Bike rides, bridges, and that bouillabaisse recipe.

I love summer. The other day my partner and I spent the whole afternoon out cycling. We dug out the bike map and traced out a route to somewhere we'd never been, and then spent the next day riding. The ride took us along a city bike route that's partly separated from traffic, with plenty of little parks and stretches of green space where lots of people were out walking in the sun or heading to the mall, doing whatever it is normal people do in the city on a Thursday afternoon. Then we found our way onto three bridges to get across the Fraser River, first to the eastern tip of Lulu Island and then Annacis Island, and then the big stretch of Fraser River that's spanned by the Alex Fraser Bridge. Here's a pic of that bridge, just to show I'm not talking about crossing a wee footpath!

(I'm not sure the protocol for borrowing public photos, but here's a link to some more photos by this fabulous photographer, unbanhunter on Panoramio.)

The bridge is just over 2.5 kilometres long--one of the longest cable-stayed bridges in North America-- and when big trucks roar along it, which they do, the floor shakes in a way that feels like a small earthquake. The cycle route is a narrow track that I'm pleased to say is separated by a high barrier from those six lanes of roaring traffic. Still, riding along it feels a bit like flying over water and a bit like being shaken in some giant industrial machine. All the way across I alternated between being amazed at the views and delighted to be part of a species that had built such a fantastic structure! Watching the wide expanse of the Fraser River rushing along below, it was impossible not to be a bit nervous, but mostly I felt lucky to be alive and part of the whole big ongoing life project.

Once we reached the far side, we found a small wooded path along an old rail line and we biked along there until we reached Mud Bay Park on the coast and then--after a quick lunch of havarti, salami, sliced peppers and local cherries--we rode along the Boundary Bay dyke trail for 15 or so kilometres. This last part if the ride was the point of the whole adventure, and it was well worth the effort of getting out there. We saw herons and eagles, and plenty of some sort of wee fast hunting birds. The route is flat, with farmland along one side and a long shallow bay stretching out along the other, with tufts of strange sea plants peeking up through the mud in the low tide, and Mount Baker in the distance on the American side of the water. Near the end of that trail, we joined up with the main road system and rode to the nearest urban centre, where we put our bikes on the bus to recross the river and come back home.

The day was marvellous, sun and wind and changing landscapes. We ended up with sunburned noses and tired legs, very happy to be home in time to make a quick dinner (more bouillabaisse!) before crashing into the deep sleep that's well earned after a full day outdoors.

Next day was another day off. We got up early for mushroom, chevre and sage omelets, then walked to a cafe for the Germany-France game (hooray Germany!), walked around the city going some errands, then to a wee bar for the Brasil-Columbia match (yea Brasil!) Later we came home and read for a while, then had a simple supper: pink salmon with fingerling potatoes and steamed green beans, with jicama salad to start, and blueberries and ice cream for dessert. It's blueberry season again! Hooray for blueberries!!!!!

That's a lot of words about some outdoor stuff and food, with no mention of alcohol. Because that's how it's been lately. Life is good, and drinking (or not drinking) takes up close to zero mental space. I've been spending lots of time doing things I love to do, and there are plenty of things to do. Even watching the World Cup at the local bars, it's been a no-brainer that I'm ordering a large bottle of San Pellegrino. Some people around me have had beer, and some haven't, and either way it hasn't mattered. The only time I've considered wine was once after thinking that the fizzy water was absolutely the right thing on a hot day, and then remembering how before I would have had beer or wine and then had that headachey tired feeling that I always had drinking in the daytime. 

It's been just about six months since I quit drinking this time around, which means out of the past year, I have been sober for ten of the twelve months. Time really does seem to make a difference. I'm not the same emotional mess I was in the first few months of this stretch this past winter. In fact, I don't think I've ever in my life felt this calm and happy. Now, I'm far more emotional than I used to be, but it's a different kind of emotional. Yesterday, when David Luis scored a lovely goal for Brasil, I was so moved by his reaction to it that I started to cry. My tears come easily, but they clear up easily, too, and that feels healthy to me. I'm still scared of lots of things, but it doesn't unseat me anymore. Thursday, I was once again scared by a couple of big dogs, but I called to the owners and asked them to leash the dogs, and when they did we were all very pleasant and civilized to each other about it, and I forgot about it almost immediately. In my drinking days, that kind of scary moment would unsettle me for the better part of the day.

And I still really do love sitting and sipping a pretty drink, but now it's lemon and bitters in sparkling water, or ginger juice in sparkling water, or a new favourite for me, holy basil tea. 

Life is good. There's lots of joy to share, and lots of good food and drink being shared along with that. I can't tell you how happy I am that I don't drink any more. I simply never would have believed what a relief it is to be done with it. Peace and joy to you, and happy outdoor days, and some yummy food too. xo

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PS Here's a wee taste of the kind of thing I like to share, my bouillabaisse recipe as requested by Rebecca after my last post:

Chop an onion and cook it quietly for a few minutes in some sort of fat. (I use bacon fat because I like it, but olive oil with a little butter to make sure the oil doesn't smoke would be good, too. I cook the whole thing on electric stove set to 3, so that's the knob set to about 4:00 on a 12 hour dial.) While that's cooking, chop four or five big ripe tomatoes and a few cloves of garlic, and once the onions start to look translucent, add the tomatoes and the garlic to the pan. They will start to cook into a sauce pretty quickly, and then I add some white wine--not sure how much, maybe a few ounces or a half cup, maybe a little more, depends on how much liquid there is in the pan. And maybe now is the time to add a pinch or so of sea salt and some coarse black pepper, but later would work, too. Take a whole fennel bulb and chop off the stalks; I set these aside to use in a stew or something, because they are a bit woody for this delicate dish. Finely slice the fennel bulb top to bottom, so the strips are find of like noodles. I usually use around half a medium bulb, but it doesn't matter much how much you use. Add the chopped fennel to the pot and cook until it softens, just a few minutes or so. Then I add a handful of fresh thyme (though tarragon would work too) and around 250 grams of fish. (I buy chopped up fish ends for cheap from the local fish store, and that always includes some salmon, halibut, and ling cod, but you could just buy a couple of small pieces of two or three different kinds of fish and see how it goes. Shellfish would make it a more festive dish if there's some around and it's not too pricey.) The fish will cook super fast, and once that's done, put it in big wide bowls and eat it up happily. This amount serves two hungry people, so you could use a few more tomatoes and more fish and fennel to make enough to serve four, especially if you added a small salad or some antipasto to start. Happy cooking, and happy eating.

Reading old stories, living a new one.

Last Sunday afternoon, when I was walking through one of those lovely summer festivals, with lots of people milling about eating street food and listening to music and picking up little bits of crafty goodness, I wanted so much to join the people on the outdoor patios and have a drink. I had no intention of doing that, but I hadn't felt that strong pull to drink in a while, and it was a powerful reminder of how small things can bring it on again, and how strong that pull can be once it sets in. For a little while, I felt pretty darn sorry for myself that I couldn't just join in on that part of the summer fun.

But a couple of days later, I found the old drinking journal I had been looking for. (The upside of having to crate everything in the apartment in preparation for the exterminators was finding a few misplaced items. A wee but welcome little bright side for sure.) So on Tuesday afternoon, I sat in the midst of piles of crates and boxes and read my own alternately sad and hopeful words, written over the span of a year or so, about trying to deal with what I was starting to realize was a big problem, my drinking. I have to do that sometimes, because it's impossible for me to remember how unhappy I was about how bad the drinking had got, and how hard I was trying to fix it.

Some of the things I did to control the amount I was drinking are a little bit funny, even though they're deeply sad. I remember thinking that it was completely daft to have any more than two drinks and, fully convinced that it would help me, I wrote myself a note that said, "Don't be daft!" and put it on the fridge. The note had absolutely zero effect on how much I drank, of course, but I think it did help me see that, once I started drinking, I saw no problem in being daft after all. I also had various notes and charts to help me count how many drinks I would have but I only ever kept them going for a week or so, because it's really quite dreary to write, day after day, "Planned drinks: 2; Actual drinks: somewhere around seven but I lost count."

More heartbreaking to me was the lists of problems I knew drinking was causing me--my hands hurt, my head hurt, my thinking was blurry too much of the day, I was achey and bloatey, my eyes were looking pink, and I was falling into some nasty dark spells. It was tough, reading my own words, telling myself how I was going to solve this problem because it didn't make sense to feel this awful. As soon as I felt better, I always started to think it was OK now, and then I would write that I had had one glass (or two) at some event or with dinner and that it had been really lovely and now I was planning to be super careful because I didn't want to run into the old problem again. And then the journal peters out until a few months later, when I was in the middle of the problem again, and was once again drinking way too much and trying to get a grip on it.

At one point, I had written, "What's so great about wine, anyway?" Reading it now, the question startles me. It's the right question to ask, and I think it was asking it that helped me start making the decision to really quit drinking. When I asked the question, I didn't quit right away, but I couldn't come up with a good answer. I still can't. There isn't anything all that great about wine. I had cultivated a taste for it, and though I currently don't even like the smell, I know it's a powerful drug and I could develop a taste for it again if I wanted to, but I can't really argue that taste is the reason for drinking. (As far as taste goes, I actually prefer the homemade sparkling water, lemon and bitters concoctions I rely on these days. And they go equally well with food.) I don't actually like the fuzzy feeling of being drunk. Once I started trying to have spells of not drinking for a week or month at a time, I  realized I enjoyed being social more when I wasn't worrying about whether I could have another drink yet or whether anyone knew I was getting drunk. I found I am often at ease with people, which is something I never knew because I thought I needed a drink to relax and be sociable.

I think there isn't a logical answer to my question, "What's so great about wine?" because the wine story isn't based on logic. There's an enormous cultural narrative around drinking and relaxing and the adult way to have fun, and culture works on the level of story, not on logic. It's all about symbol and image and feeling, not about what makes sense. So there is a strong pull to sit on a patio on a sunny Sunday and drink with laughing friends, except I can do that without putting wine in my glass. A pretty drink in a pretty glass is a symbol of relaxation, and it can be just as strong a symbol if there's no booze in the glass. I've been working on this: taking a look at what the cultural myths are around drinking, and seeing if I can re-imagine those same stories and symbols without the alcohol. And I think I'm getting somewhere. So I can sit on a sunny patio and drink, except I'm drinking sparkling water. I can enjoy a fancy dinner in a French restaurant with San Pellegrino or Badoit instead of wine, and experience the meal as a real pleasure. I don't think it's helpful for me to pretend that this strong cultural ideal isn't there, and it doesn't get rid of it just to say, "It's a myth." We live in culture, so we live our lives through myths all the time. But culture changes, and I think this is how we change it: by seeing what the story is--the relaxing evening, or the summer festival, or the summer picnic--and reworking it to include me, or you, a person who wants to live a good life in the world we're in and who is doing that without drinking alcohol but 100% engaging in the big ongoing world. There isn't anything great about wine. It's just a powerful symbol of a whole lot of good things, and we need to rework our symbols so we can participate in life and not miss the wine one bit.

I'm not quite there yet. Sometimes, like on that sunny Sunday, I did miss wine for a while. But later that evening when I sat with my glass of sparkling water with fresh mint, lime and bitters, it was delicious, and it looked pretty in the glass, and my partner and I raised a toast to the good life we were actually living. And we didn't need wine to do that after all.

It's almost dinnertime, and I'm about to make bouillabaisse: tomato and fennel and chunks of fresh salmon and halibut and yes, a little cooking wine, because I haven't figured out how to cook without wine in some recipes. (Wine actually makes a decent cooking ingredient, so that's one good thing, maybe.) We'll have a relaxing, romantic dinner, with some more of those fresh strawberries that are still in season for dessert along with the cardamom cream we're getting good at making, and maybe then go for a walk in the late evening light. All lovely stuff, and no need to put booze in a glass to make it special. I'm looking forward to it.

Peace and joy to you, and lovely wine-free summer evenings, too (or winter nights if you're in the other hemisphere!) xo