Baked Goods

Life is a cookie, not a cake.

Credit (or blame) my Southern upbringing, but I tend to use food in my examples and illustrations.  I'm a substitute teacher, and when I teach a lesson about even and odd numbers to first-graders I'll talk about how two friends can share four pieces of pizza evenly but not three.  If I come to the word "want" on a spelling test I'll say "I want to go to the party," where there will be food, of course.

So it's not surprising that I'd turn to a calorie-driven metaphor when connecting three times of fellowship in the past month.  Almost three weeks ago Mr. Pettit and I spent the weekend with some friends from college.  Last week we drove about an hour and a half to celebrate Older Son's birthday with him and his wife.  This weekend Younger Son and his wife visited us.

Time shatters illusions, especially the fantasy that we'll always have more of it, unfolding before us like a stretch of deserted beach.  When our little boys were blasting through the house like a derecho, leaving dirty sneakers and cereal bowls in their wake, we took those unbroken spans of time for granted.  We could squint and spot the empty nest in the distance but it was so far away we pretended it was a mirage.

Now I can see that life is a cookie, not a cake.  Moments are bite-sized, meant to be savored as stand-alone treats.  You can't enjoy a full day in one gulp any more than you can consume a whole cake in one bite. You don't get the option of gobbling up chunks of life all at once; you get one cookie at a time. 

When I think about life as a collection of moments the goodbyes sting a little less. It shifts my perspective from what I don't have and, indeed, can't have---the cake---to what I do have: A beautiful plate of cookies.  And unlike the chocolate chip variety, I can have these cookies and eat them too:

Waving rally towels at a football game along with friends who know us and still like us
Receiving a parting hug from a son
Strolling to a dock on the Potomac, taking in the lights of National Harbor in the distance
Catching a glimpse of my little boy during a game of table tennis
Listening to a preschooler's prayer

Bon appetit!






                                                    
  

Keeping Score

I came to the faith as an adult.

I grew up in the Church of Hardwood, trained in the liturgy of free throws, jump shots, and Smith’s Four Corners offense.  My parents, North Carolina natives, had Tobacco Road in their DNA.  They were N.C. State Wolfpack believers, and the team’s 1974 championship is one of my sweetest memories.  I don’t need Google to recall the names of my favorite starters: David Thompson, Monte Towe, and Tom Burleson.  Mama spoke of “little Monte” (he was only 5’7”) with affection, the son she never had.

Columbia College, the girls’ school I attended for my freshman and sophomore years, held an annual powder puff football game. In a moment of hope and insanity I decided to play.  I don’t think I had ever even held a football before.  I attended every practice faithfully, looking forward to my athletic debut.  Daddy even drove to Columbia for the big game.  Alas, I didn’t come off the bench for a single play.  Apparently the professor who served as our coach was under the impression he was Bear Bryant vying for a national championship.

 

Football, you stink.

Seasons passed and I moved on to other things.  Even my love of basketball was pushed aside by work, marriage, and children.  I went through a dry spell, sports-wise, until 1991, when Older Son discovered the Atlanta Braves.  The Braves played the Minnesota Twins in the World Series that year, and although they didn’t win the championship they claimed our little boy’s heart.

Eventually ESPN’s “SportsCenter” grabbed “The Today Show” by the jersey and threw it to the sidelines.  Like a stranger in a strange land I started to learn the language and local customs.  I knew who was in contention in any sport at any given time and who had been left behind to lick their wounds until next year.  And football started to look good.

I belong to the collegiate sect.  I rooted for the Nebraska Cornhuskers when we lived outside Omaha.  ("Go Big Red!")  I shivered in the stands at the Air Force Academy, where I witnessed the best opening act in football: Flyovers by military aircraft and an actual falcon.  (I always wondered if that bird would fly away one day.)

Since moving to Virginia, I've gone to games at James Madison University, Older Son's alma mater ("J-M-U wish you had a Duke dog!"); Virginia Tech, Younger Son's (Metallica's "Enter Sandman"---need I say more?); and the University of South Carolina, Mr. Pettit's.   (The music of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" precedes the arrival of a giant rooster.  Trust me, it makes sense when you're there.)

Do you see the pattern?  I love the pageantry more than the competition, the frosting more than the cake.  Before the 2013 season ends I'll find a seat at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, South Carolina, and wait for a black tarp to fall away, revealing the presence of Cocky, the giant rooster.  When the Gamecocks drive into the red zone the USC band will play a tune that sounds like it was borrowed from Darth Vader's iPod---Waah, waah waah, waaaaaahhh---and the Carolina faithful will chant, "U-S-C, gooooo Cocks!"

For a few hours, from the first moments of the tailgate to the long slow procession from the parking lot, Mr. Pettit, our friends and I will live in a little bubble where the most pressing issue at stake will be the location of a brown leather ball.  We'll revisit days when our bodies and our spirits were the same age.  We'll retell the familiar stories that get better with time, share the dreams we still hold, and make new memories.

And pray that this time the Gamecocks will find a way to win.