In The Closet

Since I don’t really know where to go with the blog thing I’ll do the obvious and post some stuff I’ve already written.  That way I get some content without really trying too hard.  Pretty clever, huh?

Of course, I could always come up with some earth-shattering, life changing observations but I’m fresh out.  There is a theory that says that if I just keep writing, I may inadvertently stumble into something earth-shattering, or at least not embarrassingly awful, so bear that in mind, dear reader, when the drivel gets too inane.  In fact, you can take heart in the knowledge that you are playing a part in the creative process.  See?  You’re already wading through drivel.

Those of you who have already seen my one half-decent essay, bear with me, Its all I got!  I like to call this little piece:

In The Closet

I read what Stephen Hawking had to say on the subject.  Something about a Ping-Pong ball in a moving train and the earth’s speed relative to the sun and how, if my twin spent his life in space, he’d come back younger than me.  Of course, I don’t have a twin and even if I did, it’s still a bit much to wrap my mind around.  For me, it begins first thing every morning, this obsession with time.

It starts with my wife telling me to get up before I’m late for work and the kids to get up before they’re late for school.  I guess it’s not really an obsession with time but rather an obsession with beating time, as if it were something to be conquered.  My 16 year old son is eager to be 21 so he’ll be a grown up.  My 15-year-old daughter can’t wait to be 16 so she can drive.  Even I fall for it sometimes; I can’t wait until I have 30 years on the job so I can retire.  We’re wishing our lives away, as my mother would say, and why?  Out of some foolish notion that time is something we can beat?  

I love to cook.  My wife, on the other hand, well… cooking isn’t her thing.  She hates it for the same reason I love it: because it can’t be rushed.  It’s pure artistry to mix this ingredient and that, in just the right ways and in just the right amounts and then applies heat in just the right way and in just the right amount to create something new and wonderful.  She doesn’t like to wait for that magical reaction so she turns the heat up thinking she can speed it along, but it doesn’t work that way.  Instead of cooking faster it just singes the edges and leaves the middle raw, fringe on the eggs and raw yokes.  Is there anything more American than that?

It seems to me that the things that can’t be rushed are the best things in life.  Take this hardwood floor I’m sitting on right now.  It’s been here, in this house for nearly a hundred years.  And how long did it grow before it was chopped down, milled and yes, aged just right before it was turned into this floor, maybe another hundred years?  This floor might have been an acorn during the Revolutionary War.  

The truth is, nothing can really be rushed.  It takes what it takes to do everything we do, even if we hurry.  I can make love a little faster and I can make love a little slower (my wife’s preference) but it still takes what it takes.  I can’t tell you what any of this has to do with that Ping-Pong ball or the age of my imaginary twin.  I can only tell you that the leaves fall from the tree in autumn, which is a long way from April and there’s just nothing we can really do about that.  When basketball season ends, we must suffer through endless baseball games, some relief finally coming with the start of football season before Stockton can yo-yo the belt high dribble one more season.  Then we find out that time has expired on the yo-yo dribble too.

So here I sit, with the door closed and the voices of my family throughout the house sounding dim and distant.  No one really knows where I am and to be honest, I don’t think anyone has even wondered.  I’m glad that there is a light in here, not because I’m afraid of the dark, but so that I can admire the beauty of the wood on the floor.  

Ice Cream is another thing that can’t be rushed.  I don’t know how long it takes Ben and Jerry to pull this stuff together but I do know a thing or two about eating it.  It comes out of the freezer hard as a rock, steaming cold.  My spoon can’t penetrate so I must wait.  I wait and watch and sometimes it seems to me that the edges get colder before they warm up, as if the coldness from the center must work it’s way up and out.  I wait and watch and the more I watch, the longer it takes, the proverbial watched pot.  Could this phenomenon have something to do with that Ping-Pong ball?  Something about melting at a rate mathematically relative to how much it’s watched?  Ouch, my brain!

Back to the subject at hand.  Cherry Garcia if you must know, and yes; I intend to eat the whole pint.  The edges finally soften and become creamy and it’s time to start working the spoon.  Just peel off the soft creamy parts and wait for the rest to be ready.  If the cherries are still frozen they don’t have as much flavor and everyone knows a flavor not tasted is lost forever.  Now that would be a true tragedy.  Maybe not as much of a tragedy as my daughter turning 16 and not getting her drivers license or my son turning 21 and not getting to gamble, but a tragedy nonetheless.

No, ice cream cannot be rushed.  It is my job to see that tragedy is averted and that is why I sit here, alone, happy that I don’t have a twin.