Simple Pleasures

It has been a simple day. Peter joined me today, which was an unexpected pleasure; the usual morning for me: goats, garden, and home. Peter's job was to collect some fallen branches for our new chiminea, and he found exactly the right selection.

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Have you ever noticed how memories are tied closely to smells? My world is full of them; the mint I place on my dashboard reminds me of my father's mint on HIS dashboard; the goat milk smell on my hands: the 1976 farm. Later in the day, there was vegetable soup simmering (fresh from my garden!), and though I don't know what this reminds me of apart from the soups I have made over the years, I know it makes me feel safe and warm. The first soups sustained us when we had no other food; my weekend work selling African beads on the flea market with Tom and David allowed me access to the closing market and the last ditch prices for the vegetables that remained. A few cents worth of chicken necks and backs made a lovely broth, and we ate soup for the week for nearly nothing. It kept us alive. Soup makes me feel safe.

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The final scent of the evening was the wonderful sassafras smoke from the chiminea. We lit a small fire, since the evenings have been unseasonably cool, and sat with it until it died down, then retired to the sun room to watch Julia Child reruns on PBS. Heaven.

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Julia trussed chickens, cut off fish heads, spilled wine and burnt herself; she laughed at herself and forgot things. She flipped omelets with ease, and threw things on the floor when she had enough of them. She was real; larger than life, flawed and perfect in her honesty, she was as wholesome as the smell of goat milk or wood smoke, and we enjoyed her company over a glass or two of wine. It was a perfect night.

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Simple pleasures.