Overturned Cupcakes

Cupcakes Overturned, July 2025

Our oldest son will visit for a few days this week. We will celebrate his birthday and our anniversary (these events being just a few days apart). He has requested cupcakes, and his favorite is yellow cake with chocolate icing. I have let myself off the hook for baking those cupcakes and plan to buy them from a local bakery. I have two bakeries in mind and decided to buy the mini versions this morning for a taste test. I planned to take a little still life photograph of the cupcakes but in the process of getting things set up, the cupcakes went sliding and landed with perfect form, plop, upside down, on our yellow kitchen chair. I debated for a moment, wondering what to do next. Give up and call the idea a wash? Buy more cupcakes? Nah . . . I just took the picture in all of its truth. Then my husband and I scraped the cupcakes off the chair and scarfed them down in single bites. We licked the icing from our fingers and smiled like the goofy kids we still are inside. I had to get a toothbrush and spray cleaner to get that chocolate frosting out of the little holes in our snazzy yellow kitchen chairs. It was a job, and yet somehow, still fun. I wasn’t angry or frustrated with myself for the misstep. My husband pitched in willingly to help with both the tasting and the clean-up. In the least expected way, this felt like the perfect anniversary gift. The kind of love that is light and effortless.

Keeping it Real

I wonder what happens when the act of making something becomes not just a personal experience but a public performance. And how does that impact the experience? Taking pictures is one of the truly joyous practices in my life. Because of this, I protect the practice fiercely. I don’t want to dissect each picture, fret over perceived mistakes, regret the lighting conditions, or judge the scene before it even settles on the sensor. The more I analyze the work, the harder it becomes to feel it. There is great comfort in saying to myself, “I don’t know why I love this photo, but I’m going to take it anyway.” I think it is this uncertainty that makes the work matter—and this awareness lets me live fully in the moment. I don’t have to explain my work in public. I can honor it in private.

Independence Day

Cook’s Illustrated Inspiration, July 2025

My friend Kate was wearing a t-shirt today with the words America is an Idea printed across the front (tee designed by Aurora James). This pretty much sums up my feelings about Independence Day and our country. Some evolving mix of hope and fear, compassion and anger, frustration and determination.

It got me thinking about the privileges I live with. And I all I can think to do is to keep creating. To take inspiration from it all and make something that moves us forward, even if only in a very small way. Is this not the way that we claim our independence? When we seek agency over our own lives, over what lies just in front of us, in plain view, and do the thing we can do . . . these are the stepping stones to freedom.

Peaches & Cherries, Independence Day, 2025

No Bad Parts

Wow, it just feels like there are so many people trying to influence me these days. Articles on how to improve my wellness from start to finish—morning routines and sleep hygiene habits. Programs that encourage me to move and tout the importance of strength training as I age. Advice on supplements and ways to journal my way to happiness and gratitude. Gadgets to track my blood glucose and sleep and stress and heart rate and steps. Most of this influence comes with a price tag, in money and time. And the requirement that I increase my motivation, discipline, and deprivation. If I just do the right things and behave properly, I will have a long and healthy and happy life. I think all of this is simply bullsh*t.

I doubt very seriously that we have nearly as much control over things as we would like to imagine. This life is so precious. It seems a shame to waste it by trying to outrun it. All I really want to do is enjoy a snack and sit in a nice chair and let go. To soak in the sun, breathe deeply the thick summer air, talk to the next person who sits beside me, read a few pages of my book, and connect to myself.

I’m a sucker for these influences (what my counselor refers to as external validation). Somehow I got it in my head that parts of me were “bad” and needed to be banished, or at the very least monitored and controlled. I’ve been trying to listen to these parts with curiosity and let them have their say. There is the part that tries to tell me I am wrong to like myself. That part that says I could do better or be more. The part that tells me I am never good enough in ways both small and large. I call her Marge because she is large and likes to steal the show. She acts as though she is in charge. She is loud and relentless. It’s hard to hear words of kindness over her bossy directives. As I sit and rest, I ask her what she is trying to tell me. When I am quiet and still, I can hear her whisper. I am afraid that if I do not keep trying to be better, I will be hopelessly left out and left behind. I will be different and different is not acceptable. I will not belong. It turns out that Marge is trying to help me. She is trying to protect me from pain. She is not a bad part. She simply wants reassurance from me that we will be okay. That we can withstand the ways we are different.