It couldn't happen here

Rebecca

                 You told me
                                         how you had been
                                                                in a similar situation.

      I took that piece of information away with me
                        and considered
                                             the who, when, where...

I feel strange watching those two actors lying in bed together
                                                                                         naked
           I don't believe they have ever kissed,
He is so much older,
        She is young and a word like naive,
                                                    yet not naive,
                                               figuring things out as fast as she can.

     I wonder if she loves him.

I remember that middle of the night when I couldn't sleep so I turned to my side
and switched on the lamp to pick up my worn old second favourite copy of Rebecca
to read from where I had last left off.
                 I managed a few silent pages before you became aware of the light and
                                    put your arm around me under the dark patterned quilt.
Everything felt dark, soft and peaceful in that room,
                                                     the little bedside lamp the only point of focus.

I've turned to Rebecca in times of need,
                                           it is one of the only books I have re-read.
         I wonder if it is slipping away from me though,
                                                              as I grow older.
I don't feel the same as I did then.
              I have changed in some infinitesimal way...

American Gothic

Porridge on the go

How to cook porridge.

I never liked eating breakfast when I was a child.

It was something I was meant to do between waking up and going to school and as I didn't like either of those things, I saw breakfast as a reason to stay in bed and carry on dreaming.

                                            I dreaded

                                                                  those

                                                                        mornings

                                                                                        of scratchy vegemite on toast.

*

However,

         I remember occasions of my Mother making me a bowl of porridge with a little drizzle of honey.

I can't remember now if it was quick oats or rolled oats;

                                 I wouldn't have known the difference at the time.

           I think it would have been made with water,

                                                      possibly on the stove,

                                                                                     but probably in the microwave. 

When I was young, I found it confusing to see ingredients go into the microwave and come out as something else.

*

I have few recollections of eating porridge during my later childhood and early teens.

*

But when I was 18, after a brief romance with scrambled eggs, I started making porridge of a morning.

Every morning.

I practised with different ingredients and techniques.

I had to practise before it could become a ritual.

*

For years I made my porridge with rice milk and dates.

                                                                                        Or some variation on the theme.                                                                                                     Quick oats on the stove.

I eventually shifted to rolled oats with cow's milk. Or half water/half milk. Some mornings I would add as many ingredients as I could; dried paw paw, shredded coconut, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, linseeds, honey...

                     It made me feel like I was travelling somewhere exotic each morning

                                                                                                               

                                                                                        Even when I hardly left the house.

*

I curtailed my porridge routine after I went travelling and stayed with friends who partook in a more traditional porridge experience. I would get out of bed and find my friend slowly stirring the porridge in a big red cast iron pot while my other friend brewed three cups of sweet black tea. Together we built a ritual of sitting at the table over late Summer mornings quietly eating our bowls of porridge dusted with cinnamon and drizzled with honey.

*

When I came back home with a large jar of leatherwood honey I stuck with the half water/half milk slowly stirring method for some time.

There was a period where I tried stirring with my left hand instead of my right

                                                                                                   to see how that would feel.  

*

I'm still in a bit of a 'traditional' porridge routine. I like the cinnamon, the honey....

I'm such a natural,

                       some mornings

                                             I get up,

   just tip some oats in a pot

                                                          and cover it with water.

I've been thinking of measuring lately.

*

There are days where I don't stir the pot enough or I leave the room and it overboils,

But porridge is a ritual to me.

I have practised and experimented.

*

I continue to learn

how to cook porridge.

*

Jerry's favourite colour

There's been a number of nights over the last few months where I've discovered Jerry sleeping alone on my housemate's bed. She says he likes her candle collection and Scandinavian inspired style. I instantly feel some sort of jealousy and insist that no, he likes my dark wooden furniture and vast selection of literature. As I collect him up to come and sleep at the end of my bed, I wonder if cats have aesthetic preferences. I think about the settings that I might photograph Jerry, building up my own visual world for him. But what does he like?

Cat mint

Same Old Scene