mmmm

I have loved pie for many reasons in my life. And now I keep finding more--especially juxtaposed a long work week.

I like my job, but I am still learning where I fit there. I am still drawing boundaries and forming a workplace identity of sorts. I want to be reliable and helpful, but ours is an industry of constant crisis and need. It becomes difficult to know where the real crisis is and what is something that will be there tomorrow. I was asked to work this weekend. I said no. Why? Because I am tired with a deep tiredness that pulls on my bones stronger than gravity. And because I need time to do other things that make me feel human. In short, I need time away from the machine.

I needed time to make a pie.

I have on several occasions given all of my reasons for loving pie. I must at this point add a few more as my appreciation matures. Now, I love making pie because the butter I knead into the crust slips between my fingers and into all of the cracks, cuts, and callouses I have earned. (I used to have such beautiful hands.) I love that fitting a crust to a pie plate is just the right shaped to massage tired muscles in hands that have been stretching and wrestling, grasping and tightening. I love that I can take as long as I need to and no one yells 'hurry!' I love that I can have a glass of wine while I work.

My list of reasons to love pie keeps growing. But I think that an important reason that has been there all along, though often without words, is the shape. Pies are a circle. They have no points or rough edges. They have nothing hidden away in some secret corner. Just a circle, wrapped in crust. And I? I am... so unlike that. I forget to share myself. I take and I take. I do it to take care of myself. I do it so that no one else has to. I do it because I'm not sure anyone else wants to. Even when I take care of others...I often forget to give any bit of myself.

Pies don't think about that silly stuff. They are not brownies with the corners that often get burnt while the middle stays gooey. They aren't cookies all broken up into pieces you can fit in your hand or pocket (or stolen on the sly). They don't freak out if they leave the freezer (like ice cream). Nah. They just go from mixing bowl to oven to plate with all of their messy insides...still messy but ready to share at a moment's notice. Wish I could be like that. Guess I got things to look forward too.

Anyway, I like pie. I identify with it in that, it is effortlessly what I am trying (with much effort) to be.