Grace-Notes #41, 10/29/06

Natalie Costanza-Chavez

Grace Notes

grace-notes@comcast.net

The Ritual of Not Knowing

         It’s almost cold and almost dark. Leaves are blowing off my plum tree. They jet fast and are gone. I move to the window because, from the corner of my eye, I see them as small birds about to fly into the glass. It is not yet Halloween, but fall, tonight, has set deep and taken hold.

     One son is across town finishing soccer practice. His father will load him in the car and zigzag him through a series of short-cuts that probably won’t get them home any sooner. The other son is outside, in a hat, gloves with no fingertips, a much-too-huge sweatshirt and shorts. He’s hanging a fake spider web between the Aspen trees and has cut up the dog’s rope to extend the web size. He’s left the only sharp scissors I have in the dirt under the tree. Oh, well. 

     I am alone and will be for 10, maybe 15 minutes. It is quiet. I’ve turned off my computer, turned off the news, turned off the music, turned my back on the messy-family clutter and the stackings dit-dotting the desktop. I jot a list of calls to make, appointments to attend, things to pick up at the store and stick it to the outside of the cabinet above the phone –  my way of saying “Today is gone. Remember all this tomorrow.”

     I pour a glass of wine. The stem of the glass hits the tile and tinks. I slide it back so I don’t tip it over. It will sit here until I remember to take the first sip, slightly too warm, later. The ritual of the pour was enough; it made me think of endings, and early winter, and sundown and transitions into night. It gets me started.

     I pull out a flat, shallow pan. 

     Sometime, long ago, and only when I felt darn ready and jazzed about it, I loved cooking. But, this changes when you have to do it every night. Cooking now can be an interruption, an irritation, a dash and frenzy. Unless I let the ritual settle in and catch me, I can grow resentful before I start.

     Tonight I court the ritual; I have no idea what I’m going to make, but that is no reason not to get moving.

      I pour olive oil in the pan and set it on very low, chop an onion into small, small, squares, scrape it on to the wide side of the knife, tap it into the pan. It hisses, like a sigh and barely. I dig around in the refrigerator, and find three stalks of not-too-bendy celery, chop it, add it. 

     Battuto, the starting point for almost all Italian cooking. It is what I watched my grandmother begin with, always in a dress, and always in an apron. I have few dresses, no aprons and people to feed. And, I rituals to tap.

     I dig garlic from the ceramic jar that holds it dark and uprooted. I lay the cloves on the wooden board, break them with the flat edge of the knife, peel the papery shell, dice. The onion is already translucent, time enough now for the garlic to turn gold and not burn. Soffritto, the name changes as the garlic approaches just ready.

I can execute these two steps completely unaware.

     The ritual of repeat walks me through them.

     Some of the things we repeat sustain us – like cooking, like breathing, like letting prayer find us. And, some of the things we repeat can break us, like worry, like anger, like fear.

     The trick is knowing the difference, and indulging in the rituals of peace, however small they may be, however trivial, or momentary. In such moments of unknowing and guardlessness we rekindle, we spark, we flare.

    Step three is called, insaporire – the step that adds taste. You need to know what you are cooking at this point, but your base is set.

    Tonight, I don’t quite know yet. I’ve moved from the battuto to the soffritto and I have a little time before my three come home hungry.

     Right now, at this moment, I don’t know exactly where I’m going. Oh well. 

     I'll have sip of warm wine, watch the wind-show from the sill, dance the ritual, get it done.