My job tonight was to stare down three pounds of brussels sprouts, amputate their stumps and cut their little hearts out. With twenty-two guests lined up for tomorrow's dinner we're all working like mindless mercenaries.
Symmetry was not on my list of things to achieve, but as I washed and peeled, I realized that the impossible has happened. In the madness of the holiday season I've had a day with balance, proportion, and thematic unity.
It started early. My morning...as usual...was a battle to bring order out of chaos. I made a list that began with "do yoga" and ended farther down the page with "clean the basement." Feeling very California I plugged in Shamanic Dreams, stretched through downward facing dog, pigeon pose, and warriors (both I and II), mailed the farm truck registration, paid the farm insurance, gave Cleo a walk in the park. That's when--around ten-- I remembered I needed to run down the street to Claudia's to share some cranberry chutney I'd cooked up for the feast. Though order was lost I was headed toward another classical value, symmetry.
Claudia likes formal visits along the line of high tea, but I persuaded her to let me show up this morning just to hand her the chutney. She buzzed me in and I trotted up the stairs to her kitchen, unaware that I was about to begin my opening brussels sprouts experience of the day. Claudia was elbow-deep in the knobby green things, rinsing them off for her dinner tomorrow. So I settled in beside her, paring knife in hand, and side by side we readied dozens of little cabbage dwarfs for their oven roasting.
Normally my visits with Claudia include Ira and her husband John, sometimes Cleo dashing about, lots of trips in and out of the dining room, many courses of Russian and German appetizers and animated multi-lingual conversation. But this morning was different. Claudia was not wearing her pearls. We didn't have canapes or chocolates. As we finished our work the kitchen was quiet and we were just two women from different countries and different generations all done with our brussels sprouts. As I was leaving I remembered--for once--to pause and tell her how much I love her.
So tonight people from coast to coast are--like me-- thinking about tomorrow's feast. They're replaying the bittersweet song of a childhood lost, or the one they wish they'd had. Like me they're making lists and taking stock and wondering if they can measure up. They're looking for order, and failing to find it. But on this day of San Francisco mist, friends, a day that opened and closed with edible buds, I'm settling for a little symmetry.
