The Honey Had Opinions

Forty-five minutes. That's how long it took me to make a soup I have made, conservatively, two dozen times. The delay was not the squash, the squash cooperated beautifully. The delay was the open cabinet and the two honey jars sitting side by side on the second shelf: the local wildflower from the farmers market, the backup clover from the regular grocery run. Different viscosities. Marginally different sweetness. I stood there in my bare feet with the cream sweater starting to feel too warm from the stove and I just, considered them.

The thing is, it doesn't matter. I know that. Butternut squash soup does not hinge on the specific provenance of a single tablespoon of honey. And yet October apparently gives me permission to stand in my own kitchen treating a two-dollar decision like it has weight. The wildflower won, for the record. It always wins. I'm not sure why I keep the clover around except that the clover is there when the wildflower runs out and the running-out always feels more urgent than the restocking.

the two jars. the real antagonists.

I thought about photographing the soup finished. The color is genuinely good, that deep ochre that looks like the light outside at four in the afternoon right now, which feels like a coincidence the soup is in on. But I didn't. The two jars on the counter before the decision got made felt more honest than the bowl after. That's October doing its thing: slowing the before down until it's the whole story.

after the decision. finally.

The prints are still leaning against the kitchen wall. I walked past them three times during the honey deliberation and did not think about them once, which is maybe its own kind of answer. The soup is in the fridge. The wildflower jar is half empty now. Next week I'll reach for it without thinking.