A few weeks ago, I finally got to watch the HBO mini series: Mildred Pierce, starring Kate Winslet (whom I just love). Mildred Pierce is about a woman who kicks out her cheating husband and makes a successful business by starting a restaurant that serves only chicken made many different ways. Watching this mini series wasn’t just validating and inspiring, it made me crave chicken and waffles which was one of the dishes on Mildred’s menu. Having lived in the south, I will always crave certain southern dishes. Good fried chicken is so hard to find in the northeast.
After watching Mildred Pierce, I set out to find the best southern restaurant in Alexandria. N and I went to 815 Southside to try out Alexandria’s southern food. Now 815 Southside is not the best southern restaurant that I’ve ever been to, but they did do one thing right: Chicken and sweet potato waffles with sausage gravy. The plate came out with steam coming off the gravy. The fried chicken was perfect texturally. It was super crispy on the outside and tender and juicy on the inside. The waffles were the perfect complement to every bite. It was a melodious tune of sweet and salty and creamy and crispy; The type of the tune that brings to back to your most comforting memory-a warm hug, watching the ocean, or walking through Central Park.
While I munched on my dinner and looked around the restaurant, I got really nostalgic for Nashville. Nashville was a warm, green, and yummy place to live. However, during my time there, I spent a lot of time missing New York and then wishing Nashville had more. This is a theme in my life. I am constantly looking at the lawn next to me thinking about how much greener it looks than mine. Living in the present is damn hard work for me sometimes. Especially now, because I have so much time and keep thinking about what I simply must accomplish. This is not the way that I would like to live my life today.
A couple of years ago, I was reintroduced to this idea of taking life “One day at a time” at a 12 step program called Al-anon. When I first heard it, I thought damn, that’s cheesy as hell. The more I heard it, though, the more I realized that I had no clue how to put this into practice. I mean I am an impulsive person who is always looking for the next best adventure. This slogan was about slowing down and looking at things in the present tense rather than the past or the future.
So that Friday night, after my delicious dinner of chicken and waffles, after I marinated in my nostalgia for Nashville, I made an executive decision: I want to live in the present tense through my current transitional period. So I set out to practice “One day at a time”. It has been challenging, but calming to live like this, so far. I not only take it one day at a time, but one task at a time which, let me tell you, isn’t quite a mastered skill, yet. I have been practicing this for just a couple of weeks, what are the results, so far? I am thinking more clearly about the decisions that need to be made about my life (I had filled up my schedule with too many commitments and chose to release two of those commitments to have a lighter schedule). I am laughing more and am realizing how green my life truly is. This year is a gift and I willing to take it as it comes.
