Tag Archives: cookies

The enduring prejudice


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The other day, while idly wandering cookie recipes online, I came across one for oatmeal chocolate chip ones and scrolled down (I couldn’t remember my usual go to and had some chocolate chips looking lonely). The writer started off, as many do, with a little introductory blather, in which she said something to the effect of:

My grandmother lived to age 94, surprisingly, given her love for cookies and sweets and things like this recipe.

Now I’m a certified cookie-lover, and I couldn’t help but take umbrage. Why is it surprising that her grandmother lived while still loving cookies? Maybe it was the cookies that gave her the will to live! I know that on some of these grey winter days, when getting out of bed seems an unworthy struggle, the thought of a fresh cookie with my morning coffee can be the difference between loitering under the covers and springing into action.

And these were HOME MADE cookies she was talking about, lacking the usual death-dealing chemicals found in the store-bought kind that the author was probably secretly scarfing while looking all judgey-judgey at her poor grandmother toiling over a hot oven to bring deliciousness to her family (and/or herself, and there’s nothing wrong with that).

You never see anyone talking about their grandmother expressing surprise that she lived to an extended age despite her persistent love for kale, do you?

Well, that’s because people who live on kale die young, realizing early on that life has no purpose, no joy, no raison d’être. There’s only so much bitter green stuff a person can chew through before the pointlessness of it all becomes apparent.

But it’s okay to shame the cookie-eaters. Of all the prejudices, the ones against the plump, or even the sweet lover, the eater of fat, well, those remain and are endlessly reinforced.

Heard a comic the other day talking about how the best marriages are when the man’s ability to see drops as his wife ages. Yeah. The wife that births the children, manages the everything, and maybe, maybe, resorts to the occasional cookie in desperation. The wife whose eyes see fine and realizes the husband has turned into a smelly hairy hulk with bad teeth, but she’s the one with the problem with sinking attractiveness, of course. Grr.

So I say, huzzah for the cookie. It’s a small bundle of pure joy, perched in the palm of your hand like a precious gift, ready to bring delight. Eat on, grandmothers and others who cherish cookies. Life is too short to fill with gritty greens, no matter how long you live. Munch on, wallow in the brown sugar and butter goodness. Then, when you live long, you might actually enjoy it.

On living a small life


3454-dreamsWhen I was a kid, my parents told me I could be and do anything I wanted (as long as it required a college degree and wasn’t embarrassing). As a graduating nursing student, my prof leaned into my ear and said, “I know you’re going to set the world on fire!”

I don’t think she meant arson.

So I grew up with these expectations that if I worked hard enough, the world was going to be my oyster and I would rule all with my kindly queenliness. I would MAKE A CONTRIBUTION.

Didn’t help that my mum was one of the first female lawyers to graduate from UNB, and that she was smart as a whip and so obviously not happy with staying at home, her intellect stuck in neutral.

Not only would I rule the world, but marriage wasn’t really important, and boys less so, was the message.

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Well, I AM small!

 

I did my degree, went out to work, only to find out that I wasn’t particularly good at bedside nursing. I had chosen nursing because I knew I didn’t have the commitment to be a doctor. But nursing demanded odd hours and racing about and constant fear that I’d screwed up somewhere or that I would be asked to do something I had no idea how to do.

I got married. What the heck? I had absolutely no diagram about how to be married. I didn’t even know people who knew how to be married. Ergo, I ended up in the nursing scenario again, always afraid I was doing something wrong.

That’s okay, I thought. I’ll parent. I’ll be the BEST parent. I’ll BE INVOLVED, but not smothering, funny but not mean, perfect in every way. Well, my kids will tell you how that turned out. I was INVOLVED but a lot of parenting is simple boring drudge work, interspersed with those moments of glory that make you do it. There’s a reason babies smile at 6 weeks. I didn’t much like that job, either, though I do like my kids.

I moved to public health. Felt a bit more certain there. I’ve always been able to talk myself out of situations, so teaching about healthy habits came naturally. And then I learned I could talk myself INTO situations. Uh oh.

_12Every time I had one of these deep “whoa can’t do that” experiences, I stepped back, further into the introvert world. I felt like Tigger, wanting only ‘haycorns’ and then deciding he hated them.

I’m coming to realize that I am meant to lead a small life. One where successes are small, often almost invisible.

One where when I leave it, the obituary will likely be a three line one. “Mother of three. We have NO IDEA WHAT SHE DID WITH HER TIME. It’s possible we’ll miss her.”

But maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe I should learn to settle in, be my little person, grab the joy I get from making people laugh or when they see my little critters or watch me make a fool out of myself. Maybe life is in the little things, an ear for a friend, a pair of socks for a cold kid, a smile for the bus driver, a warm ginger cookie like the ones I just baked for my sister.

Or maybe…..maybe….maybe I could just finish this book and…

The dreams of bigness die hard. Yes, they do.

PS: I did learn how to be good at boys, but too late, she cried, and waved her wooden leg….

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