I struggled with a self-imposed question this week – is life risotto, or a pot of water?

I’m stretching, a crazy diversion from the usual posts.

Risotto makes a strong case, with those tough, hard grains, being slowly massaged into a creamy, indulgent, luxurious gift of sustenance. Created with the barest of ingredients, water and rice (essentially). It isn’t what the dish is made of, but how it’s approached. How the person wielding the wooden spoon chooses to tend to the process; choosing between tender, constant attention, or leaving it to dry out, burn to the bottom, and then dump in an excess of liquid in the hopes of reconstituting it.

Get it? The ‘life is like risotto’ thing?

Fine. I don’t have any arsty angle shots of me stirring a spoon anyway.

In fact, I barely have any photos for this time around. For the first time, in a long time, I am busy. I’m not ‘keeping busy’, nor puttering around trying to make it look as if I am. I am, in fact, working. Working towards a goal(s), working towards something out of reach, requiring the use of muscles I haven’t flexed in almost a year. That’s why, ultimately, I decided on a pot of water.

Life is akin to a pot of water, with the old adage of “a watched pot never boils” blaring its way across the speakers of a sound system I didn’t realize I had playing in the background. I must have tripped over the volume dial.

Life does not often do what we want, when we want it. Life doesn’t rush forward when, high on adrenaline and ego, the gas is pressed to the floor. Life doesn’t roll to a stop when the break is slammed in a fit of anxiety. Life has its own ebb and flow, outside of our limited range of control. It will spike from a simmer, to a boil, the moment it’s left uninterrupted, to behave as it’s meant to.

Eat with the seasons, chef told me. Live with the seasons, I tell myself. Embrace that your existence stands within its own, unique, defining season at this moment. It may be winter, you may hate the cold, but you can only learn to thaw, to bloom, by losing leaves, and hibernating. Warm yourself with thoughts of life giving rain, showering you clean with the Spring’s intrinsic sense of hope.  The heat of deep summer, invading your pores, pushing its way into your core, filling you with fertile imagination. Heatwaves of opportunity and creativity, reaching towards a soul ripe with ingenuity.

Breathe in the calmness that comes from accepting you don’t have to do it all; push forward with wants, desires, goals, and dreams, but let them happen as they happen. Rest during seasons of inward, grow during seasons of outward. Keep the mind going, always.

On the precipice of summer, heat prickling the base of the neck, diving forward. I will neglect the urge to cool down. This is the season, this is the life.