I had time to think about it while I painted the individual seeds on top of the loaves of bread. The chalk board behind her in the boulangerie displayed the menu and the prices. It didn’t feel in the spirit of the painting. But what would I put on it? Leaving it blank didn’t seem right either. So I kept painting. Seed by seed. Trusting the answer would come. I was many loaves in, but by the third shelf, I knew.

It’s always the case, but it’s a lesson I have to keep learning. I, we, are in such a hurry to get to the answer. Wanting to bypass the process. The work. But that’s not how life happens. The only way out is through. So I take it seed by seed. Thought by thought. Step by step. Feeling by feeling. Trusting that I will get there. Aaaah, trust, that ‘ol show stopper — it can be a tough one, but every day I’m letting it in, just a little more.

I decided on the words from the old French song, “Les Mains d’une femme dans la farine” The chorus, in translation, sings that nothing is more beautiful than a woman’s hands in the flour. It is perfect, not only because it celebrates the work, but it also connects to our French cousins who co-own the bakery. I’m probably no more or nor less related to any of them, this lovely woman, or the husband of Dominique’s second cousin whom she works with, but I feel connected to all of them. And who’s to say we’re not related? Once our hands are all elbow deep in the flour, in the joyful work of this living, we all become the same.

We do the work. We trust the letting in. We are family.