I’ve noticed I listen to brilliant music on Pandora or my radio as if my life depended on hearing. I try desperately to hear the bass pattern changes, identify each melody, and remember how they mix, leave, come back, modify and mix with other sub-melodies. It’s as if a spy needs to catch each minute sound code or he’ll die. I have to listen this way.  I might never hear the song again. As soon as I buy that particular recording I relax, become lazy, and listen from the outside instead of being inside the music with all the surprises swirling and merging around my feet, over my head, each sound vibrating inside a different area of my body’s sound boards.

Cake eating was the same. I didn’t stop to analize it then I was a kid but I can describe the mystery now.  Mashed potatoes- good, the thin slice of ham- fried so long it was virtually a slab of thick jerky, its edges so dry they cured up like a salty, hideous bowl of torture. Veggies- gray dead whole spinach leaves floating in a bowl of vinegar, fried turnips, or the dreaded FRIED PARSNIPS. We had to eat everything on our plates before we could leave the table; this was the character forming hardship of a 1950’s Nebraskan youth.

But then cake. It was if Mom left the table, went around the corner of the kitchen, a secret floor panel opened up, she maneuvered down the labyrinth of stairs and a half hour later emerged with A CAKE. It never occurred to me cakes were made, they just popped into BEING.

But soon the Cake Mystery was destroyed. Mom taught my how to bake. Cakes were no longer beings, but a combinations of common stuff. It was fun to read a recipe, learn the vocabulary, and mix but the magic was gone until…we invented! Fresh sour cherries in lemon cake. Black pepper, chocolate cake.  Sweet pickle, zucchini, burnt sugar cake. Dad and Don never said,”What did you put in this stuff?” They ate anything.

Complacency; that’s the killer. Can a kid’s book or a painting be magic?  nancymauerman.com

Cakes Up A Tree – Framed – Click Here to view larger image