I'm Having A Hard Time

This morning I went out into the garden to get two plants into the ground, and ended up spending two hours pulling weeds, trimming brassicas, and raking leaves. This is how a lot of the small, mundane tasks in my life feel these days — so small I forget about them until they are monolithic undertakings that require immediate attention, lest they outgrow their pots and die before my eyes. 

This is mostly because it’s June, and my husband and I have just re-opened our seasonal sandwich shop back up to the public. They’re allowed to come inside with their whole faces and all of their questions. It feels equal parts overwhelming and relieving. We feel okay, we feel safe, we feel like if anyone misbehaves we’ll shove a shelf in the door and take away their inside privileges in a heartbeat. 

June is always a careful balancing act — restaurants re-open, friends come back to town, people start inviting you to things — in some ways, Cape Cod is better prepared for the sensation of societal re-entry than most places because we do it every year. 2021 has been no exception. This week alone, I have my first art show opening at Spiritus, and three friends coming to visit. Three of the most important people in the whole world to me, two of whom I haven’t gotten to hug for over a year. Last week, we got to return to the OC — an occasion upon which we wept. It’s the time of the year when you start apologizing for not texting back sooner, for sleeping through the show you promised you’d go to, for being out of juice. This being the eighth year we’ve done it, most of the people in our lives are used to how we turn into non-verbal zombies for a few months every year. 

There was, however, no way that this year wouldn’t feel a little different. As often happens when I’m spread very thinly physically and emotionally, I’m having very high highs and very low lows. It’s been such a salve to hug my friends that I’ve even been hugging people I never normally would. Eating at a restaurant with my friends, sitting at a bar my friend is working behind, walking from my house to my shop with the sun on my whole face, without worrying that I’m putting myself or someone else at risk; these highs have been high. And on the flip-side I am riddled with anxiety about surging variants, boosters, inequitable vaccine availability, staffing shortages, supply chain issues, the fact that Matt Gaetz still holds an office in the US government, the Biden administration’s refusal to close the immigration camps along the southern border, brutality and apartheid in Palestine — worry not, just as there will always be soup, there will always be despair. These worries that are always with me are not new, but because I’m starting from a point well below Emotional Sea Level, they’re making it much harder to feel buoyancy.

“Are you okay? You seem to be pretty mad and sad about a lot of things,” my husband said to me the other day, while we were sunning ourselves at a momentarily deserted pond, after I’d complained erroneously that we never get to do anything fun together anymore in a moment of low blood sugar and exasperation. 

“I’m having a hard time,” I said. It’s a phrase I’ve often needed to express without being able to, since I was old enough to make soup or understand despair. We talked through my fear of the burnout on the horizon, through my work anxieties, my social nervousness. In the end, he recommended that I focus on protecting some of my quiet time, having come to appreciate and rely on it over the last year in a new way. It was good advice, and it led me into the garden this morning.

The two plants I had to get into the ground were cannabis bushes (bushes?) from my father-in-law. It required that I clear out some bolted, overwintered greens, and remove the weirdly autumnal pile of dead leaves from a big storm two weeks ago. As I harvested collard greens and kale, and planted cannabis in my garden like that is a totally normal thing to do, I thought constantly about the immense privilege inherent in doing both of those things for leisure and without fear of consequence, respectively. Especially considering the number of (disproportionately Black) people still incarcerated in this country on cannabis charges for doing far less. I thought about Juneteenth coming up this weekend, and about how it felt last year (please read this incredible rumination on the celebration of Juneteenth by Brittney Cooper). I thought about how lucky I am to live in a place that I love, and about how lucky I am to have the amount of love in my life that I do.

If you, like me, still feel weird as hell, I hope you have a garden to go into — be it literal or figurative. I hope you have some kale leaves to snip, a friend to hug, a beer to drink in your favorite bar. I have no idea what comes next, but I’m grateful to be here with you.

Listen to This Shit: I Made You A Playlist”Whiplash” on Apple Music”Whiplash” on Spotify

Just because it’s too hot to cook very much these days doesn’t mean you can’t eat your lucky garden kale. Tear it into pieces, cube up some stale bread and give it a quick toast in a pan. Then, cover the whole lot in homemade Caesar dressing, and never go back to the bottled stuff.

Caesar Dressing

4 anchovies¼ cup red wine vinegar2 ½ Tbsp. dijon mustard2 garlic cloves1 large egg1 cup olive oil⅓ cup Grana Padano or Parmesan, finely gratedsalt + pepper to taste

1. Add anchovies, vinegar, dijon and garlic to your food processor and blitz until completely smooth.

2. Add egg and pulse until just combined.

3. With the food processor running, add olive oil in a slow stream until incorporated and emulsified.

4. Transfer to mixing bowl and stir in Grana, salt and pepper to taste.

(Makes 1 pint of dressing.)

You’re reading “Soup and Despair,” a 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!