How to make a cake
Analogies kind of take over, I don't even bake much
“Do silly things. Foolishness is a great deal more vital and healthy than our straining and striving after a meaningful life.”
-Anton Chekhov
The last sixteen thirty-seven hundred(??) weeks feel like I’ve done nothing but manage one crisis after another. But the daily parts of life—the non-crisis bits—keep going too. Eat dinner, help with homework, answer email, write something, edit something, get on the call, do the laundry, put gas in the car.
A crisis cannot stop life. Sickness cannot stop life. Even death cannot stop life. You’ll still brush your teeth the day of the funeral (unless it’s your own, I guess). You’ll sign the divorce papers, then pick up something for dinner.
You’ll hear the news and put the clothes into the dryer while you cry.
Civilization collapses but the dog still needs a walk.
The whipped-up egg whites of crisis get folded into the dense cake batter of regular old life.
They change the texture, alter the flavor.
Maybe you did it well, with care. Maybe you took your time. Maybe you were attentive, kind, thoughtful of yourself and the process and how one thing affects another, and the cake ends up rising higher. Beautiful. Love that for you.
Maybe you mixed it all together while screaming and flailing and stomping your feet and drinking too much and the cake is flat.
It’s okay, there’s more batter. Almost certainly there will be more egg whites. You can try again.
In the meantime, it’s still cake.
Frost that sucker. Throw on some berries. Coat it in sprinkles. Drizzle on as much sweetness as you can find.
It might not be great, but you still made cake out of crisis. That’s impressive.
