You’ve placed everything you need onto the granite countertop. Pearly onion, waiting to be peeled back. White cheddar. A carton of Horizon Eggs.
But first you cleared the evidence of last night’s midnight snack; the girls had each left a Winnie the Pooh cup, a white silver-ringed plate, and banana muffin crumbs.
When will they learn, you glanced the question to me.
I shrugged and smiled, Kids. They last a long time. And somehow they need to be told again and again, “I may look like a princess, but I’m not your Cinderella.”
After you wiped the last crumbs from the counter, you placed your onion, cheese, and eggs. Your omelette-ingredient empire now sits in a siege-like arc around the wooden cutting board.
“Where’s the big knife?” you ask.
I feign a little fear. “You need a big knife?”
“I do, ” you smile your Jennifer Dukes Lee smile, and we start laughing. We are both remembering last year’s episode of Desperate Houseknives.
I reach into the sink and draw the Henckels out. “You mean this big knife?” I hold it straight up like a sword.
You laugh and disarm me with a gentle hand and a swift sponge, sudsing the blade down and rinsing it to make it ready for onion chopping. I go back to sitting on my stool and lean my elbows on the counter.
“It’s like this, ” I say.
“Like what?”
“Some writers are like this, like you. Maybe we all are, in our way.”
“Is that a bad thing? To be like me?” You place the knife on the counter and lean your back to the sink.
“Nah.” I smooth the coppery skin of the onion with my index finger. “It’s good to know how you work best. It’s good to know what makes for a strong beginning. You know what makes yours.”
“I do?”
“You do.” I twirl the onion lightly by its papery top. “First you cleaned the girls’ dishes. Then you wiped down the counter. You placed your ingredients in a semi-circle. Got out your board and put it in the center. Then you looked for your favorite knife.”
“Not any knife will do when I’m making you an omelette.”
“Oh, I know that’s how you feel. Not every chef would feel it.”
“I feel it.”
“Well, I know. And you honor it. You did not begin until you found your proper tool.”
“What if I hadn’t found it?”
“I might be out an omelette.”
“I would make you an omelette anyway.”
“I know that, ” I say, “because it doesn’t do to be fussy for too long if we can’t get our way as a writer, or a cook. Still, it is worth the effort, if we think we can secure what we need. Like I did this morning.”
“You made an effort this morning? You mean, beyond scoring with your blueberry?”
“I did! I woke and knew I couldn’t write today. I could feel it in my brain. Muddled. Scattered. Just not there. So I procrastinated, because I knew it wasn’t going to work out for me.”
“You? The mother of all writing proliferation? You procrastinated?”
“I did. I checked my email, which is a real no-no if I want to have a good writing morning. Then I went to our virtual office. Then I looked on Facebook and noticed Jim Wood had commented on my status update. Not the Plateau Effect update. But that would have been apt. I woke on a plateau.”
“So you procrastinated on the plateau?”
“Yes.”
“And then you made an effort. At what? Watching the sunrise from the plateau?”
“I decided to do what you just did. Take ritual action.”
“You are calling my omelette-making a ritual action? Is this a lost section of the Knight’s Code?”
“I am calling your preparation for omelette-making a ritual action for omelette-making.”
“So let me get this straight. You took ritual action to get off your writing plateau. It involved clearing, semi-circles, and knives?”
“Well, sort of. I made myself go for a walk, even though it was too sticky-hot this morning. I cleared the dining room table. I left my laptop in the kitchen. And I wrote with paper and pen.”
“And that’s how you got us off the blueberry plateau and wrote us into the kitchen for an omelette?”
“Exactly.”
“Cool. You are pretty impressive that way. I think I should go read Neruda then. And you can just write the omelette.”
You are smiling and looking me straight in the eye. I give the onion a final twirl and stick out my tongue. You got me.
Photo by Claire Haidar. Used with permission. Story by L.L. Barkat, author of The Novelist: A Novella.
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Elizabeth W. Marshall says
I love the unfolding of this. That is obvious,no? But the dialogue is what delivers the tenderest punch for me. It is at once light, deep, irreverent and free. I can’t quite figure out why it draws me to itself, but there is an unmistakeable “everyman” quality. Is it the honesty, is it that so much of life happens around the kitchen table, is it the intimate nature of a close friend and the sharing. Not sure, but sure of this. I find it perfect. And that is my unsolicited two cents worth 🙂
L. L. Barkat says
Your two cents are always solicited! I love hearing from you.
That’s really interesting about the dialog. Yes, this particular book compels the focus on dialog.
I hadn’t thought of it quite like that, but it is a terrific writing exercise to do this. I think writers can take on these limitations purposefully, to try to work their skills.
The limitation here is ‘setting.’ Which I played with in ‘The Novelist’ too. But that limitation produced a different kind of skill-push (creating a “dialog” of backstory with present action). Okay, that was dialog too, in its way. But not speech dialog. Cool. 🙂
Elizabeth W. Marshall says
Have I said this before, excuse me if I repeat myself, but I am prone to, have i said this before :)….This feels like a screenplay. That said, it feels like a tightly scripted setting that has no need or desire to go anywhere else but the kitchen. What do I know? You do travel other places in the backstory but it is still dialog. Why do I spell it dialogue and spell check likes it like that? Anyway, there is comfort in the tight quarters, like how I feel in small homes, boats (the ones with kitchens) and camping (or glamping). This feels old sweater comfortable and non-threatening. I love it. Did I say that already 🙂
Megan Willome says
Two words–“blueberry plateau.”
L. L. Barkat says
oh? 🙂
Monica Sharman says
Not sure why, but this was my favorite part: “lean your back to the sink.” Maybe because, almost without noticing, I learn a little more about someone’s height? Or something. Can’t put my finger on it. 🙂
Will Willingham says
Action.
It’s always an action with you. 🙂
Donna says
🙂 “Take ritual action.” I love the intention here… the intentional use of ritual. Or should I say maybe the CONSCIOUS intentional use of ritual? Yes. That’s what I should say.
And when we notice a ritual is there for us, having been created by us, we can call on it intentionally. It still will help us, even though it isn’t wearing it’s ninja robe.
I don’t often think of ritual in this way, well, until now
Maureen Doallas says
Empire of Crumbs
I read Neruda like a midnight snack,
my tongue working the pearly onion
waiting to be peeled back. We are both
remembering how you glanced
granite, your coppery hand in the arc
of my strong back, desperate to disarm
what makes a ritual of fear. You feign
the question of need, go for the gentle
beginning, work morning into laughter.
Again and again we honor the evidence,
last night’s empire of crumbs lost
on a silver-ringed plate on the counter.
L. L. Barkat says
this is so lovely, Maureen. And I could offer many favorite phrases from it. But for tonight, it’s this…
“work morning into laughter”
Kathryn Neel says
I like the ebb and flow of the tension in this piece, it reminds me of Pushing Hands in Tai Chi where you are responding to your partner’s energy and matching it throughout the exercise.
The idea of everything being a ritual, writing and cooking for sure. I have to have the correct pen when I write and the correct knife when cooking … both anchors to the work to be done. Some how I got the idea of intentionally camping out on the plateau and that made me laugh. Even the plateau can be made to work. Dum De Dum Dum.
L. L. Barkat says
What a great image, of the Pushing Hands. Yes! It feels like that. I should read up on that a little more.
And when you make chocolate… what correct thing do you need then? 😉
I am not opposed to a plateau for a while. I like what you say, because even a plateau can be a space that has value. Camping. Love it.
karen papellero says
I loved the fact that even if it was set in the kitchen, it took me somewhere else in the end.
isn’t ritual a starting point for the new? 🙂
L. L. Barkat says
I like the paradox of that. Ritual (which is known, repeated) leading to the new (not yet known, still to be experienced).
🙂