Dear friend,
In seven minutes, this blog post must be finished. Because, in seven minutes, the oven will ring. A cake will come out. And this will come on the heels of dad Jay arriving home from adult daycare. On the heels of me getting ready for a big occasion. A wedding.
Not my wedding, no. Much better — it’s the wedding of two of the sweetest people I know, who found each other, and fell in love, and decided to share it. My boyfriend is standing in the wedding. At the moment he is on location, putting on a suit, which is why I am moving at lightning speed here at home. I am making a cake! A [surprise] cake, to celebrate his birthday in a few weeks, for when I’m not there. A cake, for after dinner and dancing, and good friends and great memories. I hope it’s a good cake. I hope when that bell rings, it will sound like the most delicious cake in the whole entire world.
At the grocery store today, I was picking at some tiny nectarines (my favorite!). A woman I didn’t know approached me urgently. “Put those down right now,” she said seriously. She made a frantic pointing motion. “There, there! Those large nectarines over there are the ones you should take.” I thanked her and started to slowly remove nectarines from my bag, as she watched. “The ones over there are the real deal, so sweet, and you gotta try them first at that stand so you know I ain’t lyin.”
I moved towards the girl standing over samples. She handed me a toothpick, and I swallowed quickly. Approaching the nectarine woman with my open plastic bag, she turned. “They’re my favorite,” she nodded with me, “I talk a lot, but these just shut me up they’re so sweet. They make me so quiet. I tell you, these are it, the real thing” Then the woman called me a doll and whisked her two sagging bags of nectarines away with her. I stood for a good minute looking after her, my own heavy bag swinging from my fist.
It seems this is the sort of day where everything moves fast, and all of it means something, and you have to remember details as best as possible to hold it in your heart a little while. And you can plan for some of it, and watch the clock, but at some point the cake will be eaten. The nectarines, too. And you’ll be looking back at the season, remembering how delicious it was, and you’ll want to know you enjoyed it.
So it is past seven minutes. So the cake is here, cooling. Ah, I am already so full.
