Yesterday found me digging through books, looking for something to read aloud at an evening round-the-fire gathering. Friends were celebrating and asked if guests could bring something to read/share. The parameters were loose, so I could have chosen a poem or a recipe or anything in-between. It was up to me.
Do you ever get something in your brain-hole, and you can’t focus on anything else until that thought/yen/pang/yearning is satisfied? I certainly do. It seems to happen mostly with food. When it does happen, it’s not as if I have to drop everything and pursue that thought. No, I can push it to the side and go about my business. But make no mistake – that thought absolutely will not take its leave until it’s been satisfied. (By the way, I often do the same thing with clothes. If I get an idea of what something should look like, I’m screwed. The odds of finding that very thing are usually against me.)
Anyhoo, back to the reading material. I had gotten it in my head that I wanted to read something from a great book by Michael Lee West, Consuming Passions. (She mixes Southern stories and culture with recipes, to a charming effect.) So naturally I had to find the danged book. I prepared myself for a daunting search through boxes galore, then I did something simple: I checked a book shelf. I can hardly believe it, but the book was right there. Where it belonged. Waiting for me. Ready to be held and beheld. Go figure.
There’s been a lot of “looking for things and not finding them” going on around here lately. And I’m not gonna lie to you – it feels like the responsibility for the whereabouts of so much of what’s sought is placed on me. Sometimes that’s fair, and I accept that. So being able to find something felt really good. What’s more, I put that book away in the first place. Finding it – exactly where it belonged – was lovely.
Opening the book’s pages and reading through them was like hearing from an old friend. How I’ve missed her…