"I think about that girl I read about in the paper- the one with the flammable skirt...She wore it to a party and was dancing, too close to the vanilla-smelling candles, and suddenly she lit up like a pine needle torch...But what I keep wondering is this: That first second when she felt her skirt burning, what did she think? Before she knew it was the candles, did she think she'd done it herself? With the amazing turns of her hips, and the warmth of the music inside her, did she believe, for even one glorious second, that her passion had arrived?" The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender
I love this paragraph. I do. It's even more satisfying in the original context. I neglected to put some key sentences in the quote, because it is my personal opinion that this paragraph alone is so perfect that it could stand along as a piece of flash fiction and I don't feel right about copying an entire piece of work. Or the shorter version- go read this.
I carved the above pumpkin. And then I realized I had recreated this scene. The girl in the skirt. And her passion had arrived...
Anything worth doing takes passion. Something that makes you thrum with excitement as you realize that this was something you were meant to do. That this is something you want to do- that you can do- and the marriage of the two is so perfect that you can't help but be gleeful. It doesn't matter how long or hard the task is, you have the patience to see it through. To make things is my passion. I love to make things that weren't there before, to piece different things together to see them in a new light. I want to carve a pumpkin, to bake a batch of cookies, to write a perfect sentence. You don't have to love only one thing, but if you find a single thing to love, it will see you through anything.
Even pumpkin carving...
There's something satisfying about gutting a pumpkin. The seeds are cold to the touch and covered in orange goop. They resist leaving the squash, hanging on by fibrous threads, until with a good yank they come free. And yet no matter how disgusting they feel on your skin, you still love scrapping the carcass clean of all seeds. Then comes to scalpel.
Insert Evil Grin Here.
The cut up carcass is then hoisted onto the porch and has a hot candle shoved inside of it. Very kid friendly, no? What are we teaching our children? How to be sadistic pumpkin murderers? Probably.
So tonight, let's burn some pumpkins! Who's with me! I'll get the torch...
...Or we could just make some pumpkin bread. Fine. Be like that.
Pumpkin Bread
(Recipe from: Jane Brody's Good Food Book)
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
2 eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup blueberries
1/4 cup chocolate chips
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 by 5 by 3-inch loaf pan.
Beat together sugar, oil, pumpkin, and eggs.
In a separate bowl, stir together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Fold into pumpkin mixture, just enough to combine. Do not over mix.
Stir in remaining ingredients. Pour batter into pan.
Bake for an hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the bread cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes. Remove bread from pan and cool completely.
What do you love?
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