"Do-It-Yourself" Granola

You have appeared to my life,

Feel like I'll never be the same.

Like a Star by Corinne Bailey Rae

With a great whoosh of air, I watch as the navy and white striped sheet flutters to the ground. For a brief moment, I am transported back to its glory days. Back to the first apartment I shared with my sweetie where this simple sheet rested prominently on our bed. The same apartment where our cat, Bruce, a mere kitten at the time decided to skydive off our third floor balcony without a parachute, quickly using up one of his lives. The same apartment where I decided to can salsa for Christmas gifts, using a recipe I'd never tried nor had I bothered to really taste during the creating. The salsa did not become a tradition. Perhaps it was the Worcestershire sauce.

Another gust of air and this time it's a Florentine marbled design in peaches, soft blues and pale pink. I can see the bed in my college room where this sheet started out, fresh and new. I can see it in its final place of honor. A guest bed. Twin. Of the Bedknobs and Broomstick variety. The guest room in that little walk-up in Noe Valley. The very place where I threw a 30th Birthday party for my sweetie while simultaneously suffering from the flu. The same party that included a particularly distinguished guest, that being the chef and owner of our San Francisco neighborhood's very own Italian restaurant. When a metallic smell started emanating from the oven, it was he who discovered that I had failed to remove the plastic protector from underneath my brand new pizza stones before using them. He quickly pulled the noxious pizzas from the oven as a trail of hot plastic oozed behind him like pulled taffy.

A flash of pink and white check and it's my daughter's first bedroom. Ballet pink. Baby dolls and handmade cradles. Dress-up clothes and a kitchen. Fish sticks, peas and applesauce. The swath of material softly falls to the ground and takes up its place next to the others. Together they make up my painting quilt, of sorts, protecting the floor as I rhythmically cover up the ballet pink with each stroke of the brush.

I know that at some point in your 30s, there is a bridge that is crossed. The one where you leave your painting days behind and instead, hire out that sort of job but let me say a few words in favor of "do-it-yourself" painting. For starters, it's cathartic. Relaxing. The mesmerizing sound of the brush against the wall. And, painting is very deliberate. It can't be rushed. You have to slow down. Be careful. Don't splatter. You find yourself left alone with your thoughts. Painting gives you a moment to pause. To consider that the daughter who once wrapped herself in every shade of pink imaginable is no longer that little girl. No, she is somewhere between the woman she will become and the adolescent that she is. And with each stroke of the brush you recognize that she is growing up. Her walls are becoming a creamy white. And while there is some tug at your heart, knowing that the little girl will never be again, you can't help but be excited for what lay ahead. With each passing day, you are able to shed little bits of your role as parent. Knowing that one day, should you do your job well, you will shed enough of the parent role, to be her friend. And so, you say good-bye to the ballet pink and the subtle chain of daisies you stenciled round the room all those years ago.

I pick-up my cup of hot, chamomile/mint tea. I gaze outside at the gray skies and 64-degree weather. Not an uncommon summer day in Portland but one that my "Phoenix-habitating" brother would consider to be straight out of mid-winter. I reach down to the ramekin of granola I've been munching on all morning. I can't think of a more delightful painting snack. Oats, bits of almonds & walnuts, raisins, cinnamon, a pinch of salt and a dollop of maple syrup all roasted to perfection. And, I pause to consider that while I had been taping off the trim in the early morning hours, my almost teenage daughter had been roasting up this delectable concoction. The very one that I munch on now. And there's another reason to be in favor of "do-it-yourself" painting. When you tell the kids that you will be unavailable for the day due to the painting project. That they will be in charge of their own snacks. Their own meals. And that they will make sure the baby gets fed. They take you seriously. And you become the happy benefactor of their independent ways.

The sky has grown dark. The granola's long since gone. I gaze around at my work. The pink has disappeared. "Not bad." The creamy white my daughter picked out looks fresh. New. I turn out the light, wrap my hands around my cup of tea and head down the hallway.

"Do-It-Yourself" Granola

(Adapted from Elle's Nutty Granola, Foodnetwork.com)

3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (I prefer Bob's Red Mill)

1/2 cup walnuts

1/2 cup almonds

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup real maple syrup

1/2 cup raisins

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees. Mix all of the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray or as my daughter did, just rub a little butter over it. Pour the granola mixture onto the sheet and spread it out evenly. Roast in the oven for 30 minutes. Smell, taste, enjoy.

Originally written: August 7, 2009

All original text and photographs copyright: Carrie Minns 2009