I reflexively pull my face back from the microwave. Even thirty-plus years later, my mom’s voice echoes in my brain: “Get back from there.”
But I’m in snack-attack mode, and the moment the cheese starts to soften, I want to be there for it. Or when it begins to bubble—at exactly 38 seconds in, longer than I expect—I want to stop it before it hardens into that overcooked melt.
With my melty nachos in hand, I pause at the thermostat. The ceiling registers’ unrelenting chill is making my couch chill-out time uncomfortable. I need to ask Dave to change the setting. The point of lowering the temperature to 75 instead of our usual 78 is for bedtime. But I’m up, and I’m thinking about putting on a sweatshirt when I shouldn’t have to.
I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, and the antidote is slowing down. Earlier, Dave and I alternated chapters of How to Train Your Dragon for Evelyn. As I pictured the foaming ocean and dragons as large as mountains, I felt the shift from solving, strategizing, and untangling my thoughts to simply being with the words, letting them paint scenes like one of those old-timey flip books.
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman is sitting in a neat pile near my feet on the table by the ottoman. I put it there purposefully, an in-your-face invitation that says, “Please read me.” The last time I picked it up, I ground my gears over a poem, researching words I didn’t know. The path toward comprehension was surprisingly fun and rewarding.
Also: baking. Lots of it.
I have a test planned with two bread loaves—one baked with the lid on and one with the lid off. I’m curious what difference, if any, it makes to the crust. I also have yet to make a rustic loaf or hot dog buns. Even though that sounds like a lot of time in the kitchen, the pace, ease, and enjoyment of baking feel more like medicine than work on my upcoming days off.
Even now, as I pause between sentences, my eyes fixed on the bottom of the fifth inning of the Mariners-A’s game, I feel a static in me. Perhaps it’s the lingering effects of the go, go, go of responsibilities and trying to do the right thing.
Which, now that I say it, might be the impossible thing to manage.
The right thing.
What is that anyway?
Whatever it is, it feels like pressure and an unclear assignment.
And I’m over it.
Night! Love, Jaclynn