Marinated Elbow

Most days, I’m simply too tired to cook. I have things to do, places to go, responsibilities are beckoning. Perhaps, more accurately and truthfully, I don’t feel like it. Why make any real effort when I have a microwave, or my default, consisting of a bowl of cereal? I tend to do what comes easiest. The final result of my writing recipe is the same. I know how it turns out. It’s fail-proof. Done and done, as painless as the microwave.

But what if we allowed our words and thoughts to marinate? What if we prepared them lovingly as a creation, an extension of every messy part of ourselves, rather than nuke them in a minute flat? Cooking, when I’m in the mood, is enjoyable. I suppose it’s because I can become disorganized, with the end product being the same as if I had all my ingredients lined up within a row, labels facing out. After all, if I forgot the baking soda or added a teaspoon rather than a tablespoon of salt, I can just throw it out. As with writing, if we drift too far or substitute the wrong ingredient, it can be fixed.

Still, cooking is rather personal. There is no worse insult than when the recipient of my culinary toiling is ungrateful, or in deepest taste bud agony. Similarly, I think what propels my writing is embarrassment. I try to avoid it, and to stay within the recipe that it provides. Last week, in our group, we talked about how extremely difficult it is to put oneself “out there”, wherever “there” may be. In relation, Elbow writes, “It all feels lousy to him as he’s writing, but if he will let himself write it and come back later he will find some parts of it are excellent” (69). That’s the thing- I hate returning to my previous pieces. For some reason, it’s highly embarrassing. I’m one of those people who shy away from old works merely because, for some reason, they mortify me.

Why, I don’t know. When I’m done writing, I consider myself done for good, as it pains me that much to go back. In his examination of people like me, Elbow is right. I’m too much the perfectionist. I don’t want to revisit any past evidence of my voice for fear it won’t be as exemplary as I remembered. Probably the last piece of mine I reread was from my diary in second grade a few years ago. I think that is what managed to scare me off for good. My dumb personal thoughts immortalized on the page just make me want to cringe, along with rip the offending words out. The same goes for cooking. Failures are remembered with a certain burgeoning pain. Reminisces in writing can equate to the sudden burn of a finger on a hot pan with nary a potholder in sight.

Elbow encourages us to let go of this peculiar affinity for literary failure. As writers and chefs, we learn from the past, from our experiences and forays into the art. I’ve found that the best cooking does not follow directions in the slightest. It grows from taking risks, making substitutions, experimenting. Writing, as Elbow explains, is rather the same.