Roasted Yellow Tomato Salsa Recipe with Cilantro

Roasted Tomatoes Make Fabulous Salsa 

How am I occupying my fevered little brain as we wait (not so patiently) for more house showings? How do I keep my spirits up as we start this selling process all over again? I dream up recipes. I lay in bed at 3 AM with visions of salsa in my head. I conjure excuses for roasting yellow tomatoes.

I imagine frittatas with leftover pasta.

Vanilla cupcakes with mocha icing.

Pecan crackers.

This is my life. And it's ending one recipe at a time.

Sorry to get all Chuck Palahniuk on ya (and I admit up front this isn't a feel good post; though the recipe is party worthy I am in no particular mood to dance). One thing I know for sure is, that beyond a certain age, it becomes startlingly clear. Every season marks a passage, one more season closer to your last. We've spent eight seasons trying to sell this place. Two years out here in high desert isolation. Two summers, two winters trying to shed a mortgage so we can move on. Be near the sea again. Live close to book stores, cafes and Farmer's Markets. Chuck is right on ownership.

What you own ends up owning you.

A woman I used to know would offer platitudes in times like this. There's a reason you were supposed to stay here, she would have said. I always said nothing when she offered that as solace. I don't believe it, you see. I don't believe that the universe cares about my mortgage. I don't believe in a divine purpose that requires our presence here and not there. Have I learned from this experience? (This would be her follow-up consolation.) Yes. I have.

I have learned that ownership may indeed be overrated. That I value freedom of movement more than a piece of paper that names me as Buyer. I have learned that putting down roots may no longer be in my nature. I have learned that my body was not designed for high altitude living. I have learned not to set a speaker on the floor.

And I have learned how hard it really is to escape the template of childhood. Those emotional neural patterns designed in earlier seasons that baffle with their dug-in insistence on repeating, repeating. No matter how many books you read, how many dreams you dissect. Your fate is anchored not by your understanding but by every single snip of authenticity you endured for the sake of one more day. And so I am not anxious to sacrifice much more. I am gripping awareness and holding tight. I am not sure I won't make the same mistakes again.

But I am going to try on a new season. And I am going to hope.

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