Tomorrow is my birthday. This got me to thinking about birthdays past, and feeling a bit nostalgic. I remember, as a little girl, the anticipation I felt at finally having achieved another year. I would wake up with a tautness inside of me, a sensation that drove me out of bed and downstairs to the kitchen. My mom always baked a birthday cake, but best of all, she let me help. I remember watching as she measured the flour, there in the warm kitchen, November rain slapping against the old windows. The house was always drafty in the late fall and throughout winter, but on my birthday, the kitchen was the most warm and comforting place I can remember. For years I insisted upon the same chocolate cake. Between each layer was hidden a sweet stripe of my favorite raspberry jam. Outside, it was spread with whipped cream and decorated with slabs of bittersweet chocolate. This outer shell was my favorite part of the cake, as it was simply melted chocolate bars spread very thinly, dried and broken into shards. The comforting smell of melted chocolate would fill the entire house, and I was allowed to lick the spatula often enough that a ring of chocolate inevitably appeared around my mouth.
I don't remember many of the presents I received as a child, but the ritual of cake stands out in my mind. Mom never baked from a box, and to me--even now--the baking of a cake is, at its core, one of the tenderest gestures of love and devotion that can be offered by one person to another. Receiving a cake fills me with a feeling of childish delight and contentment; to be baked for is to be truly loved.
This new year, I think, is going to be good. Today I saw an old family friend for the first time in over half a year, steamed milk for a latté perfectly, and invited a few of my wonderful coworkers to a birthday get-together. The trees are brilliantly red, apples are ripe, I have coffee for tomorrow morning, and it's storming outside. Beauty.
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