Eleven Days Is a Long Time to Think About Pasta Water

October fifteenth. The Tuesday session ended and Simone asked whether I'd gone back to the cooking class, and I said no, and I said it so easily that I didn't notice for about three steps down the hallway that I'd already finished deciding.

Here is what I had been chewing on for eleven days: whether the thing I liked about that class was the pasta water specifically, or the being-told-a-true-thing-I-hadn't-known, or the being in a room where someone had opinions about heat and salt and was not embarrassed about having opinions about heat and salt. I think it was the third one. And I don't know that going back a second time gives me more of the third one. You can't bottle the first time a thing lands. I know this. I have learned this several times over, and I keep having to learn it again, and that is fine.

So I didn't register. And I didn't write about not registering for a while because I wasn't sure the not-registering was interesting enough to be a post, but I think the eleven days are the post. The eleven days are always the post. Simone knows this before I do. She asked the question and then watched my face and I saw her see me hear the answer in my own voice. She has a gift for that.

The table as thinking space.

I came home and made dinner and did not photograph it, which felt right. The windowsill had the usual October light. Gerald had unfurled another leaf sometime in the last week and I hadn't noticed until I was standing at the counter not doing anything in particular. The cooking class is done. The eleven days were the point. I'm writing this down so I don't have to think about it anymore.

Post-session debrief, bulletin board backdrop.