Sweet and Savory

Ever wonder what happens if you ask me to send some mail. This happens.

Dear Roni,

I hope this finds you well (I just always liked the sound of that phrase). You don’t know me from a can of paint, but Preston is a dear and precious friend of mine. He felt like you may appreciate some mail. To be fair, we all kind of appreciate mail. Times have changed in that respect because when I was younger, I hated getting letters. I always wanted an email. Of course, when I was younger the internet was a brand new, fantastic creation that left us all in awe and wonder. Nowadays it’s something that we expect as a constant and take completely for granted. I digress. Since I don’t actually personally know you, it sets up limitations on the body of a letter, but I feel like if I’m going to send someone some mail, I should do it proper. So here goes.

We (Preston and I) recently had a conversation over morning breakfast and the subject of bacon and pancakes came up (brief interlude, waffles are much better than pancakes). During the discussion, it came to light that you disagree with the intermingling of syrup and bacon. Your palate just doesn’t agree with the delightful combination of sweet and savory (kind of like fishsticks and custard, but that’s a different discussion). I’m not going to tell you how to live your life, or enjoy your food, but from my perspective, you’re dead wrong. I thought to myself, how can I illustrate this glorious point. As it happens, your mom (super awesome lady) put a post up on facebook that reminded me of a story and I’m going to string it together to fill the body of your letter.

So your mom put a post that roughly said, “We’re all a little broken, but as I remember it, broken crayons still color the same.” I chuckled a bit and then liked the post (obviously), but it set my old clockwork gears rolling (my mind isn’t the high tech data savvy thing that you guys got, it’s a bit old school). When I was shorter…much, much shorter…my mother owned a Dodge Aspen. Now you’re probably not familiar with this vehicle because it’s an antiquated, uninteresting station wagon that used to run the streets of suburbia before the invasion of minivans and soccer moms, but it’s what we had. It was a big, old maroon creature of iron and unaesthetic design. When I was a kid, this was a terrific playground. When we’d go shopping or to movies or wherever, I would slip into the back. From my perspective, I was in this mythical land. I would patiently wait for my opportunity for my mother’s attention to be redirected and then I’d jump (stealthily) into action. I’d do this reverse military roll up the back seat and drop down into the vast canyon that was the cargo area, in the rear of the wagon. From this new, prized locale I was beyond detection. The rear view mirror couldn’t reflect the watchful gaze down past the tops of the backseats, and like a prisoner avoiding the spotlight I would set my plans in motion. I would pull up the rear carpet and expose the metal beneath. It was my working surface, my own private shop. I’d dig deep into my pockets and carefully line out the clutter of a child’s life on the carpet and begin the selection process. You see, I kept broken crayons and crayon stubs with me at all times, just in case. I would start laying the crayon pieces on the exposed metal and, with the all surrounding windows in the back of the wagon, things would begin to heat up. I would carefully scrape the varying colors into a puddle and once it was a homogenous mess, I would scoop it up and roll out a brand new crayon. Once it was cylindrical, I would reach for my trusty plastic knife (filched from a picnic-ware set for some long forgotten reason) and I would begin to lathe down the point. All of this carefully timed with the cooling process, because precision is important. This is how I created new crayons and subsequently destroyed the rear of my mother’s car (for all my precision, I wasn’t very good at the clean-up process). I would take these wonderful new crayons and use them for various artistic activities, mostly just drawing and writing.

What was great about these homemade crayons was that you never knew exactly what color you were going to get and sometimes you would get these rainbow blends. These magnificent, unexpected drawings of varying colors made it near impossible to conform to any preconceived color schematics and sometimes my sun was red, yellow, blue, and green. Sometimes my skies were purple and red and black and grey. It unexpectedly shaped me as a person. I found it hard to devalue anyone or anything, because my brief life experience had taught me that integration opened up wondrous possibilities. I honestly loved my drawings because they didn’t fit into what was considered formulaic at the time. While I appreciated blue skies and yellow suns, I was fascinated with the possibilities of blue suns and yellow skies.

Broken people (all of us) had the same effect on my life. It was just more interesting to me to never know exactly what you were going to get. There is an adventure and a childlike wonder that never fades with the unanticipated. I like different perspectives and different thoughts, even when (sometimes especially for) when they don’t agree with mine. I don’t like my people, my experiences, or my crayons lined up neatly, wrapped with a pre-marked label, and stored conveniently in a pre-made box.

So sure, conventionally speaking, syrup isn’t added to our bacon, but maybe it’s a little better when it is. When you’re expecting salty and savory, it’s a pleasant surprise to get a quick blast of sweet. It keeps you on your toes and helps you appreciate your life and the lives of others. After all, none of us really know when life is going to blast our sweet with a little salt and it’s definitely quite the relief when a little sweet blasts life’s salt. Dip your bacon in the syrup and prepare yourself for the future.

That’s all I got, but you got mail

Cheers,

Kristen Wells (2PL8$)

P.S.- Enclosed is also a picture of my good buddy Julz in his Bearded Leia cosplay get up. He actually does comic conventions and stuff. It’s a picture version of sweet and savory. Preston will hang it up, so don’t throw it away, but keep it for yourself if you like.