Your heart is spaghetti
When noodles become the metaphor for love
Flexible (adj.)
“a ready capability to adapt to new, different, or changing requirements”
Fragments flew, splinters of dried spaghetti pricking our hands and arms before littering the carpet. The snap broke through the bickering, startling my young boys into wide-eyed silence.
Though I’m not sure whether I did it on purpose, I clearly remember the silent aftermath. Their shocked faces. The mess of cracked spaghetti noodles speckling the linoleum. “This is what our hearts are like, guys,” I said desperately, my white-knuckled fists gripping the jagged halves of dried spaghetti.
I kneeled next to my sons, looking right into their eyes. Earnestly wanting to help them understand how to love themselves and others well. “We’ve got to learn to bend with each other, or we’ll shatter.”
Dinner was ready twenty minutes later. I served plates of noodles softened by boiling water. The spaghetti twirled around our forks and filled our bellies. The once-brittle pasta had transformed — just like our hearts can.
See, dried spaghetti doesn’t know how to flex. If it bends, it breaks. And when it breaks, it cracks with quite a snap.
But cooked spaghetti can adapt. In that way, it’s strong. It sways to fit in a pot, fill a bowl, or loop through a fork.
That’s the kind of spaghetti heart I want—the kind that knows loving flexibility.
Here’s the thing: living like dried spaghetti can feel great. You can store it in the pantry forever. It doesn’t mold or need maintenance. It’s not sticky. It doesn’t slither.
My perfectionism wants us to sit neatly in the pantry too, stacked beside utter efficiency, the neatness of my best-laid plans, and the thrill of a well-executed spreadsheet1. I sometimes wish real life ran like that.
Dried spaghetti may be tidier, but cooked spaghetti feels a lot more like love. The warm, bendy, Tuesday-night-dinner kind of love that doesn’t leave you hungry, angry, and sweeping the pantry floor again. The kind of love that learns how and when to sway.
Every once in a while, I snap a spaghetti noodle to remind myself of how brittle I don’t want to be. Any places where your heart could use more flexibility?
Warmly,
Rachael
PS: Does winter at a maple sugar farm sound enchanting? How about an ice-skating story with themes of friendship, family, and finding what truly matters? My friend Tara just released a sweet middle-grade novel this month (ages 8-12), and you can get it now from Amazon. I miiiiiight have read it in two days!
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Photo by Mae Mu on Unsplash
This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series “Sway.”
Okay, yes, I 100% still love spreadsheets. But I’m learning to use them in a way that guides but doesn’t rule me and my family. Some things need to a little rigid—but not everything!
Such a creative take and meaningful for kids and adults alike!
Love the title!