What feeds us
Of fury, Furies, and force
Last weekend, I was a fury in the kitchen. Or maybe a Fury.
On Sunday afternoon, I baked a whole chicken. And two trays of roasted chicken thighs and vegetables. And an apple and pear galette. Using the whole chicken, I also made a pot of soup.
The day before that, I spent hours making pesto. I harvested the last of our voluminous basil crop, snipping and cleaning leaves before putting them in the food processor with garlic, cashews, olive oil, and parmesan. I think I made ten batches. Maybe twenty? Many batches were doubled and I’m not sure of how to count them, but I now have a year’s worth of pesto in the freezer. I also kneaded the hell out of a ball of pizza dough I’d started for Monday’s dinner.
On Saturday morning, the person occupying the White House announced that he is directing our Secretary of War to send armed troops to my city, calling it “war ravaged,” and authorizing the use of “Full Force” [sic]. This is a gross insult to any place that has truly been ravaged by war, a waste of resources we all contribute to, and an unconscionable act of aggression against those of us who live here.
It was a beautiful early fall weekend in Portland, with temperatures in the 70’s. Outside our windows, I saw neighbors walking to church, squirrels burying nuts, crows sunning on power lines. My social media feed was full of images of people peacefully enjoying all that our city has to offer us—parks, mountain views, outdoor markets, river walks and wooded hikes, the early turning of leaves, each other’s company. I also saw many images of our local ICE facility with a few protesting but no one obstructing its obscene business, as well as messages from our elected officials telling us how they are lawfully resisting this egregious, dangerous, and destructive over-reach of power.
I am not a person who needs to feel things personally to care about what is happening in and to our country, but there was something about feeling it personally—about seeing my government point weapons at the place I live—that took my now-decade’s worth of anger to a deeper place.
The Furies are goddesses of vengeance. They are of the earth, Gaea, and are associated with earthly fertility. They live in the underworld but ascend to pursue the wicked. They are particularly opposed to crimes within families, which makes sense as they were born of blood spilled when a son castrated his father to take his power.
I gathered my basil in a basket I once used to carry my premature babies with me from room to room of our home. I was not much of a cook or baker when my children were growing up. I am three generations removed from the farmers I descend from, and none of their knowledge was passed to me. My great-grandmother used to send us jars of applesauce she made from fruit grown on her trees, but convenience foods were a staple of the diet I was raised on, meals that came largely from boxes and cans and mixes and packets. Chicken soup was one of the few things I made that my children loved; it was so much better than the tins of stuff I ate when I was a kid. Recently, my daughter shared a photo of chicken soup her husband made from my recipe, more than 5,000 miles away from Portland. It lessened regrets I have about the kinds of things I didn’t do when she was growing up, didn’t understand back then. I certainly didn’t grow any of our food in those years, but now I am learning how to. This year we successfully raised onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, peas, squash, parsley, thyme, and basil. The pears in my galette came from a tree in our yard. The apples came from local growers. Sunday morning, we picked up carrots from the stand in front of a u-pick farm about a mile from our home. This summer, I taught myself more about how to preserve the food we’ve grown, so we can eat it through the winter.
How does a commoner respond when a ruler spreads lies and threatens peace and seems to be instigating—perhaps hoping for—violence in her home?
In lots of different ways, I suppose. I can’t tell you, exactly, why I felt compelled to spend our beautiful weekend in the kitchen. I only know that I did, that I needed to tend my garden, reveling in the sun on my skin and the earth under my nails; that I needed to harvest our already-gone-to-flower basil before this week’s promised rain, marveling in its bounty; that I needed to feed myself and my family, delighting in our full, satisfied bellies.
I needed to revel, marvel, and delight in my place on this earth. I needed to fuel my Fury on that which makes her stronger, reminds her of what she will not give away.
For a fuller look at how things really are in Portland, I appreciate this post from Elizabeth Doerr:
I particularly appreciate this:
“It goes without saying that, in Portland, we don’t need the military. What we need is proper funding for social services, we need shelters and housing programs that actually help people get off the streets, and we need fully-funded public schools. We also need infrastructure improvements and climate resilience projects as our state gets hotter, and we need a Forest Service headquarters to stay in the PNW so that fire risks don’t increase.”
Your turn
What fuels you? What do you have that you will not give away?
You're not alone, Rita, I share your fury (I know you know that already). My daughter just graduated from one of the universities the White House "had its eye on" during the Gaza protests. As I sat here in Portland, I felt like the eye of Sauron was focused on HER. Now she's graduated and home, and the eye of Sauron pivoted toward my family once again. This profound feeling of threat and instability has every parental instinct on alert. And I say this knowing full well my family's not the most vulnerable out there. The fear, rage, disgust, grief we carry...it's constant. It's BEEN constant for years. It's deeply personal and collective at the same time.
Rita. I loved this so much. I understood perfectly your Furies in the kitchen to have a place to direct your Fury at this ridiculous invasion of your beloved city, the need to have your hands in the soil, to plant the seeds for goodness when so much malevolence seems to be surrounding us, seeking to bury our best impulses, our kindness and care for one another. Keep planting. Keep blooming! What fuels me is my creative fire, my daughters and their fine men, my women friends. My beloved community of Substack sisters (and brothers too). 💗