A Cake on a Pedestal

I inhaled a sweet lemon-coconut-butter scent as I opened the oven door. Golden brown, risen to the top of the bundt pan, the cake seemed perfect to me as I poked a skewer in the middle to see if it was done. Only a couple of crumbs clung to the skewer--done but not overbaked to the point of dryness. As I placed it on a cooling rack, I thought with anticipation of the gorgeous and delicious cake I would be taking to the reception after my children's piano recital later in the afternoon.

After mixing together powdered sugar and lemon juice for a glaze, I prepared to flip the cake onto a cooling rack. It's easy: simply put the rack on top of the pan, then flip in one motion while holding everything together. I've done it hundreds of times. But this time partway through the turn, the pan slid and the cake slipped, disintegrating into a pile of crumbs on the counter. I desperately tried to retrieve at least a portion of the cake until I noticed that the biggest chunk was only as big as about two pieces of cake. The cake definitely had a delicate, tender crumb.

Crackers and cheese were now the only food I had to take to the recital. My children didn't mind. Within two minutes all six of them were shouting with glee as they descended on the cake like vultures, tearing off bits, pouring glaze over the crumbs, and devouring all of it.

I went outside to help Eric with the yard work. He had no sympathy either. "Good," he said. "You don't need everything to be perfect."

My life in my mind is fully organized, never running late, as perfect as a centerpiece cake, beautifully building expectation until the moment when it is cut with ceremony and delicately eaten with forks and china. My real life consists mainly of cakes so delicate they become a pile of crumbs on contact, then get shoved greedily but joyfully into six mouths followed by twelve feet smashing crumbs and tracking sticky glaze across my kitchen floor that I have to mop up one hour later, two hours later, and the next morning. Today I can't help thinking, though, that the unveiled enthusiasm of that moment is a life I should cherish in my mind because a cake on a pedestal will never match it.