Good morning. I got into it with the cutting boards and butcher block just now, scrubbing away the sins of 2017, allowing everything to dry and then rubbing an immense amount of beeswax and mineral oil into the wood. It was mindless labor — simple work that made the kitchen a better place to be — and it helped keep the Sunday panic at bay. The work set life in my control, and not the other way around.
You might try something like that this afternoon yourself, particularly if there are things about your surroundings that bum you out, definitely if there are things in your life that kick up anxiety, that make you restless, that leave you tight. Winter’s crowding us hard this month. So do something with your hands. It’s a way of taking charge.
– Sam Sifton, 14 January 2018
