Last night I dropped a bottle of canola oil in the kitchen and it exploded. Everywhere. All over myself, the stovetop, the floor. I tried not to take it personally as I pulled off my oil soaked sweater with shards of glass in it, and set to work wiping up the debris from every corner of the room. You see, I'm in the middle of writing my dissertation and juggling a couple of jobs for my academic department, plus preparing to graduate and maybe enter that big scary world that I've been avoiding over seven years in graduate school. So it was easy for the thought to creep into my mind, Was that shattered bottle a sign from the universe that I've bitten off more than I can chew? Or do I simply need to rearrange where I keep my spatulas in the kitchen. Jury's still out on that, but I should probably move the spatulas anyways.
On the bright side, the affected part of my kitchen is now really clean and uncluttered, and all my cookware has been reseasoned. The down side is that when I accidentally broke off a new branch from my lemon tree while watering it this morning, I was certain the universe was telling me to STOP. Stop what, I don't know. So for now, I'm taking a moment to stop, breathe, sit in the sun and listen to a playlist I made a couple of years ago when I was coming out of a dark place. I'm like my plants, sometimes I don't want to be forced into shitty situations. I just want some space and a bright sunny window. And occasionally I need to be serenaded. Soon enough, we'll both stop drooping and moping and crying over spilt oil.
And then I'll cook some more shakshuka, which was my original goal yesterday.
