To exit my mind and enter my body, I step into the kitchen

Yesterday I reluctantly left my flat to attend an appointment I had tried to cancel, but the automated bots on the other end of the phone wouldn’t let me. I got off the bus and stood at the traffic lights, waiting for a green man to tell me when it was safe to step into the road. As it turned hundreds of teen cyclists bombarded the road, ignored red lights and ripped straight past us. One veered towards the pavement where I was standing, skidding its tyres into a pool of murky rain water, showering me in dirt.

I had been on the edge of tears anyway and this brought me over the precipice, although I bypassed the worst of it by breathing audibly and thinking about how these relentless boys on bikes felt like the barrage of thoughts that often speed through my mind, faceless, masked and seemingly ominous.

Earlier that day I’d collected a large box of vegetables, a loaf of bouncy seeded bread and dark freckled eggs, and trudged through the wet air and wind, convinced that the elements were conspiring against me. Soccer Mommy’s Circle The Drain was on repeat and the more I listened the more I related and I too wanted to be the soft summer rain falling on your back but everything does keep getting colder. Things feel that low sometimes, even when everything is fine, rings in my ears all day.

There’s numbing comfort to be found in the fictitious lives of deceitful, power-hungry characters. I watch episode after episode of Succession, delighting in knowing Lucy Prebble – the British playwright who I’ve admired since Enron, since The Sugar Syndrome, since The Effect – had penned some of these lines; crafted these relationships; made us feel empathy for ostensibly bad people. But there is nuance to be found in each act of betrayal. A soft whimpering beneath defiant shouts. Shreds of moral fibre behind factions vying for power.

I take a yoga class with my teacher and she asks ‘what takes you out of your body?’ Watching tv alone until my body starts aching. This is an act of escapism I perform.

To exit my mind and enter my body, I step into the kitchen. I walk through the door, shoulders aching from carrying more shallots I’ve ever thought to buy at once, muddy potatoes, pale green sprouts, a leafy bunch of celery and other seasonal fare. I place scraps into a freezer bag ready for future stock, and place the rest in a big cast iron pot. Parsnips, carrots, onions, celery, leek, bay leaves, rosemary, salt, peppercorns and water bubble up and melt into each other. I fill up the fridge as if it was my mind, removing things from drawers, cleaning up shelves, making sense of the madness. I like to see it brimming with colour.

I pour oil into a heavy pan and watch eggs crackle and spit. I wait until the toast is cool to add butter because it tastes better in thick pats, not quite melted, a softened coldness against the roof of my mouth. The yolks are orange and the coffee is bitter chocolate and the shallots will turn into a tarte tatin tomorrow evening. I write a thousand words on Chinese restaurants and think about how vast the cuisine is, how I never knew that Sichuan spice hits different to the pure heat of Hunan cooking.

Later on I remember that I have a bunch of dill and potatoes and leeks and rainbow chard and freshly made stock, so I make Alison Roman’s PLS for Monday’s team lunch. I use the last of the anchovies and tahini in the dressing I never tire of; and in goes chopped kale, cooked barley and wild rice, tangy feta, oven roasted beets and fresh mint.

I have 500 more words to go and a strategy to edit but also a tart to cook and a dark cinema to fade into, and all the while I’m thinking about where I can get a Tupperware that will keep the soup safe when I cycle to work on Monday.