A week in the life

Making food (as always), settling into my new job, tending to relationships, committing to regular workouts—a glimpse into the rhythms I've been talking so much about lately

With the pressure to achieve more and earlier so prevalent, it feels blasphemous to admit out loud that what I want above all is a healthful, well-rounded life. Ambitions I once had, or believed were my own, have faded into irrelevance. My priority now is to develop a self-sufficiency grounded in being an inhabitant of this planet—gaining familiarity with the fundamental processes that support human existence, from farming to cooking to carpentry to basic survival skills. I trust that in this intimacy with the world I will find and refine goals that are truly mine. Chasing aspirations that, in truth, came from elsewhere feels like a futile exercise, a waste of valuable time and energy of which, in the grand scheme of things, I have little. This shift towards slowness may appear unwise to others—a squandering of my youth, even—but to me it is a calculated move in a long-term vision of a life lived long and well.

Regularly tending to as many aspects of my life as possible is something I try to do every week. For now, my week looks roughly like this—

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My work week begins on Tuesday and ends on Saturday, a schedule that I requested so Michael and I could align our weekends. Most Saturdays, I have the office to myself, so I take the liberty of playing my music loudly during these quiet days.

Being a picky eater on a budget, who lives in a place where nutritious food that I enjoy doesn’t come in abundance, means that cooking for myself 90% of the time is vital. What I make for dinner often serves as packed lunch the next day as well to save on time and effort. For variety, I occasionally make last-minute changes or additions in the morning, such as making a quick omelette to go with leftover rice, or adding tinned fish to a tomato-based pasta sauce.

The only day I don’t bring any lunch is Friday, which is when the food truck Dumpling Diva stops at the food park across the street. The chef and owner behind it is May, an oenology graduate from Texas Tech now currently based near San Antonio. From her I get vegan dumplings and delicious noodles that I eat way too quickly.

Ideally, I go to the gym thrice a week (twice when I am particularly run down). Attending classes had become a habit, so when I got my job at the museum last month, I had to figure out how to incorporate workouts into my schedule. The only feasible way is by attending the 6:30 AM classes, which entails getting up at 5:00 AM for a quick, light snack and a comfortable drive. Right after class I head straight home to freshen up, change into clean clothes, put on light make-up, nibble on more breakfast, drink some coffee, and pack my lunch. With the help of Michael, who brews the coffee right before I arrive, I am able to accomplish all these within 40 minutes.

The food park also hosts a farmer’s market on Saturday, so during lunch break I walk over to say hello to Henry, owner of the Bali Family Farm in Burnet and Wahl’s Peaches in Fredericksburg, who I met a few weeks back. From him I get pasture-raised eggs and other occasional treats. One weekend he carried an assortment of tamales—I tried a cactus and a mushroom one—and on another I purchased a jar of homemade kimchi.

As soon as I get home from work on Saturday, I take out the jar of sourdough starter from my fridge and feed it. I let it warm up on the counter, or in a warmed-up oven on particularly cold days, as I make dinner. Luckily, my starter has been consistently strong since I started baking, so within 4-5 hours it would give a good rise. Before bed, I’d make the levain, which I’ll leave on the counter overnight so it will be ready in the morning.

Sunday mornings are dedicated to baking. Because making sourdough is a time-intensive process, it is the first thing I attend to when I wake up. Everything else I need to do during then—make breakfast, attend to errands, call a friend—are squeezed into each half-hour or hour rest period for my dough. It is during the 5.5-hour bulk fermentation, which usually takes place from noon to 5 o’clock, that I can go out of the house to see friends and family.

The dough, which I subject to cold fermentation in the fridge overnight, is finally baked on Monday morning. We have not bought bread in over two months.

The rest of the day—“The bread comes first!” is something I never thought I would say but now unironically do—is free time, though admittedly much of it still gets spent on chores. When we do have a few vacant hours, we stream entertainment, read our respective books, journal, converse, or work on a particularly complicated menu for dinner. By the evening Michael and I always feel unprepared to let the weekend go, but in truth, he and I are lucky to be enjoying the routine this life currently gives us.