Severing Attachment to the World

I sharpened my knives today.

For the last several years I've been using the knife set Pearl received for her wedding. Even past the end of her marriage, and after moving out of the house we all shared, I ended up with this knife set, which is complete, a pretty good set, and I'm used to it. Pearl has been again sharing my current townhouse, and is getting ready to move out, and I figure the knives are hers and I should return them to her when she moves.

When Pearl first moved in I had been living alone for the last year, and I was wondering how I would deal with sharing my house. The thing about independence is having everything your own way, with your own routines and so forth. The down side, which I was accustomed to, is loneliness. However, I've really been in love with my daughter since she was born, and she has matured a lot lately, and we take a lot of joy in spending time together. Now I'm having anticipatory grieving, as she will be moving out next week. I will miss her cheerful voice, her smile, her stealth hugs, and sense of humor. I delayed packing up the set of knives because I was used to them--attached to them--and they came to symbolize giving up my living arrangement with Pearl.

Today it felt like the right time, so I made sure her knives were all together, none dirty or left behind in the dishwasher, and packed them up. I gathered together my knives, which were scattered around the kitchen and tucked away in drawers. I have, as it turned out, an eclectic collection of at least four French knives, two serrated bread knives, two smaller serrated knives, and two paring knives, as well as an odd-sized small French knife and a tiny boning knife. One or two were from my previous marriage, some I had bought retail, and some I had found second hand. Fortunately I had a new pair of kitchen shears, from the time I left the scissors from Pearl's set in the garage and couldn't find them for weeks.

They were mostly pretty dull, as I found out. I got out my electric knife sharpener which I have never used. Actually, I had given the sharpener to Pearl and Charles for one of their anniversaries, and I also ended up with it. So I gathered knives, tomatoes, and read the directions.

I developed a system. For each knife I made a preliminary attempt at slicing a tomato, sharpened the knife, and tested the results. I have accidentally sliced my fingers so many times in the last few years that I had no intention of testing the blades with my fingers. It was very gratifying to see the improvements after sharpening. Afterwards we ate tomato sandwiches: a split whole wheat English muffin, toasted, with vegenaise and slices of tomato. Very refreshing.

Two of them were Cutco knives which I had purchased from my previous husband when he was a student trying out the "job" of selling knives to relatives and friends. Although they lack elegance and style, they keep their edge very well, and did not need much sharpening. As for the others, apparently keeping the knives on a magnetic strip as I did in the past, dulls the knives. Anyway, I picked out two of my second-hand knife blocks, washed them well, and set out the best knives in those. The rest I placed in a drawer lined with a towel.

And that has to be the most boring blog post I have ever written.

Thank you.