Today marks a year since my mom died.

I have a testy relationship with these anniversaries and the pressure I perceive both to mark the day in the most correctly momentous and momentously correct way possible, and to believe that the bulk of my complicated grief can and should somehow fit inside the confines of a single 24-hour period. ‘One, two, three: go!’ and then ‘tick tock, done!’

Since the death of my sister almost exactly seven years ago (the two of them really took a whack at February), I’ve done a lot of reading and plenty of empirical observation about how sadness and trauma dwell in the body, well outside the reach of reason. I can feel grief creeping up in my muscles and tendons and sleep patterns and appetite long before this day, all the echoes of phone calls and hospital vigils and hard realizations that preceded it ringing in the tissues. Oh yeah, February 5th? Who died and made you so special? Oh, right.

For all the significance of the death day, maybe there is more to be recognized in the anniversary of the last conversation we had, when we face-timed so she could see my dog and she was laughing, the raveling edges of memory and attention less prevalent than the sound of her enjoying something so purely. I don’t happen to know the date for that one, but a few weeks ago some part of my collarbone or spleen started vibrating with it. There is a photo in my phone of a CT scan that I sent to my brother-in-law for his opinion in the thick of things, and I’ve set about deleting that a few times, a complex process with a simple result: it’s still in my phone. I bet it has a date on it (they usually do!) but is looking for (and looking at) that picture really how I want to spend time TODAY OF ALL DAYS?

I will spend the bulk of the day grumbling about how not every action has to have significance, and then nonetheless wrestling with whether I’m making the right choice of activity or food, occasionally getting it right in some ineffable way that matters only to me, alternately resisting and participating until the sun goes down and I can resume normal grief ops as they are conducted the other 364 days of the year.

This capricious square dance of mourning is why I always suggest that you adopt a bumblebee path checking in with people after a loss. You may catch them once on a day that they don’t want anything more than they want to be left alone, but odds are you won’t catch them twice that way, and the arc of their slog is long, long, long. Opportunities continue to arise.

My mom exited the world as my book entered it, and it would be an understatement to say that’s added a layer of complexity to supporting the book out in the world. It would be mostly a logistical complication (“can you fit this task in today, with all the time you need to spend under the covers?”) even if it were a book about the history of the pocket comb or a fun romance novel (they say everyone contains at least one of these). But it’s a book about how to show up for others and receive that same help, full of content with roots in my childhood. Dang, son.

I’ve been in some lovely conversations lately about how many steps there are to this dance. All the chats get collected here and as a fun drinking game, you can click through to listen for how many dog barks made it past post to appear in each final recording. I’m also toiling away in the workshop on a cheat sheet for the book, which collects my top ‘best-guess nerdy I’m no scientist but this seems right to me’ tips for each kind of situation on one handy, tattoo-parlor-ready page. If you’d like to receive that, please make sure you are subscribed and before long it may slide right into your DMs.

Most of what’s edible lately is being posted to Rural Intelligence, where every other recipe you see these days seems to have come from my kitchen, because it has. But I have two things for you to eat right here today. The first is a few lines from Maya Angelou. I’m really enchanted by appetite and its cousin, antidote, and that is why I love this:

“Many people eat long after they are filled. I think they are searching in their plates for a taste that seems to elude them. If a person's taste buds are really calling for a prime rib of beef or a crispy brown pork chop, stewed chicken will not satisfy. So they will have another piece of chicken and another piece of bread and some more potatoes, searching in vain for the flavor that is missing.”

You’re welcome for that little mind snack.

The next thing is actually edible, or potable anyway. A friend gave me a beautiful bottle of ginger honey recently, and the alarmingly rapid rate at which my children sucked it down, and did the same to the replacement bottle I purchased, drove me into the kitchen as a budgetary measure.

A little dash of this in your morning water or your tea is just the ticket for winter’s phlegmy complaints, for any residual chill of the bones or to ward off or resolve a hint of funky belly. It’s delicious with seltzer and lime on ice, its most usual application here. Would be the bomb on fruit or yogurt. Etc.

By all means buy it and support the lovely, right-minded enterprise that produced the original. AND, know that it is the most pleasant little job for all your senses (except possibly the ones you keep in the ends of your fingers; stay mindful using those graters, friends!) to DIY, and makes a really delightful little gift, if only to yourself.

It’s laughable to call it a recipe and the quantities here are just a guide; add more ginger or less. You won’t go wrong however you do it, and lord knows I am down to save the date for a task like that.

She might hate this photo, because she had dark things to say about every photo of her and because her hair wasn’t did, but I love it because that was a happy, happy place and she is smiling so deeply.

ginger honey

Raw apple cider vinegar is the IT girl of the moment, so many benefits ascribed to it that it could write its own book. Actually, I think it has. Whether or not you believe its alkaline-forming properties can help balance your body’s pH levels or think it has prebiotic qualities that will benefit your digestion and immune system, its undeniable magic here is that it keeps the ginger juice in suspension in the honey; without it, everything separates and looks weird and you have to do a lot of shaking (ooh, sounds like grief.) You can’t hardly taste it in the end product and I really don’t think you’ll regret including it as much as you would regret skipping it.

For best results, use a really sharp grater, like this one. You will also need a little bit of butter muslin or cheese cloth, or a very clean kitchen towel that you won’t mind turning yellow forever.

1 4-5” knob of fresh ginger
1 2-3” knob of fresh turmeric
grated zest of one meyer lemon (optional)
8 ounces honey
1 tablespoon raw apple cider vinegar

Using the side edge of an ordinary teaspoon, peel the papery skin from the ginger and turmeric and discard.

Rest the grater on a 6x6” (ish) square of muslin or cheese cloth and grate the ginger, turmeric and optional lemon zest on top of it.

Place the honey in a small bowl or spouted measuring cup. If your kitchen is cold or the honey is very thick, you will want to set this container in a larger container of hot water to soften it enough to stir.

Gather up the corners of the fabric and squeeze the juice from the grated ginger and turmeric into the honey, and I mean SQUEEZE, to get every drop of it. Add the vinegar to the mixture and stir or whisk to combine. Funnel this mixture into a small bottle and cap tightly.