Fennel

In which I contemplate several disparate topics that may all converge into one.

January 29, 2023

Deer Park, Michigan

I’m sitting in the loft of our cabin, looking out the east window. Snow falls against a backdrop of pines. The pines are lightly coated; a white duvet tucks down the garage roof; on the ground, a blanket of snow stretches 100 miles to Sault Ste. Marie and beyond. A peaceful feeling settles in my ribcage. A woodpecker makes its way up the slim trunk of a young maple, and the settled feel spreads.

I’ve spent the morning pondering:

·      The memoir I’m working on

·      Technology and my relationship to it

·      Fennel

Of which of these shall I write? All? Well, okay. But I’m saving the best for last. (Yes, I mean the fennel.)

In re. the memoir:

I’ve been working on a memoir for a long while. I wrote it, rewrote it, and rewrote it again. If you’re not a writer, you might not know that you can yearn to write something that you sense is specific and not know precisely what that something is.

I have been stuck around page 55 for some time. (Think years. Or, even more unsettling, think of the explorer, Lawrence Oats, from the Scott Terra Nova expedition, going out of his tent on his 32^nd birthday in March of 1912 into an Antarctic blizzard saying, “I’m going outside and may be some time.” Yes, he died of exposure; yes, he is thought to have known he would. His act is seen as one of self-sacrifice to improve his tent mates’ chances of survival when his own was already out of the question due to gangrene and frostbite. And yes, these are the kinds of thoughts and stories a writer’s life, or anyway, this writer’s life, lead toward.)

I ponder what that sticking point in the memoir is. I’m pretty sure it’s structural. Received wisdom says, “Write through it. The writing will tell you the answers.”

I say, “Hmm.” Those of you who know me might be able to picture my expression:  striving to seem noncommittal, but instead, looking skeptical. Striving to be polite while fiercely disagreeing. Etc.

I have grown leery of writing into the abyss in the last decade. Leery of ‘writing into the answers’ and ‘trusting the process.’  

I’ve tried that. I tried it for six years with a novel that was an epic failure, unpublishable, and nearly the ruin of me. (Before you can argue: Yes, I know this to be true. It is 100% not up for debate. If you’re not a writer, you may have a sunny sense of possibility in all words a published writer writes. But, sorry to bludgeon you with grim news, that sunny sense is naïve and inaccurate. Published writers can create flops and know when they have done so, as clearly as you know when you’ve made an error in parallel parking or cooking. Oh, crud! your inner self cries when you scrape someone’s fender or pop open the wrong side of the salt shaker and a quarter cup of NaCl spills into your bowl instead of a teaspoon, for example. I’ve just screwed up. Are you wrong? Being too hard on yourself? Not the best judge of the situation? No, you are not.)

Sometimes, for some people, trusting the process and writing into the answers works. But it hasn’t worked well for me in the last decade.

What I like now is a solid sense of direction. Not an outline but rather a schematic that pins down the story’s turning points.

So, I’m idling my pen (well, keyboard) for the most part. Idling and pondering. That may not work either. But we’ll hold out hope that it will.

At present, I’m searching for the correct end of Act 1. When I find it, I think I’ll know how to move into Act 2. To find those answers, I have to be able to articulate what it is I’m really writing about. What am I saying, what’s my argument?

Possibly, I’m saying that a fulfilling and (hopefully) even useful life can be constructed out of unexpected elements. Even out of disappointing and frustrating elements. And it might be that I suspect that disappointing and frustrating elements are fundamental pavers on the route to get to that desired end. And also, that it’s not an end you’re getting to.

(Yes, correct, I do believe life is a journey and that the journey is the thing.)

In re. technology and my relationship to it:

I’m not a big fan of technology and the digitalization of our lives. The digitalization of us. Call me a Luddite. I don’t care. I don’t like it; I don’t trust it; I don’t think it is good for us. Not for us as cultures, communities, humans, or souls.

We take it all so much for granted now. And, yes, absolutely, I’m part of it. A) you can barely exist in the world without a digital presence. Banking, health care, shopping, services of all kinds, work (like writing, editing, or keeping customers informed about your little bakery business)—on and on.

And B), good things come of it. I keep in touch with friends and family; I write this letter and post it on Substack; I freelance edit; I play around with the Uglyfish Baking Co.’s social media presence (such as it is); I read and research; I watch movies and shows. Etc.

In short, I do what we all, or almost all, do, and I would be hard-pressed to give it up. Though I do daydream about giving it up.

What do I want, you wonder?

I want what I often want, on various fronts: for us all to admit it's complicated. To admit there are no easy answers. To admit it one step forward and one or two back. (But in truth I suspect it is two or three back.)

Suddenly, I’m done with writing about all of that. It is time now to move on to…

Fennel.

Ah, fennel. Beautiful, lovely fennel.

I bought my first fennel bulb a couple of weeks ago. In the winter, when I have time, I love to cook savory dishes, and I love to try new things. I have aimed in the last few winters to try fruits, vegetables, and grains that are new to me. A couple of weeks ago, I wanted to make the ‘Longevity Stew’ I found in The Blue Zones Cookbook, which my sister gave me for Christmas in 2020. The ingredients include fennel and black-eyed peas, neither of which I had used before.

I tinkered with the recipe a bit because that’s how I am. Sometimes that’s a good idea, sometimes not so much. In this case, the experiment turned out well. I found this stew delicious, and I fell in love with fennel in the process of making it.

What fennel is:

According to Meriam Webster:

A perennial aromatic herb of the parsley family, fennel is native to southern Europe and Asia Minor and cultivated in the US, Britain, and temperate areas of Eurasia. The blanched shoots are eaten as a vegetable. The greenish brown to yellowish brown oblong-oval seeds smell and taste similar to anise. The seeds and extracted oil are used for scenting soaps and perfumes and for flavoring candies, liqueurs, medicines, and foods, particularly pastries, sweet pickles, and fish.

What fennel does:

It tastes and smells good. It looks pretty. It has a texture I enjoyed. According to my cookbooks (and, yes, the worldwide interwebs), it behaves wonderfully in all kinds of recipes and preparations.

Where you find fennel when you’re out shopping:

I found mine in the produce section at Rahilly’s IGA in Newberry, Michigan. In fact, I didn’t just ‘find’ it. I pounced on it: Yay, they have it!

What else I love:

The word itself.

Fennel.

It sounds old to me. And when I went (online, yep) and looked it up, I found I was right.

Again, from Merriam-Webster:

Middle English fenel, from Old English finugl, from Vulgar Latin *fenuculum, from Latin feniculum fennel, irregular diminutive of fenum hay

The dictionary also tells me that the word’s earliest known use of the word was before the 12^th century.

Before the 12^th century.

What comes up in your mind when you read that?

In mine: an ancient time in England. A place I vaguely picture as being composed of rolling green fields, massive oak trees, and stone cottages with thatched roofs. (Stop thinking this is all a lovely idyll, by the way. I suspect those cottages could be cold, dark, damp, and dirty.) I see a skim of snow on the ground, a red bird on a branch. It is very quiet. I think I hear bells tolling from a stone cathedral. Somewhere in the distance two dairy maids sing a round… Marjorie, feed well the black sow, all on a misty morning. Come to thy supper sow, come, come, come, or else thou shall have never a crumb…

Right or wrong, that is my internal English 12^th century. And right or wrong, now in the age of Google, I can and likely will go look up ‘12th-century England images’ to see how close I’ve come. And fun as it is, I wonder if that is not a problem. What might I do if I wasn’t going down that rabbit hole? I might go outside into the snow and sing an old round on my own while the dog, Harwood, zips about in joy at being released from the house and his waiting.

Now I’ll say goodbye and do that. Have a good day. Put your feet on the earth and walk about a while.