I have an evening to myself tonight. I am making Jamie Oliver’s Lumpy Lemon chicken (so called because it is stuffed between the breast and skin with pounded butter, fresh thyme, zest of one lemon and two slices of diced bacon, thereby giving it a rather lumpy appearance) and about forty pounds of garlicky, basily mashed potatoes, and I maybe will sit back and light some candles and listen to Beethoven while I watch the thunderstorm that is raging and flashing outside. I also have a PG Wodehouse novel, fresh from the library for the occasion of my Saturday alone, my two remaining beers, and this very opportune thunderstorm.
I prepped the naked little bird while listening enthusiastically to Abbey Road. It made me think of Jenn, and many nights at her house with the Beatles and a bottle of tequila.
Jenn and I were wonderful at being girls together. We knew how it was done.
I thought about marching myself down to the creek and gathering a handful of the wild garlic I found growing there this morning to garnish my chicken, but I am loath to take ANYTHING out of that little strip of forest, given the beating it received last year from the heavy machinery brought by the nearby church. So I just look, and pull trash out of the creek, and wait for the bluebells to come. Today, there were no bluebells yet, but there was a single vinca blossom and shiny wet paths of moss, and new leaves all over everything.
These are the details I insist on documenting here. I am unable to write what I think, or much about how I feel unless it is fear or anxiety. I am my most ardent audience. Tomorrow, a week, a month from now, I will read this entry and think “That must have been a good day” and hopefully not remember how I cried in the car on the way home, how desolate I felt.