Daily Bread

When I was a little girl, we lived in Townsville. It's way up on the north east coast of Australia. Think Florida like. Humid, tropical, giant bugs and ripper cyclones that destroy entire towns... that kind of thing.

I have many memories of that time, which is unusual for some people. My first memory is from that time. I was 2yrs and 9 months (a milestone which I eerily realized Amelie has reached). Clear as a bell. I got in trouble for putting my hand in the ice pit at my father's workplace Christmas party. I just loved the feeling of my hand going in under the ice cubes, so dreamy and divine, but apparently wrong. The man dressed as Santa gave out barbie dolls that year. I didn't get one. But I did eat ice cream. I think it was Pixie, the ones that came in little cups and you eat it with the little wooden stick. I think my mother fed it to me.

Anyway, one of the other memories I have is of my mother making bread. She was like mother earth to me. All things good and bountiful and womanly I saw in my mother. She would make it and set it in this giant (or what seemed giant) maroon coloured tupperware bowl, and put a tea towel over it and set it on our front porch step to rise in the sun. I remember playing outside and seeing it sitting there and knowing there would be fresh bread for dinner that night. I remember that peeling back the tea towel when she brought it inside was like hoping for Christmas, and finding the swollen dough inside had grown was like finding treasure.

So, in my never ending project of getting it all together, I found that on Friday I was able to enjoy my clean house so much that I baked bread with Amelie. It has been a long time goal of mine to start baking my own bread. There is something so deliciously homey about it, not to mention that the eating of fresh baked bread and butter is one of the smallest yet greatest experiences known to man. It is as universal as love.
Amelie was very excited, but as per usual, loses interest after she is not able to interact as much as she'd like. Too much for her not to touch, too little to keep her interest. Even measuring and stirring is a little dull for her. What facinated me the most took too long for her... I love the way you put the yeast into some warm water with a little sugar, and the yeast comes alive. R says it's like playing God. It starts bubbling and giving off the most unique odour - both delicious and offensive all at the same time, and yet you can't stop wanting to smell it.
Well, it was that very smell that brought all those hidden childhood memories flooding back, and the weight of the nostalgia made me just want to sit and remember. But I pounded that dough, until it was stretchy and smooth, happy just to have those memories at all.
I was covered in flour, surrounded my music and memory, my children sleeping and playing and I was happy as a clam.
Brought a little extra delightful meaning to "give us this day our daily bread".