Wednesday, April 1, 2015

beans (again)



From here until the end of May, I want to spend most of my time outside, and also drink a lot of beer.
I've been spending too much time in front of screens lately.

This is a strange time, like everything is simultaneously in hyperdrive but also limbo. With springtime, everything feels fresh and small and new. Especially when I look out my tiny bathroom window and notice all the still-unfurling leaves.

I keep thinking that I'm excited about everything, though every now and then, as I hear that someone else is moving, or figured something out-- I don't know--there's a lot going on.

Per the usual, I've been too busy to really cook anything. I read on the blog Orangette, her nice piece about doctoring up cans of beans with a little butter and spices. I've been doing this all week with cans of black beans. I add them straight to the pot with a sliver of butter, pinches of cumin and some chopped parsley-- then puree them until they're creamy and thick. I eat them plain and standing over the stove, sometimes with crumbles of feta cheese.


This last year hasn't gone the way I thought it would. Not that I had a clear idea about "how it would be," but all the same, it hasn't been the way I thought it would. And I guess I've been so in the present, that I haven't given much thought at all to what happens after May. When I think about "after May," I think about places. Visiting friends in New York and trying the city on for size again, or somehow going to Tel Aviv, where I'd  sit on the beach, with hands full of olives. I do not know if these are possible things, but they are still good to think about.

Right now, there are still six weeks until I graduate.
Even though I have difficulty listening to Father John Misty, there's a line off his new record, where he sings about the end of a relationship: "at least we'll both go on livinggggg!" Which is funny and sad and real and true/untrue. Which is the thing I keep reminding myself about the end of college-- I'll go on "livingggggg."

I will be so relieved, I think. To be done.

From here until the end of May, I'm going to spend most of my time outside, and also drink a lot of beer. And I'm going to think about the possibilities.