Experiments

“If you want to work on your art, work on your life.” Chekhov

By: Gabriela Yareliz

It has been burnout season for months for me thanks to a brutal and understaffed work environment (a tale for a different time!). I think that when we reach that point, we just sort of go through life in a bit of a zombie state. We take the convenient or easier routes on some things. With the demands of everyday life, something has got to give. We have grueling commutes and late evening arrival times. Sometimes, after the whole adventure, my battery is at 5%. My shortcut has been with food.

The other week, I made a deconstructed shepherds pie that was very ghetto. It did taste good, but the deconstruction vibe was unintentional and not the recipe— it was me. I eyed it while scarfing it down at my desk wishing it was prettier. I decided to ignore it, and keep editing a contract on the fly (item #278 of the day, most likely). I felt disappointed. My time away from kitchen creations felt justified. I carried that heavy glass container with this thing on a train for two hours? Ughhhh.

You know how people nowadays get offended by what is aspirational? I don’t. I like aspirational. I understand it for what it is, and lately, I feel it inspiring me to get back to trying new things.

People in my aspirational bucket are people like Gwyneth Paltrow (the inimitable GP), Georgia May and Nara Smith. They inspire me. I can’t spend hours baking bread from scratch, but I can take some of the ideas and Sandra Lee them (ha). (For the record, Sandra Lee is not in my aspirational category; she is more practical (and sometimes alarming)).

I think along with adjusting my sleep schedule (which needs help); my workout schedule (which is intact but needs to be moved to a higher energy hour)— I need to get inspired in the kitchen again. My husband cooks very well (and makes things pretty). He has been keeping us alive and thriving because lately, I have been a lazy little dweeb in the kitchen making nothing (or when I do make something, making ghetto deconstructed shepherds pies). Enter GP— I want to do the whole GP thing.

I think that, sometimes, because life gets so disjointed, schedules disjointed, energy disjointed, commutes violent, we feel that if it can’t look a certain way, we would rather not do it at all. Ahhh the perfectionism that kills. I have felt subpar in this area. Never quite sure of myself. Sometimes, it turns out really well, and other times, it’s ok. It feels worse now when it’s not what was envisioned because now it feels like a wife metric. (And this is self-imposed. No one is complaining because he is too nice). Maybe that is the piece that has had me a bit down on my kitchen self. I wonder if it is good enough. This is the mental gymnastics we do to ourselves.

So, while I won’t be wearing evening gowns and making my own sandwich bread like Nara, I am inspired by her care for her family and the energy she puts into. Georgia May makes me want to master an air fryer. And GP, is well, GP. And having creativity here matters to me because it matters more than any contract I am drafting. It’s about nurture. (And I will self-confess, I am terrible at nurturing myself).

Back to GP— while we associate her with a lot of well done things, her magic is she just tries things. She sometimes burns the meal— whatever. But she gives it her best shot. I love that.

I went through a bunch of recipe videos and books. I scribbled down ideas that I know I will forget unless I write them down. They are recorded. I am gonna make each one I wrote down. New (personal) project activated.

Sometimes, creativity gets blocked. We enter a slump. I am in this creative process and working on some projects. One thing I read in our assignment list is we can’t read for a period of time. If you know me, that is pretty wild. One of the pieces of reasoning behind the idea is we often would rather be addicted to consuming something rather than processing our own ideas and emotions. I found this fascinating. I think we do this with a lot in life. We are ok watching others do things, we read the news, posts, courses, and we remain blocked. Lately, for me, it has been with regard to cooking. Truly. What has it been for you?

Anyway, I will be running my experiments again. Pray for us. Find your block. Sit in boredom. Burn the meal. If GP is fine with her crispy birds, who am I to disagree or judge?

It’s time to feed the people under this roof with more consistency. Deconstructed is better than nothing. Sometimes, we just have to keep saying that until we believe it. (Perfectionism, be gone!)