Lazy Saturday

A lazy wake up, the sun already glittering along the mountain ridges, a long soaking bath. Even the pets, patient. No rush. Nowhere to be at a certain time. Nothing really nagging me to hurry. Get-this-done-so-you-can-do-that. No one needing me to take them somewhere, get something, fix something. No doctor appointments, shopping runs.

No nothing.

So I did something I haven’t done since I got sick. I made sourdough cinnamon rolls. While my two breadmakers were in the knead mode, I did laundry and worked on my taxes. Sounds like work, but it was so nice doing exactly what I wanted; how I wanted without being rushed or pushed to hurry because I had something else pressing. And the simple work was just the thing I needed to let my mind wander.

The yeasty smell of the sourdough that filled my house certainly soothed me. Nothing better. When my kids were small I made bread or cinnamon rolls every week. Tactile, earth mother and basic, I love working with sourdough, making bread.

I sat outside in the sunshine for a while soaking up sunlight, vitamin D and the sounds of the day, too. Bliss. Magpies calling to one another, chick-a-dees questioning, the melting snow slooping noisily onto winter grass.

I had the time.

My mind wandered lazily from scenery and sounds to sourdough to bread to writing to poetry. I mused that sourdough begins like poetry. A cup of milk, a cup of flour covered with cheesecloth, set outside to capture wild yeast on the air. If you’re lucky and everything works out you have yeasty, spongy sourdough to make delicious rolls, bread, pancakes with.

Such are poems. Take a few simple thoughts, an idea or two, then—maybe-scenery, maybe-the sound of water slooping onto winter grass, maybe-one lazy Saturday. If you’re lucky and everything works out, you have a rough draft to make shattering poems out of.