To Salt

I used to be all about the sweet: ice cream, brownies, Twizzlers at the movies. Sweet was luxury, something extra, the cake and the icing on it.

I don’t know when it began to turn, but now, I’m much less interested in the sweet and crave the salt. Potato chips, soy sauce, olives.

Salted mango, watermelon, cantaloupe. Salted caramel. Salt of the rim of a margarita on the rocks. Salt beat into the eggs before I pour them into the pan and then salt with cracked pepper sprinkled on top. Toast with raspberry jam in the same bite with the salted scrambled eggs.

Table salt, rock salt, kosher salt, Himalayan pink salt, sea salt, fleur del sel, sel gris, gros sel, smoked and seasoned salt. Hawaiian sea salt, Black Sea salt, bamboo salt, sour salt. Garlic salt.

Maybe, as I’m older, I value what’s more simple, more basic, more elemental. I don’t want fussy music or complicated prose. I want a 20 minute nap at 3:00 PM. Black coffee. A car that lasts for 17 years. Wooden picture frames holding candid shots. Cotton skirt and flip flops.

Some days I have to search for the ways I should love my life. I have to train myself to see each failure as a stepping stone to here, when really, they look like holes. I need something to bring out the flavor, to make it last a little longer.