I Will Not Watch the Soufflé

I spent forty years watching local government.

I watched zoning battles that lasted longer than some marriages. I watched supervisors argue about storm drains with the intensity of Supreme Court justices. I watched planning commissioners debate parking spaces as though civilization itself depended on whether there should be twenty-six or twenty-eight.

And I loved it.

Because every meeting, every hearing, every painful compromise eventually produced something. A vote. A decision. Meeting adjourned. And then I made that vote or decision into a thing you could hold in your hand. I created a story with a closing paragraph, and it went into a newspaper that anyone could buy and hold and read while they drank coffee.

Then I retired, and I discovered television had invented a completely different kind of process. Shows with no ending.

For example, there are shows about cars that are endlessly restored. Tractors that endlessly cultivate. People watch other people spend an entire hour making the perfect soufflé, only to eat it after the credits roll.

I blame Bob Ross. Not really, of course. PBS has enough problems already. But Bob Ross may have been the start of this trend. He stood in front of a canvas, spoke in that soothing whisper, assured us there were no mistakes - just "happy little accidents." He somehow convinced America that watching paint dry could be relaxing.

The rest of television apparently took notes, and now my husband watches car restoration shows like they're scripture.

These are not people driving beautiful cars, although he likes to watch people buy expensive cars. Mostly, he watches men tear cars apart, sand them, and put them back together.

He'll happily spend hours watching someone hunt for an original carburetor, tape off pinstripes, or debate the correct shade of factory paint for a 1969 Ford Mustang. Then he'll switch over to RFD and watch tractors putter across fields as though the steady rumble of a diesel engine is a complete narrative.

And then there are home decorating shows. Or cooking shows. I don't want to watch someone whip egg whites, reduce a sauce, or explain why Himalayan pink salt is somehow superior to the salt already sitting in my cabinet. I've never understood why anyone would voluntarily spend an hour watching somebody else cook dinner.

I hate to cook dinner.

One day, while I was . . . cooking dinner . . . it occurred to me that this isn't really about television.

It's about the difference between how my husband experiences time and how I do.

I spent four decades as a reporter. My job was chasing what happened. Every story demanded a beginning, conflict, facts, resolution. Deadlines didn't allow for endless process. Eventually the meeting adjourned. The lawsuit settled. The election ended. Somebody won, somebody lost, and I wrote the last paragraph.

That became the rhythm of my life.

My husband's rhythm is different.

For him, watching someone restore a car isn't really about the car. It's about the quiet satisfaction of seeing order emerge from chaos. One bolt at a time. One coat of paint at a time. One field at a time.

He's resting in a way I simply don't recognize as rest. He's not wrong to enjoy it. It's just not my peace.

So here's my anti-manifesto.

I Will Not Watch the Soufflé.

I will not spend my retirement marveling at someone's perfect meringue.

I will not become emotionally invested in whether a carburetor is period-correct.

I will not pretend sanding a fender for forty-five minutes is edge-of-your-seat television.

Instead, I'll get a fresh glass of water.

I'll open another book and I'll disappear into stories that actually end.

Meanwhile, my husband will happily watch another tractor crawl across another field.

And that's okay.

Marriage doesn't require us to enjoy the same things. Sometimes it simply requires us to let each other enjoy different things in the same room.

So, Bob Ross, wherever you are, I forgive you.

You probably never imagined your happy little trees would inspire an entire generation of television devoted to watching people patiently make things.

I'll let the tractor puttering be the soundtrack to someone else's peace. Because peace, I've learned, doesn't have to make sense.

It just has to be mine.