Did the 3 a.m. wakeup this morning. Amid the usual mind wandering that happens in this "long dark teatime of the soul" came an old and beautiful memory.
It was within a few years of moving out here (so somewhere around 30 years ago). We used to come home from work and then let the goats and sheep out of the pen to wander around and graze for awhile. So relaxing after a stressful day at work.
One evening we just lay on the grass and stared at the sky. It was almost sunset; the clouds were pink but there was still sun shining under them. White egrets flew overhead, so white against the pink clouds, and the remnant of sun surrounded each one with a halo of gold.
We gazed in silence for awhile. I said in wonder "what did we just see?"
And he answered "a flock of angels."
I let a long-standing tradition go by this year. In my first blog, and last year in this one, I wrote about my annual fruitcake. I started baking them when I was 13 years old, in my Dickens phase. And for the next 58 years I baked them every year - borrowing a kitchen when I lived in the dorm, one time only a few days before moving amid all the packing, eking money from an already skinny food budget when we were first married and rather broke to pay for candied fruit, eggs, and brandy. Usually the first weekend after Thanksgiving found me in the kitchen, baking, so that they could be wrapped in brandy-soaked cloths to age before Christmas.
My parents loved it. My father-in law adored it - when we would go home for Christmas he'd meet us at the car saying "where's my fruitcake?" and then cut himself a big slab and eat it out of his hand (in later years he would precede this by saying "I shouldn't eat this because of my diabetes" which somehow made it all right to eat it anyway. The December that he died I had baked it and had it ready in case he survived coming off the ventilator. He never got that one.
I don't think Bob so much liked the fruitcake itself as the ritual of making it - specifically, the rich egg/butter/sugar/brandy batter which he would sample every step of the way until I would chase him off so that I would have enough to bake.
Mike and Margo liked it, and got it every year. Otherwise, the rest of the family and my friends could well do without it. Personally, I even admitted that while I liked it - rich batter baked rather solid and filled with sticky candied fruits that bore no resemblance to the fruit they theoretically came from - I preferred (as did abovesaid friends and most family) the darker spiced fruitcake with rum-soaked dried fruits which I also made.
I made it - smaller batches - the first three Christmases since I lost Bob. Looking back, I didn't write about the first two. Last year I wrote how making it - feeling that somehow I should, that it was *my* tradition - also broke me.
This year the time post-Thanksgiving was taken up cleaning the house and getting ready for Mike's visit. And when I had gone to the grocery store, I hadn't seen those familiar tubs of almost-artificial candied fruit. I figured I had just missed them. I did go ahead and bake the first batch of the dried fruit version (among other people, my friends Rik and Christy really love it). Mike was able to fit two loaves, well boxed, into his suitcase to take home.
I have since checked three grocery stores (Publix, Aldi, and WalMart). No candied fruit. Possibly I was the last person to make fruitcake with it. Maybe it just got too expensive to stock - people wouldn't buy it. So I would have to mail order it.
I decided that this was the world telling me that I don't have to make it this year. I don't have to stand there, alone in the kitchen, no one stealing the batter or licking the beaters and bowl other than myself, thinking of my parents and father-in-law and Bob. I don't have to beat myself up.
I let Mike and Margo know not to expect a package with the white fruitcake (they did get two dark ones). They were understanding.
Thus the era - 58 years - quietly ends.
Or maybe not. I am not making a vow never to bake it again. I'm simply giving myself a break this year. I was also caught off-guard by not being able to go to the store for supplies. If I find that I miss it, I can remember to order the fruit next November. But for this year - it feels OK to be taking a break.
Besides - the dark fruitcake is pretty darned good.
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