December 28, 2008
Sunday

[In the daytime] the roomy kitchen was full of bright sunshine from the windows which opened on the front terrace. . . .in front of the sink and stove and baking table there were hooked oval rugs with gay flower patterns. . . . [As the moon rose] she was standing in the living-room door, looking out across the terrace and the Green. . . .she had letters to write, , and she must set the sponge for tomorrow’s baking; but she just stood there, leaning, and looking across the Green.
                           — Mary O’Hara, 1885-1980
                               American fiction writer
                               from My Friend Flicka

My fascination with Wyoming began with Mary O’Hara’s novels about a boy and his horse. My Friend Flicka is the first in a trilogy, and I read through the series as a pre-teen in part because the title of the third, Green Grass of Wyoming, sounded so beautiful. Although in those days I saw myself in Ken, the daydreamer who can’t focus on the practical and the necessary and wants only to ride his horse off into adventure, I was also drawn to the mother, Nell, herself a sensitive romantic soul whose main business is caring for her family.

She bakes a lot, mostly bread. “Setting the sponge” is the phrase that stayed with me. It means she makes up a small quantity of yeasty starter that will be bubbly and light in the morning when she bakes the bread she will serve her family and the ranch hands. It occurs many times in the book, and indicates that she cannot rest until she prepares for the next day’s work.

There is an eating scene, or at least a reference to food, in every piece of fiction I write, and the food most often is bread. In fact, the novel I am working on begins with the image of a bread starter. The heart of my spirituality id the Eucharist, that sharing of the divine in the elements of bread and wine, that building of community around the simplest and most universal of foods.

My kitchen is like the one on the Goose Bar Ranch in Wyoming. It faces south and is full of bright sunshine almost all day. Some afternoons the light is so beautiful I just sit and breathe in it. I bake there, write there, read there, pray there.

I am going back to work tomorrow. I’ve set the sponge — drawn up a set of lesson plans for myself, what I will read and what I will write this week. My notebook and my planner are stacked neatly at my place, and on top is the devotional guide I’ll be using again this year. It’s Joyce Rupp’s Fresh Bread, a plan of meditation and writing prompts which has nourished me in the past. It seems especially appropriate now.

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A year ago, I wrote about my first experiences with books.

Two years ago, I wondered how a letter I’d written to six old friends would be received.

Three years ago, I wrote about a tree growing in the public playground of my childhood at Fifth and Emerald Streets in Harrisburg.

Four years ago, I wrote about that wonderful seasonal genre, the Annual Holiday Letter.

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