Rabid Productivity and the Curiosity that Killed It

Plus Rediscovering Oatmeal One Bowl at a Time

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

A few houses down from us lives a small family we’ve gotten to know in the way you do in a neighborhood—while meandering streets after Sunday lunch, on our way to the bus stop in the early mornings, as the dog and I pass by their house on our runs. We chit chat about the weather and the occasional neighborhood gossip (nothing Real Housewives would be interested in—we just gab about who had a baby or lost a pet or added new flowerbeds to their yard).

And every time we see them, their 4 year old daughter, Mia, greets us with a boisterous “hello”, waving her hand like a box fan at top speed. Sometimes, when she’s street-gazing out their front window, she’ll spot us walking past, sprint to her front door, and pull it open to shout, “Hey! Hi, there!” while the propellor of her hand twirls wildly.

But there are two things that set this little girl apart from the thriving juvenile population of our little neighborhood.

One is the sparkle in her eye, and don’t mean that figuratively. Somehow an actual diamond glint shimmers every time her big brown eyes gaze up at you and you think to yourself, “This girl has the inside scoop on things I will never be privy to no matter how long I live.”

The second is her laugh. You can literally hear it across the neighborhood. It must be birthed from somewhere down in the deepest delights of her soul, because by the time it emerges through her toothy smile, it embodies a whole lifetime of joy as it echos off metal mailboxes and black pavement and the furred fronds of the evergreen bushes. Santa Claus, eat your heart out because this little girl takes the trophy for the best laugh on the planet.

One morning I got the privilege of hearing it just as I sat down to write. It had been a bustle of a day already: getting the kids ready for school while simultaneously tidying up the house from the company we had the previous evening, rushing the Littles to the bus stop, going for a run, returning home to the sobering reality of my upstairs bathroom and the decision to either abandon it to the mildew demons that had possessed it or perform a mid-morning exorcism, performing the aforementioned exorcism, and then cleansing my body and soul after the deed was complete. In short, it was a task-oriented morning. There were items on the to-do list, and by God, I was marking them off.

After my priestly duties, I barreled down the steps, grabbed my computer, and planted myself on the couch, ready to pound out the words I needed to get through and tick off the next item on my list.

Then I heard Mia’s laugh.

It came through our winter-tight windows, and, geez Louise, did I ever need to hear it.

Because sometimes I so badly need a reminder that attacking my to-do’s like a rabid animal isn’t always the best way forward. Sometimes I need to slow down, soak in my surroundings, and maybe birth a little “Mia Laugh” of my own. Or maybe I need to cultivate a little sparkle in my own eye by looking for new discoveries in the old and familiar.

Take oatmeal for example. I grew up with oatmeal in a firm #3 slot in our family’s weekday breakfast rotation. Eggs was #1 (which I will talk about in a future post—I’ve got some baggage there that I need to work through), #2 was Post Toasties (a rival brand of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and, for some reason, my mom’s preferred choice), and # 3 was oatmeal.

My mom had one and only one way of preparing most foods: eggs were scrambled, toast was burnt, and oatmeal was boiled in water, sprinkled liberally with brown sugar, and topped with a pat of butter—on very few occasions, she might toss in half a dozen raisins, but those moments were few.

While I took issue with the eggs and the toast, I never had qualms with the oatmeal. It wasn’t going to be my last meal if I ever ended up on Death Row, but it was good enough to clean the bowl. I didn’t care if it was healthy for me or any of that nonsense. All I knew was that it was light years better than eggs and toast and marginally better than dry and boring Post Toasties. That was enough for me.

As I grew up, though, I began to care about things both tasting good and being good for me. In the plant-based magazines I perused, almost every sample menu I came across had a trusty bowl of oatmeal listed as a breakfast option. Maybe I was just envisioning the pale grains dotted with dark raisins from my childhood, but the suggestion fell flat for me.

Then one morning I was combing through the cupboards looking for something I could eat before my run. I didn’t want anything too heavy like my Compost Muesli, but I didn’t want something that would evaporate the moment my feet hit the pavement like a lone banana. That’s when I saw the bag of quick-cooking, steel-cut oats that I’d bought at my favorite grocery outlet the week before. I bought it for no other reason than it was ridiculously cheap and maybe, one day, I might get inspired to give oatmeal another trot around the track.

Well, that day arrived sooner than I thought. And since these were steel-cut oats and I had grown up on quick-cooking, an invitation presented itself. What if I tried out some new variations on the OG?

And that’s what I did. Over the next couple of weeks, whenever I spotted that bag of steel cut oats staring back at me from the shelf, I’d toss a handful of it in a pot and venture through my cupboards and refrigerator to see what I could add to it. Aside from giving my tastebuds a new experience of oatmeal, I had fun in the process. No, it wasn’t a quick, economical use of my time fumbling through ingredients looking for inspiration, squeezing and zesting oranges, babysitting the simmering oatmeal so it didn’t cook too fast. I could have gotten the dishwasher unloaded or vacuumed the dining room with the time it required. I could have checked more things off my list.

But maybe having fun was more important than getting more done. I felt like a kid again, maybe a bit like Mia—a glint of curiosity sparkling in my eye, the gurgle of a laugh rumbling in my belly—as I scurried around the kitchen experimenting. Because even a to-do like “eat breakfast” and the mundane standby of “oatmeal” can offer an opportunity for a new discovery.

If you’d like to see a few details of my oatmeal adventure and offer some suggestions of your own, check out the goodies below!

Tried and Blue Oatmeal

Simmer 1/4 c. quick cooking steel-cut oats and 1/2 c. of your favorite plant milk together over medium heat for about 7 minutes. Pour into a bowl and top with blueberries (or whatever berries you have on hand), chia seeds, roasted almonds, and a swirl of honey if you’d like an extra hint of sweetness.

Orange You Glad It’s Oatmeal

Simmer 1/4 c. quick cooking steel-cut oats, 1/4 c. of your favorite plant milk, and 1/4 c. of fresh-squeezed orange juice together over medium heat for about 7 minutes. Pour into a bowl, add a dash of salt, a dribble of vanilla extract, a dollop of maple syrup, and stir. Top with walnuts, orange segments, and grated orange zest.

The Pean‘oat’y and Banana Bowl

Simmer 1/4 c. quick cooking steel-cut oats and 1/2 c. of your favorite plant milk together over medium heat for about 7 minutes. Pour into a bowl and stir in a tablespoon of your favorite peanut butter and a swirl of honey. Top with sliced bananas, melted dark chocolate, and chopped peanuts.

Now it’s your turn to dish! What’s your favorite way to eat oatmeal? Or if oatmeal isn’t your jam, what’s a fun twist you’ve put on an old standby? Feel free to share in the comments section below!