Thursday, January 17, 2013

Bella Bread



I intended this Banana Bread to be a recipe that I rushed through, haphazardly mashing and mixing and eagerly waiting on the other side of the oven door, watching the timer slowly tick down the seconds, so I could shove the first slice of it into my mouth before the pan was cool enough to touch. But when I woke up that morning, I knew that the world had been turned upside down. Something was off and I walked into the kitchen prepared to hear what I thought it might be. 

The strangest part about putting your dog to sleep is leaving them lying there. Like they're just sleeping. And a part of you, the part that doesn't understand, the inner child that thinks everything lives forever, she cries out because to her, it feels like you're just abandoning the pet you've loved for so long. But the older, wiser part of you knows that there is nothing else you can do, that she't not sleeping. That she's gone. That she was sick and miserable and suffering. And that you loved her enough to let her go.


So when I returned home that day, I could have stared off into space, lying motionless on my bed. I could have cried for another couple hours adding to the puffiness that had already encircled my eyes. But it's too hard to think. Too painful to sit in silence. It's good to let those things sink in, to acknowledge them, and accept them, to come to terms with them, and make peace with them. But it's also wise to distract yourself and to give yourself a break from the grief. 

And so this banana bread wasn't something I rushed through, caring only of the beautiful end product. It became something to do with my hands. The whir of the mixer acted like a meditative drone and the precise measuring gave me something to focus on. It gave me something to do and helped me take a break from thinking about the sweet little dog I had just lost. 



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