Cobbler

A childhood memory share:

When I was 12, my mother started giving me a little space in the kitchen to make dinner ahead of her arrival home from work.  My dad worked an evening shift and my sister was 2 at the time so this was fun for me and (debatably) a win for her.  I wasn’t assigned to the task — I asked to be there.  I liked everything about the kitchen and even better when my mother wasn’t there because I could pull the spices down and mix different ones together.  I did this unabashedly with her there at first but because she prefers simple seasoning, she told me to stick to the recipes she left me. I continued to sneak in oregano, garlic, and cumin anyhow.

One day I decided it would be fun to venture off into baking and we had fresh peaches on the table.  My mother suggested a cobbler when I called her at work to ask about it and that I take it to an elderly neighbor down the street who was on our church shut-in list.  Okay and okay, that was checking off two things I liked, solo kitchen time and meeting someone new.  I made the cobbler and felt quite proud of it when I walked it about seven houses down.  The neighbor smiled at me and took a long look at the peach cobbler when I handed it to her, “Oh my, this looks so lovely.  Won’t you come in for a few minutes.”  I did go in but I have no recollection now of what we spoke about.  I do, however, remember walking home and feeling very neighborly.  Later that night my mom asked me about how the cobbler turned out and how the visit went.  I said, “It was really fun.  She smiled a lot when I gave her the cobbler and she thought it looked lovely.”  My mom was putting something away in the cabinet at the same time and she saw a bag of marshmallows that I had left untied there, “What happened to these marshmallows!? There was a whole bag this morning.”  I went in to tie them off, “Oh! I decided it would be tasty to add those to the cobbler.  I covered the whole top with them!”  My mom’s eyes grew as she rolled them to the side, “I bet she did smile a lot while she was trying to figure out what kind of cobbler you made her.  Oh goodness, I wonder how it tastes.”  She shook her head at me, “You just have to add your own special touch, don’t you?”  I beamed and nodded to the truth of her words.

I still think we should all add our special touch to things in whatever way calls to us.  I hope you’ll think of something to make your mark on some part of everyday whether that’s dotting i’s and crossing t’s with precision or sprinkling marshmallows on cobbler; no matter how insignificant that may look or feel, letting yourself BE exactly as you are is integral to all.