Pie, dude. Pie.

Graphic borrowed from Simply Southern Pies

Well of course it does, it's PIE.

Do we outgrow one-time passions or do they leave us behind?  Holidays with quiches lined up for delivery - no more.  Cornish pasties for celebrations, a dozen at least because they make such fine leftovers - I can't imagine that effort.  Yet as I think about pie, as a friend wrote to describe her nieces' Thanksgiving fruit masterpieces, the baker in me seems to draw new breath.  Not for today but as a strong future possibility.  Doors I thought closed, nailed shut, keys lost, continue to open.  There may again be pie with homemade crust.  Words I had not expected to write - or utter - when, as we call them, boughten pies do nicely.  I even looked to see if one of my mother's favorite cookbooks, Simple Cooking for the Epicure, from which I learned to make piroshki with cream cheese dough, was still available.  It is.

What I didn't know when I was younger, when there was energy and seemingly no choice about what got done and what didn't, is that there was a choice.  That some expected me to do it all and I complied was the result of circumstances and conditioning.  I have become not entirely reliable.  I am late and slow and have a full-blown case of simply wandering off.  What matters most is time to be quiet, time to think or not, time to be and allow my mind to float along beside me like a balloon with a string tied to my wrist.  Chores are ignored.  Emails go unanswered, for no other reason than there is not enough of me or time or the combination to be prompt.  I care, I just can't quite get there.  But pie.  I might come out of retirement, apathy, fatigue, distraction, indifference, stubborn refusal and confusion for that.  No answer required now or ever.  Just the allure of delicious maybe.