November 23, 2021

my weekly allotment of soup **

On a half-sheet of paper, a list of directives: vacuum, empty trash, change the sheets.
I shuffle through the house making one pile or another of what I can’t quite put away. 
En route to the post office, I notice the gas tank hovering toward empty, and I make 
another detour. Maybe I shouldn’t wonder why it all feels like one of those exercise bands 
you push against for resistance, only to have it snap back tight against your calves. 
Here’s what I forget: pleasure is no accident. It needs room on the same calendar 
as the dental appointment and the oil change. Add this to the list: a soup pot 
brushed with oil and a cutting board pixeled with diced onion and demi-circles of celery, 
and the dial in the vicinity of “simmer.” The eddies of the day will take you, frothy 
as they are. But later, a spoon will travel the dry ocean of your hunger, and fill you again.

** I borrowed this line from a voice memo by my very good friend Laurie Wagner.