The Soup Doesn't Make Itself, but the Ideas of Soup Do

I sit here all warmed up by broth. What power broth possesses! There is something bizarrely comforting about watching substance transform from one thing to another, from one place to another. Witnessing but not grasping. Like if you put a powdered stock into hot water stir it until all that dust disappears and you have broth. Well that powdery dust was once flakes, was once say bone or vegetable or skin, what have you, it's already been transformed beyond us and for us. It's part of the instructions, the taste, the dish. It's just nice to feel faintly aware of that potential, like I said before, as though you are witnessing a sliver of an idea that motions towards so many other forms and states, places and order that you're not explicitly part of. What I am involved in is the slurping of that broth. One minute its in the bowl, a few seconds steaming in the curvature of a spoon, and then poof it's in me, probably doing a variety of things to my overall state. I can divide them with my imagination, I can declare the divided facets, but the feeling of that broth going into you is much more holistic (word choice here?!?). There is the satisfaction of just feeling that broth, understanding your body's needs through its intake. But then there is this other satisfaction that has to do with witnessing and building the stories that enable that broth to end up in that bowl, whose steam is puffing up in your face, loosening your mucus, while a waiter and their family from far away make it all happen for you in that moment (I have been alluding to the majesty of Pho as that was the broth of the day).

The reflection on the creation of broth has just as much matter and energy as you do, as you becoming warmer from that soup does. It's not our job to account for every instance of that soup, it's not our job to sketch out WHAT REALLY HAPPENED. It's our job to play with it, to be mystified by it, but to still understand that its happening, and that there really are things to be noticed that our trying to get your attention, trying to indicate that measures were taken to get you this soup. Not just you in particular but everyone's soup. Feeling comfortable with that feels more urgent. I want to write about urgency, learning to incorporate the insistence to think new things when we'd otherwise just accept accept accept, drink the soup, step out the door, and move on. That's the point I guess, we have to move on no matter what, but it really can be our business how we decide to move on, what we decide to remember, what we decide to involve in ourselves, what moves along with us. I think people can simplify this too much. This felt good, forget about it until you're ready to do something else that feels good. It just doesn't seem that appreciative. On the other hand, making definitions, telling yourself how it really is, I don't know if that feels good either. But trying something different, trying to surprise yourself with what you recognize as sort of there, like the powder becoming the broth, the disappearing enhancement of experience, that seems important, subtle even.

I am warming up to my own noticing. I am tracking it and sharing it, and I am going to try to make people feel the same way about themselves. About sharing what they notice, about the staggering potential for noticing, how it breathes crazy (I mean it, crazy) living, oozing matter into one anothers senses. Imagination and the senses, now that's something to notice and get all involved in, imagine playing sensory communication with one another like it was astral projection. What if I could make you smell something that wasn't there in such a vivid way that it became relevant to what was there, that it became a hidden feeling you could find anywhere. Of course we can say that writing does that so much, but I think we deny ourselves a lot of other opportunities to transport one another. I want to take up that calling. I want to make us feel what we just assume isn't within our reach.

This is broth sure, it sort of does my body good. The thing is we all really know that the soup in front of us is much more, let's just want to talk about it.