the beautiful bread

I decided to bake bread the other day. I am occasionally driven to do some uber-domestic activity like baking bread or growing vegetables or raising chickens. It allows me to entertain the fantasy that I could survive without stopping by the grocery store on the way home from the office. Even with the stand mixer with bread paddle to do most of the kneading, the bread took hours. This particular recipe had to rise four times. It had bananas and orange peel and cinnamon and whole wheat flour. It smelled heavenly while baking. When I popped it out of the oven at 10pm, I had the highest hopes. It was beautiful bread--golden brown with a light, hollow sound when thumped. I carried the beautiful bread through the house, showing the other inhabitants what I had created with my own two hands, and hours of my life. But when tested, it wouldn't come out of the pan.  The warm, brown, crusty, top half separated from the thoroughly stuck bottom half, and there were damp clumps of dough in between. The center of the loaf was a sinking ship. The edible part was not as flavorful as it smelled, not as tender as it looked. I thought of my chickens in the back yard and the old banjo tune, "Chicken in a bread pan, pickin' out dough". No doubt someone else's utter failure, sent out to the hens. I gently placed the top back onto the bottom. It was beautiful bread.