As a student, I came to appreciate such granularity. Going over a text many times allowed me to fine-tune my initial intuitive judgments into something more comprehensive. There was an intellectual satisfaction in this, but I also felt, quietly, that rereading was not really reading. There was an immediacy, intensity, and complete surrender involved in the initial experience that could never be repeated and was sometimes even diminished on the second pass. Louise Glück wrote,“We look at the world once, in childhood. / The rest is memory.” I felt the same about reading. I still feel like this. And, to this day, when I read something that functions as a hinge in my life—a book that rearranges me internally—I won’t reread it.
This is no “rewilding” by removing human interference from a place. On our bit of land, lack of effort to fight the effects of modern society by previous owners is precisely what harmed native habitat. Bringing death to the overly abundant so that the threatened might live, we are removing a scourge of our region’s native prairie ecosystem and a pillar of woody encroachment into the American grasslands: the eastern red cedar.
We’ve all been there. There’s a symbol you don’t recognize, a step you can’t follow, so you ask what the mess of marks is supposed to mean. The reply is a stream of gibberish. So you ask what that means. The reply is a torrent of nonsense. This continues, frustration building on all sides, until at last you nod, smile, and say, “Oh, yes. Thank you. That clears everything up.” Then, with all sense of meaning thwarted, you set about the grueling work of memorizing which shapes to write in what order.
I have a new laptop. This might not look like an interesting opening but I assure you that for me it is life-changing. Remember those adverts for, um, sanitary products which promised a life of confidence and activity to the point where the customer might be forgiven for thinking that a whole new world of hitherto unexpected talents – hang-gliding, water-skiing, tennis-playing and whatnot – was hers for the taking if she bought them? This is a bit how I feel about my new – well, reconditioned – laptop. Except I’m not doing any of those things. In fact, now I’m mostly staying in bed. But, wow, it’s a whole new world of staying in bed.
Starting at the baseline, with building blocks rather than a neoclassical mansion, is a sublime way to learn to master — or even dabble in — a cuisine. Such is the import and impact of Roberto Santibañez's 2011 cookbook "Truly Mexican."