I miss my dad. More today than yesterday. And more than some days and even less than some. I was curious if I could “feel closer” to him by partaking in a little baking which I’m only slightly fond of, but oddly good at somehow. But I’ve avoided it like the plague I’m also avoiding.
I have the spring loaded pan from his pans. I have my aunts recipe he wrote in his handwriting I can’t read. I have cream cheese my mom had when she thought she would make cheesecake. It’s still getting to room temperature on my counter and it might even just go bad. When is that? Do I need to check the temperature like meat? Can I safely assume 6 hours out is good but not bad? Does it sweat more? I can’t eat warm cheese as a rule anyway. It’s too odd. Too unsettling. Too sweaty.
I packed cheese backpacking once and it was wet and sweaty. I ended up melting it in my jet boil with a package of rice which destroyed the use of the jet boil for the next three days. Everything had bits of cheese each day boiled off… in my coffee, my oatmeal, my hot water for tea…never pack cheese again. It’s too hard to clean when cleaning isn’t done unless cooking food to boil the next day. Avoid sweaty cheese.
Now I’m avoiding. I’ve played in my mind what it will be like. It will be a disaster that will be wonderful? If I ever do it.
But I’m avoiding. I went to work for awhile when I don’t work today. I was annoyed I didn’t have to water. I stayed too long trying to find ways to help. I went to the store when I didn’t need anything. Which is a rule. I priced compared and purchased renters insurance to avoid dramatic property loss from microwave fires, I like dried my laundry instead of using the dryer everyone uses. I finished a book. Cleaned my fridge and my moms.
I went back to my moms and watched her move her furniture and rugs to plan to buy new furniture and rugs. “Something cheery.”She says, showing me hues of earth tones and muted soft greens. They don’t sound cheery. They sound eerily eery. They sound like dad only slightly less colorful. Missing the maroons and reds. Who is my mom without my dad? She may not even know herself? I say “what about a bright coral or yellow? That’s cheery.” She says obnoxious. This is also true. We agree to disagree.
I like my obnoxious colors in the woods. I love to blend sometimes but mostly I want to be seen. Not unseen. I don’t want to be shot is my main thing. Somehow mistaken for an animal too hunt, although those stories are strange when I read them. I have been in the woods a lot, not as hunter, but as a human and not once did I see a person walking on two legs look as an animal to hunt. If I tried to put myself into a hunter mindset I panic too much about how you have to be so quiet and have to blend in the woods to stalk animals to eat. I like others to hunt for me. Like cow farmers and butchers.
This reminds me of a date I went on. A first date. Not second or tenth but first. We went hunting. On his land. He layered me with camo and we sat on 4 wheelers and went to sit in a blind to stalk deer. He was currently stalking one. He planted clover fields. He had salt chunks. He knew more about this deer and his habits than I felt comfortable with. I couldn’t talk. I tried and he told me I shouldn’t. I would scare the prospective food. He timed me once to see how long I could go not talking. It was eleven seconds. I was hoping for a little action. Not that kind. But a little hunting. I’m not sure what. I was expecting him to land on the deer from a tree he slept in and wrangle and wrestle the animal until he won. Maybe a good chase through the woods with spears and daggers he made from stones and sticks he carved through the night.
I would cheer from the stands or the blinds or from the cave and we would eat his fresh kill. But I’m not a cave person apparently. There is no struggle and fight. It is all wit. I was bored. We went to dinner and I ate so much from all the sitting and waiting and not talking. He called me a good eater. I felt so proud like a child being told she ate all her green beans, yet disappointed for not getting a proper solid compliment like, you are so beautiful. Just I am a good eater. He would feed me well is what he was thinking. I never saw him again. Well, except once, he is a deputy and I saw him once patrolling. I’m a good driver now so that never happens again. I’m avoiding him so I never have to go hunting again.
If I want to be unseen I will hide not blend in. My mom is trying to blend. Discover who she is with a little of who they were together. She doesn’t want to hide either. Just be seen. Just not in an obnoxious manner. That’s not her? My mom is anything but an avoider. She was the doer.
She went through a lot of window treatments in the few days after he passed. They did need changed but she went from curtains to blinds to bigger blinds to curtains and blinds back to pretty much what was there only new. Us girls just screwing up and undoing and doing the changes she needs to feel a little relief, or settled, or feel nothing.
I’m doing the same thing today. Replacing my thoughts with things more entertaining to think. Should I get a bird? A paddle board? Maybe a kayak? What about a few new t-shirts? I just minimized, minimalised? my wardrobe, removed anything I didn’t wear. I now own almost nothing to wear. I don’t know who I am when I wear things. That sounds like I’m void of clothes all the time. I work a job that requires a specific shirt, some pants or shorts and my belt with pruners. I work so much that outside of work I’m just sleeping or backpacking. Why have so many clothes? I was also buying them at second hand stores to see who I was by trying on who others were. It wasn’t helping. I ended up needing to buy hangers. So instead I just gave all my, someone else’s, clothes away. I just need undergarments daily. And what I wear for work. Other than that I kept two pairs of board shorts and three t-shirts. And socks. Holy cow! I had socks from years ago with heels void that I never wore. I did keep all of my dresses. One can never have too many dresses with no where to wear them to. They are too lovely. I play dress up sometimes. I’m contemplating doing this right now. I’m avoiding.
I want to bake this cheesecake to do something I don’t want to do. Feel close to someone who I can’t physically bake a cheesecake with. It’s too hard. It’s such a far stretch of my over active imagination. This entire problem makes me feel close to him in of itself. He avoided things like the plague too. It’s why he baked. It’s why I bake. It’s not therapeutic, or healing or calming. I get tense, irritable, quit measuring and following directions, drop things, don’t clean up after myself, forget it’s baking… but it’s all mine. All those struggles are mine and not the rest of the worlds. I can let go and embrace the mess that I am about embrace and make. I can let go and make it. Make the cake. Bake the cake or forget your baking the cake. Bake the cake and avoid the rest of the messes.
I am a doer. I am half my mom too. I’m a nightmare mix of two of the most opposite people I’ve ever known. I avoid for some time and most the time, then I do. It’s my mom in me. She is still here and that’s who I feel close to today. I miss my dad and his messes and know I can make a good proper mess like he taught me as soon as I do it like my mom taught me.
Aspenleaf 