The weather is mirroring the world. It’s violent and cold and a mystery. I can feel it (the world, the weather) dragging at my psyche today. Last night we had hard rain and thunderstorms, this morning while I was finishing my breakfast I looked out and it had begun to snow in big fluffy flakes, better to be called down than snow. It lasted about five minutes. Everything that landed melted into the earth. When I went out to get a book from the library before it was returned to its home library it was cold and windy, clouds swirled about, and I just wanted to get back home and curl somewhere. Instead, when I got home, I made some chicken soup.
The chicken was from a store that smokes chickens and
ribs every day and if I’m in the area around the time they come out of the
smoker I’ll grab one. I got the chicken Friday, and we have made a series of
meals from it since; with a fourth of the meat left it was soup time. I’m not a
huge fan of chicken, but I like it now and then in things. Sometimes I make
Jerry what I call a before and after omelet with chicken in it, but I
don’t care for chicken in eggs, before or after.
But as far as the soup, it was good for lunch. My mother made chicken soup with thick handmaid noodles and big chunks of chicken, it cooked until the broth was thick. The noodles were glorious. I always imagine it during a long winter snowstorm but know we had it year-round. A simple, basic meal. That sort of safe, let’s fill up and take a nap while the blizzard howls soup. Something I tried to mirror today, though no blizzard, and nothing as devastating here as approaches even the definition of devastating. Just the blaghs. Nothing a nap and a dose of poetry won’t cure. Just a refresh. Just so the world can be taken head-on.
Here's a poem from another time:
two siblings bookend me
one bulging left, one right,
I was the double-pumped
chipmunk-cheek of mumps
Our mother, trapped in the house
with our fever and whine, improvised games
to keep us busy between naps:
couch tent, cowboy cattle drive, pretend
prairie schooner. As the Sons of the Pioneers
played we drifted off like the tumbling
tumbleweeds under our imagined stars.
Our eyes closed and the hum of her sewing
machine came back to life. A distant train
on a trip we were not invited to take.
in the time of mumps. ;-)
ReplyDeleteMy mom would make chicken and noodles with those big fat egg noodles and serve it over mashed potatoes. Comfort food for sure.
we are getting some spring snow here, fitful and not lasting, but there is a quality to early spring snow, a feel in the air, even when it's below freezing. Perhaps it's the light.
It is definitely the light that is trying to right itself. <3
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