Online ReporterFadzayi Maposah
Correspondent
There are very few people who intentionally plan to do something.
These individuals, who may be labelled as perfectionists, are meticulous in their approach, with a keen eye for detail on how they want things to be done, and are specific when it comes to planning.
I know people who are thorough when it comes to planning. I suspect that they actually measure everything when it comes to even cooking. They weigh the ingredients on a scale so that the quantities are just right. Like some of us, these people do not cook from the top of their heads.
Cooking from the top of our heads is the reason we have tried so many times and still have not reached the standards set by either our grandmothers or our mothers.
Who remembers having awesome scones and tea when they were small, but they have tried replicating the recipe, only to find it always tastes different? I remember that my mother, MaNcube, would bake scones or rock buns, and within no time, we would be enjoying them with tea or a cool drink.
But for my mother, tea was and still is her first choice. I remember asking her as a teenager how she baked the scones, and she would smile and say that the recipe was in her head.
She never measured the ingredients; she just looked and knew that it was enough or she had to add something.
I asked her many times to share the recipe, and she was unable to do so. Even when I asked her to share the recipe so I could write it down, that was not enough to convince her. Sad though. She would encourage us to use recipe books, but it wasn’t the same; we wanted the recipe in her head.
Now I do some cooking from scratch, adding my own variations to tried-and-tested recipes; I call it creativity.
Occasionally, I will measure the ingredients, but on some lazy days, I behave like my mother and other women before her.
I was following a post on social media earlier this week, and the topic was what you envy being done by others. It was a woman asking other women for comments.
The comments included envying people who can commit to waking up early, those who wash their laundry, put it away (even colour coded), all in one day. There was also mention of those women who read books and watch the news regularly, staying up to date with current affairs and being able to share what they have read. The post was awash with comments.
There are things done by other people that others wish they could do. Those who may do these things are like those who cook off the top of their heads; they seem to do it with such ease, and even when asked to share how it is done, all they can say is that it is in their heads.
I followed this post with interest. Then I tried engaging with men around me, and asked them what it is that other men do with relative ease that they wished they could do? I got some interesting answers.
I was told that they wished that they could go to the gym or exercise consistently and actually enjoy it without having to hit the treadmill just because they felt guilty or feared that a health condition could affect them.
One said he wished he could eat healthily, especially on days that he had the money, and could afford to buy anything that his heart desired. One hoped that he could remain calm on the days that his family wanted things that he could not give them. While saying this, another chimed in that he wished he knew where groceries were cheaper, as when his wife went shopping, she seemed to bring more than he did each time he went shopping.
I learnt that men wished their children could follow their footsteps and ask them the many questions they asked their mothers. They yearned for close relationships with their children.
Had they tried to have close relationships with their children, I wondered? One said that he felt that he had been away from his children for too long when they were small, and they viewed him as a visitor in the house.
Another said that he had pushed them to their mother, and now that he wanted them closer, they rarely consulted him, opting instead to go to their mother.
One of us started laughing, and we all looked at him, waiting for him to share the joke. He said, between the laughs, that he wished he were not afraid of health facilities. The others laughed too. Then they turned to look at me to explain why women frequently use health facilities.
I stated that women have been observed to have better health-seeking behaviour than men. I told them that men too can make time to go to health facilities and routinely get tested for various conditions.
They can start by accompanying their partners so that they are not intimidated when they go alone. Wishing that they could get things and actually getting things done are two different things.
Today is day 319 out of 365. Today can be the day when one moves items from the unwritten wish list to a written to-do list.
One has to be intentional about life issues because, one way or the other, they ultimately affect one’s health. Our bodies cannot keep secrets. Do not be like my mother and the ones who came after her who opted to keep their recipes in their heads and ended up being the only ones who could excellently make the scones. Now, when we try to bake as they did, all we say is that it is not as good as Mother’s.
#Men’sHealth
