‘I’m doing something for the first time,’ I said to my husband, ‘Guess what it is.’
‘You’re stewing apples,’ he said.
‘It’s not so much what I am actually doing, it’s about what I am doing.’ I said.
It was Friday morning and I was making something from a recipe that I had just read in a post on the internet. I read it, and I thought, we have apples, we have oats, we have apple juice. I can do it. I can do it right now.
I have never done this before. Funnily enough, a few days ago, I had been thinking that I did want to start doing this. Lisa Anniesette posts some lovely looking recipes, but I have never once tried making them. I don’t know what’s stopping me from actually trying to make Lisa’s or anyone else’s recipes. Am I intimidated because the food looks so lovely, the photographs make everything look so glamorous, so that I somehow think that it isn’t for me? Am I waiting for some mythical time in the future when I become the kind of person who makes things like that? Or am I just too lazy to go and shop specially/shop for new things? This is no one’s issue but my own but I decided that I wanted this to change.
Anyway, on Friday morning after writing the draft of my previous post, I was catching up on Behcets and Borderline posts, having realised that she hadn’t gone quiet, I hadn’t actually been following her, and I came across one with a recipe in. No photo, just a recipe tacked quietly onto the end of a personal blog, with a little note saying, if you do try it, let me know how you get on. Those few little words gave me all the encouragement I needed.
Of course food posts look nice, otherwise we wouldn’t want to make whatever it was. (This isn’t a food post by the way.) But no one ever puts pictures of themselves sobbing on Facebook (not usually anyway) and they don’t tend to post pictures of their houses looking a mess.
This is what my kitchen actually looked like on Friday morning when I came downstairs and started making the apple oaty breakfast:
See, no shame. My friend and I used to joke about sending a realistic round robin letter (you know those Christmas letters people send out to everyone that only have the good things), about our kids truanting from school and getting arrested.
A few weeks ago a friend was telling me about a recently separated man she had just met. He showed her pictures of the inside of his wife’s fridge, to show what a slob she was. I thought, wow, that’s mean, I’d hate it if someone did that to me. It seemed so personal. Isn’t it a kind of slut shaming, but about housekeeping? But then I thought, why should the woman be ashamed if the fridge is dirty? Why her and not the man, and why feel ashamed, I mean, it’s only a dirty fridge, you haven’t hit a dog whilst speeding.
I had a day off on Friday and so did my husband. Breakfast, cold left over Indian takeaway (my favourite) followed by the hot apple oaty breakfast which was very nice, even better cold the next day (today). My husband played my favourite songs on the ipod. Then we wrapped up warm and went to Lowestoft, had a walk on the beautiful beach and then went to the lovely new vegan deli VeGee to eat, drink and warm up. A well dressed, well to do woman customer looked me up and down, looking at my clothes. I really wanted to say to her, it’s okay, none of that stuff matters. I didn’t mind at all. Then home, a bit of yoga, then more quality time with my husband: we watched (the original) Bladerunner: The Director’s Cut* followed by BoJack Horseman. It was one of the nicest days I have ever had.
This is what we listened to in the car, parked up, watching a seagull dancing on the ground and eating worms. (The seagull, not us, we’re vegans)
* They implanted the replicants (conscious, emotion feeling ‘robots’ that the humans had built and enslaved) with a memory stream containing a history, a family, so that they’d be easier to control. Spooky, huh?
Thank you for reading.
Rachel 