A Single Spoon

I want to have only one spoon. See, right now I have a jar that is comically packed with a variety of wooden spoons and wooden spatulas and roundish spatula-spoons, some too small to accomplish much of anything. I remember where I bought each one, and I use them all for different types of cooking. They are weathered and worn and not in great shape, honestly, because I tend to leave them sitting in water.

But I want to have just one. One wooden spoon that’s effective at stirring soup and pushing vegetables around a frying pan. I want to take care of it properly after each use, hand-washing and drying it, placing it back in its drawer beside a single knife, spatula and corkscrew.

I thought I needed a pastry cutter. An apple corer. A potato masher. Three can openers. But then, I lost my oven mitts during a move. The entire box of pot holders and tea towels — gone. I wrote “oven mitt” on a grocery list, then promptly forgot about it. Six months later, I remembered that I still didn’t have an oven mitt. Every time I baked cookies, I just used a kitchen towel to get the sheet from the oven. So I searched Etsy for potholders. And then forgot about it. I’ve now been without an oven mitt for over a year.

And I can’t imagine buying one. Why would I? I rarely even noticed its absence. I realize there are so many items labeled “necessity” in my brain that could almost certainly be done without. So I’m going to go home tonight, choose my favorite wooden spoon (and ask Michael which spoon he can’t live without), and put the rest away in a box. In a month, any utensils that I haven’t needed to pull out of the box are getting donated.

The beautiful simplicity of owning less stuff flutters around in my heart every time I take on one of these projects or challenges. And each time, I am pleasantly surprised by how much happier my life is when I have less.