Paradise

All is simple. All is complex.

Simply put, the convoluted circumstances of 2020 threw me into an unexpected paradise. Fortune and chance gave me an ample home in which to joyfully escape the uncertain beginnings of the covid-19 era. Every single day I was free to grind my own coffee seeds, smell them in my grinder or in my mortar, smell the brew while dripping, make fine adjustments, go through a similar procedure, and judge every step anew. One or six different blends daily at my disposal, spices, oils, and herbs. I was living in paradise, while thousands around me were scared, suffering, dying.

After a couple of months happily writing about being imprisoned in paradise, it dawned on me that paradise requires work.

Born of Italian poverty, Risotto is a simple dish but it demands patience, while being bound to the stove for an hour. Experiments with the maceration of green walnuts, or with ingredients that I remember from my childhood, while listening to one or two opera performances each day. All these inspire, and any twenty-four hours could become half a day, for inspiration brings about ideas which bring about work — never passiveness.

This simple cob with kernels may be kept simple, or become work. Either way, we have paradise.