I sit before my leftover Lasagna and chew over life.
This, before me, is a metaphor for it.
Layer upon layer of cream, cheese, meat, veggies, spices and sauces.
Layer upon layer of life.
Layer upon layer on people.
Layer upon layer of our sometimes creamy, sometimes crispy, sometimes saucy, sometimes oozy, sometimes healthy, sometimes meaty, sometimes spicy and often messy lives.
My Lasagna is multi-layered, complex, baffling and bursting out of its casserole.
It is the equivalent of a living being that doesn’t know how much is enough – how far to go, how much to love, how much to show, how much to feel, how much to know, how much to share and how much to keep?
As I bite into its hot richness, I savour every layer.
This is life. This is me. And this is who I’m going to be – some leftover layers of lessons, losses and gains.
Before I know it, I am talking to these layers:
“Darling Lasagna,
Your layers remind me of relationships.
Not one, but many. A single relationship cannot fulfil all that one needs and wants. If expected to, the burden can and often does break the bond.
Throughout my life, I’ve had soulmates for different reasons:
Some were for coffee and conversation – of the bookish, intellectual kind,
Some for lunch and lightness,
Some for snacking and gossip,
Some for dinner and dancing,
And others for running off all those meals with.
One (at a time) to live out my romantic fantasies with,
One to share a smoke with when I was fuming inside,
Many to exchange recipes with and understand their very personal and peculiar origins,
And one who made me comfort food when I was too fed up to feed myself (I’d do the same for that one).
Layer on layer, the seasoning and stuffing is different.
Our lives, friendships and loves are never the same.
Seasons change, layers pinch together, layers tear apart.
We could take it all with a pinch of salt.
And even within that one relationship, there is a time for layers to be delved into and layers to be left alone. It’s the least we owe the delicacy of those layers.
Your layers are soft.
How often do we allow ourselves to be so?
Soft. Not weak. But sensitive.
How often have we acknowledged the infant living inside us?
Does it have the window to nakedly, blatantly and honestly express itself?
How are we ever going to smile fully if we don’t know how to cry a river?!
Your layers are stacked, an even filling between each.
If we don’t feel every feeling fully, it’s a waste of a filling!
Peeling the layers is an exercise in patience.
Nothing peels easily and no two things peel just as speedily.
People, success and answers don’t come quick and easy.
All the leftover Lasagna has to be gotten through.
Often until you’re fed up!
And then when you have your reward – a breakthrough, a friendship or a revelation – you’re refuelled!
Over time, layers help lick wounds, layers comfort us through all sorts of bad weather, layers cajole and neutralize and ultimately merge into one, grand Lasagna called ‘Life’.
Your layers are a delicious cover that must be broken to taste the unfamiliar albeit even more delicious meat that rests between the known.
Your layers are a pattern.
As perfect as it may be,
If we don’t break it every now and then,
We’ll never permeate our own beings.
The marrow is where the magic happens.
And it requires us to break many “spells”.
When I dig into you, I dig deep within.
And I am left with a lesson in the school of life:
It is made up of layers, as we all are, as everything is.
Leftovers are wise.
It is what we may one day be.
Even leftovers end.
So we may stop.”
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