Homemade potato soup and the eyes of a sweet old lady

Hi there, how are you?

Isn´t life wonderful?!

This morning I´m engaged in cooking. Potato soup from scratch.

Picture Credit RitaE

I even used homemade chicken broth which I had stored in my freezer. And while I´m chopping vegetables in my mind´s eye I´m revisited by the expression of a really sweet old lady I met yesterday.

As you know … no, wait! You can´t know!
I didn´t introduce myself here on Steemit. This is my 3rd article and my “Hi, I´m Maike. Get to now me better post" hasn´t happened yet.

So … as you don´t know, a part of my life is entertaining elderly people in a retirement home. People with dementia, some bedridden, some disoriented or confused, some bodily impaired, some aphasic from illness or old age.

Another part of my life is the work with my beautiful singing bowls. I offer magical massages that help you to relax deeply. If you treat yourself to a singing bowl massage regularly – e.g. once a month - they have a pretty cool lasting and transforming effect.

Yesterday I combined both aspects of my life.
I took a singing bowl in to work and showed it to and played it on some of the residents.

A really old fragile sweet lady I hadn´t met looked at me with big eyes through her metal framed glasses. I wasn´t at all sure if she could understand or hear what I was saying or if she was able to hear the singing bowl sounds. Her eyes were huge behind her glasses and she kept looking at me.

Eventually I handed her the stick I use to chime the singing bowls. She examined it and made movements in the air with it. Finally she hit the singing bowl and I still wasn´t sure if she could hear the sound emanating from it. I encouraged her to keep experiencing and she did.

As I took the bowl and held it close to her feet – she was lying in bed the whole time – she suddenly said: “Well, that´s interesting!” and kept looking at me with those big eyes of her.

We parted with the understanding that I would bring the bowl next time. She liked the sound or maybe just the feel of the soundwaves touching her skin.

So back to me preparing soup from scratch.

My granny did everything from scratch. She and my granddad had a big garden and cultivated most of their food in it. As a kid I had my granddad showing me how to set up a bed of carrots or radishes. And I did watch my granny cooking delicious dishes, using the food she and granddad harvested from their own patch.

I remember asking her for one of her recipes once. She just looked at me in amazement and said: “There´s no such thing as a recipe. I´m doing it like I always have.” So I took what she had to offer: her love for homemade dishes from real food and her natural way of cooking.

When the sweet old lady looked at me yesterday it was alike to my granny´s look when I asked her for her recipe (silly me! How could I).

I find it very comforting and feel so much gratitude and joy when I´m being reminded of people I love by doing the little things. Isn´t that something!
You think: “Ok, I´ll prepare some soup that will serve as lunch for the next two days.” And doing so you feel so very content and happy because you are totally aware of the love that comes with it. With the memory of beloved people, of times long gone, of feelings and ideas lasting through time and space.

Isn´t life just wonderfull?!!!