Speaker 1: Huswifter rs. Rosemary's kitchen smells like a garden that has
Speaker 1: been folded into a house. There is lavender hanging from
Speaker 1: the ceiling in dried bundles, rosemary growing in a pot
Speaker 1: on the window sill, and camomial steeping in a jar
Speaker 1: on the counter. The stove is warm, the light is soft.
Speaker 1: Everything in this room is either growing or being made.
Speaker 1: Rosemary herself is standing at the counter, her sleeves rolled
Speaker 1: past her elbows, her hands covered in a fine white
Speaker 1: powder that is not flower but lye, handled carefully, measured, precisely,
Speaker 1: mixed with the kind of attention that turns ordinate things
Speaker 1: into something worth giving away. She has been making soap
Speaker 1: for eleven years. She started because her daughter developed a
Speaker 1: skin condition that no commercial soap could calm, and Rosemary,
Speaker 1: who had always been the kind of person who solved
Speaker 1: problems with her hands, began to research. She read old
Speaker 1: books about cold process soap making, about oils and fats
Speaker 1: and the chemistry of lye, about how people have been
Speaker 1: turning animal fat and wood ash into something clean and
Speaker 1: useful for thousands of years. Her first batch was a disaster.
Speaker 1: The oils separated, the lye scorched, the resulting bars was
Speaker 1: crumbly and sharp, smelling and utterly useless. Her second batch
Speaker 1: was worse, her third batch was merely bad. But her
Speaker 1: fourth batch was perfect, a smooth, white bars of soap
Speaker 1: that lathered beautifully in smell of nothing but clean, And
Speaker 1: when her daughter used it for the first time, her
Speaker 1: skin calmed down with it a week that was all
Speaker 1: Rosemary needed. She was hooked. Now she makes soap the
Speaker 1: way some people make bread, regularly, instinctively, with a rhythm
Speaker 1: that has become second nature. She has a small workspace
Speaker 1: in her kitchen, a corner with a scale and a thermometer,
Speaker 1: and a collection of oils in glass bottles. Olive oil
Speaker 1: from a farm in the valley, cocoanut oil in a
Speaker 1: wide mouthed jar, shay butter in a tin that she
Speaker 1: orders from a woman in Ghana who makes it by hand.
Speaker 1: Today she is making a batch of lavender soap. She
Speaker 1: has done this so many times that she no longer
Speaker 1: measures by recipe but by feel her hands, knowing the
Speaker 1: weight of oil, the temperature of the lye, the moment
Speaker 1: when the mixture reaches trace and is ready to pour.
Speaker 1: She adds dried lavender buds from her garden, folding them
Speaker 1: in gently so they distribute evenly, and then she pours
Speaker 1: the thick, creamy batter into a wooden mold lined with parchment.
Speaker 1: She sets the mold aside and begins to clean her tools,
Speaker 1: the spatula, the thermometer, the stick blender. She washes them
Speaker 1: in warm water and sets them on a towel to dry.
Speaker 1: She wipes down the counter, she sweeps the floor. This
Speaker 1: is the part of soap making that people do not
Speaker 1: talk about, the cleaning, the wading, the inn between. But
Speaker 1: Rosemary finds it peaceful. The work is done, the soap
Speaker 1: will cure. There is nothing more to do, but let
Speaker 1: time do its part. She makes herself a cup of
Speaker 1: kamameal tea and sits at the kitchen table. Through the window,
Speaker 1: she can see her garden, the beds of herbs and
Speaker 1: flowers that she tends with the same care she gives
Speaker 1: her soap. The lavender is in full bloom, a haze
Speaker 1: of purple that sways in the afternoon breeze. The rosemary
Speaker 1: is thick and green. The mint is spreading, as mint
Speaker 1: always does, into places where mint was not invited. She
Speaker 1: thinks about the soap she will make tomorrow, Rosemary and mint,
Speaker 1: a bright, sharp bars that wakes you up, and the
Speaker 1: day after that camomial and honey, a soft, warm bars
Speaker 1: that calms you down. She has a notebook full of combinations,
Speaker 1: some that she has made dozens of time, and some
Speaker 1: that exist only as ideas waiting for the right afternoon.
Speaker 1: The notebook is old now, its pages spotted with oil
Speaker 1: stains and li marks. It is her most valuable possession,
Speaker 1: more valuable than anything in her house, because it holds
Speaker 1: not just recipes, but memory. Each page is a record
Speaker 1: of a day, a season, a feeling. The peppermint bars
Speaker 1: she made the summer her son went to college. The
Speaker 1: oatmeal soap she made when her hands were cracked from gardening.
Speaker 1: The rose soap she made for her mother's eightieth birthday.
Speaker 1: A bar is so beautiful she almost did not want
Speaker 1: to give it away. Her mother kept that bars on
Speaker 1: her dresser for a year before she finally used it.
Speaker 1: She said it was too pretty to lather. Rosemary told
Speaker 1: her that soap is meant to be used, that its
Speaker 1: whole purpose is to be dissolved, to be worn away,
Speaker 1: to do its work and then disappear. Her mother laughed
Speaker 1: and said, then I will use it slowly. That bars
Speaker 1: lasted three months. Rosemary finishes her tea and returns to
Speaker 1: the counter. She checks the mold. The soap has set
Speaker 1: firm and smooth, the lavender buds distributed like tiny stars
Speaker 1: in a white sky. She will unmold it tomorrow, cut
Speaker 1: it into bars, and set them on the rack in
Speaker 1: her spare room, where they will cure for six weeks.
Speaker 1: The spare room has become a soap library. Shelves line
Speaker 1: the walls, each shelf holding rows of bars in different
Speaker 1: colors and scents. There are pale green bars of rosemary,
Speaker 1: deep amber bars of honey and oatmeal, white bars of
Speaker 1: unscented goat milk, a few experimental bars, and unusual colors.
Speaker 1: A dusty rose from beetroot powder, a pale yellow from turmeric.
Speaker 1: She gives most of it away. That is the point.
Speaker 1: She wraps each bars in brown paper, ties it with twine,
Speaker 1: and writes the scent, the label and her careful handwriting.
Speaker 1: She leaves them on doorsteps and drops them into mailboxes
Speaker 1: and tucks them into gift bags at holidays. She has
Speaker 1: a standing order at the women's shelter downtown, and once
Speaker 1: a month she brings a box of two dozen bars,
Speaker 1: always unscented, always gentle. People tell her she should sell
Speaker 1: her soap. They tell her she could open a shop,
Speaker 1: start an online store, go to farmers markets. She smiles
Speaker 1: and thanks them and does not do any of those things.
Speaker 1: She is not interested in selling. She is interested in giving.
Speaker 1: There is a difference, and the difference matters to her.
Speaker 1: Selling is a transaction. Giving is a conversation. When someone
Speaker 1: uses a bars her soap, they are holding something she
Speaker 1: made with her own hands, something she mixed and poured
Speaker 1: and cut and wrapped. They are holding her attention, her patience,
Speaker 1: her time. And when the thers is gone, dissolved into
Speaker 1: lather and rinsed down the drain, it is not lost.
Speaker 1: It has done its work. It has cleaned and softened
Speaker 1: and soothed. It has been exactly what it was made
Speaker 1: to be. That is enough for Rosemary. That is more
Speaker 1: than enough. As the afternoon fades, she lights a candle
Speaker 1: on the kitchen table. It is one of her own,
Speaker 1: a small beeswax candle that smells of honey and warm air.
Speaker 1: The flame is steady and golden, and it throws soft
Speaker 1: shadows on the walls. She sits in the quiet of
Speaker 1: her kitchen, surrounded by the scent of lavender and rosemary
Speaker 1: and camomile, and she feels the kind of contentment that
Speaker 1: does not come from achievement or recognition, but from the
Speaker 1: simple knowledge that she has made something good today, something useful,
Speaker 1: something that will, in its own small way, makes someone's
Speaker 1: evening a little softer, a little warmer, a little more gene.
Speaker 1: The candle flickers, the garden darkens, the soap cures in
Speaker 1: its quiet room, and Rosemary, who has spent the day
Speaker 1: turning herbs and oil into something beautiful, turns her own
Speaker 1: evening into something beautiful too. A cup of tea, a
Speaker 1: warm kitchen, and the peace that comes from knowing that
Speaker 1: some things are worth making slowly