In the Kitchen

I am in my kitchen because at 4:30pm it is nearly dark outside.

I am in my kitchen because my classes have been canceled this week and I have time to tie an apron around my neck, sidle up to the stove, and start chopping.

I am in my kitchen because said chopping involves about a two week back log of CSA vegetables in various states of wiltedness, shrunkeness, flesh hardening ripeness.

I am in my kitchen because I need to work out some matters in my head that driving around San Diego belting out Les Mis or at home blasting music (dancing helps) or even a lovely evening out at a coffeehouse scribbling notes in my 50th or so journal can't seem to break through.

So I head to the kitchen and pick up a knife.
The eggplant makes sense to me. It is globular and wears a little green hat. It is striated purplish and the tiny dark seeds inside refuse to budge even with the nudge of a sharp blade. Into quarters it falls and I scoop up the tidy pieces of perfected life and throw them onto a baking sheet.
I move on to the beets.
The Chioggas surprise me. Halved they are tiny little (flattened) barbershop poles or flashy Christmas tree bulbs. They are pink and white and taste sweet and earthy. I pulled them out of my plot on Thursday and tonight I push them into my oven. The gold beets nestle next to their strip-ped counterparts and I lick my stained fingers of pink and gold goodness.
Purple and orange carrots don't make it to the sheet. A little wash, a little scrub, into my mouth they go as the oven heats.
Tiny onions that don't make me cry, little last-of-the-season zucchini, the ever-present-in-my-life pumpkin, a sprinkling of chopped rosemary, and a touch of Italian tarragon.
At the last moment I find fennel in the depths of the crisper and chop off fronds and outer stems, breathe in licorice and remember how in high school I used to think that anyone I was going to have a serious relationship with must like black licorice, particularly Good N Plentys. I wonder if I would have considered fennel to be in that category? At that point the only fennel I knew about grew on the side of the road and I would pick it on walks during the summer and put a sprig between my teeth.
I smile as I am glad that my priorities have changed but that I still put sprigs of weeds between my teeth on warm summer days. I douse my chopped-up bountifulness with olive oil, toss in the herbs and salt and pepper. I give it a final blessing between slippery hands and slide the concoction into the hot oven.

I am alone in my kitchen and wonder if I should turn the music back on. I wonder if I should cook up the dandelions and lamb's quarters and spinach waiting on the counter. I wonder if I should do a little ballet to rock music or if I should dive into "Gaia's Garden" again. I wonder what I'll be doing in six months. Or six weeks.
I wonder if this living alone thing is so great.
Then I realize I'm not alone.

I wipe down the counters and find a fellow vegetable lover poking about in the remnants. A baby snail. He is in my kitchen and not my garden and I can't seem to bring myself to squish him here in my home. In the garden? Done. No problemo. If I have to choose between him and me eating my veggies, guess who wins? But he looks so cute slithering around on my countertop, nibbling the last of the purslane, chomping (can snails chomp?) on carrot ends.

As I sweep him into my compost along with the rest of the vegetable scraps, along with some of this anxiety, along with a day on the freeway and trying to always "figure things out," I realize that a half hour has just gone by without thinking. Much.
It's just been doing. And loving that doing. And excited for the outcome of that doing. And it makes me want to do more instead of thinking of all the things I should be doing or could be doing or want to be doing and not... doing.

In the kitchen and out.

So for now, until I "figure things out" I plan on doing more cooking. Because I have a feeling that that is exactly what I ought to be doing.

And figuring is not one of the ingredients.