Finishing School

Progress

I might be a little bit crazy, in case you couldn't tell. 

Quelle goddamned surprise.

So I have this ...problem? Psychic block? Weird metaphysical affectation? I CANNOT, WILL NOT FINISH A GODDAMNED THING THAT I START. To wit: I will furiously wash an entire sink full of dirty dishes, but leave one  -- ONE  -- fork untouched. I will read a book that I very much enjoy and "forget" to read the last 30 pages. I will begin a sentence or thought only to realize halfway through that I don't know how to conclude and will try to buy myself time by inserting various verbal stalling tactics ("so then what I had wanted to do about it in that particular moment of time during the incident that I was previously referring to just now when I was talking out loud ... ").  

From the time I was a small child, I have started endeavors and projects with gusto (see: ballet, soccer, swim team, ceramics, Ancient Greek, Finnish, that one business plan I had for bagged lunches, multiple short stories) only to get deflected, distracted, bored or defeated halfway through and veer off course like a hungry Icelandic pony who spots some tasty brush just to the left of the path and breaks rank to go investigate it despite having a person on top of it who doesn't ordinarily ride horses and begins shrieking loudly. 

Not that I speak from experience.


But speaking of hungry ponies, the one thing I will finish is ANY FOOD ITEM. I am NOT that girl who leaves 3 crackers in the box. I am the girl who despite being very full does not want to go to the cracker box in the future and discover three measly crackers and so will risk overfull barfiness in the pursuit of a clean plate/empty cracker box. Also, are you going to be eating those five bites of mashed potatoes left in your bowl? 

As I've become more self-aware (LOLZ), I've come back again and again to this unfortunate affliction, this little knick in my character, trying to correct it or at least understand its roots. I've got some theories, but they all sort of funnel into one overarching theory, which is that that finishing things make me contemplate my mortality. As does boredom, repetition, stasis and showering.*

I have come to understand that cheesemaking is all about patience, waiting, repetition, continuity. As I've gotten more comfortable with various facets of the process at Lazy Lady, I've found myself variously leaning into the Zen-like trance of repetition when, say,  washing 100 cheeses in beer brine or scrubbing 150 cheese forms in soapy water and other times panicking with the realization that THIS IS GOING TO BE FOREVER. If I sign up for cheese life, there is, as I perceive it, the steep learning curve, the variation and fluctuation in seasons and animal behavior and weather and microbial development but by and large, if you're making just a couple cheeses, it's JUST THAT OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN UNTIL YOU FUCKING DIE. 

Which is ... ok maybe?

Laini is a maniac who makes lit'rully dozens of varieties of cheese and is constantly developing new ones, and it's because she would totally go nuts and/or implode if she was forced to just make one or two cheeses for all of life. She's like a shark -- if she stops moving, she will die. But even amidst the constant flurry of activity and creativity, there is a certain sameness. The goats must be milked every day twice a day (from March through December, anyway). The cheeses must be flipped, or wrapped, or washed, or brushed. The mats must be washed, the tables, the forms, the vat. Things cannot be left undone, or half-done, without seriously compromising the safety of the operation or the quality of the product. 

Affinage, for those not IN CHEESE, is the stage of development after a cheese is made and before it's taken to market. It can be something as simple as flipping it as it ripens to redistribute surface mold and create uniform moisture exchange or as complicated as applying various washes or wrappings or piercing it with needles or singing it lullabies (not that I've done that). Its literal translation is "finishing," because without all of these sundry refinements, the cheese would remain undone. Unlike a fresh cheese (chevre or fromage blanc or ricotta) that's ready to go right out the gate, an un-aged, "unfinished" bloomy rind or washed rind or blue would be virtually inedible if you tried to eat it straight away. Again I don't speak from experience. But don't do it.

Finishing is essential. Finishing is pain in the ass. Finishing is everyfuckingthing.

As frenetic and inventive as Laini is on a daily basis, she is that way within the confines of a very proscribed series of protocols. It seems like over the years she's devised a little yin/yang, creating safeguards for herself that ensure she doesn't go stir crazy. It seems to work for her, mostly. It helps that she still finds time to experiment with cold brew coffee and devise conspiracy theories surrounding the dearth of vertically striped shirts for women. Hint: it's the Patriarchy. For me, the seeing-things-through-to-the-end thing hasn't come easily, but it helps to know that there's not really an alternative. Being half-assed about any phase of the process could spell ruin or at the very least an expensive mistake. So I've had to force myself to finish what I start at the farm. Sometimes it's really rewarding to see the fruit of our collective labor -- like yesterday in the aged cave when I was brushing the gorgeous mottled Mixed Emotions, which reminds me of brushing the dust off of my pony Ringo at summer camp (wow, lots of ponies showing up here unannounced). Or when I take home a perfectly oozy, wrinkly Pyramid -- YES THEY'RE FINALLY COMING AROUND -- and cut into it and taste all the crazy complexity of milk and yeast and air and time and my hands and breath and feelings! 

Currently my sink is forkless. You have no idea what pride that gives me. I feel that this will be a barometer for my level of steadfastness going forward.

Pray for me and my forkless sink. It could spell success or ruin.

*Showering is the fucking epitome of quotidian ennui, but I'm getting over it. On a related note, if anyone knows where a person can buy those soap crayons that children can use to draw on themselves during bath time, please advise.