It’s Tuesday.

Tonight, Jane Friedman is speaking at The Mercantile Library, and I made cookies for the event. They’re oatmeal-chocolate chip-pecan, in regular and gluten-free versions. If you’d like, here’s the recipe.

When I told my mother I was making 240 cookies for Jane’s book launch, Mom’s response was fast, her voice stronger than is typical these days.

“Don’t let them burn!”

I reassured her. “I’m watching them like a hawk.”

“You better!”

A week or so ago, I listened to Gabor Maté on the Mel Robbins podcast. As he spoke of childhood trauma, he said something like, “It’s not so much what they did to you, but how they caused you to see yourself.”

In my mother’s concern for burned cookies, I see a person who is afraid that she is not enough, that she must be perfect to earn a spot on the earth, who believed her child was not enough, that she must be perfect, too.

My job was to please and appease. It’s the job she knew and the job she taught.

The cookies are baked and bagged, boxed and delivered (yesterday). The recipe is tricky. Half a minute too long in the oven—especially the GF version—and they come out dry, crumbly rather than chewy, making you wish you had a glass of milk.

Some batches came out perfect, moist and chewy. Some are a little dry. None are burned. The cookies are good enough.

And so am I.

In his conversation with Robbins, Maté said it’s less important to delve into your history. What’s more important to explore is how your history is showing up in your present.

In my present, I know that it’s not about the cookies. It’s never about the cookies. The purpose of the cookies is to serve the event. The purpose of the event is to serve those who are there.

Tonight, when I go to hear Jane Friedman speak, I will make sure the cookies are set out and restocked. But I will not focus on the cookies.

Reader Response

Last week, in response to, “Are you okay?”, Dave sent Jelly Roll’s ‘I Am Not Okay,’ and I thought it was perfect.

Chewing the Cud of Good

Thankful for tonight, and it hasn’t even happened yet.