As some of you may have heard, my lovely girlfriend Jill had (planned and very necessary) foot surgery a week and a half ago. She’s resting up, not putting weight on one of her legs, and catching up on a lot of reading (averaging and impressive 200 pages a day) and watching great films (lately featuring Katharine Hepburn). With six kids between us, I’m grateful to have some flexibility with this job to keep the motor running through times like these. Between working the ovens I can run out to take bowls of yogurt and granola, mugs of tea, and plates of greek salad (paired deliciously with ibuprofen) for her. Administering a well place pillow is about as much nursing expertise I can provide before being called back by my timers to the doughs, the oven decks, and the dish pits. After putting the doughs away, I can drive to appointments, wrangle stir fries and lasagnas, and swim and play with all the kids. My cottage bakery has allowed me to care when necessary in all kinds of situations over the past decade, and that has always been the part of my paycheck that is impossible to quantify. There’s definitely dollars missing at times from the budgets, and sometimes they are missing when it counts, and that is admittedly hard. It’s a bargain most women make, and will continue to make when our hearts and the cash registers sit on the scales side by side. I don’t know how to draw any necessary conclusion except that, I would always rather belong to myself, and my labor belong first and foremost to the ones I love most.
Thanks for reading.