Time is Your Friend

A week from today I'll be in the air. A week... it seems so short; it seems like an eternity. I love time. I love that it slips right by, that it stretches like a rubber band. I love that it structures my days, yet is forgiving when I seem to run out. In our Night Prayers we say "what has been done has been done. Let it be." A good thing to say ( and believe) at the end of a long day.

Yesterday was one of those very long days. We've lost our part-time cook. She graduated from the culinary institute last week, and while we are sad to see her go (for more reasons than her cooking) she is moving on to new adventures. She's interviewing for jobs on a private yacht or in a fancy executive retreat near Yellowstone. Either job will give her a chance to explore her gourmet skills... something the nuns could never fully appreciate. So those of us who like to cook have been doubling up. Yesterday was my turn. Plus I was doorbell queen, plus everyone else who can be considered "responsible" was gone off for one reason or another. It was a very long day.

I couldn't decide what I wanted to cook. I had a lot of ideas that were each fine on their own, (some even worked together) but the final plan never quite gelled. Plus I had decided to make lunch as well, since there was nothing much in the fridge and I'd been promising to use up some of our large supply of bulgar wheat. The morning time slipped away with the preparations for tabouli (or tabbouleh). I was constructing camel riders for lunch and tabouli is a prime ingredient. That worked out and then it was time to decide on supper. I still had no concrete plan.

That's a little how I'm feeling about the retreat next week. I have a lot of ideas, there's a thin thread of continuity that connects them, but as with supper last night, I was (am) still experimenting with the final outcome. As of four o'clock yesterday, I had only just decided what we were going to eat.

It worked out. Supper was pretty and tasted good (my two requisites for success) but I cook more often than I give retreats, and even with my expertise, I was worried all afternoon. What's with that? Old age? Maybe. But... (as Martha Stewart would say) time "is a good thing."

And I still have a week.