"The only clue is pleasure." ~ Claire Schwartz Would you rather be a landmine remover or a firefighter? Both involve risk of sudden explosions. Would you rather be a stuntman or sanitation worker? Someone has to jump the car wreck then pick up the pieces. How about an oil rig worker or prison guard? A scientist or Lego master model builder; chocolate taster or boulanger, which is a fancier term for bread maker? I learned the hard way that yeast can be killed if the water is too hot, that egg whites won't form soft peaks if the bowl is even a smidge wet. Think of how, for every job, someone must have had to practice countless times: the chemist figuring out the particle differences between poison and the benign, the podiatrist making copious notes on ingrown toenails and plantar fasciitis. Tonight I learned that heliosphere is the name for the field in space in which our solar system is tucked— like a long sheet of cling wrap sheltering us from solar fires and magnetic forces that would otherwise bend us out of shape or turn us into unknown mutations of ourselves. Scientists up the road at NASA are saying that this pocket holding us and other planets is shaped more like a croissant— I peer at the simulation image which does somewhat resemble the flaky layered pastry which my husband loves so much and which I can get "free," four to a box, if I buy a tub of chicken salad at the grocery. Curled on its side, red lines stripe it like a banneton would. Perhaps this represents that magnetic shield; and we are somewhere tucked there in the sweet-salty middle, all together with floury constellations while the oven temperature rises steadily.
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