Breakfast is corn flakes eaten with a teaspoon in a rush as I comb mascara through my eyelashes. I put too much on. In this way, applying mascara is a bit like pouring milk onto cornflakes – when I get the amount wrong, I have to start all over again.
Soggy tissue covered in eye makeup remover on my windowsill. Soggy cornflakes covered in milk by the dirty sink in my kitchenette.
Not a good start.
Tree Soup for Lunch
On my evening walk last night I passed a tree, bright with yellow and green. I thought it was on fire in the corner of my eye. A cold fire. Quiet, and it stopped me in my pacing. Tomorrow I will make a soup that looks like that, I thought, and now, I stand, and do so.
I sit diamond shaped hispi in a hot bath of butter and watch it seep out some relaxed noises, soften in its own skin and wrinkle up at the edges. I chop what’s left of it on the side, and the courgette from yesterday, a sad broccoli stalk, some garlic, and heat it all up in a heavy pan.
Brussel season is here, and I throw what I have into an inferno by my knees, halved beside some garlic cloves. I want charring, browning, crunching like leaves, and my forgetfulness becomes the secret to this soup – the vegetables catch colour and, from the living room, their smell reminds me of them cooking. They rattle on their way to the table.
Then, I spoon the last of the white miso from a tiny jar. I drain cannellini beans and slide them into the pot, with the hot water and stock. Lemon zest, of course, too. I remember the parmesan rind trick and plop it in.
It is hot and the steam makes my mascara run. It is the best thing I have made and I will try to go easy on myself later.
Bruised raspberries and hurt feelings.
I had an idea in my head of what it meant to pick blackberries this year - how the act was a metaphor, or an aphorism, or something. After buying a punnet on a first date at the height of summer, I wanted to collect them later in the year in a wicker basket, wear gingham, and kind of like, smile, or something, but today I couldn’t reach the good ones – and they weren’t even blackberries, but raspberries with pieces missing and the bright gold of summer dripping away. It’s sad when things aren’t what you hoped they’d be. Or when they are exactly what you thought they’d be and that’s what makes you sad. Or a mixture of both.
Also a mixture: the assortment of glassware I chose to use as receptacles for this small crop of raspberries. I’ve never collected such a small batch before – my time picking them was cut short like a blunt fringe. I like the way they fill the gaps and make others, and the way I blew dust out of the coupe before using it, because I don’t drink and I don’t dust, either.
I feel drunk with the kind of headache I get when I cry in the sun. I feel drunk with the thought of calling someone, anyone, and telling them that I’m angry, and I’m sad, and I want to sit in the dark on my sofa and eat a whole raspberry tart – but I have to make the thing first, so I do.