Sunday has always been one of my favourite days. I like Fridays, and Wednesdays, for their own reasons. Sunday is the day I always expect to have something a little bit special for breakfast, in my pyjamas, after a substantial period of groggy laying-about-in-bed time with the sun streaming in through the crack in the curtains prodding me out of bed...
So when I woke today, under usual Sunday circumstances I realized today was a day I was destined to spend alone, happily... I enjoy my own company once in awhile and today was going to be a relaxed day. This morning there was an autumn chill in the air, and the sky was blue, but had those cool grey undertones that tell you it's not summer anymore. Started out by hopping on the bus after a very lengthy wait, wondering where everyone else is going and getting lost in some sort of reverie and almost missing my stop. Going to the grocery store, perusing the aisles slowly, and carefully. I love grocery shopping. So many possibilities, just waiting to rise into some delicious concoction. I was freezing when I got there, so I treated myself to a hot chocolate and a cinnamon roll, and started on my mission. I love food in the fall. Summer food is delicious too, everything is so fresh and cool. But now, it's time for food to fill my belly with comfort and spice. So, a spaghetti sauce? Made from fresh tomatoes and herbs? Perhaps. Let's keep going.
After picking out my veggies and fruits, some double thick bacon from the butcher and a baguette, among other things, I get my Saturday Globe and Mail and proceed to the checkout. I'm on my way home, to make dinner which is at least 4 hours away. I like to take my time.
I'm feeling a bit like the sky today. I know summer is almost over and indeed a lot of things are almost over. My vacation. Me being unattached to many responsibilities..... do I really have to buy a car and make payments, buy insurance? Is this what I want to think about? Is it REALLY worth me losing sleep over? I hope not but it does. I'm a bit flat and calm like the few clouds that float up above and I do feel like I am just floating above this day...
I spread my groceries out on the counter like some sort of treasure I've discovered and wonder about all the things I could make. I abandon them there for a spot on the couch and the newspaper in hand. As many people around the world I am shocked and horrified by the current state of New Orleans. The byline on the front page reads: 'Miss, with great respect for your race, I don't see no white people here,' and it gets worse from there. I'm reading about a teenager giving birth on the street and getting to the hospital by boat, about a boy being forced to leave his dog behind and crying until he vomits, about disabled people dying in the washrooms at the Superdome and being left there because there is nowhere else to put them. It's disgusting and horrific, and it leaves me feeling a bit displaced myself. I can't even imagine what it must be like and more importantly, I have absolutely no idea what to do about it. I am so lucky and privileged, and I can't quite enjoy it because I don't know how I came to deserve this. I can't help wondering for what inexplicable and illogical reasons I have what I do. In some ways I wish I could be in New Orleans. I don't know quite what I'd do when I got there, but I sure as hell feel useless being here.
So here I am in this semi-existential slump, and everything is beautiful and sacred in it's own way around me. I have great music playing on my stereo and plump tomatoes that I peel the skins off like glue on a school-kids finger, in big satisfying pieces. The chopped up bits feel warm and acidic on the little cuts I apparently have on my fingers, and it smells so good. I take pictures because I want to do this again and remember how today feels. I miss certain people in my life right now but it is good to be alone. It's not a good idea to think about hurricanes and friends and love and novels while chopping tomatoes because you end up cutting yourself with the new dangerous chef's knife. Thank goodness for thumbnails. I realize I used up the last of the garlic awhile back and wonder if the sauce will be as delightful without those little spicy nuggets of flavour.... Somehow the sauce has become a bit intimidating and exciting since reading about all the specifics of a good Italian sauce in Boogaloo on 2nd Avenue a couple weeks ago. A work of fiction but lots of reality thoughout. People get in fights over specific kinds of olive oil and varieties of tomatoes, depending on which part of the country you are from - but I don't know any better and I'll eat whatever comes out of that pot.
The clouds are light and fluffy now. Some of them are like big pouffs of cotton candy. Then there are the ones that are grey and whispy. And today I'm somewhere in between.
