Pig and farm report Christmas eve edition
Today is Christmas Eve. I’m sitting at my kitchen table in the dark waiting for the hullabaloo to begin. I have vowed to bake a pumpkin pie (easy as I made the pie shell yesterday) and then make stuffed pasta shells for dinner tomorrow. What I really want to do is read my book walk around outside come back in turn on the little propane fireplace and bake bread. These quiet things. The hullabaloo of holidays which live in my head because my life is quiet these days but noise is there. The noise of gluttony which sounds like spending too much money on gifts and food. The gluttony of hearing about food in movies and on television and the constant going going going. The gluttony of Christmas carols playing loud in stores the gluttony of guilt in me trying to make up for failed holidays past the ones where I was a young single mother trying to make it right for my beautiful boy child. The gluttony of suffering as we relive our terrible family deep secrets the gluttony of sentimentality. The gluttony of religion the gluttony of never enough and always too much. The gluttony of remembering.
The truth is I am not a holiday person I am uncomfortable with all of them. I get weepy and weird and even though I love to cook I hate cooking on government or church sanctioned holidays all of them especially the holidays where people are blowing shit up and shooting guns one of which is coming up real soon because I hide on those holidays as my PTSD rears up and gets bitey. I do however love to bake on almost all of the days except government and church sanctioned holidays especially the goddamn noisy ones. Two days ago I baked my bread for the week and cinnamon rolls and I made bedeviled eggs for my son even though eggs outside of cake or cinnamon rolls are terrifying. Yesterday I made soft pillowy naan for some curry after I went shopping at 8:30 AM to avoid most everyone and I was proud of myself for not having a panic attack or fainting or going off my list and staring at the cheese counter for an hour as my brain swam who knows where. Today I am baking bread again because it is a meditation to me a mantra that calms me measuring and weighing kneading my hands in flour and water and oil and salt the true magic of yeast.
It has been so warm here this winter my rhododendrons are gaining hot pink blooms. I stand out on the deck each morning begging my lilacs to go back go back little green buds are forming all over my forest. Go back buds be merry merry and bright.
posted by Radish King at 8:31 AM
9 Comments:
The gluttony of remembering….yes. I love seeing the goodness of your baking, it’s so true that it’s a mantra and a soothing comfort. Happy solstice to you, Page, Wolfie, Hal and Queen Jupiter.
Xoxo
Barbara
Thank you darling Barbara. We are all of us survivors. May your Solstice bring you light. XOR
I have never thought of it that way but yes- exactly- gluttony. That glut of memories and expectations and songs that make me sort of want to puke or cry, one or both. You have nailed it as you always do, Rebecca. For some reason this helps, knowing that it is as with all things that I cannot deal with- too much, too much, too much. It is literally sickening.
I am glad you are making bread.
Bread never goes to waste in this house. XOR
Gluttony sums up this time of year perfectly.
That one word has removed the incredible guilt I felt for not doing more. thank you.
Happy breadmaking.
Sparkling merlot thank you (I’m sorry I don’t know your outside name) we are almost through it for another year and the days grow long again. For that rejoice! Rebecca
I sat in front of a blank page of my blog trying to think of how to tell the truth about what I am feeling, and decided it was too much, to hard, too painful, and then I came here and I dont need to write it any more because you wrote it all, your first paragraph here tells my whole truth, and thank you for that, for helping me feel as if I am not alone in this, I am seen, at least by you, though I hate, absolutely hate that you are feeling this way, too. I love you.
Hello my fine understanding friend. Sending all the love from my island to yours may all our clouds pass. Love Rebecca
I wish I'd read this before yesterday when I had a kind of temper tantrum and screamed at everyone to leave me alone. This was after baking a flourless chocolate cake, a cherry pie with a pecan crumble, biscuits, a homemade lasagna and sliced the ham and the turkey breast and set up the tables but before I welcomed the guests and pretended to be having a jolly good time.
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