Recipe for Inspiration: 02

I’ve always wanted to work in a bakery. I like getting up early, and I like baked goods of all kinds, so it seems like a natural fit.

Recently I had this revelation that I don’t actually have to work in a bakery to live like I work in a bakery. Meaning, it doesn’t have to be something I formalize, and it doesn’t have to be a “someday” thing. It can happen now—the baking of biscuits, cookies, bread on any given morning. Starting the day with streaks of flour on my forehead like a holy anointment. I don’t have to wait for the opportunity to be a Baker, just as much as I don’t have to wait for the opportunity to be a Writer.

With that in mind, I’m back with another Recipe for Inspiration. Sights, sounds, tastes, and practices that are whisking up ideas and getting me cooking creatively these days.

1. Listen to Hana Stretton.

   Wind-weathered, time-beaten—music left to degrade in the elements. “A world that is peeling away at the edges while we watch it wither, that holds beauty and the opposite of such a thing wherever you look,” writes Tom Johnson of Gold Flake Paint (where I get my favorite music recommendations, now and always). Listening to this stunning, strange music has prompted me to think a lot about the album I’m making now and how I want it to sound—music that celebrates the environment it was created in, that lofts hiss and hum above the sterile veneer of a high fidelity microphone.

2. Learn something that intimidates you.

   For Mother’s Day this year, my family gifted me an espresso machine. It was the perfect gift for a chronically sleep-deprived mother. But the machine sat on the counter for a good month, untouched, silver gleaming beneath the cling-film packaging, because I couldn’t find the time or energy to learn it.

   I’ve never been much of a manual-reader. Whenever I get a new piece of music gear, for instance, I tend to just dive in and start tinkering without actually knowing what I’m doing. This sometimes produces cool results, but I also think it’s somewhat of a bad habit. Without the deep understanding of the inner mechanics, I’m only scratching the surface of what’s possible.

   Finally, I forced myself to crack the manual of the espresso machine and spent a solid half hour cleaning and learning the machine while the baby napped. Now I have this deep satisfaction whenever I pull a shot of espresso, froth the milk, make my afternoon cappuccino—the feeling of transforming the dry text of a How To into something delicious and sustaining, something made with the meditation of my own two hands.