Scratch That
rethinking what it means to start again
“From scratch” is a concept I first associated with baking. Specifically, with pie crust, which was either store bought or made from scratch. Scratch was praised and store bought less desirable.
I remember watching in awe as one of my grandmothers sprinkled flour on the counter, kneaded dough by hand, rolled it with a heavy wooden pin, and tossed it around like a pizza maker. As a kid, I actually didn’t like pie. The fruit fillings were too tart or bitter. But, I loved sampling the crust, which meant sneaking a piece when I thought no one was looking.
I’m not sure when or how I came to connect starting from scratch with things beyond the kitchen. I remember a season that felt like scratch was my starting point.
Six years ago, I had just ended a job and was spending my days sorting through stuff, figuring out what to toss, what to keep, what to take. After several hard years and difficult lessons, I decided to move to Florida. A decision I’d pondered for a while, but left on hold for fear.
When one of the most painful moments of my life was captured on camera and had its fifteen minutes of fame, what I feared started to shifted. My greatest fear was no longer being seen, but rather not seeing what was possible. The beliefs that once tethered me now propelled my freedom. Loading my life into a little Ford Fiesta and heading to Florida’s Gulf Coast was saying yes to possibility. Yes, to new dreams and adventures. Yes, to the next chapter.
Of all the places I could have gone, I chose where I did because it wasn’t a total unknown. I had a connection to the land and the water. I didn’t know people there, but I knew the place. I knew my way around and no one knew me or why I came, unless I chose to tell them.
I was certainly not worry free, but I (sort of) had a plan. A few trusted folks I could call on when anxiety and decision fatigue became too overwhelming to manage on my own. And barring any emergencies, I had enough resources to live for a year.
The first few nights I stayed in a hotel. On the third day, signed a lease on an apartment. Slowly, I acquired furniture and started to make the place a home. I gave myself a gift of rest and space. Beach days and pool days. Long walks at sunset. Dolphin watching at the jetty with a fresh cup of late morning coffee from a local cafe. Constantly repeating, “you don’t have to figure it all out at once.”
I had a few odd jobs that kept me from relying totally on savings. I had a few interviews that didn’t go as I would have liked (or in hindsight maybe they did). I landed a full-time yet also temporary position. Right about the time I was set to go from temporary to permanent, the pandemic began. As a “temp” I was ineligible to work from home. So, it ended before it ever really began.
I was back to scratch. Isolated, searching for employment, wearing masks and gloves to the grocery store with one-way arrows on the aisles and mostly empty shelves. The feeling of panic from being down to my last pack of toilet paper and not being able to find bananas still lingers.
And in the midst of this unimaginable global crisis, I found a job that was fulfilling and completely remote. That work, along with the skills, confidence, and creativity I acquired, prepared me for what I’m doing with 10CAMELS today.
My years in Florida, despite COVID, hurricanes, and strange politics, were some of the best and definitely the queerest of my life. I never imagined the beautiful people I would meet, the relationships I would build, the healing I would experience. The joy and love I would find. The condo I would buy.
Returning to Michigan wasn’t on my list, especially not because of my mother’s cancer diagnosis. But now—nearing six years since I made that leap to the Sunshine State and some two+ years since I’ve been fully back in the Mitten—I’m thinking differently about leaving and starting over. Was it really from scratch?
Starting from scratch suggests starting from the beginning, from and with nothing. According to Merriam-Webster, starting from scratch is “to begin from a point at which nothing has been done yet.” Some liken starting from scratch to having a clean slate.
This expression originates from sports. In racing, a line was scratched into the dirt to mark the starting point for each competitor. In cooking or baking, scratch isn’t simply the antithesis of store-bought, as I once understood. It usually means using raw ingredients and forgoing any pre-made components.
The more I reflect, the more inclined I am to think there is no such thing as starting from scratch, well maybe with a pie crust, but certainly not with life.
I went to Florida for a new start. I did not go with or from nothing. I had physical possessions and resources in the bank. The slate of my heart was far from clean. It was stacked. Griefs and sorrows, hopes and aspirations. Decades of living. Trying. Failing. Succeeding.
My car and my whole being was packed full. Boxes and memories meticulously piled in like Tetris pieces. Moving to a new place doesn’t mean leaving the past behind. Or giving away all that possesses you. It does mean doing a lot of sorting and rearranging. Letting go. Releasing. Reclaiming. Repurposing. I knew I couldn’t heal where I had experienced such harm. Florida wasn’t about running away, but going to a place where I could find myself again.
A few weeks ago, I found a shoe box in the basement. Still taped shut. At first, I was clueless what was in it. With the help of dull scissors, I cut it open to realize it held the contents of a Florida “junk drawer.” All this time and I hadn’t looked inside. It was filled with refrigerator magnets, a few seashells, buttons, notepads, a key to an unknown lock, and a small book of blessings.
In 2021, I submitted a poem, Starting Over from Scratch to enfleshed. It was published in HELD: blessings for the depths. I have more than one copy, but clearly had forgotten about the copy in the shoe box. Holding HELD again was a holy moment. I turned to my poem and read it several times. Overcome with emotion. Good tears. Gracious gratitude. A gentle realization that starting from scratch isn’t what I once imagined. That starting over is less a beginning and more a continuation. A transformation. An expansion. Part of the ongoing, every evolving process of being human.
Moving 1200+ miles away and moving back, has been an exhausting, empowering, and enlightening endeavor. One I’d do all over again. The lessons of these years are many. Here’s a few:
Scratch is not a space of vast nothingness. It is fullness and abundance. Energy and activity. Knowledge and wisdom and opportunity waiting to be harnessed.
Scratch is a fresh canvas—not a clean slate—created from the capacity to imagine colors, shapes, patterns, and textures beyond our current pallet and outside the lines of binary structures.
Scratch can be a starting point. Or a pivot spot. Or a launching pad. Or a re-boot. The line in the dirt is made from the sum of experiences that brought us there.
Scratch is a brave and daunting journey. It’s beautiful and challenging. It will stretch you and smooth you out. It’s a mix of solitary movements and communal trusting. It’s lonely and also hard to do completely alone.
Scratch isn’t a race or a competition. It’s baking a pie from the raw and real, over or not quite ripened, authentic and whole ingredients sitting right before you. Or from the perfectly tasty crust you buy at the store. It’s the recipes you inherit and the ones you make up as you go. It’s sneaking a piece of crust when no one is looking.
Listen to Starting Over from Scratch below.
Water-fully and Flavorfully Yours,
Rebecca & 10CAMELS
Invitation to Reflect
Have you ever felt like you were starting all over again? A job, a relationship, a loss, a death, a disappointment, a move, health condition, or diagnosis?
Does the passing of time influence your perspective of what it means to start from scratch? How so?
What does scratch look like to you? How does it feel? Smell? Taste? If it is a pie, what is the flavor?
You can also support Rebecca & 10CAMELS by sharing Wednesdays at the Well with a friend and/or simply by leaving a ♥️ to let us know you’ve dropped by.