Shaking off the Muck/Civet Coffee $300/lb Harvested From Feces

The search for the perfect carrot cake continues today.  So those last two recipes improved 100% with age.  The next day, the flavors had all come together and even though the cakes were deceptively simple (no nuts, pineapple, coconut, etc), they were darn close to the carrot crack that I'm aiming for.  Today, I'll make Dorothy's neice's recipe which is a three layer affair covered in chopped nuts.  And I plan to go to Nancy Dupont's bakery in Evanston and purchase a piece of her cake.   It was carrot cake that launched her baking career.  Tomorrow the writing group held at my house.  They will be my testers, eating cake and sipping champagne as they write around my dining room table. Tomorrow I'm going to try and write something life affirming.  It's been pointed out to me that most of my stories (all?) are tragic, often violent and most of them include dying children. Hmmmm.....  Should Kaveh really be done with me?

Speaking of Kaveh, we have just three sessions left which have been spaced three weeks apart.   For our final session, I'll drive to Louisville, KY where he practices now.  Since he relocated, our work has been done over the phone.  There was a time when we started four years ago when we talked several times a week and sometimes that wasn't even enough.  Deep psychoanalysis is not for chickens.  I recommend it for people whose stories are so broken and disjointed that they need to go back and make sense of things with adult eyes.  Most of you probably, and thankfully, did not experience that amount of childhood trauma.  Sure parents do a number on most of us, but there is a concept of the "good enough parent".  If you had a good enough parent, you're probably well equipped for life.  If you didn't, and you're just not quite right, then maybe you too should think of donning a pair of waders and venturing back in time to the swamp of your childhood with the prayer that you'll be able to get back out once you're sucked in by the muck.  That's where the guide (therapist) comes in.

It is amazing to me that I am mostly OK these days and ready to say good-bye to my guide.  It feels SOOOO good!   OK, so do you want to understand just how dependent I was on him for a time? Here is a piece I wrote about a Christmas a few years ago.   He left for eighteen days during the muckiest of times.  It almost broke me. 

“How long will you be gone?” she had asked accusingly. “18 days” “That’s irresponsible. You can’t leave for that long – you’re needed,” she had said. “You’ll be fine,” he had responded. But she wasn’t.  Each day she wilted a bit more.  Everything faded.  First her smile, missing.  Her brow perpetually furrowed.  Her eyes, listless.  She stopped speaking, almost mute.  It was Christmas – she cared not.  He was gone and her life was on hold, an out of body experience, floating aimlessly over the festivities, watching other people scurrying to and fro buying gifts, parties, cocktails, singing, toasts, cozy family times.  None of it mattered.  He was gone. Each day she bought him a gift.  He hated when she bought him gifts.  Solemnly she wrapped each present and added it to the growing pile.  Only the best for him:  Iranian caviar, civet coffee from Indonesia - harvested from the feces of civet cats which partially digested the beans and gave it an indescribably mellow flavor- $300/lb, jasmine tea in little compressed balls with a jasmine flower in the center that burst open when added to boiling water, ginger cookies as thin as parchment made by Moravians in North Carolina, Callison d’Aix from France, salt water taffy from Atlantic City, ribbon candy filled with peanut butter from the Boston Candy company – ironically located in upper state New York – Martha Stuart’s favorite. Eighteen gifts for him.  He would love them all and hate that she bought them.  She wasn’t well.  Gift giving was an act of desperation, something she did when she was insecure and angry as if to say, “I dare you to leave me again” – almost an act of hostility. He returned.  He opened.  He sighed at the sheer volume of the offering. “Next year if you don’t want eighteen presents, don’t leave me for eighteen fucking days,” she said fiercely.

Ah...presents as weapons - interesting, yes!?   The next year I gave my mother a dozen fruitcakes. Kaveh asked me what I thought of when I made them.   I answered, "How much good nutrition there is!"  He laughed and said, "You're trying to kill her with fruitcake!"   Like I said, presents as weapons!

Ha!  I doubt there are any universal messages in today's blog!   Sometimes I'm just uniquely weird and I can't draw any parallels with your life!  No takeaways or inspiration from "presents as weapons"!  OK, let me try a bit harder.  Your challenge today could be to either a) count your blessings that you had a "good enough" childhood and that you don't need to do the forensic work to reconstruct and understand a traumatic past or b) if you really are a bit loony and it's time to go on a backwards quest, then be inspired by me.  I survived that horrible journey.

Peace,
Sarah