JENNIFER J. CAMP

5 min read ⭑

My hands grip the wood, rounded and smooth, and push the rolling pin against the pale dough. I can see the clumps of butter in the pliant texture as I push down on the pin, my palms firm against the wood. Justin and I got this rolling pin at an antique market right after we got married, and I was sure the green wood handles, worn at the edges, would break with enough leverage.

But I love this old rolling pin. I love using it; I love how someone, long ago, pushed their hands against it, too, coaxing dough to flatten. I love how now, under open kitchen windows, with California’s late summer sun on my skin, I can place my hands on this pin and feel memory, the beautiful ache of what I’ve never personally known but know still.

I sprinkle more flour on the dough and press, my shoulders back and arms straight. With the simple rhythm of leaning, pushing and pressing, I let my thoughts roam. What will it take to be grounded here, in this place of memory, to let my mind explore the vastness of possibility, hints of places I have yet to go but will someday? 

I am alone in the kitchen and play music on the small speaker on the counter. Last week, I often listened to Zach Bryan and Noah Kahan, two artists whose concerts our family attended this summer. Their songs ache with stories of longing and memory and regret. I like songs that feel true. But this day, as I make the pie, I hear Pat Barrett and John Mark MacMillan sing, “Let him be your/ hiding place/ Let him be your/ joy/ Let him be your/ audience/ Let him be your all.” I soak in the words — and the word “audience” grabs my attention.

I hear you, Father. You know my heart, my deep craving to be seen and loved. Yes, I didn’t let you be enough for most of my life — I didn’t consider how you could be enough. I confess: everything was more important and valuable than you. 

I maneuver the flattened crust to the glass pie pan, pressing the disc into the bottom and filling the crust with the mixture of sugar, spice and sliced fruit. I then roll out the second crust for the top of the pie and place it over the fruit, trimming and crimping the edges with my floured fingers.

Wanting to be loved is not a weakness. You do not need to be ashamed of how you need it. I love that you need love: I want you to need love. I want you to search for it — and I want you to find it.

I grab a knife and pierce the crust in four straight lines, creating an incomplete star that will let steam escape once the pie cooks. 

When you come to me for love, you will always, always, always receive it. I do not play games with your heart. I know who you are and what you need.

With the pie assembled and ready to be baked, I open the oven door and place the pan on the middle shelf with both hands. Then, I set the timer for 45 minutes and step out the back door into the garden. It is not yet dusk, and I have a few more minutes before calling everyone to dinner. 

Do you see all the running you do to search for love? Do you see how you have given up on it, too?

On the side of the back garden are three raised beds. One is filled with tomatoes, herbs, and peppers, on which Justin built a four-and-a-half-foot tall wooden and chicken-wire fortress to ward off unwanted critters. I visit the plants to see what is ripe, but the tomatoes are still green. The peppers are almost ready, but not quite. The olive tree above the beds might be giving too much shade.

Don’t make love small. It is vast, beyond your comprehension. It is not logical. It can’t be determined by calculation or formula. To your mind, it will never make sense. But do not look for rules and formulas, strategies and lists.

The second raised bed contains green onions that are overdue for harvest. I pull out a few, loosening dirt that falls in my hands. This bed is the messiest and least tended to: it is August and I have not yet planted the melons I meant to plant weeks ago. It might be time to wave the white flag and give up that dream. Perhaps I should consider this bed’s more realistic potential for winter planting soon.

Let love be wild within you. Let it loose. You have it now. Feel it, for I am here. I have no boundaries, no exit strategy. I am not fickle. My love does not change its mind about you. I am fully engrossed in my love for you.

I pile the onions I’ve collected onto the edge of the third raised bed and walk over to the shed on the other side of the garden to grab clippers. This third bed contains basil, the tips of which are flowered, robust and beautiful, and eight dahlia plants. All but one, which is fully flowered, with vibrant purple petals and crown-like, gold-yellow centers, are just six or seven inches tall.

I planted these bulbs late in the season, but they are growing well now. I bend low to study the sprouts. I have already cut the center stem so they will grow wide and tall.

Will you be engrossed by me?

What else captures your attention more than me, more than my love for you?

Where are you looking for love outside of me?

I pick up the sad green onions from the rim of the third raised bed and carry them to the back door, where I lay them down on the mat. Then I uncoil the hose from the copper basket, the middle piece around which the hose curls bent from many years of use, and shower the roots of the coral-yellow zinnias on the patio. I watch the soil darken with the wet and use the clippers to cut all the blooming flowers I can. I love how cutting flowers on many plants triggers more to grow.

Come back, my love. Stay here, my love. Let me break it open within you — a stampede, a waterfall, a feast that has no end.

I celebrate my love for you. Every day, in all moments, I celebrate my love.

It is time to go in. I turn off the water, coil the hose back into the copper basket, return the clippers to the shed, collect the green onions by the back door, and step inside. The smell of cooked apricots and pie crust fills the house’s rooms. 

My love gives life. It resurrects the dead.

What is dead within you? What have you given up on?

How have you given up on me?

Ten more minutes are left on the timer. I call for help setting the dinner table and am back at the kitchen window, watching sunlight kiss the flowers goodnight. I wash the dishes and put the clean rolling pin on the side of the sink. 

Be resurrected now. Let my love do it. Raise your head. My love is here. You don’t need to look for it anywhere else but in me.

The First Thing

The first thing the very first thing is:
look up

see the
magnolia’s pale green petals

opening, the blooms pointing to
morning sky, how

cars rushing past can
be made holy, a nod to

stillness in the
pause

amidst birdsong
above

curve of the
moss-tinted fence

(You are holy and I
am holy and) and

undercurrent, doubt, worry,
cannot touch you

where beauty lives
I find you here.

-Jennifer J. Camp

Jennifer Camp is a poet and listener who delights in investigating the deeper places of the heart. She founded Gather Ministries with her husband, Justin, and manages Loop Collective, a community for women who reject complacency and pursue connection with God. She writes on Substack at Jensen Road.

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