Sweet Butternut Squash Soup

I made sweet butternut squash soup last night for dinner. After it was complete with nutmeg and apples and random etceteras I was then asked how I made it, you know, like if there was a specific recipe that I followed? …

I confidently shrugged. I then made some magicianist hand-motion and began explaining how once I know the ingredients that I want, that I then worry less because I know the basics to cooking and making something eatable. Then I went on about how I’d just twirl around in the kitchen with my spices and my golden wooden spoon and taste, “mmm,” giggling on the phone, while cutting up fresh celery and onions. There in my sweet butternut squash soup was the recipe for success.

This balances in comparison with the emphasis I put on my education. This is why when I’m down to my last twenty dollars, I still rush into a bookstore and come out with a bag and a shameless coy smile. I have been raised to love reading and helplessly coerced into thinking that I will read something one day that will change my life. Or better, I will write something one day that will change and benefit the lives of others.

My father, when I was a young girl used to read his newspaper every morning at 6:11am. I lived in a gorgeous two-story home with a view from my window of nothing but trees and honest blue sky. I would sneak down my stairs and see him reading, and then as if seeing him reading gave me nervous energy—I would run back up my stairs, open the window in my room-with that view, and slowly climb out and onto the top of the roof. And I would sit there and read. And sit there and write. After the peak of morning, there was shade and breeze. For hours no one would miss me. I would write these stories that I still to this day have shared with no one. It was one of those days out on the roof; that I fell in love with words.

Twenty years later if not more I look over coincidentally one house down from that home I grew up in. I moved, but to a place on the same street. I, not quite as whimsical, changed. More experienced with what a cruel jokester life can be, and more experienced with what I feel I’d like to contribute to society as a whole.

Today I am not out on the roof. But I am remembering that roof. Lately love has me stuck me in the branch of my favorite tree and I cannot sit waiting, but I cannot climb down. I have come to realize that through education, through fellowship, and through sharing I have created my own sweet butternut squash. This is ok when I have a house full of all of the neighbor’s kids because my eleven-year old son has enlisted help for his disastrous room cleaning assignment. This is ok when I have six deadlines because all of my assignments have conspired against my creativity all at once, all right now. And this is ok when I’m overqualified, when I get no response, or when the position is already filled. This is ok when all I can remember is sitting on that roof alone pulling all of the ingredients together to write the perfect story.

I have yet to learn how to relish in what I’ve created, but I do know that eventually, with enough experience and reading, and after enough “stir-to-taste” aka mistakes… that I will make a living as a writer. All of this I have leaned from making butternut squash soup. Or not.