Lemon Cheesecake Made with Real Tears

My leg pain has increased which means one of two things - either there is permanent nerve damage or there is substantial swelling in the area of surgery.  The surgeon did not seem optimistic and told me to stay out of work for the rest of the school year to give it every chance to work.  Also, we will need to take new MRI and CT scans to see *things* in there.

I fell quickly into devastation zone. I have reached the end of what is possible to fix it, and I am left debilitated with nerve pain.   I am, thankfully, allowed to take ibuprofen again which means I can decrease the bigger medications. I really cannot wrap my head around the idea of life long nerve pain.  Maybe that is healthy.

I realize that over all these years of living with pain and pain management, I don't look back at my life thinking over events about whether I was in pain or not that day.  It hasn't invaded every centimeter of my consciousness (I almost said inch, but come on, we have to go metric).  There remains a part of me that holds hope and the presence of mind to enjoy my life for the moments.

Saturday, I gave myself a break from the challenges of pain and misery to go to our annual Bergamasco specialty.  I handled the car okay because Nate set it up as a palace.  Ayla wasn't shown (it was an AKC show as well), but she was perfect all day.  No grumbling at other dogs.  She kept her eyes on me and Nate and just relaxed.  Afterwards we went to Jeanine's and Ayla slid easily into the dog pack there and played and snuggled and slept.  I received so much dog love there, and it was so healing.  Watching Ayla play and snuggle with her sister, being licked all over my face by puppy Amira, going to sleep with Ayla and her mother in our bed and waking up to a different combination all warmed my heart and made me laugh.  I never could have imagined how much these dogs would bring to my life, and they continue to crack me up and fill me with love until I am overflowing with the stuff.

Upon returning to our humble abode, the stress of my *stuff* met me quickly.  My worried of lifelong pain starting falling from my eyes in big blobby drops and heaving sobs.  I know I had a plan for how to deal with this... What was my plan?  How do I hold on?

My plan is to let my art heal me and bring me to this moment of life and breath.  In this moment I am living.  I am breathing.  I can be beauty.  I can make beauty flow from my being.   In this time, I have rediscovered my singing voice in the joy of garage band.  I have made collages which I have never done.  I stroll in the morning to look for patterns of green and gray and black to photograph and manipulate later.  And I bake.  

I really have always understood that day by day idea of survival but sometimes it is moment by moment.


Lemon Cheesecake.  

I adapted this from Annie's Eats which is a wonderful website.  Her recipes are easy to follow and make perfect sense to me.  Her recipe is for lime cheesecake with blackberry sauce.  I knew we wanted to lemon because we had a heavenly piece of lemon cheesecake at a cafe in CT.  I looked at a whole bunch of cheesecake recipes and they are all about the same.

Bottoms:
2 cups graham cracker crumbs (I achieved this in the food processor)
5 T melted butter
Mix and press into the bottom of a springform pan (I had one I had never used - exciting!)
The original recipe called for sugar here - I saw no need.  You may need more butter if your crumbs seem to dry.  I think I threw in an extra T of melted butter.

Cake Part
3 packages of cream cheese at room temperature.  Mix them in the kitchen aid for a bit to get them fluffy.
1 C sugar, add in slowly
3 eggs, add in one at a time
Juice of 2 meyer lemons (whatever lemons is fine - this is what I had), add in slowly
Zest of at least 1 lemon

Pour on top of bottoms.   Bake at 325 for an hour or until is seems to not really jiggle.  Some recipes insist that you don't open the door for the first 30 minutes.  I didn't because I was cleaning up but I have no idea why.  Now here comes the part you shouldn't do as I did.  I did none of that water in the oven business.  I had no cracks.

You are supposed to turn off oven, prop open door and let it sit in there for 30 minutes then take out and cool on a wire rack for an hour, then chill for 8 hours.

I wanted it last night, so I put it in the freezer - blasphemy I know.  This might explain why mine fell.  So it froze for 20 minutes, then sat in the fridge for 30 minutes and then we ate it with friends.  I did not regret one bit of my inability to follow directions.  It was completely delicious.  Honestly, the best tasting cheesecake I have ever had.  Getting the height right will be my next project.  I took one picture before putting it in the oven, and I took one picture of what is left over from last night.

You should make this.  I was thinking of the movie "Like Water for Chocolate" and really hoping my cake did not make people cry.  I cried explaining things to my friends with whom I shared the cake so it seems to still be my tears alone.  Ah, feeling the feelings, healthy healthy hi ho, hi ho.