“What are you doing tomorrow?” The Husband asked this afternoon.
“Not too sure – but I might roast a chicken,” came my effortless reply from behind my section of the newspaper.
We put down our reading. We looked each other in the eye. We shrugged. We went back to what we were reading. In that unspoken confession came the revelation at least one person (my grandmother – she’s reading – she knows this next bit’s true) has been praying for: I don’t really hate cooking as much as I did a year ago.
This in itself is somewhat confusing. But it’s true. And it’s why I’ve been pouring over a recipe for roast chicken this evening, muttering things like “What this recipe REALLY needs is some cheesecloth and some white wine. THEN we’re talking chicken!”
Yes, I’m a little bit afraid. It’s a lot change for one relatively small person. In the same breath, it feels like this year has been all about change.
New job? Sure. New city? Why not. New people? No problem! Spontaneously push grocery shopping from the standard Sunday morning to Monday evening? Absolutely not – hey, I’m evolving, not losing my mind. BUT – organize a dinner party with people I’ve never met before (a blind date with hors d’hoevres) – absolutely!
Sometimes, when I look around myself and realize how much has happened in the last five years, in the last 10 years, I can see as much as the world around me is changing, I am too. I’m growing. I’m trying. I’m pushing myself into places and things I never would have considered before, just to see what they’re like.
I’m still here. I’m still doing the ushz’ – cooking up a pot of macaroni and cheese on a Thursday night. Realizing we have no milk, and the powdered cheese appears to have been tampered with by ill-meaning terrorists. Discarding said cheese, adding in parmesan and eating a meal that tastes a lot like glue. That’s still very much moi.
But as much as I have always known who I am at my core, and been sure of what I want – and what I don’t – even I can see I’m changing, too. That’s what life is.
Rolling along. Singing up for new things. Wondering about ideas. Testing the waters. Seeing what’s out there. And – tomorrow – roasting a chicken on a Sunday afternoon.
Of course, along with this chicken roasting fest comes the fear that if I actually succeed, I won’t have a whole lot to write about anymore. But then again, if I keep on changing, something else is bound to come up eventually. At this point, I’m willing to admit that as I grow, there might not be such a black and white version of me – the hateful cooker, the fanatic cooker, etc. I’m okay with living somewhere in the gray zone – where most of life lies.
That said, I’ve got to go dig through our drawers in search of the $75 digital meat thermometer we bought at some trendy Wendy MTL shop two years ago just in case this moment ever came. And then I’ve got to find a store that sells cheesecloth.
