Dealing with life as an expat who hates Trumpism

As you can probably tell by now, I am devastated beyond words that my (in name only, in all other ways former) country chose to elect hate. Even those who didn't vote for hate per se felt it was an acceptable part of the package, which is itself an act of hate - no matter the reason - that I do not forgive.

It's not so much that I particularly loved Clinton, though I was excited to vote for the first female president with a serious chance, and I do not think she is the bloodthirsty vampire-she-beast that many have come to believe she is. And it's not that I am so devastated after every Republican win - I'm not (okay, I'll admit that when I moved to Taiwan I trolled my coworkers saying it was because GW Bush was re-elected, and I'm not sorry for this real life troll job, but that's what it was - a few lulz, nothing more. I left for other reasons entirely).

Now, though, I have come to feel more than ever that Taiwan is my home. I hadn't planned on returning to the US in any case, but it was always on the table, potentially. Maybe we'd have elderly relatives to care for, or maybe one of us would get a blockbuster job offer. New York seemed like a fine city if we could afford it: I could continue to treat mass transit as a core belief, and not have to buy a car. It might have happened.

That is all gone. I do not think I can return for more than a visit. Ever. We may not stay in Taiwan, but I truly cannot imagine moving back to the US. Not because of Trump itself, but because the people who voted for it (remember, a thing who openly bragged of sexual assault and ran a campaign with very strong, obvious messages of racism, who has already said it plans to take away my medical rights as a woman) will still be around, and I do not imagine that I can peaceably share a country with them. Forget anger - though there is that - I just don't think my psyche could take it.

And yet, I do feel a sense of guilt about this. A lot of people say they're going to move to Canada if so-and-so wins, and with Trump, that rhetoric was stronger than ever. I am in the fortunate position of being able to do so fairly easily. I married into the nationality because I'm smart like that.

But, then, another call came: don't move to Canada. The US needs you. It's a privilege to be able to leave, when those who will really suffer under Trump's regime perhaps can't leave, but will definitely lose allies and accomplices if you go. You need to be there to protest, to resist, to get involved, to fight back. To register yourself as a Muslim if it starts putting that Nazi-like shitshow into action. To walk women into abortion clinics and put yourself physically between a harasser and a minority being harassed. To provide help and possibly housing for refugees (potentially domestic ones, and I am not joking). To join local groups and donate to national ones. To get your ground game going. We need people to fight, not to run. To occupy.

I get it - and the argument is persuasive. I love a good fight, and that is something I do have the constitution for (certainly I don't care much what people think of me, and am quite happy to say what I think and stand up for what is right under my own name).

In fact, if I lived in America, I think I would stay for this reason. To make people who want to implement a racist, sexist agenda and set back our collective cultural clock to a racist, sexist time as miserable as fucking possible. Like, if you thought I was a bitch before, you ain't seen nothin' until I've got something real and tangible and scary to fight for.

Hell, I could probably even find common cause with decent, fundamentally morally good conservatives who  also hate Trump and everything it stands for. The basically okay folks who believe in personal freedoms (as long as they leave mine and my loved ones' alone in terms of who they marry or what medical choices they make - I'll even leave their guns alone in good faith), the folks with a conscience even if we disagree on some things, who have a similar idea of where we should go as a country but maybe have different ideas on how to get there (some of which are terrible, but that can be worked around civilly. Probably some of mine are too).

The thing is, though, that I don't live in America. I haven't for a decade. Does the call to stay and resist apply if you weren't there to begin with?

After careful thought, I have decided that it doesn't. There are good reasons why I consider Taiwan my home, and most of them actually don't have to do with my anger at the country I was born in. Those are not invalidated. Taiwan is still my home, and would be even if I came from the Land of Peace and Bubbles (a.k.a. Denmark, apparently?).

So, it is acceptable to decide to continue to live abroad guilt-free. If Clinton had been elected I would not have returned permanently, so this doesn't change that - all it changes is that now, even in the future, I won't. I do not imagine Trump will be president for more than four years, but even if it is, as someone who was already gone, I do think it is morally permissible to stay gone.

That said, I am still in the resistance. I do not consider myself absolved of my duty to fight as a decent human being who was born in the USA. Not because we "lost" - we've lost before. Who cares. It happens. But because this is actually terrifying in a way it never before was in my lifetime, in a way that could truly hurt many people I care about who happen to be LGBT, or Muslim, or Hispanic, or women who may need abortions, or whomever our brand new white supremacist in the White House may seem fit to target. This is some real honest-to-goodness Greatest Generation shit right here and we need to resist. We need to put ourselves at risk and maybe be uncomfortable. We need to start thinking about who stands to suffer most and figure out how we can either stop that from happening, or be of help when it does.

This leaves the question of how. From Taiwan there is not that much I can do. But there are a few things.

First and foremost, donate donate donate donate (I can't find a donation page for that last one, but if you can, you should try to help them stay afloat - here's why). Money is one thing that crosses borders easily. This is the first thing I plan to do once my next transfer to my US bank goes through.

Secondly, if at any point this whole super-duper-Nazi "Muslim registry" actually goes into effect, if you are abroad but able to do so online, register as a Muslim yourself to confuse the thugs. (You can sign the petition if you want, but that's not really the point - the point is to keep your ears open.) Or, do it on your next visit home, if it becomes a real thing. It can't target Muslims if it doesn't know which registrees are actually Muslim, and if you are targeted yourself, consider it as taking the place of a Muslim who now has the extra time to get away.

Thirdly, you are still a citizen. You can still vote. Call your representatives. Or write to them, though this is less effective. Sign petitions, join mailing lists, be a voice.

And finally, find out where the major protests are and plan your visits home around them. Make a sign, go march, occupy, do what you can. Confront your family members if you are at all able to do so. I am skeptical of this working much: while there may be some truth to the power of engagement, my experience has been that when someone calls someone else out as racist, it's not because the person they're calling out is talking about their problems and the listener is downplaying them or trying to tell them they're actually privileged. Replying to a story of economic woe or an opioid addiction crisis with "well actually you should be grateful because at least you're white, and if you don't see that you're racist" is cartoonishly insensitive - while I'm sure people like this exist, I have never met one.

No, it's because they are actually saying or doing something racist, and not calling that out normalizes it in an unacceptable way. I do not think Trump voters voted for racism because they're sick of being called racists. I think many of them voted Trump because they actually are racists, and whether or not you called them that, it wouldn't have changed anything (nor would being nice to them - no social movement ever got anywhere by asking nicely).

Side note: while I am sympathetic to someone's economic struggle, I don't excuse that as a reason to have ignored Trump's bigotry. Voting for it isn't going to bring those jobs back. The economy has been fundamentally restructured, and all these trade deals you don't like (guess what, I don't always like them either) are a by-product of that, not the cause of it.  Only finding a place for yourself in the new economy - and maybe accepting some government help or getting more education (which you deserve to be able to afford) to do so - is going to change the situation.

Though I do not believe this is the main reason most people voted Trump, I am genuinely sorry - no sarcasm - that your Rust Belt job is gone, but Trump isn't going to be able to bring it back. Even if it could, re-investing in fossil fuels will render our skies gray again. That's not a solution. In any case, I have struggled too, and I did not grow up in a wealthy family. I never took that as an excuse to ignore racist rhetoric in a candidate because they said what I wanted to hear about jobs. It was always my job to educate myself and find a place in the economy. So I take this "reason" for voting Trump as a reason to improve education, so people might better understand when a candidate's promises are not possible.

Perhaps I am a flawed person, but I do not think it is ethically right not to call out overt racism, nor do I think I have the constitution not to do so. But, I suppose you can try. Hail Mary, right?

Maybe don't bother with a safety pin on those visits - I guess you can if you want, I can't be bothered with that argument, let's not fight please - but do keep your eyes open for instances of harassment and physically intervene. You are only there temporarily but the person being harassed has to live with the threat of it every day.

Two more things - stop believing and posting bullshit from fake news sites (feel free to keep posting on Facebook: it's not that productive but it is therapeutic and helps people hone their real-life arguments, so there is some benefit). Get your real argument game on, get facts, listen to real media with real fact-checkers and trained journalists who are at least trying to be accurate. Subscribe to an online news source and actually pay for it so we can keep real media alive.

And - remember, Taiwan needs you too. The appointment of a few Taiwan-friendly folks to the cabinet is a good sign, but Trump's utter disregard for any sort of international diplomacy that doesn't result in a shower of shiny gold coins or telling brown people to get lost is still worrying. So be present and engaged and ready to fight for Taiwan if the chance presents itself.

There will be expats here, and some will support Trump. Engage with them if you feel you can, or avoid them (I do not necessarily think it is bad for someone who voted for a racist agenda, even if that's not why they voted for it, to feel a bit ostracized). Watch out for increased harassment and other hate speech among your fellow expats, and step in as necessary.

No matter what, if you plan to stay abroad - even if you plan to never return and quite possibly someday renounce citizenship as I do - don't think this absolves you from the fight.

Trumpio* delenda est.

*I have no idea what declension to use because I forgot all my Latin. So I made this one up. 

A time to break down

I've been working for awhile on a story-like version of this topic: true events told in a narrative about my time away from Taiwan in 2014 and 2015 and subsequent return. But recently two people I know (a friend and a friend-of-a-friend) have taken or will take similar flights, so I felt like writing something more essay-like about it now. Look for the story in a month or two.

Most recently, I returned to the US for one week in order to attend a family reunion, as well as pack up my entire childhood. The reunion and other family visits were especially important as I have two living grandparents, both of which are near 90 and neither of which is in good health. It is a painful fact that every visit I make home could be the last time I see either or both of them.

In 2012, a few years before my mom passed away, she had expressed an interest in the various old and attractive, but not particularly valuable, antique decorative items I'd purchased for my apartment in Taiwan: mostly old carved wooden panels used to decorate the tops of walls and under eaves in houses and temples. So, I bought her a similar panel with carved peaches (symbols of long life) and a stylized 'long life' (壽) character, as we were returning to the US for Christmas that year. It turned out to be our final family holiday together before she passed away in 2014. The irony of this does not escape me.

This past week, after learning that our dad planned to rent out our family home and the house I grew up in for at least a year, and potentially sell it after that time, I asked if I could have the panel rather than see it go into storage. It was an easy request as I'd purchased it to begin with.

With too much in the suitcase, including books, large photo albums and other items, the fragile wood of this panel just couldn't take the pressure. As I was closing the back, I heard a crack. The cut was not a complete severance and could be repaired, but I didn't want it in that suitcase. I put it in my carry-on as gingerly as possible, only for the breakage to complete itself as that bag, too, was overstuffed.

When I took it out of its (inadequate) padding back in Taipei, only to see it completely severed, I was reminded of a favorite song of my mother's which my uncle sang at her memorial service:

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together
I couldn't help but draw some weird symbolic analogies to my long-term expat life - literally as far away as it is possible to go from my hometown - and that antique wooden panel. Bought in Taiwan, gifted to my mother in the US, only for its hope of long life to be dashed in a few remaining years and to crack on the way back to Taiwan, as I leave the home I grew up in quite possibly for the last time.

As you know if you read this blog even semi-regularly, my flight home in 2014 was sudden: I'd planned on leaving for up to a year, maybe two, but wasn't scheduled to depart on the day I did. I knew as I left for the airport with a few hours' notice that whatever happened would not be good: I didn't know if I'd have a few hours, a few days, a few months or a few years with my mom, but no matter how long I did have, I knew I was flying back to the US to say goodbye. As it turned out, within two days, maman est morte. 

Less than a year later, just before I was set to return to help my father after his heart surgery, I lost my grandmother somewhat suddenly (we'd known it wouldn't be long but we didn't know it would be quite so soon).

What I've become more aware of in the intervening year and a half is that I am not nearly the only expat or immigrant who has experienced that situation. Many of us who live abroad long-term and likely some of us who don't stay for that long in the grand scheme of things take that same flight. They're lucky in a sense if they do: not everyone can. I could return for my mother but there was no way for me to have done the same for my grandmother, as much as I wanted to.

It's a part of expat life that few talk about: if you choose to live far away long term, there is a chance the next time you see your loved ones 'back home' might be the last time, that you might have to take an unplanned 12-hour flight to say goodbye, or that there is a chance you could be half a planet away knowing there is nothing you can do.

What is even less discussed is the feeling of breakage that comes from this time away. Many of you know I no longer consider the US to be my home. I haven't for awhile but haven't been able to articulate it until recently. We may not stay in Taiwan forever - let's see if this country can get its act together on immigration and labor reform - but if we leave it will be to go forward, to somewhere new. I am married to a Canadian citizen after all. But if you plan to go forward that necessarily means you won't be going 'back', though it feels cruel to put it that way. If you don't go back, a crack forms between your life before and your life ahead. Given time, and despite one's best efforts, the crack will eventually turn into a break. Even if you keep in close touch with people back home, the number of times you will see them again in your life is reduced by your living so far away, and the amount of time you will spend with them before they, too, leave either your life or this world is necessarily less.

Does that 'goodbye' flight make up for such a trade-off? You must go forward, or at least, I must. The answer is not to stay behind, but you must also be aware of the consequences. You do not know when your 'goodbye' flight will come, or if you will be able to take it. You don't know when the crack will form, or when it will turn into a severance. You can pack as carefully as possible, pad yourself against all manner of unfortunate events, but they will find you. None of us living abroad are exempt from the 'goodbye' flight. None of us are exempt from the breakage.

It is easy, while living a relatively charmed existence in Taiwan, where my salary (as much as I complain about it, with reason I think) affords a comfortable lifestyle of downtown living, further education and travel, to pretend that every time is a time to dance. To pretend that I am a 21st century Meursault - that we are all little dancing Meursaults staring at the sky or the sun or whatever - that nothing between humans matters as much as the immediacy of life and nature, that only the constant forward-moving pace of the universe makes sense and nothing else can be explained rationally.

But, whether or not there is truth in such absurdity, human relationships do matter. You make new ones abroad: it's fairly common to write about this positive side of expat life. You meet all sorts of interesting people, not least among them local residents of your new country. And we all know that our relationships back home may cool due to this distance. But we like to pretend that there is no permanent consequence to this moving forward, that good relationships can always renew themselves. Generally, they can, but only if the people you leave behind are still alive when you come back.

This is an acute feeling while you are actually home. Living in the US in 2015 was like functioning with my arm chopped off (left or right, depending on the day). I was still alive, in a great deal of pain but able to get through the day and even keep other peoples' lives together as I planned my mom's memorial service, but something was just missing. I wasn't able to function normally due to this missing thing, this absence where there should be presence. Living in Taiwan, it's easy to forget that it happened at all. Any given day now in Taiwan is no different from any given day before late 2014 when I might not have talked to my parents (we talked frequently, but not on a daily basis).

It would be easy to pick right back up as though life was as before. It's almost eerie how nothing in Taiwan has changed even as I know rationally there is no reason for it to have. That's the other side of the expat life coin: after a monumental change or loss where you come from, the only change you see when you return to your country of residence is in you.

Back 'home', things have changed quite a bit. Others feel your loss, or rather, that loss is also felt by others. Their possessions are still around, in many cases. Whatever they built in their life still is, too. People offer memories or sympathy. The place where they lived, where you come from, has changed, even if just a tiny bit. Return to your new home, and that loss is not felt by most others (in my case, my sister - also in Taiwan - and husband were mourning, too). They can't miss someone they never knew, and a place that person never set foot in obviously wouldn't change because they are gone.

It's tempting and easy to try and avoid returning to a place where you feel your arm has been cut off by staying in a place where you can be whole-bodied if you want to be. To pretend that the breakage you've suffered, the human relationship you've lost, doesn't have as big an impact because it doesn't impact the immediacy of life and sensation in your new home.

I can't do that though. I don't regret moving abroad (it would also be easy, but futile, to wallow in regret). It is natural to move forward. To seek your fortune, in whatever form it takes, wherever it can be found. Go East, young woman. 

In order to atone for all of the time I didn't spend where I grew up, that I didn't see my mother or grandmother, all of the times I wasn't there rolled up into one goodbye flight I could take and one I couldn't, and to acknowledge that the same circumstances will present themselves again at some point in the not-too-distant future, it sometimes helps to spend some meditative time with my arm, figuratively speaking, behind my back.

So, today I broke out my arts and crafts tools, including the appropriate type of glue to repair wooden items, and set about gluing that antique wooden panel back together so I can hang it in my apartment here in Taipei.

The break will always be noticeable: it's my own fault for trying to carry it to the US and back in the first place. But then if I hadn't gone abroad I wouldn't have bought the panel at all. My mom knew that my move abroad was my own move forward and, as hard as it was, supported it.

Stewed and Cubed Improvisation

I'm going to tell a story. Bear with me if you like, it does evolve into something. It's not just a rambling narrative of the events leading up to Christmas.

Two days before Christmas, my parents held a holiday party.

We arrived almost a week before that, loud and happy - as happy as you can be when your mother is sick - hugs at the airport, promises of a renovated bathroom (no more fighting over who gets to go first!), a prediction of snow, on our way to get a real tree, with real tree smell and pine needles and everything. We'd decorate! There'd be a party on Saturday at a friend's and a party on Sunday at ours, then Christmas.

Of course several issues threatened to bring the whole thing down like a cat latched to a flimsy curtain - some health issues in the immediate family that I won't disclose in full, but I can reveal that basically, my mother will soon be back in chemotherapy, on a different drug. That brought a lot of stress and uncertainty to the holidays. And with it...medical bills.

My parents are having the downstairs bathroom re-done, to make it usable for the first time in years. The work was almost not finished in time, and while it was going on, the well pump broke. We had to have that replaced along with paying the expected renovation bills.

Then, the furnace motor went. It started making an odd sound on Friday, and by Saturday morning it was dead. We found a tech who would come fix it, but the part had to be ordered and wouldn't be in before Christmas. That meant no heat up to and on Christmas Day. Whoopty-freakin'-do. Also, waiting for the tech (who was actually great, this wasn't his fault) on Saturday meant our planned Christmas shopping trip was cancelled. No, I did not get all of my Christmas shopping done, but in the end it didn't matter. At least we have a fireplace.

So...far less money than expected, no heat, medical problems, and the party was on Sunday. I was set to help clean and to cook a few dishes on the day itself, and I'll be honest, I didn't really want to do any of it in a cold house when I was already stressed. To be more honest, I wanted to cancel it.

But Mom, the one who was so insistent we would have a good holiday, was adamant that we had to soldier on. Intractable, even. I did not share her enthusiasm and, as a further confession, did not even try to pretend to. I did, however, agree to woman up and just do what needed to be done if she was so immovable on this. I figured I'd be cleaning in my coat, scarf and gloves (I was right, except for the gloves).

My husband said "this is like one of those Lifetime holiday specials in which the family is subject to trial after trial and problem after problem until the whole house goes up in a ball of flame" (which would have been warmer, anyway, and with all the blown fuses from our many space heaters, seemed to be a distinct possibility. I say: good riddance). "...and at the end, on the eve of the holiday, the family learns the true meaning of Christmas."

Me: "Fuck the true meaning of Christmas, I want heat."
Friend: "You know, Jenna, in those specials, the cynical one always has the biggest change of heart."
Me: "BAH HUMBUG."

For the record, I want Mom to be well more than I wanted heat, but "I want heat" was a funnier thing to say, and since there is no star in this chaotic entropy-verse I can wish upon, hoping it's the eye of a nonexistent God, that will make that happen without the help of modern science (and I do pray to modern science), I may as well say what I please.

So leading up to the party I busied myself helping - I managed to get out of the house to do Mom's Christmas shopping so she could clean. Win-win. Then I came home and started making my various dishes, cold hands and all. One dish - muhammara, which I make regularly - exploded in the far too small blender (no, the tiny food processor is not big enough, and I have no idea why anyone thought we could make hummus, babaghanoush and muhammara, three blended dips, in it in an hour or so). Someone else finished it. I admit I pulled the brat card - you want muhammara at this party, well, this is a disaster, you want it, you finish it, I'm done with it.

What I did make and finish was my beer-stewed beef cubes, which can be prepared as a stew, casserole, toothpick'd appetizer or something you eat with bread or over rice. It's a stew of herbs - mostly dill, but also rosemary, garlic and thyme - beef cubes, beer, grainy spicy mustard, shallots, some butter, and some additions (I'm fond of bell pepper, mushrooms and walnuts personally). Grumble bells, grumble bells, I grumbled all the way to the stove - which had to be lit with a lighter, the pilot was acting up - and started working. I cut the melting butter with olive oil to make the whole thing a tad healthier (ho ho ho, as though that's possible), gently toasted the herbs along with salt, pepper and paprika and added shallots into the fragrant, frothy pan. and browned the beef. Some people began to arrive. My junior high school music teacher was there, some family friends, some of my sister's friends (none of my friends live in the area anymore), a girl who commented that it smelled "gross" (whatever, girl, it's delicious). I dumped in the bottle of beer and mixed the whole thing together. I left briefly to set up some Christmas music on my iPhone. I added a generous dollop of hot, grainy apple cider vinegar mustard and mixed that in. I adjusted for flavor (good ways to improve top notes in this recipe while keeping it rounded is to add orange juice, orange zest or apple cider. For bottom notes, add some toasted nuts, beef boullion, well-toasted paprika or use a darker beer.

I stewed it all together and added the vegetables in order from longest-cooking to shortest (carrots first, then bell peppers, then mushrooms, like that). Really, you can add almost any vegetable. You could throw spinach, cauliflower, squash, potatoes, whatever into there. You might even be able to get away with lentils, Brussels sprouts or zucchini. You can add any herbs as long as you've got dill. You can change the type of mustard or beer. A pilsner and a light, hot English mustard will produce a very different dish from a winter lager with a mottled dijon. You don't even need to use beef, although I hold that a red meat is best. If you make it as a stew you can add butter squash late for chunkiness, or early so they'll disintegrate into the casserole and add more base flavor. In a casserole, I slather fat, soft breadsticks with mustard and place them on top at the very end - it's done when the tops crisp - but you don't have to.

In short, you can improvise. You can do whatever you want. The end product's just got to come out alright.

Finally, I made this dish for my in-laws (fresh dill, butter squash in a casserole with breadsticks), and it was quite different from the one I made for my parents (dried dill, no butter squash, mushrooms, in a stew). In the end, it was the same dish. It was still me. Each time, I improvised. I didn't know the squash would disintegrate, but it came out OK.

I realized as I was cooking it that that's really all we do - we improvise. Mom gets cancer, and we make do. We do what we can, we research, we plan, but in the end, we kinda make it up as we go along. We fight, we make up, and we know we always love each other, even though it's too easy to revert to adolescence when at home, and yes, parents can be just as annoying to adult offspring as those same offspring were as teenagers. The furnace breaks, and we improvise. I huddle under blankets and offer to go Christmas shopping for Mom so she won't have to (NICE WARM SHOPPING MALL), and Brendan does whatever he can, including shoveling snow with a garden spade, to help ease the stress on my chaotic and stressed-out family. Grandma L. calls every day, even though it accomplished nothing other than to stoke her worries.

As an expat, I improvise. As an expat with a parent battling cancer, I improvise. I do the best I can - even when "the best I can" basically means I decide to stay in Taiwan and visit from there, because I can make more money to enable me to visit there than I could doing the same thing at home (and yes, I am experienced and certified, it's not as though I teach kiddie English for $590/hour), and do something I enjoy rather than selling my soul for an office job. I save money as well as I can, I visit in the winter even though I hate the cold, and I try to be supportive even as I'm fighting the impulse to act like a teenager, slamming doors and proclaiming that I hate everyone and nobody loves me anyway waah waah. (I didn't do that, but I kinda wanted to. I don't hate everyone, though). It's cheaper and easier to visit in January, between Christmas and Chinese New Year when work is dead, but I visit at Christmas because it's important. I don't always make these decisions in advance. I want to cancel a party, but I don't 'cause Mom wants it to happen. So I improvise and dance around my bad mood and cold fingers. I made a dish I didn't even really want to make that night, in that cold kitchen.

Life as an expat is a life of improvisation - with an unknown audience, in an unfamiliar theater. Life as an expat whose mother has cancer is a life of improvisation, cubed. You stay abroad and you stew in it - I should be home, I should be there, but I can make the money I need to be supportive here, and anyway here is where I want to live. My life is also important, but I feel selfish for even thinking it. You come home and you stew in it - everyone's emotional, everyone's stressed, you love them but you really want to slam that door. You just want people to acknowledge that it sucks that it's so cold, but instead you get "it's not that cold", "it's fine", "the fire's warm", "the fire makes it pretty OK, don't you agree?" No, you don't agree, it is that cold, can we all please just stop pretending? So you improvise, you stew in it, and you go to the mall.

I even asked if we could just go to Grandma's for the whole deal. Nope...we had to have Christmas at home. That's fine, it's what Mom wanted, but deep down, I wanted heat, and no I did not think the fireplace would be sufficient. We stayed, we improvised. We woke up on Christmas morning, achy, just wanting it to be warm for Chrissakes.

We woke up to snow - a white Christmas, indeed. We started a fire, I made a hot coffee cocktail with cream and Irish Mist and dunked Christmas cookies into it. We opened gifts and it was fun. It was that cold, but we could basically ignore it. I'd like to say I dropped my cynicism and it was all lovely and Christmas special-y, with a soft-focus and white portrait filter, but it wasn't. It was fine, but mostly, we improvised. I was happy to be there, but no, it wasn't rose-tinged and perfect.

We did what we had to do, and for as long as I live abroad and my mother has cancer, we'll continue doing what we have to do, and we won't always know what that is until it happens.

Mustard Cubed Beef

I was going to include a recipe for my beef cubes, but anything I could put on here is something you can add your own flourishes to without much problem. Even I change it up. So...here's a rough outline of the recipe, but the scant information is deliberate:

Melt some butter in a pan with olive oil, on low, add lots of dill, some rosemary and some thyme along with chopped garlic, salt, a red chili if you like, maybe some orange zest, maybe some paprika. Add chopped shallots, and then beef. Brown. Add a can of beer - dark is great, but pilsner or ale would be fine. Mix and add a few dollops of mustard. Add other vegetables - carrots, chopped bell pepper, mushroom. Add walnuts if you like, or any other vegetable that you think would work. Cook, add cornstarch to thicken if needed. Or cook as a casserole with potatoes, squash etc. with mustard-slathered sliced bread at the bottom, and mustard-slathered breadsticks on top (add breadsticks 15 mins before it's done, it's done when they crisp and brown slightly on top). If you make as a casserole, still brown the beef in the herbed butter, but use more shallots.