Friday, May 10, 2024

a feast

There is a strange loneliness that descends at the end of a semester. There are all the goodbyes of the last day of class, commencement, putting various organizations into dormancy... and then, the solitary grading, and then the suddenly empty days. 

I hadn't realized I'd been missing people until the happiness of a full table at dinner tonight (CF is here for the weekend as are MIL+husband+puppy). 

I'm currently reading a book by a Persian-American (Daniel Nayeri's Everything Sad is Untrue) so I just threw a lot of Persian flavors into everything I made--preserved lemons and carrot pickle in with the chicken; Za'atar into the roast potatoes, handfuls of pistachio, rose petals, and cardamom into the cake mix!

My people were a feast for sore eyes! It was like a feast after famine! A love feast! A moveable feast!

Pic: The Red Cedar from the Eastward Walking Bridge with CF this afternoon. Sadly, this is not a picture of the amazing Aurora Borealis that played out across our skies while I was taking a nap with Huck and Max.

5 comments:

Nance said...

I missed a chance to even look for the Aurora last night. Too tired to stay up past 9:30. And tonight it will be far too cloudy.

Your meal sounds incredible and so satisfying in more ways than one. I'm glad you were so fulfilled by it, both the cooking and the eating.

PS--I'm about 200 pages into The Bee Sting, and I'm loving it. Thanks for the recommendation.

Gillian said...

Nice.

maya said...

Nance--I'm so happy to hear The Bee Sting is working out for you. It's always a bit fraught recommending a book :). My book club is reading it too, and I can't wait to talk about it.

Gillian--Thanks!

NGS said...

It's so funny because I work on a college campus, but my job really doesn't change much on the academic calendar. I knew last week was finals week, but it was just as insane in my office as ever! And pretty soon we'll be getting ready for freshpeople orientation and I guess campus is pretty quiet outside of my office, but you can't really prove it by me.

maya said...

Engie--What an interesting perspective! Things are always buzzing on campus, but students being gone changes the dynamic.

Olympia

My sister and I haven't shared a bedroom in thirty years.  On some level--I think--it makes us revert to feeling like kids. We hung out ...