There Is Only Try

The Do/Not Do binary hurts my feelings.

(Quick note: If you enjoy this post, please feel free to ♥️ it! The proceeds from each ♥️ will go toward improving hurt feelings everywhere!)

I have been trying to get a sourdough starter going. I began the process earlier this month, riding high off more than a week of Dry January sobriety (short-lived), feeling powerful, productive, scrupulous. 2025 me bakes her own bread, I thought. I was in one of those zones where you start to think you’re compromising your quality of life by indulging in society’s most basic conveniences. I should be building my own furniture, sewing my own dresses, hand-rolling my own pasta! because clearly I could do it so much better than the machines we’ve been fine-tuning since the Industrial Revolution. Three days into a promising eight-day starter, the fires came. As we fled the gentle falling of toxic ash, I did not think to grab my mason jar.

When I returned home five days later, I began again. This time, I felt the opposite of powerful (see: last week’s post, the state of California/America/the world, Mother Nature’s cruel indifference, etc). But cultivating yeast felt like a small way of exerting control over chaos. I don’t want to be presumptuous but I think others may be feeling similarly, like my friend Chris, who I got the idea of baking my own bread from in the first place. After texting him to trouble shoot a few times, he became almost as invested in my starter as I am. The other day, he drove half way across town to assess the state of things, and yesterday he texted to see if a quick FaceTime with the starter would be possible. I was at the grocery store when I got the message, and I felt a pang of guilt at being so far away from my little bread baby, even if the purpose of my trip was to make dinner for my actual babies.

Gorgeous starter. Not mine.

The problem is, my starter is not taking off like it should. It’s not that it’s dead — it’s got all kinds of bubbles and a yummy sour smell, but it’s not rising. I’ve tried giving it more oxygen, giving it less water, putting it in the oven next to a bowl of boiling hot water. But every morning, it’s still too watery, too flat. I can’t help but see the starter as a metaphor for myself. Clearly alive. Producing something. But failing to realize its potential. Given that I started the project as an antidote to a sense of powerlessness and failure, you can see why the result would hurt my feelings.

Along with the sourdough starter, I’ve also become fixated on the idea of fostering a dog. After the fires, there’s a real need for it here in LA! Yet my husband has all but forbid it. Actually, he’s done worse. He tells me, “Go ahead, fill out the application if you want!” while also making it clear that he thinks it is a terrible idea by saying “Yes” when I ask if he thinks it’s a terrible idea. It’s not that I don’t already have things in my life that need taking care of, like, say, my children. But dogs are so much nicer than children! So much more loyal! I tried to enlist my kids in this push for a dog, but they say they don’t want one. What kind of sick fuck children don’t want a dog!? They say they’d rather have a hamster. A dog would never pull that shit, wanting a hamster instead of a dog. I live among strangers.

I ask myself, why does raising my children not fill me with the meaning I’m grasping for? It might be because I think that, to a fault, I see my children as belonging to themselves. I say “to a fault” because this attitude walks me into decisions that don’t help them, and helping them is kind of the only concrete reason I’m here on Earth. EXAMPLE: While daycare was mercifully in session, school was off for MLK Day, which duh I obviously support but JFC my kids were already out of school three weeks for the holidays, then another week for the fires. They might as well just climb back into my womb at this point given the amount of time we’re spending together. At least then I could get them to take a break from Paw Patrol. To honor the memory of an unparalleled civil rights hero, I took my 5-year-old to a playdate. I really like my kid’s friend’s mom, so it felt like a fair compromise to sacrifice yet another day of writing something I enjoy but nobody needs so my husband could slave away at a job that earns a paycheck but makes him miserable. Initially, my kid’s friend’s mom (I’ll just call her my friend) and I chatted and let our children fend for themselves. At lunch, we thought it would be kind of funny and cool and quirky to order a PARTY sub from a nearby bakery. When my friend asked if she thought my son would eat their specialty, The Italian, I said yes because it felt imperative to closing the circle on the funny/cool/quirky experience, even though my son doesn’t even like SANDWICHES, let alone processed meats, mustard, mayonnaise, lettuce, pepperoncini, and so forth. When presented with a slice of The Italian, my kid melted down like Eggplant Parm. Instead of recognizing my contribution to the debacle, I thought, why does this kid have no fucking chill? as I stripped down the sandwich to two pieces of bread and a slice of provolone. I did this calmly, because I desperately wanted to convey to the other kid and his mom that while my child had no chill, I DO.

The Italian. In hindsight I see why a child might not like this.

The sandwich scene set off a chain of events I shudder to recall. Suddenly, our children were fighting over everything, which game to play, which rules to observe, whether we were pretending to work at a hotel or an aquarium, who was the boss and who was Gooigi (also, who IS Gooigi?). This was not the peace and brotherly love MLK gave his life for. I began to wonder why these kids were friends at all, since they really didn’t see eye-to-eye on much. Finally, when the other kid began to cry and mine ran off to his bedroom, I decided it was time to take our leave. I lack conviction generally, so I probably could have been talked into staying, but when I told my child we should go, he bit me. He left me no choice. Even I know you can’t back down from a bite. I carried him out, kicking and screaming, still trying to appear calm. Again, if I couldn’t convince eye witnesses I was a good mother (and what good mother raises a child to bite her among company?) then at least I could present as a chill one.

During the drive home, my child wailed things that broke my heart. Just because we get upset doesn’t mean we have to leave! My body made me do it, I tried to stop it but I couldn’t! Why are you so mean?! I just kept thinking NOTHING IS EASY. Not a sourdough starter, not getting a pet, not playdates or lunchtime or teaching your child it’s not okay to bite. All of it hurts, but we just have to keep trying, while also looking chill. Which is really just another way of saying, keep calm and carry on. If only we could take the wisdom of basic-ass posters to heart, the world would be a gentler place.