On baking bread and slow days

On slow days I bake bread.

Sometimes three loaves, if I know the pace is about to pick up or the afternoons are about to get hot. I only use my oven on cool, slow days.

Wednesday was my slow day. The last cool day on the forecast, the kids were happy to be home, and when I returned from exercise they were nowhere to be seen–lost in imagination, hidden in large cardboard boxes turned to transmogifiers and time-machines and secret hide-outs and space ships. There are 12 of these giant boxes currently on my back porch: I long ago gave up on strict tidiness. My kids’ creative inventions aren’t always cute, in fact, most often they’re eye-sores.

But I figure I have decades ahead for a tidy, cute house.

No doubt then I’ll ache with missing these cardboard-box days.

So I let them make believe, and I make bread.

My mom was a bread baker. A legendary one. A paleo-dieter would not have lasted long in her kitchen. Her crescent rolls–buttery, perfectly-puffed-up, slightly golden brown on top–were a staple at every holiday. She taught me how to feel the dough, the right warmth and elasticity. She taught me how to knead with quarter turns, sweeping flour slightly underneath, pushing the heels of my hands down and pulling up gently with my fingers to pull the dough over on itself–rhythmic. She showed me perfect bread isn’t as much science as art, and her recipes included lines like, “Add flour until the dough feels right.”

At lunch time, I call the littles and slice a loaf into sandwiches, heavily-loaded with chicken-salad. Their eyes light up: It’s their favorite lunch. We sit on the steps of the back-porch, surrounded by boxes, and silently savor our simple feast.

Later, while I’m wiping up crumbs, Dutch calls: “Mommy, will you come sit with me?” He’s on the front porch, perched on the wooden railing, feet dangling over the edge, above the flowers far below. I join him, carefully perched on the railing, my legs dangling beside his.

He is my nature-boy. He once remarked that the ocean was his best friend. Today he points out colors–the purple japanese maple, the light-green new-growth, the dark cedar branches, the “sunset orange” (his words) zinnias and white-magenta striped pansies. He thinks the pansies look like purple tigers. 

“I’m so happy, mommy. This is my favorite thing. If only people could just be happy with what they have, the trees and flowers and bugs. Then we wouldn’t have so many problems.”

I smile at his philosophizing. 

We stay there, on the porch, dangling legs, and I think of kneading dough: Think of how often parenting baffles me, until I slow down and put my hands on it and feel–then I know when it’s right. I think of gently forming loaves and lives and letting them rise slowly, on their own. I think of watching and waiting to see these rounds turn golden, almost ready.

So often I think I need a trip to the store and a parenting book.

More often I need a slow day to bake bread and dangle legs. 

{Here’s to slow days. Happy Weekend! Thanks for reading.}