition. It exists beyond our attempts to mold it into form, names and time. We try to claim it and conquer it, to find answers and meanings when it exists in a void beyond questions.

Love laughs in the face of our nets and snares; it answers to noone. Love is imperturbable chaos, it is reckless calm.

What will it take for us to understand? We will lose ourselves again and again, to drown and surface in this same murky ocean, and float adrift in the vast cosmos of love, until the very end of time.

Vavavoom

This morning I stood at my garden door, in the sunlit quiet, just enjoying the peace and serenity that comes with that feeling of being alone in a world that's still slumbering. As I stood there watching, I realized in front of me, almost camouflaged, was a huge monarch butterfly. It's wings were like a fine etched stain-glassed window, all gemstone oranges and gold and black.

As it quietly fed off my geraniums, I held my breath. I realized there was a part of me that itched to grab my camera and capture that moment for perpetuity. But for some reason I resisted, and let myself let go of that feeling of wanting to keep something for the future, and instead simply watched the butterfly as it nuzzled the flowers with its wings opening and closing in rapture.

I felt my breathe slow down, as I let myself simply enjoy the moment. Let the contentment and thrill of miracles wash through me. Sometimes it's okay to know that what you have now will soon flit away, maybe just be a nugget of doubt of "did I really experience that?" in memory..

But then again, perhaps simply letting yourself open yourself to the moment in the here, now and today, without worrying about what will come next, is what life is about.

Circles

Sometimes the best gift you can give yourself is to take that gift you thought was everything you every wanted and carefully wrap it back up, typing a perfect ribbon on top of where the old ribbon lay--and give it away.

and even though hurts you, still smile.

Slowing it down

Just because you have one plate doesn't mean you have to fill it up with just one dish at a time. It's okay to take just some at a time, putting a little of this and that, or a little of everything—allowing you to savour your favourite bit that much more.

Serendipity

Sometimes you find a $20 bill in the pocket of an old coat.

If you were broke or hungry, it feels like a miracle. It can feel like a miracle just simply by the mere serendipity of finding it when you didn't expect to. Maybe all this time you've missed it, or maybe all this time you didn't really know it was gone or what you'd lost.

It was always with you—until that moment you've found it again.

Whether you decide keep it forever as a memento or decide to spend it, you've already lost it.

Ayumi

[She] had a great emptiness inside her, like a desert at the edge of the earth. You could try watering it all you wanted, but everything would be sucked down to the bottom of the world, leaving no trace of moisture. No life could take root there. Not even birds would fly over it. What had created such a wasteland inside her, only she herself knew. No, maybe not even [she] knew the true cause. 

 As if to build a fence around the fatal emptiness inside her, she had to create the sunny person that she became. But if you peeled away the ornamental egos that she had built, there was only an abyss of nothingness and the intense thirst that came with it. Though she tried to forget it, the nothingness would visit her periodically—on a lonely rainy afternoon, or at dawn when she woke from a nightmare. What she needed at such times was to be held by someone, anyone . 

Small Happies

Spent two hours at the Superstore, ended up picking up just two things: sundried tomatoes and imported cheese. My sandal broke while roaming - the heavier wooden bottom went rogue and disengaged from the sole, but just at the back, so instead of hobbling, sliding my foot behind me or clacking around, I just looped my hair-tie around both pieces and I was good to go, until I got off the bus and stepped into a thunderstorm at its prime and realized I couldn't even walk in my sandals because I was sliding around on that smooth wooden surface. With my bag of cheese and sundried tomatoes, I danced home singing, of all things, "kuch to hua hai."

Running away to London

"She could feel his hand on the back of her neck, the other arm around her waist, holding her to him. Her head lay against his chest; she could hear his heart beat.  She blinked in the darkness, her eyes wet. She had not been held, not by anyone, not since she was a little child."

- Longbourne, Baker

Quotes of the Day

“I took my time, running my fingers along the spines of books, stopping to pull a title from the shelf and inspect it. A sense of well-being flowed through me as I circled the ground floor. It was better than meditation or a new pair of shoes- or even chocolate. My life was a disaster, but there were still books. Lots and lots of books. A refuge. A solace. Each one offering the possibility of a new beginning.”


“Heartbreak is more common than happiness. No one wants to say that, but it's true. We're taught to believe not only that everyone deserves a happy ending, but also that if we try hard enough, we will get one. That's simply not the case. Happy endings, lifelong loves, are the products of both effort and luck. We can control them, to some extent, and though our feelings always seem to have a life of their own, we can at least be open to love.”


-- Jane Austen Ruined My Life, Beth Patillo