Flavor

Last night's frosty walk from campus to car

Ever been to Sunflower Market in Orem?
I haven't been there very much either. I can't really cook. I'm a great bakeress; I can whip you up something bake-ed pretty much any time without high levels of anxiety. I like my hands to be covered in flour. When I was a kid, I loved the taste of raw flour so much that when my mom was making cookies, I'd grab the flouriest handfuls of dough from the outside of the bowl instead of the mixediest ones from the inside.
I can't really cook because I've never taught myself how, or been taught. I also find great conflict in the fact that as soon as I've started to cook something, I lose appetite for it, or by the time it's finished, I've eaten enough cookies not to want it anymore. This especially happens with foods cooked in skillets. Stir it around a bit, and I'm done. For some reason.
But for someone who can't really cook, I sure enjoy grocery shopping.
Especially when it's beyond scentless outside. Nothing growing out there. I crave the days when the temperature creeps hesitantly above freezing, when the rotting leaves and mud become thawed enough for me to smell. In organical grocery stores, it smells delicious all year round.
At Sunflower Market, it smells like Good Earth, which is where I used to go in high school to get mango smoothies. Like henna and pills and raw honey and dirt and fruit and recycled packaging.
Ending up at Sunflower Market last night after work, phone squished between ear and big woolen coat, I took a little green arm basket from the front and pranced back to Cereals.
I always skirt the Asian Flavors table and all the actual Food. Sometimes I buy things like fruit and trail mix at Sunflower Market, and sometimes I buy (and then eat with my fingers in my car) the "fresh" sushi, but what I usually buy is this Irish oatmeal that I really like to eat at work. Last night I also picked up some slippery little Vitamin D capsules, because apparently I'm deficient, three organic yogurts, because they're delicious and have kangaroos on them, almond milk, and a soy lavender candle that was in the sale cart.

I lit the candle in my room last night before a shower, so that while I stood in front of my mirror listening to this, brushing mascara onto my eyelashes, I was wrapped in a clean, purple, springy smell that absorbed itself into my drying hair. Made it easier to go out into the cold again. Having a candle to light is almost like having a pet to feed. Makes walking into my room to do anything more like a ritual.
This morning, on a quest to eat more D and to eat more in general, I peeled the thick foil off the top of a kangaroo yogurt while driving with my knee, ten minutes late to a test, still squishing my phone to my ear with my shoulder. Licking the sweet yogurt off the foil, I resisted the urge to then stick said foil to my marbled dashboard, sat it gently on the floor of the car (progress) and pulled a spoon from my pocket to enjoy the rest of my breakfast.

Five dollars and eighty cents for the candle and the yogurt, and a lavender evening and strawberry morning because of them.
Hear hear.