I’ve been hiking.

Crunch, crunch, crunch. Stop. Heartbeat catches up. Listen. Silence.

The silence is absolute. You strain to hear something, anything at all, maybe a distant car? Nope.

My home is on a dirt road out in the country, last one on the left. You don’t notice the house until you are almost upon it, its sheltered by trees. The route I usually take is further up the road, all the way to the top. Then the road turns left to cross a ridge. This section is seasonal and not plowed. Thick snow, clear sky, bare trees.

I lived in cities for the past four years. I don’t particularly like living in a city. Someone is always there, living on top of you or behind you in traffic. It takes twenty minutes to find a parking space. In the country, you go to a cook-out and park on the lawn. When you stop and think about it, lack of space is stressful. Constriction is stressful. I couldn’t sing in the city. I’m not a folk singer with a guitar. Opera singers wake the neighbors. And singing is an essential part of my self-care.

What I have come to is a practice of self-care. In Buddhism, there is the idea of your daily practice, your meditation. On a broader level, a life can be a practice. It isn’t easy. I have plenty of unraveled days. Days when I cry uncontrollably and stay in my pajamas, eating hot dogs.

The medication has cleared away unbidden anxiety attacks, leaving only triggered raw emotions. In my eyes, these emotions are justifiable, fall-out feelings from the last six months of my life. Residual anger, frustrations and resentments, which loom larger in my mind than they probably should. I sometimes force myself to be better than usual to make up for things lost. Lost in the past, lost in my brain. This doesn’t usually work and isn’t really fair, but I’m learning to let it go.

The hikes are part of that self-care, for that part of myself which wants nothing but solace and quiet. When you stop, nothing responds to you. At first the deep quiet is unnerving, then it becomes welcoming. God is saying hello. He is embracing me. He is blessing me with nothing to react to or think about but my breath and the beating of my heart. I don’t go to church because I’d have to deal with people. I go on hikes instead.

Winter is profound. It is a gathering-in, the nesting part of the year when more is done inside. You can’t go out and shimmy when there is two feet of snow outside. Might as well stay in, read, and reflect. It isn’t incidental that New Year’s falls in the middle of this period. Collect your past mistakes, grind them through your mind for a while, then let them go.

Winter is soup, a way of nurturing. Come back from the hike, eat your soup and dunk your bread. You opened up to the universe, now its time to come in, slow your breath, and nourish. There is no better nurturing than my mother’s “minestrone”. It is a lovely vegetable soup full of bright color and warm flavors. I like to add lots of asiago and some coarse crunchy sea salt.

Here is the recipe:

Margaret’s Minestrone

2 T olive oil

1 large chopped onion

2 carrots, sliced

1 large stalk of celery, sliced w/ top

1 large potato, large chop

1 small zucchini, large chop

1 small package frozen thawed green beans (optional)

1 can diced tomato, or 1 cup leftover spaghetti sauce, plus 1 small can tomato sauce

1 can drained and rinsed cannellini beans

2-3 handfuls soup pasta such as ditalini or shells or whatever is on hand (even broken spaghetti works)

salt to taste

1 t dried marjoram (more if needed to taste)

1 t dried thyme (more if needed to taste)

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1. In a soup kettle, slowly fry onions in olive oil on low heat until soft and golden, then add carrots and celery. Fry slowly a few more minutes.

2. Add enough warm water to bring the soup up three-quarters. Bring it to a boil, then lower to a simmer.

3. When the celery and carrots are almost tender, add the potato, tomatoes, tomato sauce, and green beans.

4. When the potatoes are tender, add the beans and pasta. Simmer slowly until the pasta is tender.

5. Add salt to taste. Add seasonings to taste. Leave on a low simmer to blend the flavors. This should take 5-8 minutes. Taste and add more salt and seasonings to suit.

6. Turn off heat and let sit for about ½ hour before serving. This soup tastes even better the next day.