enjoy yourself. it’s later than you think.

i have finally, after many, many attempts, MASTERED my great aunt margaret’s pound cake. seriously. it has the same taste, the same texture, the same color. margaret lives just across the, ahem, corn field from the house that my parents and i lived in. my dad is now remarried, his kitchen has gone through a complete remodel and the corn field is now gone, but when i lived there, i would RUN through this field every saturday in high anticipation of eating margaret’s pound cake and drinking some good sweet sweet sweet southern style iced tea. she’d cut me a nice sized slice and i always wanted another. sensory memories: they really are the best. i became slightly obsessed with mastering this recipe after my grandma sarah died, which is kind of weird since my grandma had some really good recipe’s herself. but margaret is my grandmother’s sister, an aquarius like me and although she was/still is a Super Duper Christian, i really related to her growing up. the same sweet soul my grandma had, she has. anyway, i’ve been looking for a really good piece of bakeware in which to make -to master- this pound cake and i finally found it. goodwill, at the bargain basement price of $2.99. it is perfect,  red flame colored. it seems have been used quite a bit already and used with love. it has a nice energy about it. but my thrifting adventures always lead me back to the question: why was it at goodwill? is this what will become of margaret’s things? of mine? of yours?

yesterday, i found out that a mutual friend of a friend died this weekend. her name was andrea. she was 40. two small kids. meningitis. quick and it was over. i don’t understand but i am trying to. although i did not really know her, i had seen her around. kind eyes. sweet smile. one of the good ones. i struggle with the idea of death daily (please refer back to my first blog post, entitled “pyrex and prufrock”). it’s all around us. and yet we go on smiling. we go on hurting. we go on working, playing, singing, dancing, pretending, being angry, being rude, being nice. being. i am realizing that i’ve always wanted to be somewhere else, no matter where i am. figuratively and literally. i’ve not been the most present person, you know? the look in my eyes has been described to me as “faraway”. ha. but andrea’s death has got me thinking. about life. about living. the moment. being in it. rolling around in life and getting dirty. about baking. about pound cake. about what margaret’s pound cake really means. it was her recipe and now it is mine and i will share it. i will pass it on. 

©littlebrownbutterfly