On Cast Iron Pans and Personal Growth ...

When I was first married, I was the proud owner of new pots and pans, among them, one cast iron pan. Having gone from single life - on the go, not much time spent cooking - to attemping to be more domestic, I would take that pan out from time to time. It was soooo heavy, and so hard to clean. I did not know it was "different" from my other pans. Eventually, it and its rust were put out in the shed, to be used when the children make their mud pies.

Today, I was cleaning my new cast iron pan, one I procurred a few months ago, after having researched the dangers of ingesting the chips I was finding flaking off my non-stick cook-ware. I was marveling over the change in me as I cleaned the last remnants of sauce from my pan. I did not mind the cleaning of the pan. I did not flinch when I remembered I had to get to the cleaning before resting, or run the risk of rust. I took pleasure in the meal I had just made, with the better cast iron material, avoiding having toxic materials served as a course alongside the lasagna. I was actually admiring the way the skillet has already aged a bit, how it cleans so easily because I have learned to care for it, to properly dry it, to ready it for its next use.

The deliberateness in caring for that pan is something I have grown into, something that did not fit me in my younger years. I was too busy, too distractable, too unwilling. Now, I want to tend to the pan, and the children, and any other things in my life that need care, and attention, and time with more than an obligatory passing swipe of the sponge. Things worth caring about take deliberateness. Oh that I had a cast iron pan earlier in my life, and was taught how to properly tend to it. Perhaps I would have loosened the shackels of selfishness and want even sooner.

Why?

Why do I do this? Why put my thoughts out in cyberspace, and why care that they have been perused on 25 occasions (though not necessarily by 25 different people)? I really don't know. I enjoy reading other people's blogs. A glimpse into the lives of people I would never meet in real life, especially other home-schooling families, is very interesting, entertaining, and affirming for me. "Reality television" it is not - it is actually real, believable, honest. If you have bothered with the blogs I have listed in my side-bar, you will have "met" a "pioneer" family, living life on the range and making me want to, too; a woman in Iowa who is raising three boys, one of which struggles with the effects of being born premature, whose humor and optimism are infectious; and another woman with three biological children, as well as two foster children, who will shame you and inspire you all at the same time with her eloquence and level-headed approach to life. Perhaps it is my hope to strike a chord with some soul I will never meet, such as these bloggers have done with me. Perhaps someone, somewhere, sleepily turns on their computer in the early morning hours, and has my blog bookmarked for daily perusal. Perhaps something I have uttered has been inspirational or humorous or note-worthy. Look around when you are next out. Notice how little we interact with one another, how little attention is given to and by those we are with. Cell-phones to the ear of the adults, video games in the hands of the little ones, ear phones plugging up the heads of the bigger little ones - is an outing to the store really a family outing if each person is in their own little electronic-device-led world? A few weeks ago, at the height of autumns' glory, when the colors were at their peak, radiating a richness of hues that can only be found in nature in all her splendor, as we were driving up the mountain road that leads to my parents' house, I yelled - yelled - at the children to pay attention, for they were missing it. Car rides should be a time for reflection, for conversation, for mussing - sharing an audio book, a communal sing-along, or pondering deep thoughts about the universe. Perhaps a blog is like a virtual car ride, with the blogger at the wheel, pointing out highlights of the trip to a truly captivated, and willing, audience. Pay attention? No, I don't have to shout - you came here on your own. Now, allow me to share my story ...