"S" is for cookie. Who needs a Therapist?

Not being able to work and do what you love due to an ambulatory state of being in any type of work or life style leaves much to be desired and even more so is left to the mind. That maniacal evil place we sometimes leave ourselves to fester. All the things we aren't doing with our lives. All the things we don't have. Every insecurity made to shine as bright as the sun. Just wanting all the voices to silenced and the feelings numbed. This my friends is a very common place to be, and you are not alone. I used to use wine, spirits, and a melange of other things to escape this scary place. The falsity in these things is that they are actually depressants and just make you feel worse than before.
The mind, however, is also like a huge hard drive of awesome things and memories. The tricky part is accessing the proper files. In my experiences, and in many others', the happiest memories were connected to food.
I remember the article that was written on career waiters in NYC about yours truly in Time Out NY a few years back and where that fantastic full page picture that adorns the header of this blog comes from (pardon me while i toot my own horn). In the article it said that i was a food therapist and took joy in bringing people from a lachrymose state to a light hearted and jovial one. WOW, If i could do this for others than what was stopping me to therapize myself. I tried the dominoes pizza and hot wings at 10:30pm tactic, and that thrill was gone before the second slice when the acida (pronounced ah-chi-tah in proper Italian and ahh-geh-duh in Brooklyn, either way it means heart burn) kicked in hard. I needed something more. It was on a trip to my aunts house recently that i had my therapeutic epiphany. The "S" cookie, not just any "S" cookie but my grandma's. My whole life this cookie in all its glory graced the tables of our friend's and family, a recipe that goes back countless generations. Wrapped in colorful cellophane and the color of the the icing changing with the occasion or holiday. Now it was my turn. My aunt has been keeping the tradition alive for years but she lives quite far away so i haven't been present for the actual making of them since grammar school when i wasn't allowed near them till the dough was well kneaded and ready for shaping. My teen and college years when i could have partaken in the process unfortunately led me further away from my grandma's kitchen. Regrets, i have more than a few.
Now was my chance, however, to make grandma proud. Grandma had a special top made for her kitchen table to make the cookies on but that technique is now a distant memory. I used a huge bowl to combine all the ingredients, sorry grandma. As i combined the sugar and crisco with my hands flashes of grandma's hands and gold bracelets came to mind and how i used to watch in awe that none were affected by the process. The addition of the eggs to the well of greasy sugar was fun to watch but even funner to get my hands in decades later. I used to get to plop the eggs in one at a time as grandma's favorite assistant. The mixture was a delightfully sticky mess at the time the baking powder went in. Then it happened. My aunt added the vanilla extract. My vision had been focused on something in the living room but my olfactory senses exploded. They just downloaded that file i had been searching for. The perfect storm of joy. I was no longer standing  at my aunts kitchen with my hands in a bowl of yellow sugary sludge. The magical mixture acted as a time machine, I was an eight year old boy staring up at his grandmother waiting impatiently for the dough to get the point when i could finally start to play with it and sneak some in my mouth when she wasn't looking.

 Happy Happy joy joy chubby chubby boy boy. I was frozen in time and space. Overwhelmed with emotion. My hands stood as still as my heart. My eyes welled up and my vision blurred. That smell transported me to soft and comforting place that i imagined was long lost, a place this rough and jaded new yorker never thought he'd be again. The voices in my head that tell me i suck at life were quelled. Feelings like this aren't meant to last forever or be a false reality. Just remembering that they were reality is enough to brighten any moment. Reality, however, is where i was yanked back to when my aunt lovingly barked," Ya gotta keep mixing!" That i did. I started adding the flour and getting a bit more solid and closer to the kneading and sneaking a bite of dough process that i recalled to be my favorite part of all.

The cookies were finally all rolled out and place on the sheets in their classic "S" shape to be baked. The whole experience was amazing. First the touch of the vanilla in the air, then taste of that first bite of raw dough and finally the baking aroma filling the house were all part of a greater good for me. They brought me out of a funk. I don't  expect everyone to have a grandmother like mine or cookies like this. Tastes and smells, however, are ingrained in our minds and souls and attached to some feelings of comfort or joy from one time or another in our lives. Its those small glimpses of hope i pray you strive to find in your own daily hustle and bustle lives.
When the world around you and the voices in your head seem to be going cray cray. Its time to pause and take a step back and say "No Way!" Try and find your own "S" cookie and i hope it leads you back to brighter day.

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