Pluck Takes the Cake

by Michele Gazzolo

It's early spring and my friends and I are buying seeds. We are learning how to can, blanch and freeze. We are planning fruit and vegetable gardens, and splitting up livestock. For my neighbor's birthday I give her a sack of fancy meat straight from my new deep freezer, where it came from the butcher, who got it direct from the farmer. For Christmas a friend gives me a duck she's raised, slaughtered and plucked, with a caveat that I'll have to pull the remaining feathers. I throw it in the freezer to wait until I find the courage.

What's come over us? I ask. No one's listening; each is busy plotting her own escape. We are pleasantly haunted by visions of produce. Peas, beans, and lettuce in the seed catalogue look handsomer than devil's food cake on the side of a box. At night I dream of sewing machines and dress patterns. I have an ambition to can. I picture shelves stacked with green beans and peaches into infinity. Then there are the animals.  My garage, which once felt too big, now seems the perfect size for a stable. My lawn—which strikes me in this mood as a vain and pointless invention—begs to be dotted with sheep.

I buy some nice wading boots (British, of course) to walk through the muck. With the money we imagine we save, my friends and I buy manicures. Who could begrudge us one last nod to frivolity?  We feel as if we've come full circle to meet our ancestors, who are laughing gently at us.  I covet shovels, cast iron pans and sturdy pairs of scissors. At night I dream of sewing machines and dress patterns. I lust after buckets, baskets, seeds and thread: containers and raw materials for my own small production. I'll call it: girl goes back to land in strip-mall country.

My wish list sounds like a Girl Scout pledge: Can start a fire? Yeah, baby. Brave and true? You know it. Can make a bed? Oh, and how. I am newly fond of quilts. If I have scraps after fashioning an apron, I'll host a quilting bee. The words "thrift" and "prudence" are sounding almost sexy. Perhaps "making do" is the new "having it all."

Do I want to make everything? Not really. Maybe I just want to know that if I ever had to, I could.

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