My Christmas Confession

My name is Emily and I’m an addict.

While I’ve never uttered that confession in the circular sanctity of a meeting, I do have a problem. A December problem. With gingerbread.

Such an admission may sound cavalier or insensitive to those with more “malignant” compulsions, but I assure you, I mean no disrespect. I empathize.

I’m a professional woman in my 40s, devoted mother, nature-seeker, avid reader, and functioning adult capable of passing the marshmallow test and yet, I am weak. In the presence of cookie kryptonite, I go limp—turn into a powerless, hamstrung, utterly impuissant human. After Thanksgiving, the mere waft of ginger morphs me into a lily-livered invertebrate. The chewy ones render me a toddler. Smear on a dollop of icing, a dash of sprinkles, and I’m a goldfish—liable to self-combust.

The genesis of my addiction bloomed in my twenties while baking holiday treats for friends. With a grandmother who won the Chicago Tribune’s Holiday Cookie Contest—infamous for her fairy-tale platters of sugar-dusted Czech confections—I figured I possessed the genes to pull off my own pastry prowess. I craved gingerbread and believed that a supreme recipe was out there, if only I could whittle away at the misses and hone my successes like a potter at her sculpting wheel.

With scientific precision, I tested, sampled, and rejected, scouring cookbooks and newspapers, even tearing recipes from dental office magazines whenever receptionists’ heads were turned. Until at long last—a winner: A recipe in the 2002 holiday issue of Cooking Light that yielded men so malleable and moist, so springy and supple, that I was ready to crouch down on bended knee.

Over the years, I’ve tweaked the formula, attempting to counter my overindulgence by making the dough healthier—substituting coconut sugar for granulated or applesauce for butter. Oh, how tempting it is to try and change our lovers. At times, I took it too far and the results were as nauseating as compromising one’s morals. You can put lipstick on a pig, but in the end, a cookie is a cookie. The ratio is perfect now though. And I clone my men like beloved pets before every winter solstice. Tripling, often quadrupling the recipe.

The leaves fall. The mums freeze over. November gratitude comes and goes in a blur of leftovers, 4pm sunsets, aggrandized football games, and tryptophan naps. I get antsy. My palms sweat. My mouth salivates, craving what I’ve been awaiting all year. The spicy fragrance of ginger. The warm heat of crushed clove. The slow decadence of molasses building up to the climax: nips of nutmeg melding with cinnamon sweet.

When you think about it, gingerbread gets one lousy shot. One month of public approval. King cakes claim February, pumpkin pies rule November and still, we gingerbread aficionados have to share the holiday spotlight with all those peppermint zealots. It doesn’t seem fair.

All in all, it’s a two-day process to mold my men. Day one is about preparation, measuring the ingredients and justifying all that middle-school math to calculate 1 ¾ tsp x 4. I mix the dough in a bowl the size of a sorceress’s cauldron and then separate it into parcels of parchment. Overnight, the logs refrigerate, germinating flavor and preparing for self-sacrifice. On day two, I recruit the kids so they can’t whine to their therapists in twenty years that they were denied rose-hued, holiday traditions. The oven is pre-heated. The cookie sheets are prepped. The counters are cleaned and dusted with flour. Rolling the dough to the proper thickness is key. Too thin equals burned and brittle. Too thick and I don’t get the quantity to sustain me through another year.

In truth, the kids are fairly decent at wielding the cutouts and predictably overindulgent with the sprinkles, but their stamina is lousy. You can’t lose steam after two dozen cookies! True devotees are committed to Tupperware storage. Because as soon as that aroma hits you in the nose—that enticing, delectable culmination of spice, flavor, fullness, and home—you are energized, brought back to life like Jason Bourne in a sensationalized action film.

Once the cookies cool, a thin smear of icing seals the deal. Think Vegemite—a little goes a long way. And then . . . that first bite. Cosmic. Euphoric. The softest give against your front teeth. The chew. The mouthfeel. The ebullient explosion of flavors. Sweet. Earthy. Piquant. Zing.

My girls like to tease that I stink at sharing. And, in this case, it’s true. Which is why I bake other varieties to give away—to prove my altruism and extensive culinary repertoire. Peanut butter kisses, oatmeal butterscotch, almond meringues, raspberry squares. Sometimes, I even toss in some powder-sugared Chex Mix in the nooks and crannies of my neighborly platters, but I don’t share the gingerbread. Like a proper addict, I even conceal them from my kids.

These days, I shape both men and women and if I had a non-binary cut-out, I’d roll those too. I make stars and bells, donkeys and houses, angels and evergreens. I rationalize eating six bells at once because they pretty much add up to one house. But that’s where my justification tends to get sloppy. While my adorned creations repose on wire racks, my self-restraint hightails out the kitchen window like a spastic housefly.

I’ve never been one to binge an entire pint of ice cream or sleeve of Oreos or bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. Even after a book-club gummy. I am the epitome of discipline—a disciple of portion control—except around these f’ing cookies.

I hoard them, devour them, go back to them time and time again like a disrespecting lover. A slot-machine. A handle of tequila. I’ve been known to hide them, move them to another floor, bury them under dish towels like I’m playing peek-a-boo with my Freudian id. I burp those Tupperware more than a lactose-intolerant baby, devouring a cookie for breakfast, snacking on several after lunch, and then putting a serious dent in stock after sundown.

The initial bite is always the best—the flavor bomb to the tongue, the song to the saliva. And you chase that feeling like a rainbow. Like an elusive dream. Like unrequited love.

Every December, I lose all self-respect and yet, I am gluttonously giddy. While the cookies last.

Someone asked me once what three things I would save in a fire. My kids’ baby books, of course, because I’m not a monster. My box of hand-written letters. And that cookbook with a bundle of asparagus on the cover. Because way in the back, in the dessert section, there is a wrinkled page, greased and smudged, with a recipe that I can only make once a year.

A cookie that is both my cross and my comfort. My forte and my failing. My torture and my tradition.  

Tootsie Rolls and AR-15s

The girls picked out their outfits the night before, premeditated down to the red ponytail tie and royal-blue striped socks. We arrived at our friend’s lawn party with twenty minutes to spare. Enough time to nosh on cinnamon bagels and cantaloupe cubes, clink seltzer waters, and jostle our folding chairs into the shade. We settled underneath a sprawling maple as old as a WWII vet.

Candy bags were divvied out.

Street curbs were brushed free of ants and dead leaves.

Children lined up for organic popsicles from the bicycle vendor. 

Ears strained for the sirens.

Not once did I scan the surrounding homes and buildings, surveying rooftops for sniper shooters.

Not. Once.

I utterly failed to devise an escape route or identify what inanimate object might shield my daughters from a torrent of bullets threatening to implode their spleens and gallbladders. A pole? A bench? A dumpster? It never dawned on me to prepare for war. We were there to scramble for Tootsie Rolls, wave to the local gymnastic troupe, and cheer on the high school marching band. We were there to celebrate our freedoms, to double down on our rights as Americans to assemble peacefully.

Instead, we were lambs to the slaughter—pawns of patriotism.   

In truth, I wasn’t up for indulging in merriment that morning. The recent rulings passed down by our bought-n-sold judicial branch had left me pursing my lips in soured disgust. In a span of several weeks, our originalist Supreme Court had eliminated the federal right to abortion while expanding gun-owner rights. The conservative majority had buttressed the role of religion in the public sphere while hampering environmental protections. According to standard political measures, this past term managed to erase over a century of democratic progress. When you put a delusional psychopath in power, you must suffer the aftermath and swallow the bitter pill. And keep swallowing. The three justices Trump appointed may remain on the court for the next three decades.

In other words, I didn’t feel much like gnawing on Tootsie rolls.

             And yet, we dressed in our red, white, and blue, waved our plastic Pride flags, and saluted the soldiers riding in vintage automobiles. Our democracy may have been on life support, but it was still our home, a nation we longed to revere.

And then reality pervaded. Just as I was standing to applaud the Moms Demand Action procession in Oak Park, 30 miles north, a 21-year-old white male was gunning down toddlers and grandparents with an assault rifle—a military-grade weapon of massacre. A firearm he owned legally despite his criminal history. A firearm that dispenses ammunition up to three times the speed of sound. A firearm that causes such horrific bodily damage that victims are often identified through dental records.

There are lines in the sand and then there are full-stop fissures.

I no longer accept wrong place, wrong time. I no longer accept thoughts and prayers. Posturing and platitudes. Hearts and minds. Special interest groups and political inertia. I reject the ludicrous notion of arming educators and casting blame on mental health. Take the rhetoric and shove it.

314 mass shootings over five months in the Land of the Free.

30,000+ fatalities every single year.

Movie theaters. Elementary schools. Supermarkets and subways. Shopping malls and synagogues. Independence Day parades. I’m fucking
pissed.

That tired, old adage springs to mind:

The very definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Guns kill more kids in the US than cancer. Our country is no longer that scrappy militia fighting the Redcoats in the late 1700s. The assault rifles of today are not the rudimentary muskets stashed in our apple cellars, just as our gas-guzzling SUVS are a vast deviation from the horse and buggies of yesteryear. Laws bend and evolve in response to the times. Cars require seatbelts. Federal labor regulations protect children under the age of 14. People other than privileged, bigoted white men are permitted to vote.  

Progress is a beautiful thing.

And yet, our gun laws remain as archaic and outrageous as bloodletting with leeches. Only specially trained pilots are permitted to fly bomber jets. Doctors grind through years of medical training before they can write prescriptions. Even the average American must pass a test to earn the privilege of getting behind the wheel of a used Honda Civic. But any 18-year-old teenager with cystic acne can pack heat.

America’s Second Amendment right to bear arms bludgeons the right of 2-year Aiden McCarthy to grow up with his mom and dad or the right of Anthony Mendoza of West Ridge to reach his 16^th birthday. A law dating back to 1791 makes it easier to purchase a semiautomatic rifle than a chocolate Kinder egg. Because, you know, some kid might choke on the plastic surprise toy.

As the court’s three liberal justices noted in their dissent opinion on the recent abortion case, “the framers defined rights in general terms, to permit future evolution in their scope and meaning.”

Jefferson and Madison sound like pretty smart dudes. I have to believe they understood that change is inevitable—that they not only entrusted but expected future generations to use their experience to inform constitutional interpretation.  

Hampered by inertia, we plod on, hitting the deck whenever a car backfires or tossing our kids into garbage dumpsters while sprinting from parades so the metal tombs might spare their lives. In the classroom, our kids practice lockdown drills before their multiplication tables. Hide in your cubby. Bury your face in your winter coat. Don’t make a single sound in the dark.

Meanwhile, our cowardly congressmen spout their condolences, obscuring the blood on their hands and their rubber backbones that fold on command. Our justices savor medium-rare ribeyes at Morton’s, cocooned within their security details, and slip seamlessly out the back door.

They should have to witness the carnage firsthand. Tiptoe through the blood-stained hallways. Mop the body parts from the pavement. Stand beside the ER physician desperately working to plug the holes of a human-turned-sieve. They should be forced to study the evidence photos while depositing their NRA donations and casting their votes.

There was no back door escape hatch at Uvalde or Highland Park or Sandy Hook. There was no security detail on high alert.

The only armor those innocent victims had were their unalienable, constitutional rights: To life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Let freedom ring.

Just as pissed?

Donate to www.everytown.org or www.sandyhookpromise.org or https://momsdemandaction.org

Call your representatives. Illinois residents, educate yourselves on the HB5522 Bill to ban assault rifles.

 

The Keepers

Four years. And I wonder sometimes who still conjures you—the keepers of you?

              Dad was not a very social guy, you see. He didn’t cultivate friendships the way one fertilizes the lawn. They were mostly accidental. Bluegrass in a stubborn patch of dirt. A dandelion squirming through a sidewalk crack. You knew him because he was your coach or college roommate or the neighbor you’d spy doing chin-ups outside on a blustery November day. He was an introvert at heart but when you heard the vibrations of his barrel laugh or caught the sparkle in his eye when he relayed a joke, you felt privileged. Like you had just stumbled upon something rare. A white rhino in the wild.

              Dad spent the last 10 years of his life as a patient in my parent’s home. The final stretch confined to a bed. He left the way he came in. Immobile and not saying much. He died slowly. His body was there, but his spirit—his essence—had departed long before. We were keeping a candle alive that wanted to burn out. And it was hard to watch.

              I turned my head a lot.

              But Mom, she couldn’t afford to. She was the one, morning-in and night-out, urging him to sit in the sunshine, to wash his underarms, to hobble to a chair, to eat canned pears. She’d point to the driveway where he wouldn’t have to encounter anyone or suffer the pink-heat of embarrassment and encourage him to do laps, slow as a turtle. “You must move,” she’d say. “Every day you have to move.” She organized and counted his daily medications like some tackle The New York Times crossword. With precision. With patience.

              For the entirety of my childhood and the time that preceded me, Dad was the athlete. The broad-chested bear who’d run around the Concordia track until his sweatshirt was soaked through and goaded us to descend the Grand Canyon with a pair of 8oz water bottles when my brother was only five.

              Mom, on the other hand, threw like a girl.

              And yet, that woman once carried Dad on her back down my deck stairs when he couldn’t take one more step. There’s labor in dying and it’s not solely borne by the one departing.

              A few months before he passed, I stopped at my parent’s house to grab something. The house felt still and empty when I unlocked the door—the only sound was mechanical, a whooshing from the portable humidifier. I knew Mom was out without even calling to her. The car was missing from the driveway. I also knew Dad was upstairs; he never left.

              After I retrieved the item, I hesitated in the downstairs hall. I wasn’t even in a hurry, but I pictured that conversation—the one I would have if I climbed the stairs, still zipped in my coat, and found him lying supine on the bed, eyes closed, that stale smell of inertia inhabiting the room. I knew that conversation like I knew my own skin.

              I’d hover in the doorway, maybe crack the shade and cause him to squint in the sudden spill of light. I’d say “hello” and “how are you?” like an actor delivering a script, anticipating the line that came next. Or the lack of one. The sigh. The hollow reply. I’d scramble to come up with something to fill the silence. An anecdote about the girls. My list of errands for the day.

              “Do you need anything?” “Are you comfortable?” “Mom should be home soon.”

              I didn’t trek up the stairs that day and it haunts me. Years later. The selfishness of the act—to simply walk out that door, turn the key in the lock, and reverse out of the driveway. Leaving behind a person unworthy of acknowledgment.

              Writing these words still plunge me into a vat of shame. I know he likely didn’t even hear me. Or if he did, he may’ve even preferred that I let him sleep. Shade drawn, tucked in his cocoon. Rationally, I accept my going upstairs wouldn’t have made any notable difference. It wasn’t going to cure him or bestow any miracles, but it may have given him the smallest moment of reprieve, a reminder that he wasn’t alone, that glints of hope, of life, of his legacy existed and persisted beyond those four walls.

              Regrets are the burden of the living.

              Today, four years in, I wonder who keeps him close, who still keeps vigil. In truth, he’s been gone much longer. My hope is that memories of him may scatter like ashes. Stop an old acquaintance in his tracks. Spark a recollection. Pull a tender smile.

              The softball coach, roaring for you to round third.

              The hardware man, cutting you a new key for the side door.

              The neighbor, nodding at you as he takes out the trash.

              The Dad—unwavering and giant, rough callouses and warm flannel arms—waiting for you to come upstairs.