Every bread you make

It feels good. I mean creating something. Anything. A short story, a drawing, a baby, a brick wall, a turd. A loaf of bread. You pick a few things from around you and then produce something with a shape, a texture, a character. You can give them a name. Take photos of them. Buy them accessories. Take them out for a walk. Maybe these last proposals wouldn’t really work for the turd, or the brick wall, but even so. What I really mean is, I don’t think I can cope with a baby right now, not to mention I can’t draw. I can write stories but I don’t get my hands dirty by doing that. I started baking bread because I can’t draw. Yeah, that’s how it all happened.
I’ve made two decent drawings in my life, both on the same day: one of a guy and one of a seagull. I called them “Guy” and “Seagull”. Since them I haven’t been able to draw properly again, but I still need to do it sometimes. Some things you can’t describe, it doesn’t work, they lose all the spirit you’ve seen in them in that very moment, the art gets spoiled. Creating means projecting onto an object a sudden glimpse of comprehension of the world you live in. Sometimes writing can express this, but sometimes you need something else. Taking a picture, or shooting a film, composing a song, arranging a choreography, building a wall and ruining your hands doing it. Or drawing a picture. It’s clear that expressing oneself takes more than one skill. That’s why my notebooks are full of written babies, drawings and walls, detailed descriptions, useless as literary material, of things I will never be able to produce.
Then the bread machine appeared out of nowhere and I knew my frustrations had come to a provisional end. I took it off a shelf in the supermarket and, as I was holding the cardboard box, I already felt like a goddess. I understood it would be to me a top hat I could put feelings into and pull some bread out. They might not become a work of art, but the ideas and thoughts that are not meant to be written would have a shape, a body. And the smell of yeast invading all the corners of my flat would be their soul.
I just have to pick all the ingredients and leave the machine do all the kneading. Then I can talk to the dough for a couple of hours or so, or put some suitable music on. I can tell it jokes or cry a little. I can show it my boobs. I can do whatever it takes. Then my hands will give it the right shape and bake it. Three hours later I’ll be holding in my hands the warm result of that process, and give it a name. My first bread was a white ciabatta, with olives and herbs. I told it a secret and called it Renata. Then came Rita, which was quite a sad whole grain bread with raisins, that was raised listening to Portishead. Later I made a rye bread with beer and sunflower seeds and I called it Lou, and then a nut and chocolate bread and named it Thomas. I danced for both of them. And they have all existed just because I can’t draw, but they have done the trick as well as the drawing would have done. They stop all the noise of the world in my head for a while, and make me feel so good, just like washing machines in motion, or the embrace of a man in a flannel shirt. I eat them on their own, though most people insist on saying how bland it is to eat bread without oil or ham or cheese or butter. They could never imagine how good it tastes to eat all my affection.