Pain in left forearm. Extends throughout the arm fore and aft. This is new and unusual. Also sense of puffiness in right lower eyelid area. This is a sensation normally found on the left. First instance on the right? Strong crickets in right ear.

Went to nap after above.

On waking I feel overwhelmed. I am working hard to conduct life and my affairs yet feel inadequate and utterly incompetent. Or, to phrase it more accurately, I feel I am falling further and further behind.

In order to convey documents to my lawyer, I have been engaged in an archaeological dig, spending time unearthing letters, and documents, forms and submissions. In the attempt to pull order out of the paper chaos, a time line was created. This reveals that I have spent a full 7.5 months of the last twelve engaged in little more than composing documents for submission to the insurer or some other organization.

For many of these submissions, I am held to a time line. To meet the time line I must devote all my time and attention to the task of document preparation. This means that all other aspects of life fall by the wayside. The final consequence is that domestic order capitulates to the needs of some imperious organization. This leaves me in chaos, overwhelmed by my own inabilities.

There are compensations. One of them comes in liquid form, a pleasant narcotic with which I self medicate on a daily basis. It helps get me through the day; it dispels despair. It drives away the negative thoughts that lead into a depressive downward spiral.

I make soup. That is my narcotic of choice. I find soup making eminently soothing, a salve good for both body and soul. First comes the hunt for ingredients, the grasping search as hands and eye wend their way through the surprises that lie in wait within the kitchen and lurk in the deepest recesses of the fridge. I am one of those rare people with a green thumb that only functions well in the cold interior of a domestic appliance; my thumb is fully capable of overcoming both falling temperatures and a lack of sunlight and can bring forward an abundance of sudden gifts in the dark middle of December.

The hunt is followed by a careful contemplation of the collected errant odds and sods, all of them held together by a dream of how they will merge and mingle in the creation of a perfect broth. Use this ingredient; hold on the other. Defer this. Mmmm. Let’s try some of that. A soupçon of this. No, more. There is never a mistake, only a new discovery. If only life itself were as simple and straightforward.

The hunter gatherer is followed by the butcher, a careful working of the steel as the well honed blade reduces each ingredient to a small and delicate nubbin to compel the full release of flavour from the pores of each tiny morsel.

While the cuts are being made, the board echoing with a slow chop, chop, chop, the sound of an axe in miniature, the water is coming to a rotund lazy boil. Small wisps of steam augur well for great things to come.

I am loath to stop working the blade. I do not know the reason for this. I have developed a love of its gentle, methodical roll, the crisp crunch as it cleaves an onion, or the whisper as it passes through a gathered handful of herb. Life in the kitchen is an unhurried, quiet, soothing period. I languish in my little box of white space, lost in a reverie of fragrant steam. Kitchen life is an antidote to all that ails me and I am loath to depart.