Un-Frozen

Salvaging goodness from a household disaster

An audio version of this essay is available here. ⬆️

Starting this summer, my appliances have staged a slow-motion mutiny. I can’t help but suspect planets in retrograde and some cosmic bureaucrat who approves petty, domestic inconveniences. The refrigerator launched the first offensive, turning everything at the bottom of the produce drawers into ice sculptures. The range developed an electrical quirk, beeping incessantly, at random, whether or not it was in use. Even the Instant Pot joined in, off-gassing steam like the Wizard of Oz. And just a couple days ago, the old chest freezer in the shed decided to call it quits.

The Well-Loved Mother, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1765

I knew the day would come, but I was still completely unprepared for its actual demise. Of course Murphy and his damned law, who I’m convinced is in cahoots with those recalcitrant planets, made sure it happened hours before a potluck.

Actually, that’s when I first noticed it, a downfall that had probably started days before. I decided, last minute, to shift from making persimmon pudding, an annual favorite at the farmers market end-of-season event where we were headed. Instead, corn pudding seemed the way to go, and at least the pudding part would be consistent. I don’t really understand puddings that aren’t puddings, but the British use the term to describe every dessert, so I guess we’ve inherited some of that linguistic free-for-all.

I nearly sent my husband out to the freezer. “It’s in the racks on the top,” I said. But he’d been assigned a few too many frozen archeological digs out there in recent weeks, so I decided to go myself. That’s how I found it: the drip of water beading on the underside of the lid, the suspicious snow crusting over the usual ice build-up, the faint scent of damp packaging mingled with bananas.

Oh don’t give that look. I know you chuck yours in there, too, bagged and overripe, for that one-day banana bread. Some of mine were pre-pandemic. Heck, some might have been pre-Wi-Fi, pre-Google—possibly pre-the last time my upper arms didn’t look like thawed chicken cutlets. I don’t know. But I do know this: my chest freezer had never before smelled like the sunscreen I wore in the 70s. If there were days of decline leading up to the final frigid moments, I missed them. I knew immediately it was too late.

This was not great news for someone who keeps a freezer like other people keep storage units. The thing was packed: local meats, jars of last summer’s pasta sauce, roasted New Mexican chilis, okra, sweet potato greens. Shrimp, too, of questionable provenance, because sometimes a girl just needs shrimp and grits.

Our first real fig harvest was among the defrosting stash, dozens of them frozen whole, because it was the easiest way to manage the summer glut.

The freezer was a map of seasons, many seasons, some too far gone to remember.

We bought the machine used, twenty-five years ago, for $25. At the time, we were living on the farm, learning how to grow food and “put it by,” as they say. Soon, the cramped space above the refrigerator just wasn’t cutting it, and almost overnight, the chest freezer became indispensable.

It survived things that should have killed it sooner: power outages, heat waves, even Hurricane Isabel, when waters enveloped our farm cottage and poured into the garage. The danger of stepping into water up to my knees early that morning, with the electricity still on and all appliances still running, didn’t occur to me until later.

It’s strange what I remember of standing outside in those years, feeding chickens, planting garlic, slipping farm boots and coveralls on over pajamas to dash out for a fresh jar of maple syrup dug from the depths of that cold storage box.

I’d hear them before I saw them: Tundra Swans returning for the winter, their bright, whistling calls coming from somewhere overhead, the shoosh of air through their huge wing feathers when, on rare occasion, they dropped in close to land. I didn’t know birds like that before the farm, or the rhythms of the harvest the way I know them now.

John Henry Twachtman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

We left our situation there in 2007, the old freezer making one more move with us after that. Its swan song came on a Sunday, when most stores in rural places are closed and big-box stores—perpetually out of everything except despair—are as useless as ever.

We ditched the potluck and started reaching out. Our friend who owns the distillery offered a hint that got us in touch with another friend who had an empty freezer nearby, much smaller than ours but enough to make a difference. Rural life can be maddening, but it can also be amazingly resourceful. Resilient, they call it.

We tossed what needed tossing (thawed bananas, anyone?) but were able to transfer the majority of the contents before a full meltdown—literal or emotional—and by the time we were done I felt like I’d finished a triathlon. A cold, slippery, disorganized triathlon.

Monday morning, I was on the road at 6 a.m., heading to a three-day conference in Williamsburg, Virginia. Not the fun, historical part where you get to see reenactors—no, the driving part, the conference center part, the peopling part.

As I made my way south, so many birds filled the skies—bald eagles, seagulls, turkey vultures, starlings. And then a sweep of white against the winter blue. Swans. I watched their necks move with each wingbeat, long and steady. I pulled to the shoulder, rolled down the windows, and let the reedy vibration of their calls carry me back to winters I’d tucked away for safekeeping.

~Elizabeth

Thanks for spending this time with me. I can’t wait to hear from you! I’m curious: What’s the oldest, strangest thing you’ve unearthed from the back of a freezer—or the back of your life? And when has something breaking forced you to remember who you used to be? I hope you’ll come share your stories; I treasure that part of this space.

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