It's okay. We weren't that close.
For Molly
I did not have a scheduled post for today, but then I woke up and looked at the calendar. Molly Brodak, who died on this day in 2020, has been on my mind. I mentioned her recently in another post (this post is now unlocked and available to read).
I’ve been thinking about our hug that time we found each other at AWP. And the advice she gave me when I started querying literary agents. Today, I’m also thinking about shared coffees in Morgantown, West Virginia.
I didn’t go to her funeral, didn’t make the drive down to Atlanta because the world was in the process of shutting down. March 2020. We remember.
When someone dies, whether they were a grad school friend or even my father, my instinct is to temper my grief by saying, “It’s okay. We weren’t that close.”
As if that matters. As if that’s the point.
It’s hard to not associate the beginning of the pandemic with Molly, though. Grief shows itself all sorts of funny ways. For me, and for obvious reasons, I turned loss into baking. (Obvious because Molly was a baker…among other things).
I used the first few weeks of lockdown to learn one of Molly’s recipes from her Kookie House blog and buy all the right baking tools. Though I am not an expert baker—at all—I set my mind on the White Chocolate Chai Cake (without all the pretty decorations on top because I am also low on patience).
Baking, I thought, would be a good way to pass the time during quarantine and deal with my tangled-up emotions. Many of us eventually entered the baking phase of lockdown. I never made bread, but I did make my first ever layer cake.
To set the tone, I also made a “baking playlist” which intentionally reminded me of my friend Sarah because sometimes one loss reminds us of another loss. Just like lockdown reminded me, at first, of motherhood and postpartum depression—the isolation, the responsibility for keeping my child safe and out of harm.
I will write some other time about my weird relationship with music after Sarah’s death, but the short version is that I just couldn’t listen to music anymore. Too many memories. The Baking Playlist felt like a big step for me.
(By the way, before anyone asks, the Baking Playlist is full of songs that aren’t overtly sad, but just sad enough because they remind me of Sarah. Lots of Tori Amos, Joni Mitchell, and George Michael.)
Here is my first and only attempt Molly’s layer cake. I’m proud of her, this cake.
Cooking, like writing, is built on practice and often messy first attempts. Baking is supposed to be more precise and scientific, but in my case, just as messy. It was a thing I created, a thing that could be consumed and I loved it. Poetry, too, can be consumed and craved, of course. It can fill and sustain.
But in March 2020, more than poetry, even Molly’s poetry, I needed cake. Most days I need both.
I’ll be back with a regular post next week, a continuation of writing Mourning Pages centered around photos. In the meantime, eat some cake or poetry today if you can.
If you want to know more about Molly Brodak, her life and work, you can read her memoir Bandit or see her on Great American Baking Show (the few episodes that are available to stream online).