The local independent radio station used to broadcast an excellent news analysis every day at five-thirty, right in the midst of dinner preparations. For love or money, I couldn't bring myself to turn it off. After all, you can't let yourself get out of touch; and it wasn't as if it were TV--my eyes were still one-pointed. For months I went on working with half my mind, listening with the other.
It took a while for the evidence to mount up. Occasional injuries weren't such a big deal. Salting the soup twice or overcooking a carrot or two still wasn't serious. Missing steps in the recipe?--who's to know, anyway? The real problem wasn't with the food. It was with the cook. A half hour of the Latest and I was decidedly rattled by the time I got to the dinner table--fragments of half-heard news reports skittering through my mind, veiled predictions of war, famine, and depression weighing me down, leaving a terrible taste in my mouth, distracting me from our family and their more immediate concerns. I was gradually coming to realize that it isn't just food you serve your family. I wanted to nourish them in subtler ways as well: my state of mind couldn't help but affect theirs. If I wanted our meals to take place in a congenial, relaxed atmosphere, I had no choice but to come to the table in a calm, cheerful, and relatively unified state of mind.
So little by little, news coverage gave way to music. Before long, though, that too came to be a distraction. If I were going to listen to music, I wanted to listen to good music, and give it my complete attention. Five-thirty was obviously not the time. At last the radio was stilled, and I was able to admit to myself how deeply satisfying it is to work in silence, the mantram bubbling away within, providing a peaceful, regular rhythm to work by.
Laurel's Kitchen (1976)
Vinkki: Gluten-Free Girl 16.9.2005 (blogi suljettu)
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