THE TRUTH OF A PLATE OF RISOTTO

The seed is as important as the flower...

That's the sort of comment you expect to hear from a Tibetan monk sitting cross-legged on one of the hills just outside Shangri-La. Actually, the thought is no further away than our front door. It's the way some of us out there -- astoundingly few -- have finally learned how to understand time. Not as some linear A-to-Z journey, rather as one continuous present.

All too often, though, the seize-the-day zealots seize it as though this day is the only day that counts on the road. That is of course nonsense. There have been many days before today, before we were here to have todays. Those yesterdays can no more be ignored than the grin on our face or the hurts in our heart.

How best then to travel time...?

Grandma explained this brilliantly. Unfortunately I was only about eight, and so her Italian wisdom was lost on me. I preferred concentrating on her scrumptious plate of steaming risotto more than on her soaring wisdom. "Remember that big sticky pot on the stove you helped me stir...?" Yeah, I remember; it was a glop of yellow rice or something; made my arms tired! "That glop, Jackie, -- and all the songs we sang and stories we laughed at while we were stirring -- that's how we got this"

Oh, now I get, Grams....! Only Grams died on me before I was old enough to tell her. Now I tell her every today.