Butter. I have an obsession with large blocks of butter. Not the idea of eating it but just the pure form of it. Salted. Unsalted. It does not matter. The salt does not change its appearance but time can. With some time, it gradually softens as it sits, with less time in the sun on our back porch, it melts, and with a steady amount in the coldness of the fridge, it hardens back up. I think I am a lot like butter. Easily changed by my surroundings. Always too hot or too cold. Needing a sweater often and refuse to live in a house with the AC turned up beyond 72 degrees. I love a good chunk of butter. Particularly the 1lb block. The softest yellow, a yellow I mostly do not enjoy in other aspects of life. I leave my butter out on the counter. I love to have it soften. I like the daily task of checking in on the butter dish and seeing if I need to remove another stick from the fridge to ensure there is enough available for dinner or the kiddos’ toast in the morning. I like taking care of people in ways they may not be grateful for. Something they don’t notice and don’t need to say thank you for. Something that just lets me be there without them knowing. Sometimes when I am finished using a butterknife, I will slide my fingertip down the edge to remove what is left, stand at the sink, and slowly massage it into my hands. I love to just feel the oil and see the sheen. I like the feeling that as I run the water on my hands, it will not remove from my skin. It becomes a part of me, nourishing me, protecting me. I don’t like to have bright lights on in my home or really in any environment where I have to be present. I find it overstimulating and can ruin a good meal, chat, or mood. My day can be ruined with one too many lights. So as I stand at the sink in warm sunlight or in the soft glow of the lamps I have strategically placed throughout my home, I feel peaceful. Me and my butter-covered hands just pause and breathe and become unavailable to do another task. There is something so exciting to me about indulging in something, letting go and just doing it. Crossing the threshold. Diving in. Saying fuck it and I will deal with it later. Like getting my hair wet when swimming. I make a very strong note on this one, I hate getting my hair wet so perhaps this one does not apply…but taking a walk with my son after a heavy rain and saying I am taking my shoes off and going to dig my feet as deep into this mud as I can for our walk and just really enjoy it. I will deal with the cuts and bruises later, I want to step on the rocks and sharp unknown objects that are beneath this. I want to feel this right now because on most days it seems like it isn’t an option and on others, I cannot feel it. But at that moment when I can, when it makes sense all while not at all when it hurts and I can feel it and I am reminded I am still here. My feet are in mud and my hands are covered in butter. I want nothing more right now.

I have a pretty stringent routine with my shades and lamps. For instance, only two out of the three shades on the windows in my bedroom are open until the sun begins to set. The third window I keep closed so the sun does not hit my oldest dog’s eyes when he sleeps off his aches and pains throughout most of the day in the bed with his perfect little head using a pillow that obviously is there for his comfort. Although I do love to see his eyes glow copper in the sunlight, I too have started to see the clouds taking over them and want to offer relief where I can. Perhaps, I also want to avoid seeing what I know is happening to him. Something I cannot stop or control. Lamps, on the other hand, I can. I can turn them on and off. As the sun sets and I open the third shade for him, I turn on the bedside lamp so he is not left behind in the dark. Lighting has such a profound impact on a moment and memories. I remember one time laying in bed in a hotel in Houston, the morning sun was shining and bouncing off the buildings surrounding my not-so-great view of rooftops and air conditioning units, and this man I thought I loved standing at the end of the bed firmly telling me, “you are an unlovable woman.” This was right before he turned around and let the door slam inconsiderate of those who were sleeping in on this particularly harsh Thanksgiving morning. I no longer see his face in my memory of this, but I can still hear his voice and I can still close my eyes and feel the light on my face. The light absorbed the moment and beckoned me to come outside to warm up a little after being stuck in this moment and hardened. “Fuck you” was scattered in my thoughts because I was not processing exactly what just took place. But as I took in the light, as I pressed my dry face from too much champagne the night before and not enough water (because ew, chore) against the glass window, as I searched for comfort while feeling alone and knowing I had a long drive home, I asked myself am I? Did I apply my lipstick too often at dinner the night before and am I not soft enough to be loved without the sun? Am I only tolerable in warmth when the sun is on my face, freckles begin to appear one by one, and chapstick is holding firm to my lips so I don’t have to take time to correct the lines of my lips while eating? Why had I tried for a year and spent a Thanksgiving without my sons for a man who could only want me one way, in one environment, one temperature…his?

Those words stuck with me, they still do. Not because I think I am unlovable, but because I acknowledge that everyone is lovable when you experience them where they take on the consistency that works with your needs, wants, and desires and most importantly, theirs. I would not stand at a sink and hold a stick of hard butter in my hand and say ooooooooooo please leave me to this. But I do stand at the sink and find beauty in running my fingers through softened butter and tend to my hands as if they are my heart for a moment. But it is the same butter on the same hands. The consistency just changed. My consistency changed with him, I felt uncomfortable and judged. Talking to strangers angered him regardless of how interesting the stories I would be told were. He stood there watching me not adoringly but annoyed and ready to leave me where I stood. He looked embarrassed and ashamed of me, mostly angered. The moment I would walk away from talking to some random person about a mountain lion they were being haunted by, I would be smiling and connecting parts of the story over and over again. Thinking about this life I just brushed up against. A moment with some person I would never see again but shared the tiniest part of their life with. I would feel like me. And he would squash it. He loved to. I could see it in his eyes, his grin, and his pathetic scoff. It took one look, one “ok” and one Thanksgiving to realize no one is worth staying in the fridge for. I wanted to be put on the countertop, casually checked in on without mention, placed on the back porch to acknowledge the urgency of warming me up quickly, and then indulged in when I have served my purpose. Every last bit of me was taken in and enjoyed. I wanted to be the butter on someone’s hands who decided it was time to cross the threshold of rationale and take in the moment of nourishment. I wanted to be swiped off of a butterknife and massaged into someone’s hands like I was everything their heart needed to feel for a moment. To notice although my tint of yellow is gone, I remain and will be with you. To not care if I was salted, whipped, or accidentally placed in the freezer (I have been all of the above). To know that in a last-ditch effort, you could wrap me in parchment paper and place me against your skin for warmth and I would become what you needed and be of the same usage and purpose. To know I would still be there for you if all you had to help me was the warmth of your body. To not have this asshole who didn’t have a South African accent either not tell me I look too peppy in my photos, take pleasure in erasing my joy and feel so threatened by my appreciation and knowledge of wine that he left me at a restaurant once. One I walked my peppy ass over to a wine bar and smoked cigars by an outdoor fire with a group of enlightened strangers while we listened to a cowboy sing songs with his guitar as I warmed up to a consistency he failed to understand. I melted my ass off that night, right onto the sidewalk after attempting to make my way back to the cabin and I caved and called the asshole fridge bc melted butter was going to take a long time to slide across town. If he hated me slightly softened, imagine me melted. What a treat for me to just really raise my brow, crack wiseass jokes, and be unbothered and fully taking in his misery, and to top it off ask him to go get tacos in the morning. Thankfully the tacos came with an apology and he acknowledged his issues while sobbing as if I wasn’t salty enough already… finally two years later a phone call from the fridge came asking me to help plan his trip to the same little town and share some of my wine knowledge so he could impress his girlfriend while proposing to her in the same place I melted my butter without him.