There's a Pale Fire Burning on the Plains

 The cookies. The story goes thus. As a kid, it seemed like my whole family realized I was...odd. I think I found the recipe for homemade modeling clay in a magazine. Play-Doh never lasted long in my house. I did not follow the recipe precisely, as I had no idea that there were different kinds of flour. Like I thought that butter tasted like plastic and came out of a tub. I got better.

So the intent was dragon's teeth. Listen, you were twelve once too. That was 1998. Been a year or two. They turned out to be weird, puffy, vaguely triangular, pale blobs of failure. I have no idea how they story got to be that they were supposed to be cookies. But it stuck like shit to a bear's ass and I will never live it down. And I plan to live long. They ended up in the yard and even the dogs wouldn't dare. I think the deer and smaller managed to do away with them for the salt content.

The best way to get me to excel is to tell me I cannot. Or tell me that I am bad at what I want to do. So, can someone tell me I'm a terrible guitarist or runner, please? My greatest accomplishments have been out of spite. Like that damn principal who told me a few months after my father died that it would be a miracle for me to graduate high school. I graduated with distinction and ended up in an honor's college program when I graduated. Ask about the Canadian professor. Whew. I do love being teacher's pet. I always have.

It's like the orthopedic surgeon who told me I'd probably never be much of a runner when he fixed my whole fucked up knee. I went on to run half marathons and trail half marathons and obstacle half marathons and ran a formal 10k at 1:05 and informal eventually at 49: and change. Fuck you "cannot" or "never." 

So, this began a whole journey of fuck you. The first one maybe. I began tinkering with a chocolate chip cookie recipe. And I did tinker. I'm not an unintelligent person. I read and researched and contemplated chemistry and experimented. For twenty-five years at present. I am a petty, resentful fuck. I don't mean it and I'm working towards better.

I took a batch to a house concert some years back. I can't think the right number of years. I wasn't married, but I was living in that shitty apartment. I know because I had to fix the fucking oven when the door fell off during baking this exact batch of cookies. The kitchen with two drawers and the laundry in the room. That was hell. 800 square feet eventually shared between three humans and three cats. I think my soul fell apart in that place with pandemic and pain.

I also got a camera ticket on that trip. I think it must have been August, but I can't remember feeling overheated. Out there by the creek in the cool under the Blue Ridge. What a show. What a show. Jon's just made a new record. I cannot wait. I want to host a launch party. Maybe we can.

Anyway, the cookies were apparently good enough that this week, our lovely, wonderful, warm, sparkly hostess remembered those damn cookies and asked for the recipe for a work cookie swap at her new job. I could have cried. The people music has brought to me. Beauty and heartbreak and all the facets of glittery souls. I don't deserve them with my vulnerable combativeness and resentment and mentally tangled mess. I'm working as we speak not to fuck up a chance at...something better. That pale fire.

I don't keep recipe or  hair secrets. I will spill it all to keep someone from living my shame and hurt and defensive resentment. Let me detail to you the exact process to replicate any of it. To be of help makes me feel...most. Just take this and dump in a whole bag of Heath chips. 

She texted me when the first batch didn't come out perfectly. Literally the first batch she ever made. The first batch I make after twenty-five years sometimes comes out wonky. We are our own worst critics. I take no credit. Execution is the art. And she's truly a remarkable person. Ask her about moths. It sounds silly, but she's so passionate and knows so much. It's a joy to experience anyone really love what they love and to feel safe to let all that out. She's one of those people who helped me do the same thing. That's what my music has done, brought me the weird passions of the most beautiful, passionate people. I wouldn't change a thing, even the awful, ugly, searing pain.

Cookies. And music. And the strings that corset the two together. Understanding the strings and accepting what we don't understand. Chocolate and real butter and toffee and the taste of happiness in your mouth and the smell of cookies baking in your kitchen and the love of people you don't deserve. Find my heart in the music and the kitchen. And these days, maybe in a flask of homemade moonshine tucked into a pocket and offered in affection during a song that breaks you and the smell of work done by strong and gentle hands.