The Generosity of a Weird Little Pasta

Something that you all probably already know about me, but I’m going to say it again just in case, is that when shit gets really dark, like life-and-death-pit-of-despair dark, I am basically incapable of not making a joke about it. Humor has always been the most reliable blowoff valve for fear and anxiety for me, since I was old enough to name those things. It’s in that spirit that this newsletter comes to you, and I’d just like to say before you read the rest of it that everything is going to be mostly fine. 

Now then. Almost four weeks ago, one of my best friends tried to cut a tree down with his head. 

He, of course, would say that’s not exactly how it went, but it does feel like the easiest way to describe his encounter with a downed locust tree that split and reared back at him as he was trying to cut through it. I will never forget the casual, apologetic text message Daniil sent us that night – “Hey friends, I’m going to be fine and I don’t want you to worry, but I had a little tree-cutting accident and am in the hospital. Will probably be here for a few days, but please don’t worry.”

We all have a friend like this – fiercely independent, insanely motivated, always up for an adventure, wickedly stubborn, extremely cute, a little stupid. He was, of course, full of morphine with a fractured skull, two fractured vertebrae, several broken ear bones, still bleeding, and very much not okay. We spent that week going back and forth to Hyannis to sit with him, talk with doctors and nurses, and make urgent deliveries of non-hospital food and regular clothes. This person is fiercely loved and had so many visitors that the nurses could barely keep track of all of us. He is extremely charming and usually very pleasant, so they all fell in love with him too – checking in extra often, expediting his tests, keeping him in the nice, sunny corner room even when a certain, elderly, Cape Cod VIP demanded he be relocated so she could occupy it. I spent the week telling the story roughly 7,000 times, trying to keep all his dear ones in the loop, organizing meal drop-offs, and dropping very abruptly into Handle It Mode. 

When Sean and I finally got to bring him home a week later, it was such a relief to have him closer, in his own bed, out of imminent danger. But it was also scary – we slept fine knowing his nurses were lovingly checking on him every few hours, but now he was by himself in his cabin in the woods. I moved all the food he would need to the top shelf of the fridge, scheduled meal drop-offs with friends, and tried to move any possible tripping hazards out of the way. I basically demanded to stay on the couch the first night he was home, afraid he’d get up in the middle of the night and trip, or be in pain and not be able to get help, or bend too far trying to stoke the wood stove. He shut me down, of course, because he was actually okay in his own space, and I was being overbearing. In the nearly seven years we have known each other, we have been every shade of friend you can imagine to each other (even occasionally enemies for a few hours at a time), and as with all family members, you sometimes know when to let them have their way, even if it’s scary. 

A few days later, he asked me if I’d drive him out to the woods where the accident had happened. It had been an insane two weeks for all of us, and it was nice to take a quiet ride into the woods with him. On each curve of the road, I fought back those horrible “what if” thoughts that creep into your head at the sight of the blind driveway to the right, the open ravine on the left, the utility poles just so close to the road. We parked at the entrance to the wood path and fought our way through briars, and naked branches, stepping carefully around the huge mud pit that’s been created by trucks coming in and out. 

It was an extremely calm day with almost no wind. The only sounds in the woods were us crunching branches under our boots. The air felt improbably heavy. It was like we were under a blanket.

He doesn’t remember anything in between the moment the tree trunk split and the moment he laid down on his car horn in the parking lot of the nearby package store, trying to get help. He doesn’t know if he was knocked out for a while. He doesn’t remember getting into his very heavy truck, laden with firewood. He doesn’t remember driving down the extremely twisty back road to the highway. Doesn’t remember turning left twice on and off Route 6 to get to the package store. Doesn’t remember the woman who works there coming out to see who was honking their horn and calling 911. He does remember the cops, the paramedics, the ambulance ride. 

Standing in the clearing next to the tree that almost killed him, he turned in circles while we tried to figure out what the fuck happened. And then, of course, I started to cry. I wasn’t weeping, exactly, not really sobbing either, more like barking and snorting, two entire weeks of asshole-clenching worry suddenly pouring out of my eyes. Daniil, very graciously, hugged me and let me get it out. I was so mad at him for being out here by himself with power tools. I was so proud of him for saving his own fucking life, somehow. I was so in love with his adrenal glands for pushing him through, and so heartbroken about how much pain he’s had to be in. This person’s importance to me is no mystery, but I hadn’t really let myself think about just how close we all were to actually losing him, an utterly unfathomable possibility. 

“Okay, I think I’m done here,” he said while I wiped my nose on my jacket like a baby. We got back in the truck and I drove us home. We were both quiet and feeling a little wrung out. 

Back at his house, he opened the fridge, “You want a beer?”

“Yes, please,” I really, really did.

“I only have sausages and noodles, but you’re hungry,” he said. 

“No, bro, I’m supposed to be making you food right now.”

“Please, Bec,” he said, in the shut-up-and-let-me way, “Just chill.”

This person has cooked me some of the best food I’ve ever eaten in my life, but it felt kind of unnatural to let him do it for me now. He pulled duck and Armagnac sausages out of the fridge and fried them in a pan. He pulled Chinese noodles out of the freezer and boiled them in a little saucepan. He sliced up the sausages, added them back to the pan with the cooked noodles, and poured a little soy sauce and a little sesame oil into the pan. He shook it around, flicking it up and down to give it a good mix, put it in a bowl and slid it in front of me with a jar of sambal. It was salty, and spicy, and funky, and such a weird little pasta. It was perfectly timed because I was so hungry, and so tired from the weeks prior. It was fortifying, and generous, and so extremely gratifying to see him just act kind of normal in his own kitchen. 

I’ve written a lot about special moments over bowls of food in that kitchen, and this felt like an extremely tender, extremely kind way for someone to tend to someone they care about. I hereby demand that we all remember how powerful and generous a weird little pasta can be. 

I love you, Daniil, and I’m glad your skull is so fuckin’ hard.

You can donate to Daniil’s Recovery Fund here! Thank you, we love you!

Oh, and yes, I did make you a playlist.

“Cabbage” on Apple Music

You’re reading “Soup and Despair,” a (sometimes) weekly newsletter by Sarah Flynn and Rebecca Orchant. It’s about food, feelings, and surviving the dark times. If someone forwarded you this email, it’s because they love you and they want you to eat. You can subscribe to it too!