Under pressure

I purchased my first pressure cooker right before Christmas this year. I considered it a gift to myself (no longer would I need to plan bean-based dinners 24 hours in advance), and a gift to my husband, who enjoys the tender beans that it flawlessly produces despite our mineral-laden water. We tried it out for the first time shortly after I returned from spending a week in Colorado celebrating the holidays with my family. It took the pot longer than I expected to build up pressure, but once it did, the shiny bell-shaped regulator on top began slowly rocking and spinning in a rhythmic dance. The information booklet, a rather lengthy tome for such a seemingly simple device, cautioned against rapid, frenetic movements that would indicate excessive internal pressure. I adjusted the flame until the regulator smoothly twirled, and the pot hissed occasionally on the stove as it prepared the perfect bean.

On some levels, I’ve been in a pressure cooker for the past month. The holidays require patience and planning, and when they are over it is common to breathe a big sigh of relief as life returns to normalcy. Driving home from Colorado, I inhaled deeply as I navigated the car out of the hectic urban congestion, and exhaled my way back onto the expansive openness of Wyoming. Tension slipped away with the traffic as I returned closer to the familiar stretches of prairie and sky.

I made it home to celebrate New Years Eve with Bart, and took a rest day to restore my inner balance while I helped him split firewood. And then the lid of the pressure cooker tightened down again as I dove into the arduous task of designing a new college course. The ideas for the course had been swimming around my head for months. I had ample first-hand experiences from graduate school to draw upon. I had stacks of books and articles to re-read and recap. And I had two weeks to synthesize all of this information into a cohesive plan for the semester. Luckily, I love the subject matter – natural history and conservation education – and I am eager to teach it. I also thrive under last-minute pressure. Every spare moment of the next three weeks would be devoted to crafting this course.

So as I watched the spinning regulator rise with pressure to twirl on top of the pot, it dawned on me that movement, particularly dancing, is the cure for what ails me. Just one week prior, when my nephew proposed the Hokey Pokey on Christmas Eve, I jumped at the opportunity to get my groove on. Evan cajoled everyone in the room to join a rousing round of moving our body parts in time with our awkward off-key singing. As we jumped in and out of the circle, I wholeheartedly shook it all about… and the tension slipped away. Yup, the hokey pokey IS what it’s all about. Just like my fancy new pot, I come with a warning: excessive internal pressure may lead to frenetic shaking. I’m going to let it all out.