Tag: time

• January 5, 2023

  The First Loaf of the New Year: A Meditation on Bread-Making

  

  It’s still dark outside as I weigh my flour. The light of the digital display on my kitchen scale glows blue and casts shadows across the mound of all-purpose and whole wheat flour in a glass bowl. I hold a meat thermometer under a stream of running water, adjusting the faucet handle by degrees in search of the perfect temperature before filling my Pyrex measuring cup and mixing the water with the flour to form a thick paste. Then, there’s time to relax while the flour absorbs the moisture, before salt and yeast are added and these simple ingredients are transformed into something altogether different.

  There is waiting. There is checking, peering under the lid to see if anything has changed. There are moments to reach in and pull and fold sticky dough, then to step back and let it rest again. Unlike nearly everything else, there are no shortcuts, no way to speed up the process. Baking bread forces you to slow down and move at the pace of very small things. The yeast does not care what time it is nor what else I may have planned.

  By mid-afternoon, my dough has evolved. It has structure now and bubbles of gas pressing against its skin. I lift it out of the bowl and shape it with floured hands, then place it in a floured basket and cover it again for one last rise.

  I preheat the oven, knowing that it will take a long time to get up to temperature. A Dutch oven warms up inside. Then, a burst of movement, getting a perfectly proofed loaf out of its basket and into the Dutch oven without burning myself and getting it back into the oven before the moment passes.

  

  There is something special about baking the first bread of the new year. I’m not sure why it is, maybe it’s the closeness of working in the kitchen while it’s dark outside, or perhaps it’s the stillness that descends after the holidays. Sure, there’s a recipe to follow and ratios to adhere to, but a good bake comes down to more than checking off the steps in a list. It’s about instinct, intuition, and a pinch of luck.

  When the bread emerges, it has developed a dark brown crust that crackles under my fingertips. It sounds hollow when tapped. The whole house smells like baking bread. And has the winter sun fades, I cut into the loaf to enjoy the first warm slice with butter.

  It had been a long time since I’d made bread. It’s an investment of time—a whole day at least, and sometimes several. I’m not an expert by any means, but when I devote the energy to bread, I’m reminded of why I like making it in the first place. It’s satisfying to make something from scratch, to know I’m drawing on techniques that go back generations and connect me to bread-makers stretching back over 14,000 years.

  Most of all, when I practice my bread making, I am reminded that good things take time and care. And that the time is worth it.

  

  —30—

  Jonny Eberle is a writer, podcaster, and bread maker. He lives in Tacoma, WA with his family, a dog, and three adorable typewriters. His writing has been published in Creative Colloquy, Grit City Magazine, and All Worlds Wayfarer. You can listen to his audio drama, The Adventures of Captain Radio, and his writing podcast, Dispatches with Jonny Eberle, wherever you enjoy podcasts.

  If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to his monthly email newsletter for exclusive content, curated reading recommendations, and more. Thanks for reading!
• December 23, 2020

  Publishing News: December 2020

  

  It’s publication day for my newest short story! All Worlds Wayfarer is publishing my story “Firemaker” in their December 2020 issue, now available to read online for free or available as an ebook from Amazon. I’m beyond excited that this story has finally found a home. I sincerely hope you enjoy reading it.

  Read “Firemaker” Now

  Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t read the story yet, I hope you will before reading much further, because this is the point of no return if you wish to avoid spoilers. I love a good time travel tale. It’s a familiar trope for good reason — it allows us to imagine our reality in surprising ways. If we had a machine like the one my protagonist has at his disposal, I think we’d all be tempted to see what tomorrow had in store for us, or long to correct what once went wrong. But what happens once you’ve seen and done it all? Where would a weary time travel go to escape the sweeping currents of history? That’s the question at the heart of “Firemaker.”

  I started tinkering with this idea about three years ago, when I fell down a rabbit hole of information about linguistics. I remember reading about linguists searching for an ancient “mother tongue,” a lost language theorized to be the ancestor of today’s Indo-European language family. This missing language, dubbed “Proto Indo-European” can be extrapolated by looking for common words that may indicate a common root in the distant past. According to some theories, scraps of this language embedded in our modern lexicon may be the only surviving evidence of a hunter-gatherer society that existed more than 15,000 years ago. From that starting place, I began to imagine this society as a small band that did not survive the Ice Age, leaving behind nothing but their language. A dead-end civilization, cut off from us by a climactic disaster.

  Some time later, this idea merged with another one that was rolling around in my mind. I was thinking about time travel as a plot device, about the nature of time, and where a time traveler who’s tired of roaming might go. How might such a traveler retire after untold decades exploring every corner of history from the dawn of the dinosaurs to the destruction of the Earth? Where would I go if I wanted to avoid making disruptive changes to the timeline and simply be? In that position, I might want to find a quiet corner of time where I knew I couldn’t alter the flow of history, among people who would eventually disappear from the historical record. Perhaps an Ice Age civilization destined to die out.

  These two threads came together in an early draft of a story titled “Amber.” In that first version, the Traveler goes into the distant past to escape from the responsibility of knowing how everything would turn out. In that story, the Traveler came across as cold and detached, weighing the impact of his every action before committing to anything. In the story, he saves a boy from drowning, but only after deciding that doing so will have no adverse affect on history. It was an interesting thought experiment, but it lacked emotional stakes.

  So, I made some changes, put it away for a year or two, and then pulled it out again to fine-tune it. In the final story, the Traveler is much more impulsive and driven not by a sense of duty not to screw up time, but love for a woman with the potential to ensure her people’s survival as ice sheets bear down on their valley. “Firemaker” is a lot more fun than its earlier incarnation because of the protagonist’s willingness to throw away his whole life in order to get himself to Immaru ahead of schedule. But it also incorporates an undercurrent of uncertainty about whether or not we can ever understand or manipulate time. In the end, I honestly don’t know if the Traveler’s actions constitute a paradox or if that’s how it was always supposed to be and free will is an illusion. And I don’t know if the Traveler made it back to the tavern to order the drinks or if he ever existed at all. That’s the fun of time travel, and I hope you enjoyed the trip.

  “Firemaker” is now available to read on the All Worlds Wayfarer website. All Worlds Wayfarer publishes quarterly on the solstice and equinox, so you have until March 20, 2021 to read my short fiction there before the next issue is published. If you’d like a copy you can keep forever, please consider supporting the lit journal by purchasing the Kindle version on Amazon. Thanks for reading!

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle lives in Tacoma, WA with his wife, three typewriters, and a puppy. His fiction has been featured or is forthcoming in Creative Colloquy, Grit City Magazine and All Worlds Wayfarer. Read more of his short fiction here, follow him on Twitter, and subscribe to his monthly email newsletter here.
• October 6, 2014

  Writing Is The Best Therapy

  

  I haven’t written a word since before Labor Day. It’s been more than four weeks since I’ve made the time to create amid the chaos of wedding planning, learning a new job and moving into a new house. For a writer to go a prolonged period without writing is like an athlete not training for a month. I feel like my words are dull; out of shape.

  I also think my absence from creative work is taking a toll on me physically and psychologically. I’m stressed, moody, irritable, exhausted. I’m drained and feeling depressed.

  I truly believe that not writing contributed to my foul mood and maybe even the nasty cold I got a few weeks ago. A 2005 study found a link between writing for 15-20 minutes a day a few times a month and decreased levels of stress and illness — even improved blood pressure.

  Without my usual release through writing, my emotions and frustrations are bottled up, dammed like a river and threatening to overflow. It was making me morose and physically sick. I need the safety valve of my writing. It doesn’t matter if it’s a blog, a short story, a play; I need to exercise my creative muscles. I need to vent the stress of life onto pages.

  Just like an athlete needs to make time to hit the treadmill, I need time to devote my mind to the practice of fiction. The muscles of my subconscious need to recover from a long month of atrophy before I start to feel like myself again. It will take time to build up the discipline I once had, but I will get there, one sentence at a time, to a place where both my stories and I can thrive.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. How do you schedule time in the day for your passions. Leave you comments below or tweet him at @jonnyeberle. Thanks for reading!
• September 15, 2014

  A Change In the Wind

  

  There is a subtle change underway. The air bites in the morning as I jog from my front doorstep to my car. The sunset is creeping into earlier and earlier hours.

  Autumn is falling like a scarf over the shoulders of the surrounding hills. It’s time to shut the windows and put away t-shirts. It’s time to build fires and brew tea and read books.

  It’s time to turn away from a world gripped by darkness and build shining new worlds out of words and phrases.

  Autumn is the perfect time to write. The chilly air encourages us to go inside; to create instead of seeking out the waning sunlight. It forces us to get to work after a long summer of adventures in the real world.

  It is time to get started.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer and cruncher of leave in Tacoma. You can follow him on Twitter.
• May 28, 2014

  Sleeping Giant

  

  Today, the ridge overlooking the snow-covered northern face of Mount St. Helens is dotted with small brush, lichen and wild grass. Chipmunks dart between the rocks. Tourists take photos to post later on their Facebook profiles. But 34 years ago, the place where I stand was buried by a boiling mudslide, smothered by pumice and superheated rock and cloaked in a cloud of choking ash. As striking as the barren foothills of the mountain are, I’m more surprised by the recovery here — by the small trees and bushes that have a foothold in the wasteland.

  I feel small as I peer up into the clouds that hide the jagged mouth of the crater. The top third of the volcano was blasted off by the force of the explosion. Boulders flew miles. An entire forest was leveled in a matter of seconds, their strong trunks snapped like balsa wood. If I was standing here when the bomb went off, I would be vaporized. The giant is sleeping now, but I know that deep in the heart of the mountain, ancient forces are building up. Magma is rising from the depths of the Earth, building a dome in the caldera. Someday, it will rain fire here again.

  The devastation is difficult to put into words. And yet there is something beautiful about the destruction that stretches for miles around. There is more to be seen here than the Northwest’s youngest and most famous volcano. The landscape reminds us that humanity is not the most powerful force in the world. We only exist at the mercy of a planet that could bury us in lava with little warning. However, Mount St. Helens is not only a place of death. It is a cradle for new life. Hardy saplings are taking root in the blast zone. The volcano that burned and sterilized a centuries old forest provides nutrient-rich soil to feed the new forest.

  Mount St. Helens impresses on me the cyclical nature of time and events. Long before we descended from the trees, geologic forces of creation and destruction were in motion. Long after we’re gone, it will continue. Volcanoes, fires and earthquakes will erase old life to make way for new life. Mount St. Helens will awaken and when it does, I hope that I’m far, far away.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. He has spent much of his life tempting fate by living in close proximity to volcanoes, from the San Francisco Peaks to Mount Rainier. You can comment below or follow him on Twitter.
• March 10, 2014

  The Madness of Clocks

  

  For most people, changing over into Daylight Savings Time is no big deal. I am not most people. For me, this setting my clocks an hour ahead feels like tumbling down the rabbit hole.

  For 12 years, I lived in Arizona, one of only two states in the union that don’t participate in Daylight Savings Time (the other is Hawaii). Arizona likes to stay out of step with the rest of the country like that. In Arizona, time is as permanent as stone. But here, in the Northwest, time feels imaginary; less like the drumbeat of the universe and more like something we invented. If time can change, is anything absolute? Those immutable stones crumble into dust.

  I understand the theory behind moving the hands of the clock back an hour in the fall and forward in the spring. But the awkward biannual shift shows that no matter how much we try to impose human limits and rules on the world, the world plays by its own. We can change our clocks, but can’t change when the sun will rise and set. There comes a time when we have to accept that we have less control than we thought.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA adrift in the streams of time. When he isn’t busy figuring out how to change the clock in his car, he tweets a lot. Thanks for reading!
• April 18, 2013

  A Time and Place for All Words

  

  It’s been six days since my last blog post; six days since I wrote anything of my own. This is one of those hectic weeks that won’t look so bad from the comfort of next week. There are a million and ten things to be done at work and by the time I get home, I’m drained of any impulse to be creative.

  The sad part is that ideas keep coming to me. They turn up on my doorstep uninvited in the middle of some other task, begging for my attention.

  I’m editing a grant report.
  Pay attention to me.
  I’m working on a presentation.
  Pay attention to me.
  Come back in an hour, I’m in a staff meeting.
  Pay attention to me!

  My subconscious doesn’t like being ignored. I’m having more and more difficulty focusing; my dreams are increasingly bizarre. Words and stories are bottled up inside me, ready to burst when they should be released slowly over time.

  Time. Time is the hard part. There just isn’t enough of it and my free minutes are stolen away by aimless Internet searches. What I need is structured time to write. To pour it all out and free up extra hard drive space in my brain.

  Not writing is unhealthy. And I wouldn’t be in this sorry state — unable to write anything because too many ideas are clamoring for escape to focus on any one — if I made a better effort to write every day.

  You win, right brain. As usual.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer and photographer in Flagstaff, AZ. His laptop’s option key was broken exactly four years and four months ago by a falling point-and-shoot camera. You can follow him on Twitter at @jonnyeberle.

  Related Posts:
  Finding the Write Place
  No Time to Write
  Breathing Room for the Brain
• March 26, 2012

  Immortality and the Written Word

  

  

  In Guatemala City, there is a large cemetery, which covers several acres. It is perched at the edge of one of the city’s many deep ravines, above the slums and the garbage dump. Ravens circle overhead; families bring flowers; stray dogs stand guard over the broken windows of dusty mausoleums. Walking between the high walls of stacked tombs for the poor and the gigantic monuments erected by the nation’s five powerful families, I was struck by a thought — we all end up here. I will some day be dead and so will you, dear reader.

  To quote the philosopher Cornel West, we are all destined to be the food of terrestrial worms. So, you can’t help but wonder about what kind of legacy we leave behind. In the above-ground graves of the cemetery in Guatemala City, everyone is crowded in, trying to live on in death. The poor have small cubicles for their remains; concrete boxes costing families an exorbitant 200 quetzales a year to maintain. The wealthy build elaborate monuments to themselves, modeled after the tombs of the ancient pharaohs.

  Stone erodes and monuments crumble, but stories stand the test of the time.

  Now, I intend to live for a very long time, but I’m under no illusions that this existence lasts forever. Religious and metaphysical takes on an afterlife aside, I am consigned to the fact that my body will eventually break down and die. That terrifies me, just as I’m sure it terrified many of those who now lie interred in that cemetery.

  Most of us at one point or another dream of immortality. We’re obsessed with cheating death. Gilgamesh devoted his life to prolonging the inevitable and the emperor Qin Shi Huang was ultimately killed by his need to live forever — poisoned by an elixir that promised him eternal life.

  

  I, too, want to leave behind a legacy. Not in money or in stone, but in stories. Many of the authors I idolized growing up are long dead — Ernest Hemingway committed suicide at the age of 61 and Stephen Crane died of tuberculosis at 28 — but when I read The Capitol of the World or The Open Boat, I feel like I’m chatting with old friends over tea. I can’t believe they’re not really there, because their words are so alive.

  Words are to us what pyramids were for the ancient Egyptians or the altars the Maya built to commemorate their dead before European colonization. Stone erodes and monuments crumble, but stories stand the test of the time. The right words possess the magical ability to reach a reader from the grave decades or centuries after its author is gone.

  To cause an emotional reaction in a person who hasn’t even been born yet — that’s a legacy.

  That’s permanence.

  That’s immortality.

  — 30 —

  Jonny Eberle is a writer, filmmaker, and photographer who recently returned from a weeklong adventure in the beautiful Central American country of Guatemala. You can read more of his travel writing here, or subscribe to his mailing list for monthly updates and reading recommendations.
• February 2, 2012

  No Time to Write

  

  Some days, you can’t form sentences, so you have to write your blog post in the form of a poem. Ladies and gentlemen, today is one of those days.

  Time
  slips away
  no matter how tightly
  you hold it,
  but lingers
  long after the party
  is over and the other guests
  have all gone home
  and it doesn’t get the hint
  that you want it to leave.

  Time
  is never on your side.
  Don’t bet on it
  to spare itself
  on your account.

  Time
  is stingy—
  23 hours
  and 56 minutes.
  Yours to waste
  on work and school,
  stuffing your face
  and zoning out.

  Time
  is scarce
  when you need it.
  Cant buy it.
  Can’t save it.
  Can’t manufacture more
  or capture seconds
  in a jar
  like ticking fireflies.

  Time
  wants me to pay
  my bills.
  It doesn’t want me
  to write.

  Time hates writers.

  I will bottle time
  and tame time.
  I will hunt time
  and bend time
  to my evil
  writerly plans.

  So there.

  — 30 —

  Tweets are kind of like haikus, so you if you like haikus, you should consider following me: @jonnyeberle.