Things that are worth it

The sun will set in an hour.

You want to be planting grain, fifteen kinds of wheat and five of barley to eat next winter.

Instead you go back in time. Someone you love gives you sour cherries from their freezer. Someone else you love brings you a precious case of golden-sweet citrus from the big city. In the farmers' market you are sold a huge bucket of bee-distilled clover from the town one over. Brew them into a mead. Bottle them with care, one by one, placing a single oak chip in each.

Instead you go back in time. Two years ago, on a trip to the big city, you bought eggs for an exotic duck to hatch in your livingroom. The eggs did not hatch exotic ducks, but one of the ducks did make a secret nest under the snowblower last spring and proudly led out five perfect ducklings. Drive one of those ducklings four hours into the mountains where you stay overnight in a hotel with someone you love, the last trip you will take before the pandemic, while that duck is killed and plucked by a friendly, kind young man.

Instead you go back in time. Two years ago on your trip to the big city you buy rare flavours: capers and anchovies and French mustard from small shabby shops filled with treasures. The shopkeeper gives you a purse, which you still use, because a two-year supply of olive oil and spices is rich enough to support that shop for the day.

Instead you go back in time. Earlier that week you pop into the grocery store. Cooking takes time and you don't have time: a package of bagels is quick. You toss it in your basket. Might as well grab some romaine hearts too.

Instead you go back in time. Five days ago you take the duck from the freezer and put him in the fridge to thaw. Two days previous you carefully slice the breasts from the duck, using your favourite yellow-handled knife that someone you love brought you the first time you butchered a pig. You carefully slash the fat and salt them, then vacuum seal them and put them into the fridge for the salt to absorb.

Instead you go back in time. At lunch you go out into the sunshine. It's been a day and a half since you collected duck eggs and the nests are overflowing with them: charcoal, mint green, pearlescent grey. The daughter of Snowblower Duck has, true to her genetics, made a secret nest and you leave those eggs be. They will doubtless hatch out lovely ducklings. You fill a bucket with other duck eggs and bring it in to set on one of the few surfaces that is not yet covered in transplants or eggs.

You want to be planting grain. Instead you put a cold cast-iron pan on the stove and lay a single duck breast in it, slashed fat side down, to render as it slowly comes to temperature. It sizzles as you crack an egg into the little blender you bought years ago when you were trying to get through one of the hardest years of your life. The lemon juicer is in the dishwasher so you hand-squeeze a lemon, pour in olive oil and capers and mustard and worcestershire sauce you brought long ago from the city. Pour it over the sliced lettuce and flip the duck breast. The fat has rendered out, it's sizzling in a pool of fat, and a fork run over the skin crisps and cracks.

You want to be planting grain but you have four minutes in which the duck has to cook on the other side. After tossing the salad you hesitate, then take a bagel and lay it cut-side down in the pool of duck fat beside the meat.

You want to be planting grain but you pull crispy bagel halves out of the fat and prop them in a mixing bowl full of caesar salad. You thinly slice the deep red duck breast, still oozing red juices and crisply protesting the knife, and place it beside the bagel over the salad.

You want to be planting grain but you pour a juice glass of cherry-lemon mead and carry it to the sofa with your dinner.

It's good to be eating dinner. You eat dinner, wiping the last bit of salad dressing up with the last bit of duck breast.

The sun sets. It's too late to be planting grain. It's still a good night.