Have you ever sort of forgotten that you had dinner guests coming over? Or have you ever meant to be home in time to cook for friends only to find that traffic and slow drivers conspired against your arrival home like the stones and cliffs blocking Wiley Coyote? I have. It’s demoralizing.
I get home, see that guests are arriving in 20 minutes and all I can see is dust, and Kai’s hairballs the size of a small, new cat!
Once I began this downward slide from 50, I began to notice that I greet problems like scarcity with a bit more grace. Scarcity – not enough – is a young thing and then a very old thing. It still bothers me, but – like life in the monastery – the things I can’t have now are less about money and more about choice-freedom.
The great think about life is that even when it seems like you are getting a bum rap – or you have given yourself a bum rap (self-forgiveness of the past is so much harder!) there tends tho be something wonderful to inspire gratitude.
Recently, guests were coming over and I was running late. The main course was ready and in the crock pot but I had no starter. And then I remembered.
My mother used to counsel that in pinch – a Del Monte can of crushed tomatoes with basil can be iced down in the freezer and then mixed with heavy cream, for the most stunning soup ever for summer; or microwaved in the winter.
It seems to me that what is important is not so much having a lot. What seems important is having the right, few things. Like heavy cream. Like a can of crushed tomatoes. And a bottle of wine. And cornbread. Done.
