Snipping Chives

My herb garden has been neglected. Although I have just potted new Basil and Rosemary plants, last year's Oregano and Chives once again "volunteered" to grow in the same historic but miserable soil without any help from me and a lot of discouragement from the weather; how hardy plants are.

This evening while preparing to braise boneless pork spareribs, I felt the need for chives as a garnish, so off to the herbs on the deck to snip the chives with my scissors. Some of the grassy blades had flowered; others had brown tips; some were hard and stem-like. Underneath all of that were the tender ones that I sought, so I trimmed back the less desirable blades, revealing a fistful of the shoots I needed to grace my dish. SNIP.

In that moment, I shuffled my mind to the on-going editing of my third book. Chapter one needed to be refreshed and strengthened, particularly the first paragraph and certainly the first five pages. It was not as easy as changing a verb here or moving a phrase there; whole sections were cut, new words were added, the old sections re-integrated. I lost the sense of forward motion of the story and had to start again. Laborious, detailed, concentrated -- all things I am not good at.

Snipping chives was much more fulfilling; it's oniony perfume, lovely and less lingering than the visceral after-taste of snipping words.

The first draft of anything is #%&*.
~ Ernest Hemingway