Empty. Full. Overflowing. The images these words convey are versatile and shifting.
My kids head out the door to school and a prayer for the road calls on the love of God to so fill them that it spills out of their backpacks and touches everyone around them. The overflow of abundance, leading to generosity.
Or the residue of family life dotted around the living room—the shoes and books that don’t get put away no matter how insistent the requests, dishes and artwork piling up on kitchen counters. Overflow like a Tetris game, blocks falling too quickly to line up in place, growing backlog, a sense that you’re only very tenuously avoiding game over.
More than physical buildup, this overflow can be a sense of every moment spoken for in advance. No margin makes it hard to see every commitment through, let alone absorb any unaccounted for demands on time.
I am prone to this kind of overflow, too much fullness entirely of my own making. It’s like life is a grocery store and I cruise down the aisles tossing everything in the cart. All good things, but no way it will all fit in the fridge.
I tried, this past Thanksgiving, to fight back. I would keep the cooking simple, avoid the typical marathon kitchen gauntlet that creates of a holiday a work that crowds out rest and joy. When it came to the big meal, I mostly succeed.
Time freed up, did I put my feet up and savor the sweet music of children at play?
Of course not. Habits die hard. Clearing a schedule isn’t enough, you have to fill it with what you desire instead.
What did I do with this extra time? I baked. My regular ‘ya basic’ sourdough, of course. A special ‘winter’ sourdough with sage, pecans and cranberry I knew my husband would like. And pumpkin bread. Six loaves in two days. When people keep buying and eating whatever comes out of my oven, auto-response is bake more.
Before the holiday, I packed and handed off all these loaves. Then I thought: why not make more? What if someone has a last minute carb emergency? Wouldn’t having a few extras waiting around just be prudent? Two more loaves of ya basic into proofing baskets and in the fridge, the day before Thanksgiving. Just in case. If no one needs the bread, they’ll stay on pause in the fridge for a couple days.
No carb emergencies darkened my Thanksgiving door.
Friday was full with other cooking projects with friends.
Saturday we got our tree.
Sunday was downtime with the family. (At least the pattern of Sabbath is slowly reworking the default one day a week.)
Life overflowing with good plans, bread forgotten.
Monday I finally reunited with the faithful proofing baskets, holding out hope in the fridge. With upcoming travel, it was now or never for this dough to become bread.
The usual start: I pre-heat the oven, add ice and water for steam, turn the dough unto parchment paper. These loaves are huge, long domed things, proofed within an inch of their lives. But the size is an illusion. Puncture the skin holding in all the gas and they’d deflate on contact, all that proofing having eroded the structure that keeps intact the internal gas bubbles, source of rise and fluff.
Sure enough, in the oven these great oblong domes fell into flat, wrinkled ovals, nothing I would be pleased to share, let alone, sell.
A baker’s embarrassment makes for an excellent cautionary tale. This is what overflow looks like, the kind that comes from trying too hard, keeping too much, refusing to let things be empty. Momentarily promising, but not strong enough to hold up to heat.
A baker’s embarrassment makes for an excellent cautionary tale.
Yet even this mistake didn’t taste horrible. My kids happily ate an entire loaf of sandwiches in the two days I was away. Even in our mistakes there is the possibility of goodness. An overflow of a whole other kind—nothing we hustle to produce, but grace working its way through the cracks of our lives and finding a path to make all things new.
