{"id":151575,"date":"2014-06-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gracious-khorana.45-76-20-142.plesk.page\/localmex12014x106x1honeysuckle-lemonade-htmlx1\/"},"modified":"2023-06-26T17:11:51","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T17:11:51","slug":"honeysuckle-lemonade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/localmilkblog.com\/2014\/06\/honeysuckle-lemonade.html","title":{"rendered":"Honeysuckle Lemonade"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Honeysuckle<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Honeysuckle<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Honeysuckle<\/a><\/p>\n

Sometimes tectonic plates shift in the ether. Sometimes celestial orbs of fire, great, hot and inhospitable, align in deep space. We call them stars. It begins, in this story, on a country rode somewhere outside of Albany, where the honeysuckle that\u2019s already bloomed and fallen in the south still weaves alongside the road. A week later\u2014a week of snap peas in the garden, airports, 1000 photos, rolling pastry crust, the varied terrain of \u00a0faces you love, days without sleep, a backyard dinner all Marrakech meets Nashville, and so much work and all of it good\u2014they complete their slow trajectory. The angles are perfect and so perfect. A great softness descends. You give the universe what it\u2019s asked of you for a long time, what you\u2019ve suffered for not giving. And the moment you do it gives you validation. And you know it doesn\u2019t always work this way, and you\u2019re just grateful that just this once it did. It feels like death, the best kind. And then, for a moment that hangs suspended in the air you have electricity, mostly white with shocks of blue, running through your veins instead of slow, warm blood. Your skin shudders and sloughs off. And you experience that delicious faith, amor fati.T<\/em>he pain and frustration and wildflowers all the same\u2014you love them. It can happen\u00a0somewhere nowhere on I-75 while Dolly sings Jolene. Eternal return.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

These great moments happen in the slow moments. In the moments where I find time, despite a marathon of work, to stop by the road for five minutes and clip an armful of honeysuckle. Find time to pluck each bud (it\u2019s tedious but smells wonderful at the very least) with a cup of Earl Grey because I have a thing for bergamot, even though I can never pronounce it correctly. Then, after dinner, laying in bed, I remember that I\u2019ve left the buds, painstakingly gathered, laying on an Edwardian napkin to wilt. So I tiptoe downstairs, boil two cups sugar with two cups water and slice two lemons in the mean time. One handful of flowers, about a cup I reckon, goes into one jar, another \u00a0cup in the next. I squeeze the lemon over the flowers, one lemon for each jar. When the syrup comes to a boil, I pour it over the flowers, half in each jar. I give them a stir, cover them, and let them sit out on the counter through the night and on into late morning. Around noon the next day I strain it and find time to make some lemonade for myself and my friends Tara & Percy, a.k.a. the Jersey Ice Cream Co.<\/a>, while we work. It\u2019s simple. And it\u2019s good. You can find the codified recipe for honeysuckle syrup here<\/a>. But the above instructions will work just fine, and can be made half asleep in the middle of the night, as is evidenced here.<\/p>\n

My birthdays are coming up, I turn 31 on the 2nd of July and will be 3 years sober on the 12th. I had an auspicious week. A week where I let go. And this next year will be about quiet creation and small dinners with friends. About seeing how, no matter how insane the external circumstance, the problem and solution ultimately lie in me. My reactions are the only place pain and stress can occur. They are in me, not in the world. I live in light when I choose to. I live in darkness when I choose to. It\u2019s not always an easy choice; it\u2019s easy to get married to the dark. To feel like the dark is just. To feel, in the end, like a victim\u2014be it of an irritating red light or an unhealthy person. But from the little aggravations to the stomach knotting troubles, peace is always in me to find. This year will be serene. Because I choose serenity. Here\u2019s a song for you that makes me feel that.<\/p>\n