Thursday, March 28, 2013

Do


I play my guitar and sing the two songs I know for the plants and the bowl of yellow onions on the windowsill in the kitchen. They are in a spotlight of morning sun. Ready for a painter with a plain canvas. My mug of orange zest herbal tea steams on the coffee table. I pour the water from the kettle and the old floral metal pot sizzles and spits from its spout, splashing onto the gas range. I love it. I love that I rid my life of my microwave.  In the fall, I bought this granny teakettle at a second hand store in Andersonville for $2.95. Sometimes--when in a hurry--I wish we still had our microwave, but mostly I'm happy for the barer counter and for forcing myself to slow down and let the oven preheat or the stovetop warm a skillet. Someone once told me that she and her husband read an article about how microwaves change food when they heat it. Like it makes it into something else chemically. I don't know. I'm not a scientist and I never even read the article she mentioned. But I heard her say it once in the break-room at work while she waited nearly her entire break to warm her soup in the toaster oven. Why would you bring soup to work if you can't properly heat it up? I thought to myself, admiring her determination. Anyway, a couple years later, when I had my yard sale before moving to Chicago, I decided to sell our microwave. We're downsizing! I told my husband, the one I knew who would miss it more than I. But he's gotten used it. Last night he wants frozen bean enchiladas, and so he takes off the wrapper, covers it in tin foil, and places it into the preheated 350 degree oven. We take the dog for her nightly stroll and when we get home, the smell of his dinner reaches into our noses and exits our salivating glands. 

I think we all get so caught up with whatever is fastest and easiest that we miss out on doing stuff and on knowing how to do stuff. Nice every day stuff like boiling water or sweeping the floor or tracing one's finger along the inked lines of a creased paper map. 

One of my new favorite things to do is bake bread. And I had a thought recently that I should get one of those big mixers or maybe a bread maker! But then I remembered how I love to squish the ivory dough between my fingers, feeling through its texture for when to add more flour. 



A Wise Friend

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