Immersion looked a bit like separated and unequal. Which was really just fine with me.
I hope namaste somewhere posts the recipe to the evening’s Signature drink: The Sweet Surrender (from what i can gather it was chilled, shaken 1part vodka to 2parts lemonade -at first (quickly shifting to 1:1) - (which you could enjoy bruised (blackberry puree) or welted (raspberry puree).) We dispensed with the kisses of lemon and sugar on the lips of the old fashioneds. (in the interest of time). The only one that was delivered as welted-style was the one I made for namaste. (making some of us in the kitchen giggle a bit– all the M-types wanted their aperitifs “bruised”. fuckin’ sadists.)
For the evening I prepared a cheese flight consisting mostly of colorless cheeses. (SaintAndre, vermont extra sharp cheddar, muenster, orange extra sharp cheddar and smoked gouda.) I served these with an assortment of crackers and toast (tiny petite toast).) I also made the salad, which I envisioned as good for at least 20 people. Turns out it was good for twice that, considering the tiny bowls that we used for the salad. I am not sure those who occupied the floor had any salad at all.
So. Salad is one of my favorite things to eat, but I don’t necessarily think of it as an arty thing to assemble. I would like some day to be very good at dressings, but I have a dressing I get from the market that’s really good, and I don’t know enough, I don’t think, to replicate. (Yet).
I assembled the following for the enormousity of the salad.
3 seeds-removed peeled cucumbers (diced)
pint cherry tomatoes
2 haas avos, diced
5 carrots peeled, cut in half-wheels
1 big purple onion, sliced and diced
2 beautiful red bell peppers, seeded and diced
4 stalks celery
some sliced radishes
ripped up head of red leaf
ripped up baby spinach
I would have doused in lemon juice to prevent the brown of avos in the day following.
We served with selection of peppercorn ranch or balsamic vinaigrette. I am currently enjoying with champagne dressing.
Other courses included delightful tilapia or salmon (dill) with lemon dill cream sauce (to she who made this– yum). A roast pork loin and some rotisserie chicken. Unfortunately the starch brought was a small pasta salad. I would have made a couscous+ butter garlic thing or other small kind of pasta (orzo) or risotto, but hindsight is 20/20, right?
The dessert selections were jars of trifle (rich and delish), and some cakes. Someone else provided a beautiful fruit plate with a carved out pineapple filled with whipped cream. (She had also made up a delightful plate of mozza and salami, which we’re most grateful to munch upon!)
The men held court in the garage, smoking cigars and drinking brandies and scotches. We didn’t do a whole formal cigar service, which may have included our bodies as ashtrays. Just cutting, lighting, and serving drinks. The rest of us took places on the living room floor, talking and sipping and listening for the chime that called us in to attend.
We did the dishes, too. A lot of dishes. By midnight we had run the dishwasher twice and done those dishes that couldn’t go in the machine by hand. We had packed up the leftovers into bags and put up dishes where we could.
I really loved being so busy, I loved attending to needs as called for. I am not much for protocol, but a deliberate enforcing of inequality, on the whole, en masse, the lot of our side of things dressed in revealing garb (mine covered everything, but was entirely see-through). I was comfortable, you know. I wasn’t super aware of how I looked, it wasn’t important. My awareness was upon Das’s comforts, Das’s wishes. I wanted to make things lovely as I represent and reflect him, his will.
When we talk about being, I get hung up on “how do I do your will?” There are so many words one could type or say regarding this declension of “to be”. I am and I will. When “will” is part of “being”, and your Master is one of the leading thinkers in ontology, paying attention to will as noun and will as verb and nounverb (gerund) this is all part of the deal for which I’ve signed up. But, I’m in a different school. I live in the “doing”. Bending my own way of thinking into the Being as key, initial, primary, rather than the Doing as most important philosophy/lifeway: this is the crux of my service.
Not necessarily cleaning the kitchen or a list of to-dos. Being his is the key. Not “doing what it takes to be his.”
And this is not as easy as it seems.
Let us take the idea of goals and deadlines.
Das does not operate on these terms. I’m the opposite. If I have a goal or deadline, whatever it is as sure as shit is done. I have leave to set my own goals and deadlines, within reason. For example, I blissed out on counting words for Nanowrimo. Unfortunately, I also burned out on words for Nano. I made the goal in 10 days. I won a 30 day contest in ten. I then left off the writing, because of the burnout. Das says to make my goal developing such-and-such idea or character, and leave off the focus on number of words. He is, of course, right on this count. It does not serve a novel just to have a lot of words: they mustneeds be delightful, good words. This doesn’t necessarily come with quantity.
But shifting to this gear? I have no clutch installed. How do I do it, I ask.
And the answer comes back, “just be mine.”
So while I love the activity of service, it is my intention that makes this how I evince the his-ness. I clean the kitchen or make dinner not because I am told to, but because I am told to be his. And as his, I provide cleaner kitchens, better dinners, kneeling to say I love you. Discarding the expectations and ridding myself of any disappointments and potential resentments.
There is an element of suck it up to being enslaved. If I am disappointed, it is on me to understand that he does not do things solely for my feelings. He does them for his feelings. I do not get disappointed because of him, it’s because of my own presentation of expectations that do not get met. I do not have the luxury of expecting things from Das, this isn’t my place. And learning that daily is part of the journey. It’s how the be gets done.
