Loved reading this gorgeous peek into the Berkshires that I miss so much. Now I'm craving fresh bread and sambar from the Haymarket, and a hot chai to wash it down.
That was going ok until I got to the section about the bread-buying woman in line ahead of the author. All those assumptions and editorial comments about what was happening. Sheesh. Maybe the woman saves for months to be able to come buy one of everything. Maybe the woman lives far away and is buying for her entire neighborhood. Maybe the woman has eight foster children and they eat that much bread over the week. Who knows? All I know is that the author somehow managed to steal all the joy from the entire affair and then on top of that claimed both resentment and pity over somebody buying bread at a bakery. That was overwrought, self-righteous, and awful. No thanks.
“ I didn’t like making assumptions about this stranger,” she writes. She was narrating the ways we can betray ourselves when impatient—to me, this is quite a believable and self-aware note.
Yes, she initially says that and then she continues to intersperse the assumptions into her experience and goes right back to all of them towards the end. And doesn’t actually resolve whether or not she still retains them. Idk, I am not trying to argue with anyone, but that theme running through the piece just felt off to me. Others may not get that same impression and that’s great. I’ve been poor enough to have to live in my truck and rich enough to buy one of each of the breads; at either point I would still have this same critique. Thanks for taking the time to discuss!
A lovely prose poem to freshly baked bread. I can smell and taste it.
Loved reading this gorgeous peek into the Berkshires that I miss so much. Now I'm craving fresh bread and sambar from the Haymarket, and a hot chai to wash it down.
That was going ok until I got to the section about the bread-buying woman in line ahead of the author. All those assumptions and editorial comments about what was happening. Sheesh. Maybe the woman saves for months to be able to come buy one of everything. Maybe the woman lives far away and is buying for her entire neighborhood. Maybe the woman has eight foster children and they eat that much bread over the week. Who knows? All I know is that the author somehow managed to steal all the joy from the entire affair and then on top of that claimed both resentment and pity over somebody buying bread at a bakery. That was overwrought, self-righteous, and awful. No thanks.
The author takes herself to task about her assumptions.
“ I didn’t like making assumptions about this stranger,” she writes. She was narrating the ways we can betray ourselves when impatient—to me, this is quite a believable and self-aware note.
Yes, she initially says that and then she continues to intersperse the assumptions into her experience and goes right back to all of them towards the end. And doesn’t actually resolve whether or not she still retains them. Idk, I am not trying to argue with anyone, but that theme running through the piece just felt off to me. Others may not get that same impression and that’s great. I’ve been poor enough to have to live in my truck and rich enough to buy one of each of the breads; at either point I would still have this same critique. Thanks for taking the time to discuss!
“as easy going as incense” ❤️