The tunnel of winter is settling over my life, ushered in by that great official delude, the end of daylight savings time. If it were up to me California would stay on standard time all year long. The only thing good about sunlight petering out before the afternoon is done, is that I can move freely outside without a hat and without sunscreen. But since it’s not up to me, I only vow each winter to get my soup-making vegetables chopped before I lace up my tennis shoes and head outside for an afternoon stroll.
A high tide will roll in soon. The ocean grows wild off-season, waves pounding the shoreline, claiming the sand, crashing over the rocks. With sunlight fading, my thoughts turn to the moon, a waning crescent now. Pinpointing changing seasons, ebb and tide.
I’m pretty fanatical about emptying the fridge before grocery shopping again and starting over. A quick inventory found leeks, and my thoughts began to hum to the tune of potato leek soup for tomorrow. But then I saw we had plenty of basil and zucchini, and the next thing I knew I was transported, and began making plans for Ina Garten’s Zucchini Basil Soup, with good olive oil, fresh ground nutmeg, Parmesan and red pepper flakes. There is a bottle of good dry white wine, for the recipe-required 1 cup for the soup, and a glass for me to sip while the soup simmers.
No matter what the clock might say, at my house dinner time falls soon after sunset and soup-making is a category of cheer I especially enjoy in the winter after the daylight stealing incident.
Tonight, I’m making a pot of autumn vegetable soup with late season San Marzano tomatoes plucked from spent vines in our family garden, along with farmer’s market zucchini, carrots, butternut squash and sweet potatoes—red garnet, orange Covington, purple Murasaki. Celery, onion, plenty of flat leaf parsley. I season the soup with Herbes de Provence, and it simmers in a rich chicken broth I’ve pulled from the freezer.
Winter is also the best time for re-reading. Along with the collection of new books I’ve gathered, The Hidden Lives of Owls, Braiding Sweet Grass, Reasons to Stay Alive, Crying in the H Mart, Beautiful Country, The Vanishing Half. I will also pull old favorites from my shelves, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Gathering Moss, Tending the Wild, and spend time with stories that leave me feeling as if the author has invited me over for a long chat at her kitchen table. I also favor memoirs and essay collections so intimate I imagine myself leaning over the shoulder of the writer, feeling her thoughts. As winter deepens, I will reread pages from Crazy Brave, Claiming Ground, SafeKeeping, H Is for Hawk.
In the past I have always read one book at a time. When I’m finished with one, then I begin another. Yet now that I have a much smaller home to maintain, without any yard work, less household chores to do, and with few friends living nearby, I have more time for cooking and reading, and I’m making up for those lost years when I had little free time to read. Lately my new pattern is to have two books going. Something informative, deep learning, mind expanding, or soul stretching, and a mood catching book, inspirational or a quirky niche topic that grabs me.
I don’t always succeed at managing to keep two going. Often, I get swept away and read one or the other all the way through to the end. This is what I thirst for, I realize, is for my reading life to have a natural balance, with an easy unforced rhythm, like soup-making.
When my potatoes are sending pale feeders out into the world, a lone onion remains, the garlic is at the end of a long skinny empty braid, and the vegetable drawer in my refrigerator is full, with freshness dwindling, I gather the goods, and get to chopping, the scents and flavors drawing me in.
I’m both settled in, and not settled into my new home space and new community. With everything all around me starting to feel familiar, but not yet intimate, reading and soup-making keep me feeling connected, grounded, centered, while I am beginning to root in, while this new landscape teaches me who I am.
