This book (which I read a decade ago, I just realized) gave me this strategy – when you feel yourself beginning to lose your shit, picture yourself in a place that calms you down/ comforts you. For some, it might be a beach, for some the mountains, and some people go back to their childhood bedrooms. But for Ruth and I, it is a little more… delicious than that.
Because our happy place is the inside of a freshly baked cake.
I read something that makes me mad, I watch a video that makes me want to scream, I find out that my words have been contorted into the least close version of the truth.
That’s when I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and find myself a little nook inside my cake; one biscuit is broken in half because it is too moist and I wedge myself in that little space. It smells of coffee and home. Of vanilla too – warm, sweet, reminiscent of vague childhood memories spent hopping around the fridge, checking every ten minutes to see if the cake has “set”.
It is slightly crumbly around the edges I can see from within and slightly moist throughout, but firm as ever – I can bite my way through one side without the other side ever catching a whiff of it. It feels so soft – I cannot bear to use my stainless knife to slice through, it feels like murder of a different kind. But a girl’s gotta eat cake, so out comes my plastic birthday knife, an abomination that is in stark contrast to the cultured class of the cake but hurts a bit lesser than the unforgiving cut of metal.
One piece, easily half a pound, always the size of my first slice. Portion control? What portion control? Carving insides has never felt this good. How can I hold back, when I know it will disappear before I can assert “my cake! mine!” A few bits crumble away from the piece gently – don’t you worry, crumbs, you will be savored once I have annihilated your exquisite origins.
The first bite always elicits that mmmm…. It is the same feeling you get when you slip into a warm pair of socks on a freezing wintery night and then crawl into bed to realize your comforter is toasty warm too. The very same feeling when you find an excuse to slip your hand into your crush’s hand, intertwine fingers for the first time, and blush real hard. The exact feeling of waiting at Arrivals and seeing a loved one come down the escalator, after three months of Skype calls, you finally envelop them in a bear hug – yeah, it is EXACTLY that feeling.
The contents of the plate are inhaled and I look around happily, I am still surrounded by so much of this culinary marvel. I smile, the smile of a content person who has absolutely everything in life and realizes it in a moment of clarity. Nothing, no one, can ever get me down when I have cake on my side.
I open my eyes and I move on, five pounds heavier but serene as ever :D
