Bread Chronicles IV - Coming Home

Loyalty. We use this word in terms of friends, family, country, even jobs but rarely do we use it in terms of self. It goes along with duty and honour, respect and love. As a girl guide I remember promising to do “my duty to God, the Queen and my country”.  Our Southern neighbours pledge allegiance to a flag while we, as Canadians, stand on guard for our "home and native land". But who stands for us? To whom, if not ourselves, should we be most loyal?

I just finished Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier. It is an excellent read and, as most good books do, got me reflecting upon different aspects of my life. Although this is not a new hobby, I am nothing if not a belly button gazer, Mercier’s words brought this question of loyalty to light.

[Loyalty is] not a feeling… but a will, a decision, a partisanship of the soul. … The duty not to run away from yourself. Neither in idea nor in fact. The willingness to stand for yourself even if you do not like yourself.

But this thought will have to wait, time to start the bread process. I want to add sprouted Kamut kernels to this new batch so I start the process today for bread that I will make in two days. 

 

Day One: Soak a cup of kernels in water for 8 hours or so. After soaking, rinse and spread onto a damp dishtowel. Do not layer the kernels too thick, maybe four at the most. Cover with the second half of the towel, sprinkle with water and let sit at room temperature for a day and a half. The important thing is to keep the kernels moist but not too moist in that they mold. On that note, do not put them in too warm of a place, but not too cold either. In other words, a place where Goldilocks would be most content. Eight hours before I estimate my sprouts to be ready, I will replenish my starter. 

Okay, back to loyalty: A few days ago I met up with an old acquaintance. I hadn’t seen this person in several years. Back then the relationship had been unequal and my decision to split a reflection of a fierce need for self care. I planned this meeting for several reasons but underlying each was an agenda: I wanted to show how much I had grown; that my need for this person’s approval had diminished and that I was thoroughly my own person. It almost panned out. 

I won’t go into detail but the meeting ended just in time for my self-recriminations to begin. My centred state of being; my “matured” self and sense of containment couldn’t last the full encounter. The old way of being leaked through the last half of our time together and my inner critic stepped in to strip me bare. On the way home I flayed myself with alternating lashes of self pitying regret and piercing anger then tried to self soothe by imagining another meeting where I would do it right. The reprove lasted twenty-four hours before the truth rang out and the warmth of my humanity returned.  

Speaking of truth, something screwed up with the bread starter I replenished this morning. With good plans to make bread now, this evening as I write this mini melodrama, I find she hasn’t risen. At best she looks like a barely fluffed pillow. Not enough. So, I push my bread making plans forward, re-knead and set the starter aside overnight. Meanwhile, I check in on my kamut kernels. I guess starter and kernels signed a non-growth pact: they both needed more time to show their stuff. Hmmm, I guess that could also be said for me.

During that long day after my waylaid visit one could say that I abandoned myself. And, while I am certainly well aware of how that feels this time was different. I was keenly aware through most of it that I was doing myself a disservice; that my self-loyalty had faltered. It was like this calm voice wafting over waves of disillusionment inviting me to slow down, take it easy; be kind to myself. I pendulumed  between the salve of this truth and floundering around in cold black waters but finally the swinging stopped. I gathered myself onto dry land, stood by my side, and took solace.

In respect for my process I reflected on what happened and why. I figured out what needed changing and what called for compassionate understanding; gave space for the sadness but also the joy in recovering so fast, and then finished up with a metaphoric hug. In short, I made the decision to get back into partnership with the person I should be most loyal to—me.

Day Three: My kamut kernels have sprouted a ¼” tail. I rinse and set aside. The starter has also grown to double its size with the re-knead and extra leavening time. I mix these ingredients with my usual pumpkin, sesame and flax seeds; millet; corn meal; oil and molasses, knead and set aside for the first rise (3 hours). The only problem is, due to last night’s delay, I won’t have time to bake today. Instead, about 90 minutes into the second rise, I’ll cover with plastic wrap and pop into the fridge for a slow, cold finish. Tomorrow, I bake.

Personal growth, the long journey back home as it were, takes times. And, like my starter and nascent sprouts, sometimes that timing doesn’t follow a preset schedule. We get stymied in our progress and frustrated at seemingly child-like regressions; we find ourselves embarrassed and even in pain. What alleviates these deviations—these detours along the road—is a loyalty to self.  As Mercier writes, self loyalty is “the willingness to stand for yourself even if you do not like yourself.” 

And that, I believe, is how we know we have come home.

For previous Bread Chronicles, scroll down to the introduction on October 5, The Ferment.

The Short Story: Why Borges Rules

I recently read an article by Russell Smith on the literary form known as the contemporary short story. He called it the “unloved genre”. The article was in recognition of Alice Munro’s Nobel Prize in literature but I found myself nodding with many of his points on why the form has a somewhat difficult reputation. Novels, for instance, allow the reader time and space to acclimatize, learn the author’s language and get to know the characters in a slow leisurely way. Short stories deny this privilege. They demand intimacy before real knowledge and then, while holding you by the scruff of your neck begging for more, tell you there is no real reward for this honour: life is still the same.

Short stories, at least the kind that appear in literary mags, remind me of those melancholic times of youth where change was so fiercely desired but paradoxically feared. Although not true for me today, back then, the tension of holding the space between those two opposing forces left me emotionally paralyzed. When Thoreau wrote: Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them; I imagine he had just read a short story.

That said, I have total respect for those who can write with such clarity and, at times, brutal honesty in 20,000 words or less. Kudos also for those who can sit down and savour them. I tend to speed through short stories in order to get the whole process over with as quick as possible.

The one short story writer I absolutely adore, however, is Jorge Luis Borges. His Labyrinth collection is a favourite with The Immortal being on top of the list. Each time I read it, and I have read it many times, I reach deeper into my soul and pull out yet another facet I didn’t know existed. His surrealism invokes a simultaneous stepping in and out of my life. I get dizzy reading Borges. Best, he invites inner change rather than passively demanding it and helps me celebrate the universal mystery with a slightly off balance wonder.

Yeah, despite how I appreciate and respect Alice Munro, give me Borges any day.

Bread Chronicles III - The Kneading Process

A silken cocoon

awakens beneath my hands.

Somatic rhythm

pushing, pulling:

The ebb and flow of lunar rule,

a protean transformation

graced by the gods.

Like the dough I knead, this autumn produced protean changes in me as well. The changes, some of which I cannot yet describe, can be seen, however, in the little things like taste preferences. I no longer like milk in my tea, I have a reduced desire for chocolate and, as it seems,  diluted cravings for bread, specifically my bread.

Last week I ended my blog with the question of whether I would or would not like my recently baked bread. In rereading it I found I was not clear as to why this was important or even relevant. The key was in the opening paragraph: “there is also something else lurking in my barely concealed subconscious: maybe I don’t want to like it anymore”. It was not so much a question of taste but that of choice.

I really like my bread and have so for three years. I could easily eat four, albeit small, loaves a week. Bread was my staple. For the most part I didn’t feel bad about this, it was chock full with all sorts of goodies from pumpkin and flax seeds to protein abundant millet and fibre filled kamut. But ever so often my old fears would catch up to me and suggest I was playing with fire, that I would, for example, balloon up to an inconceivable weight. It was irrational—I had been eating this way for three years and my clothes still fit—but lurking beneath my seemingly unquenchable desire for bread was this fear of no return. 

That said, my fears never really took hold because, paradoxically, making bread also provided me with a measure of safety. It gave me the gift of routine, ritual and structure. It is not that I need those things in my life but they were a leftover from childhood. As such, they had become habit. They were my default safeguards from a time when I lacked a sense of security and trust—a seemingly intransigent behavioural pattern that I cling to despite the changes that have occurred.

My mother starter calls out for me from the fridge, she needs replenishing. She has but a cup of herself left.

I add:

2 ⅓ cup kamut flour

1 cup water

Knead for about 5 minutes.

I feel nascent life beneath my hands as I massage the starter, rekindling that which was asleep. I push and pull, rotate, push and pull. I contemplate my last words.  What am I really trying to say?

For most of my life I was governed by a need for safety. At first it was based on the environment but through introspection (and good therapy) I came to understand how one cannot feel secure in their surroundings if they do not feel safe inside. Years of working on myself have created a strong inner sanctuary: I feel safe in who I am, where I am going and how I am doing it.

But sometimes, and I speak in general terms here, regardless of how much work one has done, there can be a small part of us that is unwilling to change its perception. Hence, a part of me didn’t want to like the bread for fear I would lose control. And, another part, liked making bread for the twice weekly routine. 

I finish kneading the starter and cover it with a towel/plastic wrap for 8 -10 hours. A starter needs little massaging as its main purpose is to incorporate oxygen. Bread dough, however, requires about 15 minutes. This not only develops the protein strands of which provides the structure for it to rise into but, as a double bonus, tones my biceps. Which, of course, is of primal importance if we believe what the celeb mags tell us.

Bread making, then, is both my safety and my fear. Regardless of the fact that I feel an internal sense of safety there is still a part of me that wants routine and ritual to guarantee this safety.  What this exercise taught me is that this fearful part needs to come out in the open and see times have changed: I am no longer a little girl living in chaos.

The question I now ask is can I change like the bread dough that transforms beneath my hands? Have I built enough structure/safety to allow my fears to relax? Can this small part of me that still fears life trust that I, as an adult, can take care of myself and be safe in who I am without relying on structure and rigidity?

The answer to these questions, funny enough, is answered by the original one: did I like the bread? I did. The bread is good, tasty in fact, but I’ve changed: I no longer need it.