So…hearing about the news about the LA fires…its pretty heartbreaking. People losing their homes, and all their possessions, and memories entrenched in those homes…
Of course, this sort and worse devastation happens all around the world. But most of that news doesn’t come across my attention be it because of lack of news on further away places, or me personally just having blinders for places that seem completely foreign. I think I say this for all of us- that we all come with biases of some sort or the other…its only human, and helps us function in our own little worlds with sanity. But we can overcome them as we start recognizing and acknowledging them.
Anyways, this was not what I had intended this post to be about.
Hearing about the LA fires and people being without homes is making me see my own home, my kitchen, my chores around my mundane life seem so special to me. I am so very thankful to have this life full of little details to take care of, to have rooms to clean, and meals to cook and dishwasher to be emptied, for compost to be disposed off.
In the normal stream of life, these chores are mostly irritants that I have to take care of. One more thing to do. One more job to take care of. One more thing to tick off my mental list. All so that life keeps running smoothly.
We all have those tasks. And we all dislike them. But we keep doing them anyways.
Brushing our teeth for example…I may be wrong, but maybe not, when I think that no one LOVES brushing their teeth, and maybe even detest the two minutes they have to dedicate to it twice a day? But hopefully, we all have cleaned teeth to face the world with…right?!
But with my fresh new perspective of a home and family to take care of…I am actually doing my chores with, if not passion and love, some fondness. And a lot of gratitude.
I am intentionally feeling love for my food-making tasks. To be in the kitchen with some podcast on or the other, I am taking my time, thinking about how I want to do a good job, and settling into the process. Not rushing, not complaining in my head.
Putting together new combinations of ingredients, chopping with intention and appreciating the fruits and vegetables I get to nourish my body with. Taking pride in what I prepare…
With this renewed enthusiasm, and with inspiration from a friend I visited on Saturday (and seeing her beautiful loaf of homemade sourdough bread), I started my own sourdough starter (since in all our chatting I forgot to ask her for her starter…duh!).
Taking on bread baking again this year, after years of me making bread and then taking a break in the past 2-3 years, I am excited.
To put the ingredients together, to knead with my hands, to see the transformation of rising dough, to pull out the beautiful golden finished loaf from the oven, and then cutting that first piece off and putting it in my mouth…
My baby sourdough is giving me all these beautiful visions to come, all the possibilities. And the joy intermingled with making something magical like bread…by hand.
To have the resources, the space, the knowledge to do it, and to have a family to share it with…