sour dough starter.

Heatwaves in our little 400ish sq ft dwelling were the worst. It was nearly impossible to keep it cool. The window AC unit and fans worked overtime and that just barely kept it bearable. The goal was just to make it through the hottest parts of the day - until the sun broke and started to set, there would be a slight late afternoon breeze - the cool, stillness of the night would be on it's way soon. Relief... 

I loved our little 400ish sq ft dwelling more than humanly possible. And even though there were bees living in the wall and heatwaves felt like a literal sauna, I loved it. What I didn't like about it was cooking at any capacity when the weather was too hot. Because of it's size, the thought of turning on the stove or oven would have been literal torture. Pre-heating the tiny oven would immediately increase the inside temperature by a factual 1,000 degrees... 

Summer of 2020. We were experiencing a global pandemic and a heatwave. Temps were well over 100 and quarantine was just a thing that we were doing. Temps were high and so were all the feelings. Feelings of grief and stress and fear...

In finding ways to cope - many found comfort in new hobbies. Trying things at home that they never thought they'd try. Social media trends connected us as we all existed in getting through each day. 

One trend that became popular was sour dough. The art of creating a little baby sourdough starter. Feeding and sharing it. If you had a good one, you'd split it up and pass it along for someone else to partake in growing and feeding their sourdough baby. People were sharing something that was lovingly created by friends from afar and making a beautiful loaf of sourdough bread. A loaf of bread that would fill you with accomplishment, nourishment, and an escape from all the big feelings. It was beautiful watching other people find the love of this skill. 

I, however, had no interest in this trend. Remember the literal torture that turning on the oven would bring? Not to mention our 400ish sq ft space that had exactly 2 cabinets and less than ideal temperatures for long term storage for such a cute little sourdough baby. The odds for this being a successful hobby were not in my favor. I chose to pass on feeding or creating a sour dough baby. I colored, and crocheted. I embroidered, and just chose other trends to participate in. Ones that I found a lot of joy doing. It was okay that I skipped out on this one. Our environment just wasn't right for it.

One day, he brought home a bag. A bag of a beautiful little baby sourdough starter. At work, someone had started one and was sharing their perfectly fed and well nourished starter with work friends. It came with very clear typed up instructions on how to care for your new baby. What temperature to store it in. Exactly how much water and flour to feed each day, until you too, could have a perfectly well nourished sourdough starter baby of your own to bake your very own perfect loaf of sourdough bread. For most this would be comforting, appreciated, seen as a loving gesture. 

For me, it sent me into a spiral. A spiral of confusion, stress, a tiny bit of rage. 

I love cooking, I do not like baking. This was something I've expressed. Talked about. Discussed in public with others if it came up. I have never even owned proper baking pans of any sort. At the time we didn't even have flour in the pantry. I do not bake, nor have I ever expressed the need, the want, the curiosity to bake. I love it for other people. It's just not for me.

And there he was - standing proud with this stress inducing bag of a sourdough baby that I never wanted especially at the end of a very hot and long day right when the sun started to shift....relief was almost there. The entire week I had been trying to keep the dogs and myself cool while working. And there he stood, with a bag that our environment would literally kill. 

We didn't have cool enough place to store it. We didn't even have food to feed it. 

"Are you going to take care of it?" "Do you want to make bread with it?" "Are YOU going to make bread with it?" "Where are you going to put it?" "Are you going to go shopping to buy flour?" "Why did you bring that home?"

Until a few months ago, I would retell this story with a bit of humor. I would think back that my reaction was a little visceral. I was hot, tired, putting in long work-from-home hours, grieving the loss of a job, our dogs, and a family member. There was a lot going on in the world and like most people, I was having big feelings. Coming home with a sourdough starter was not the worst thing in the world but at the time it was an attack. 

An attack because I was expected to physically take care of  something that was set up to fail in our environment. I let it go pretty quickly and we've laughed about it since. For the longest time, we looked back at the sourdough baby and laughed. We've laughed that emotions and grief and stress were so high, a bag of water, flour, and yeast pushed me over the edge. We laugh but for some reason I've never forgotten that moment.

Over the last few months, I've played this scene out in my head over and over. Something about this moment and the way we communicated through that day keeps haunting me. I've been analyzing why it felt like such an attack. How could something so lovingly created and innocently brought home push me into a spiral of sadness and hurt? 

We blamed the pandemic. We blamed the grief. We blamed the heat wave, and laughed.

Lately, I haven't been feeling like it was all that funny. It was a reflection of deep routed feelings that we should've been paying attention to. It was a loud siren that we moved passed without pausing to check if there was actual danger. It was screaming at us to care for it. 

What I've come to realize in over analyzing this small moment in a relationship that's existed for two decades is that it was never about the sourdough. It was about the expectation. The expectation that I would be excited to care for something that our environment would quite literally kill. 

The not even knowing that our environment would be wrong to care for it.
The lack of awareness of my dislike for something.
The blindness to my sadness over the weeks prior and thinking that this would bring any sort of joy.
The confusion when I expressed no interest.
The absence of an apology.
The feeling that I have not been seen or heard when we were the only people physically in our house... 

We should've started nourishing that little living bag of dough together. But we didn't. 

He did buy flour, but not excitedly - because he too had no interest in giving it nourishment. He did feed it a few times. It sat on the counter in our too hot conditions - unfed, malnourished. It died within a week. And now, we talk about the sourdough baby and laugh...