The Spice Cupboard of Life

Growing up and even now in our own home, we have a cupboard full of herbs & spices. I’m sure many of you have similar culinary arrangements. However, many a time, I’ve found there’s often a disorganisation at work… humans have been busy!

Bottles and jars are taken out of their place and put back into the cupboard at the front or somewhere approximate to their original location. The layering of varied containers starts to resemble those penny arcade games as they squeeze into every space just clinging on to the edge of the shelf. Slowly but surely all that free space is taken up.

Over time, hunting for the elusive ‘ground cumin’ becomes a bit of a treasure hunt in itself. Sometimes it’s a happy journey of discovery. At other times the disorganisation of daily use becomes painful; a barrier even. Then you find that you have way too many tubs of black peppercorns and hardly any oregano… it’s not a major event but it happens.

One day, often in an attempt to organise, you actually look at the sedimentary layers of the differently aged herbs & spices… You realise that many had a sell-by date somewhere before the advent of smartphones. Others have formed an amorphous, discoloured mass in their little jars and are no longer useful. Yet there’s still an attachment, a sentimental desire to keep that special jar of mulled wine spice or that mustard powder that stills looks OK.

You’ve experienced this too haven’t you?

Life is a lot like this

Human interaction and the span of time brings a disorganisation to our own spice cupboard of life, our mind. Our thoughts, behaviours and memories of the past are like magpies’ treasures hidden in the neural depths.

We use what we know we have with regularity. Over time we forget the rest of what we have – sometimes we forget why we have what we have. Some of the peppercorn treasures multiply or clone. Disorganisation starts to rule.

Then comes the day when we realise our spice cupboard is limiting us…

We keep reaching for the same jar because we don’t really know what else we could use instead – after all the tried and tested recipe got us here didn’t it?

We know we should by now have a cupboard full of riches but we can’t quite put our finger on the ones that we need right now.

We find that some of what we need has atrophied without the nurture or replenishment it needed. The cupboard itself has become stained by the soy sauce carelessly sitting there at the back.

Someday, someone or some event prompts us to take a look at our spice cupboard and get it into some renewed order. To appreciate the treasures that we need and the detritus that we don’t. To wipe over the undesirable residue of past experiences to stop them clogging up the future. To gather the ingredients that we need for the recipes of the future that we want to create and play with.

So how about you?

How does your spice cupboard of life look like right now? What is no longer useful to you? Do you have the ingredients you need to create the future you want? Who can help you find what you need?