Cooking helps me learn new things
On needing to do more to grow my heart and world bigger
Last Sunday, I took my second linocut workshop with Dempsey, a Phoenix-based artist whose intricate prints I've long admired and always picked up at Phoenix Zine Fest. I'm a beginner, and it's slow going, as it should be, even though my brain will tell me that I should be instantly good at whatever I try. This new exploration of carving designs into a lino block is for a project I'm working on and also an excuse, a reason, a reminder to not retire from curiosity.
Whenever I am actively learning a new skill with my hands, cooking is with me. Everything I've learned in the kitchen helps me imagine the breadth and depth of what I need to learn in something new, like printmaking. The finished print is a complete dish, and the steps to get there are the recipe. I know how much prep work there is to make a vegetable soup and how much more work there is to make a lasagna. Is the design I'm working on simple or complex? And, of course, even in the simplest ideas and dishes, there are necessary techniques. Do I want to chop or dice the carrots? Do I want to carve a thin or thick line? Years spent cooking have made good friends of my hands and me. The block of lino feels strange, but I know how to play with different amounts of pressure. How a heavy or light stroke can drastically change outcomes.
During the workshop, Dempsey reminded me to keep breathing. I was carving a line and holding my breath. My held breath is a living metaphor for the white-knuckled grasp I sometimes have on life that I'm trying to release. Cooking, like living, also continually reminds me that something I may know well can become difficult or change and make me feel like a beginner again. If I'm exhausted or distracted, cooking can feel impossible, just like staying hopeful in the face of continued violence and injustice near and far.
I've long identified as a striver. Struggling toward knowledge and meaning, or just something that feels genuine and different, is part of me. Struggling because I'm not good at it, and it is difficult, but it's also worth every effort. Striving (and strivers) can be trivialized by some because the powers that be don't want people striving for truth, justice, or liberation. The powers that be want people to feel like they have done enough. Injustice thrives when we assume someone else will address it.
Yesterday, I read Anne Boyer's letter of resignation from her position as poetry editor at The New York Times Magazine, which I invite you to read too. This line stood out to me, linking to my writing: "The world, the future, our hearts—everything grows smaller and harder from this war." I want the opposite: That the world, the future, and my heart will grow larger and softer. Continuing to put myself in the position of beginner, to feel the embarrassment, ineptitude, and curiosity, is part of how I'm working toward that desire.
Art can be a space of agitation and resistance. And art can be used by the powerful to silence or oppress. At times, artists can align with the oppressors, not the oppressed. Making art isn't an act that cleanses one from choosing what or who to support.
Learning something new with my hands is a powerful reminder of my simpleness. I don't know everything, nor will I ever — and supreme knowledge or being a "better" version of myself isn't even my goal. I just don't want to become someone who consciously or subconsciously decides that they've done enough, learned enough, and deserve to waste away in Margaritaville. This is where I turn to learning, having hard conversations, and asking for help to understand my gaps in knowledge. This personal practice of mine is not contained within myself; it's connected to social justice and liberation. Because we (the biggest we) haven't done enough, collectively, until everyone is free, everyone is safe, and everyone has secure food, water, and shelter.
This way of thinking can be heard as discouraging. It certainly sounds like a lot of effort, and yes, I can become overwhelmed thinking about the magnitude of the project of liberation. But the more people involved, the more tasks, the more roles, the more ways to work together. Whenever feelings of futility appear, I remember that it's a trap of the oppressor to think striving or activism looks one way because that's an easy way to shut down action. Striving is hope. I've written before about hope as action, not optimism. Whenever I write about this, I also think of bell hooks, who told us love is action and, "If we were constantly remembering that love is as love does, we would not use the word in a manner that devalues and degrades its meaning."
Yesterday, I fried up some tomatoes and sprinkled them with salt, pepper, and cumin. Even lackluster tomatoes become rich in flavor and luxurious in texture when cooked like this. I ate the tomatoes with a runny egg and a piece of toast. Working with my hands in the kitchen (or carving a lino block), calibrating pressure, and remembering to breathe keeps me on the earth we share. The blend of intuition and technique in the kitchen and in love is there for us to use for good. Remember that simple materials (aren't humans simple materials?) can do great things. I've amassed enough skills to get through the day, but I must resist that escape hatch of “I’ve done enough” if I want to be a tool for justice and liberation within myself, my community, and beyond.
Reading - I’ve been reading less the last week, but my next reads are The Great Shame: And the Triumph of the Irish in the English-Speaking World by Thomas Keneally and The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois. Also, I’m flipping through the Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook by Alice Waters.
Writing - Notes, lists, ideas that will become pitches.
Cooking - Tomatoes, toast, eggs. Oatmeal. And repeat – my house is still mostly full of boxes and I’m barely cooking!