Dessert

My life is feeling quite layered of late.  Section upon section rest sometimes softly sometimes noisly always precariously one nestling into the other with varying degrees of success.

Today I got out of bed and moved effortlessly toward the shower.... and then I got stuck putting on my boots.

I had this pair at the cobbler last week for beautification and the addition of an-invisible-from-the-outside lift under my right heel. 

Now, for the first time in these boots,  my hips are even as I stand flat footed.  I really truly didn't mind the permanent nature of the lift until my foot got stuck going into the right one ... the added-on-to one... the one that goes at the end of the leg which was refusing to bend enough so that my arms could reach my toes.  Usually this is not a problem.  This morning, as I was smiling at the workmanship and the newly-polished gleam in my hands, my hip decided to add its layer to my morning.  Announcing its presence with authority.  Gee, thanks.

Imagine candied walnuts on your soft-serve ice cream sundae.  It's just a little bit too hard and crackly and crunchy.  Not awful enough to scream, but noticeable.

Friends are happy and then they are sad.  Events over which they have no control have the ripple effect of sending their lives into a tailspin.  Happy memories and joyous expectations are now sandwiching the current reality, and that reality resembles the lint in the pocket of a coat you haven't worn since college.  Not toxic, but not pleasant.  My frappe life imagines it something like sweet and sour sauce oozing across Szechuan Firey Beef.  It's just not right.

Someone's infirmities and over-booked schedule puts me in the limelight for a project I admire.  She's just as happy to have me do it as do it herself and I'm thrilled to be a part of something wonderful, but the edges are bumping up against one another.  These layers have a softer connection, though.  We're filling one another's gaps, supporting and releasing as needed, our lives turning in thousands of new directions, kind of the way the vanilla melts into the chocolate chip in my Baskin Robbins fantasy sundae.  Easy, a little smooshy, a little broken, but basically just fine. 

I do have whipped cream on the top of this concoction.  I've been reminded by several others of something I had noticed myself - the brownie list continues unbroken.  Despite the broken pieces of pie crust that appeared randomly through this metaphoric trip through my-life-as-a-dessert, 20 boxes were shipped out on Monday, and there are dozens more to come.  The perfectly fluffed pillowy cloud of loveliness that is made up of Seret laughing as she's telling me she's hidden them in the freezer is just the first layer of wonderfulness which will rain down upon me as the recipients call, write long lovely emails, send cards with pictures and hand-written notes... in short, top off my year with sweets and a cherry. 

That's me.  Perched atop layers of life, feeling pretty damn good about it all.