As dusk darkens into evening, I bundle up, leash the dog, and slip outside into the January cold. We didn't get to walk earlier, and it is too late now to go far.
Together, Dobby and I make our way across the icy parking lot, and I steer him toward the row of garages, which runs parallel to a vacant cornfield. I nudge Dobby into the grassy patch the snowplow has uncovered and wait for him to do his business. He growls a little, his face turned toward the field, and while he often barks at nothing when we go outside in the dark, I always check, just in case of murderers.
Staring out into the field, I gradually recognize what his sharp eyes saw instantly. A herd of deer feeds in the field, black silhouettes against white snow. I squint to count them––at first I see only a few, but as I move closer, more come into view. There are ten, ten wild animals right there in my backyard.
Normally, I think of deer with dread. They are car accidents waiting to happen; they are roadkill that rots on the shoulder of Midwestern highways. Whenever I drive at night, I flick on my high-beams and scan both sides of the road, hoping that if Bambi is reckless enough to run out in front of my car, I will have at least a second or two to slam on my brakes.
But as I look at these deer in this field, my customary dread gives way to a sense of wonder. Like strange angels, these creatures have visited me, and I feel oddly blessed to be standing there and watching them in all their beauty. On a quiet day in my ordinary life, there is this wondrous moment, and it is truly and un-ironically precious.
I suppose there must be many such moments in my life, times when I should pause and take it all in, in whatever form "it" comes. As I've written elsewhere, our ability to recognize and appreciate beauty is central to our humanity, and to do so should be a daily practice in our lives.
So, in this year of 2022, I want to cultivate that practice, and I want to use these monthly reviews as a space for reflection. I'll still include my round-up of my creative pursuits (the beauty I am trying to create in my life), but that will be bookended by these reflections. If nothing else, I hope they inspire you to pay attention to your own life and the beauty that is waiting for your notice.
Here's what I read, cooked, and created in the month of January.
What I Read
For One More Day, Mitch Albom (★★★★)
Love Stories of World War II, edited by Larry King (★★★★)
The Nightingale, Kristin Hannah (★★★★)
Talking About Ethics: A Conversational Approach to Moral Dilemmas, Michael S. Jones, David L. Saxon, Mark J. Farnham (★★★★★)
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse, Charlie Mackesy (★★★★★)
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (★★★★★)
If you want to hear the rationale behind my rating, head to my Goodreads for full reviews.
What I Cooked
For my family's Christmas gathering a couple weeks ago, my mom suggested soup and sandwiches. Remembering a sandwich we all used to love overing from a local coffee shop, I decided to try reverse-engineering it. It had chicken, red onion, and provolone, which were all simple enough to recreate, but the star of the sandwich was the cranberry mustard. I tried this recipe and hoped for the best.
While I didn't recreate those beloved bygone paninis perfectly, this mustard did help me come close. The sandwich went over well, and I was pretty proud that I got at least somewhat close.
One of the greatest upsides to Mitchell's frequent absences from my dinner table during basketball seasons is that I don't have to avoid recipes he dislikes since he's not going to have to eat them. Since he's not a big pepper guy, I made this on a night he wasn't home, and again on another night he wasn't home.
If I'm being honest, this is the kind of meal to make not because it is good but because it is cheap and easy and you probably have all the ingredients already. But if I have the ingredients for one of my two other meatless pastas that Mitchell hates (the HBH garlic butter ramen from Super Simple and this cheesy artichoke pasta), those beat out cacio e pepe every day.
What I Created
Unpublished original poem "Dreams of My Papa"
Unpublished original poem for 100 Days of Dante poetry contest
May your days be filled with beauty, and may your heart be filled with the willingness to see and give thanks for it.