Last week I wrote about spoons, or rather used them as a metaphor for a kind of single-use tool to dig out of an overwhelming situation. A reader-friend whose comments I always enjoy posted that we all need more tools, knives, forks, and the like.

It got me thinking about what it means to have a full set of life’s utensils in order to do the best work. As I hurtled forward (again) last week with a sort of crazy abandon that put most regular daily moments like, for instance, the brushing of teeth and eating of lunch, on a back burner until well past three, the question occurred: What in my life would I be happy to put aside in order to not look up and notice a gazillion hours has passed? Which activity am I more than OK with having my heart beat with this urgency around getting something done? The answer: my own writing.

I have not visited the land of my own stories or even just the regular pages I write every morning in the last month. And that means I haven’t used the knife and fork in my collection. The utensils that fill out the daily meal of my existence. So while, yes, on Saturdays I spool out a something that empties my wordsmithery self in some fundamental way, the actual whimsical world-building is a place that makes for a balanced meal in my life. Having that lacking from my dayz is for sure kicking me into a certain malnutrition in my soul. A thing to remember the next time I’m tempted to fill up my calendar with yes’s because the money and what-have-you. I mean, the money, it’s a thing not to be ignored, basically the stuff that goes on the plate, but also the other utensils that fill out the experience.

And that is all I’ve got today because there are still some spoon-carvings that need doing before I can step away from this table. Before I go, though, the spices that have made these last weeks bearable: Dennis, Lucy&Desi, Mäneskin, all of them taking care and taking me out of my head in ways that kept me from throwing plates against walls, metaphorically speaking.