Baking Up A Fresh Start

(I'm linking up to The Gypsy Mama's 5 Minute Writing Challenge again. I hope I don't bore or bother you all with these exercises... they're really, really good for me though. If you haven't tried it yet, I really urge you to! It's so freeing...)

I pushed him away. He whispered, "Mornin, Sunshine" and I grumbled. My head was throbbing and I just wanted him to get up already. To not let that alarm go off one.more.time.

I was wrong. I so often am.

So I stare at the brown swirls in the big white bowl. I turn and turn and turn the red spatula, folding, mixing, creating. Smells of cocoa rise up to me and I brush a tear aside before I inadvertently over-salt the brownies...

This is what I do. This is how I speak my love.

I bake.

Not big starchy loaves of bread or puffy rolls or fresh buns...

No, I bake sweets. Brownies and cookies and cakes and trifles and pastries and tooth-achingly sweet nothings to try to tell him that

Yes. Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes.

I do see his sweetness and I do know he loves me and I do know he needs more from me and

Yes. Yes. Yes. I was wrong.

He understands. He'll lick the crumb from his thumb and grin at me and we'll start again.

A fresh start. Another chance. A shot at getting it right.

Sometimes one of us falters in this dance of love, but we know how to pick the steps back up.

And we're never afraid to improvise.