Preso dall'angoscia del panino

Sunk into panini despair

I saw her again this afternoon and my heart sank, her colleague was preoccupied with her mobile phone, and she was left to take my order. How hard can it be to make a panini?

A simple toasted Italian sandwich with fillings inside and keeping that together enough to cut it in half and wrap it up. So, for the third time, I was placing a basic order.

Cajun chicken, chorizo, jalapenos, and cheese in a ciabatta, cut through, lengthwise. I had the lowest expectations considering this could have the professional quality in the preparation and presentation she had twice failed to achieve.

Her accent belied my reticence to comment on what she was doing, I just felt it would all be lost in translation, and I did not want to make her feel bad even if I half hated the almost rubbish of their stated menu I was presented with.

A dimmer on panini

Usually, the first part of putting in the fillings survives any apparent mishap, but by the time she gets it into the tray to put in the oven, a slow train crash happens before your eyes. The interregnum between placement in the oven and retrieval at the beeps is a time to draw a deep breath hoping that clumsy would not overcome practice.

Fat chance! At retrieval, this basic heated thing that should have been held together by melted cheese is already falling apart as she lifts it to place on wrapping paper, I am surprised she is not already picking some of the chicken and chorizo off the floor.

A second stage of reparative preparation begins and the whole wrapping ends up like the ciabatta was running away from its fillings but forced to coexist. Utterly unbelievable!

You better believe it when I get my order which is everything it says it is on the board but nothing it appears to be. I am totally exasperated but find a way to get the thing into my mouth without ending up with bits in my hair or on my back.

The trials of panini

That was my thinking at lunchtime, and clumsy did happen as she could not find the tongs to put the tray in the oven and never deigned to ask her colleague where they might be. A dishcloth stood in for the tongs for placement and for retrieval. I thought it was totally wrecked that seagulls would come from the coast just for the chicken in my panini going for free like Saint Francis of Assisi loved to feed the birds of the field.

I had no hopes for a reprieve, I was stuck with what I was given and a bag of crisps for comfort until I opened the wrapping and to my surprise, I had a panini all together like it should have been presented and made by any of her other colleagues. Whether that was a fluke, I cannot tell, but if the panini trials are over, the tribulation of clumsy looms for the next time I venture down there.

The title translates to ‘Caught up in the anguish of the sandwich’ and that’s just Italian for starters.

In the throes of maternal angst

Thinking motherhood

Mother is a word of many emotions, to which we all belong sometimes in terms and ways we cannot find to describe. Of all my siblings, it is obvious that we all have different views of mother almost like the Six men of Indostan.

Of love we have plenty and of experience we have many, in her duty it is impossible not to find praise and admiration, even gratitude will abound because she is devoted and unstinting, if that were the only perspective to consider, sainthood would beckon without asking.

Yet, the mother is human and imperfect, with passions and frailties that might shock or surprise. The memory of such is hurt and pain, leading a declension into resentment. Forgive, forgive, the heart cries, in pain, in pain, the soul weeps. For a child much can be done unawares, and to the child, the memory does not disappear.

Conflicted situations

Why am I plagued with a remembrance of abandonment, threat, and curse? For they leave marks indelible that the showers of love fail to wash away totally. Even somewhere in my spirit, I hear the divine ask to take care of it all, I guess I have not reached where I can cast it all upon him.

Much as I have questions, I probably do not need any answers, for there is no change to be expected of those who are determined they did no wrong. One has to be thankful that God is not like man for His longsuffering, mercifulness, lovingkindness, and faithfulness. How hard have I made my way to be more like God?

There are many ways in which I am blessed and even when mother is sent to Coventry, in spite of everything, a mother remains steadfastly praying, for the peace we all seek to live by.

Thought Picnic: Meditations at my altar to alter me

Addressing my doubts

I sometimes wonder what else I could be doing apart from what I already know to do to get beyond myself and begin to impact others. I can honestly say there is much more I can do than I have ever dared to do.

This is a constant refrain at the back of my mind, the times I feel the wealth of experience can be brought to bear in word, in deed or some other impactful way. I have waited for an opportunity where I should have seized it, my reticence getting the better of me for the fear of being too forward, too eager or too grasping.

What to do now

Yet, I am somewhat dissatisfied with many things and probably filled with angst about some things too. I feel like I need to break through some barriers of expression and engagement to do better than I have tried before.

There is a part of me that rues a time, a time when I think if I knew way back then what I know now, I could have been prepared better for the situation and the circumstances I am in now. I cannot, however, live in some parallel universe of wishing and hoping, I have a reality and a present that I have to breathe, experience the pains and the comforts whilst seeking a resolutory path to still make that difference I have always wanted to make.

A limitless horizon

Invariably, what I did not get to do then does not obviate the usefulness of starting now and going forward with it. It is a turbulence of thoughts, an unease of the mind, the turmoil of the soul and some foreboding that one must arrest before it develops into the incapacitation of fearfulness.

As the clouds hover to darken the day, I must know that the sun still shines beyond them and as the night brings on the dark, the same clouds out of the way reveals the vast beauty of the immeasurably distant universe of twinkling stars and galaxies that boggle the mind. I can daydream with the best; my imagination can wander past the impossible better than a hot knife cuts through butter.

It shall pass for the good to come

Hope keeps me alive with the possible, I comfort myself with the assurance of things always changing for the better, for that has been the journey and the milestones too numerous to count.

The circle is round and the cycle does turn, in penury, in providence and in provision, the inexhaustible blessing of sight beyond the seen, hearing beyond the heard, reaching beyond the grasp, imagining beyond the imaginable and excelling beyond the targets sets me up for new experiences.

The storm will exhaust itself; the calm will come and the peace that passes all understanding will settle upon my path to that which I never thought I could either attain or do.

Double life: Brief encounters of the uncomfortable kind

Angst meetings

There are lessons to be learnt from the collision of pseudonym and a reality that generally carries stigma that suggests the anonym is the best representation of self with the fleeting and the incidental.

People live secret lives and find places for the expression of such with sometimes dire consequences for others who are in many ways accepting of who they are.

Experiences of angst-ridden double-life episodes should make one the wiser of such encounters that the less said, the less harm is done and consequently the less trouble for all concerned.

Rein in

Why there is any need to rein in is a dilemma met by many in settings that are supposed to provide the freedom of expression, yet one learns that reining in risk and reining in honesty are the valid actions in self-preservation; that being the preservation of anonymity and sanity, if you rein in loquacity.

Sadly, where some refuse to take responsibility for the actions they as sane, sober adults in pursuit of a thrill or fantasy indulge in, deciding to have others shoulder such for them in a society where the blame culture is the first sanctuary of the irresponsible, the honest and true is bruised.

The ignorance is worse

Beyond angst, the worst encounters are those with the ignorant, despite the surfeit of knowledge and information of risk, precaution, protection and vulnerability, they have not taken the time to understand the basics, such that it becomes a crash course in passion-killing discourse, the cue taken to immediately abort the liaison.

No words except for what one will not deign, no truths except for when it is necessary, avoiding the tangling webs of deceit woven by the curious in search of the abominable to those with whom they partner in life, to wit the visitation of the magi of the law, that in fright anonym, pseudonym and orthonym collide, with all laid bare by the intimidation of that number.

Jots taken, future uncertain, ringing in the new on the wings of controversy. Becalm thyself, ye have done naught wrong.