Today I stood over a large stew pot while I simmered a chicken for broth. And I realized it was the first time since we moved from the country 3 years ago that I’ve made it. It’s not a big deal really. Simmering broth isn’t that major of thing. But what it represents is so much larger. It means I have the energy and desire to provide home cooked meals for my family again. It means that I will devote hours to something that will be the foundation of feeding my children. It means that I won’t just throw together something from cans once again to make a so-so meal. It means I have given my time, effort, and joy into making healthy food that I take pride in.
If you follow me on Facebook you’re well aware that after we moved from the country to the city we spent a couple of years in a small rental house in the ‘hood. And then we moved here. To a fairytale. The house, the neighborhood… It’s right out of my dreams. I don’t think there’s a day yet that I haven’t consciously thought about how thankful I am to be here.
Within the first two days of waking up in this house last fall, I realized something. I realized that I felt like me again. That I was back. From somewhere gone. From a long winter. A long dream. I felt like I was waking up to a me again that I hadn’t known in several years. I breathed a sigh of relief. I basked in the sunshine on my face. And began to see that I was found. When I didn’t even know just how lost I was.
I felt capable of trying my hand at a small garden again. I felt capable of allowing the children to own small pets. I felt capable of simmering broth for my family.
How? Why? Was it the dark dingy tiny house we lived in before? Was it facing down constant sickness and penetrating cold that first winter there? Was it being pregnant and having a new baby in that old house? Was it the difficult circumstances of friends and family I found myself going through?
Yes. Each. All. How I didn’t see how dark it was at the time is amazing. I was so thankful for the city. I loved the opportunities for my kids. I loved the city lights. So I think I tried to focus on the good. After all, I had been through hard times before. But I think the combination of it all just colored everything. And I never even knew how much the cold and dark seeped into my very being until I was here. In the light.
Just as it wasn’t only the structure we dwelt in there that made life gray, it’s not just the beauty of this home here that brought the light. But moving somehow marked a new chapter. Full of hope. Full of new beginnings. Full of once forgotten things that are now renewed.
And so today, as the sun shines and melts the last of the ice away, I tend to children, hermit crabs, sprouting herbs, and simmering broth. And I smile.
