Easy as Pie

My mother taught me how to make a good piecrust when I was about five-years old. She never taught me to make cookies. Cookies were a mystery to her. All my friends’ mothers made cookies. My grandmother, the friendly one, did too. I adored eating her chocolate chip cookies warm from the oven. I was a skinny little thing but I could pack away a dozen cookies at a time. My grandmother, who had her own sweet tooth, never told me I was eating too many. She loved that I loved her cookies. She also loved me. She accepted and celebrated all my little personality quirks. My mother on the other hand did not. I’m sure she loved me. I’m also sure her narcissistic tendencies are what kept her from loving me, or anyone else, in a healthy way. We could count on her in an emergency. Not so much the day-to-day. She mostly operated on the principle that children are small servants who do the cleaning. She did shower me with beautiful clothes. I think she saw her well-dressed daughters as another opportunity to make her look good in public. But she had her moments. Moments when her armor of aloofness cracked. Moments when I felt as if I she could actually see me. It always happened when we made pies. I wish we had made more. I still feel her elusive touch when my fingers form the dough. Meanwhile, I made sure to make my son lots and lots of cookies. I guess you could say I learned that from my mother.

Cinse Bonino
2023