Butter
I am standing in the refrigerator aisle staring intently at a glass-fronted fridge full of different kinds of butter. There is salted, unsalted, Irish, tubs, sticks. I am completely immobilized. Which one should I choose? In Hungary, I always got unsalted, but in the USA, I have only used salted. Will choosing the wrong one impact my ability to bake well? Is one brand significantly better than the other?
My sister tells me to just buy one, it doesn’t matter which kind. They are all fine.
I wake up and realize I just had a stress dream about butter.
As I write this, I am sitting in a café, drinking a hot chocolate with lavender syrup. It’s good—not as thick as a really nice, pudding-like hot chocolate in Hungary, but the lavender reminds me of home.
Home. But where is home? To say it reminds me of Hungary feels wrong, but to say “home” feels wrong too.
It is these little things that get to me. It is stress dreams about choosing butter or hot chocolate with lavender that makes me realize I still am not quite settled, that I don’t quite know what to make of my new (old) surroundings yet.
But it is also lavender hot chocolate, pomelo from an international grocery store, bread with olives, or a familiar brand of Irish butter that brings me joy. It is those little connections to the place that was my home for the last six years that comfort me as I step forward in the uncertainty of a new season of life.
There are a lot more important things affecting me right now, both good and bad, but for whatever reason, the ones I feel most acutely are the mundane practices of grocery shopping, eating, or drinking. I tend to go numb in transition and it is the inconsequential things that break through the cloud and tap into my deeper feelings.
“Perhaps in saying thank you for these small pieces of what once was my home or in lamenting the loss of the familiar, I will be able to tangibly feel and see God’s presence with me in each moment, no matter how large or small. ”
These small things are a safe space to express my joy and sadness. The feelings I have about people I left behind and returned to are too much joy and too much sadness for me to handle right now. The questions about home and belonging are too confusing for me to sort through at the moment, especially as I get ready to marry and move to yet another home. The feelings of guilt and relief of ending a chapter and starting a new one are too heavy to hold in their full weight for the time being.
But food? I can process food. I can connect to food. I might not sort out all the deeper feelings quickly, but I have to eat.
On a spiritual note, it has also been difficult to know how I connect to God in this season. I know he is here with me no matter where I am, but my routines and practices with him have changed along with everything else. Many of them were built around the rhythms of my life and now those rhythms have shifted. It is still something I am sorting out.
But maybe physical nourishment is the answer to this as well. Perhaps it is the small things like groceries, food, or drink that will point me to him on a daily basis once more. Perhaps in saying thank you for these small pieces of what once was my home or in lamenting the loss of the familiar, I will be able to tangibly feel and see his presence with me in each moment, no matter how large or small.
Transition touches all aspects of our lives: the emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual. I believe each of these parts of ourselves are tied together in some way. So, as I face the mental and physical challenge of choosing the butter I like best here, I believe I will also slowly learn and work through the big emotions, the losses, the joys, and the spiritual impact of packing up my life, changing my career, and moving back to a place that was once my home.
