cakes - frogs - cacti

I made a ridiculous chocolate cake last night... it took me until midnight to finish, but I find the whole process very satisfying. And then I get to feed it to my dear friends. It wasn't anything fancy or unique, just really fudgey: four layers of a pretty deep and somewhat dense chocolate cake with dark ganache between layers and covering it. I had some today and found it to be a pretty intense chocolate experience. I'm not sure what it should be called; maybe the "Good-Thing-I-Didn't-Give-Up-Chocolate-for-Lent Cake."


Earlier in the day before cake I went on a long run, which was good because it was warm! But it was kind of aweful too. It was just hard, mentally and physically. There were good things in it, though, like: 1) it was sunny and warm; 2) I did run anyway, even though it was hard; AND 3) in the swampy sections before The Plains I heard MANY spring peepers (little frogs that show up early spring). I'm always surprised by them, they show up so early. They give me hope that seasons of cold and grey and seeming deadness and immobility may be the needed passage toward new seasons of warmth, of verdant places, of growth, of hope realized a little more. I really need these visible reminders in order to keep some kind of perspective when life feels bleak.

I have a Christmas Cactus - Schlumbergera x buckleyii - that is also teaching me this. I thought it was dead and broken and was a little mad about it. I wrote a silly little ditty about this experience...

---

It's been sitting
in that corner
over a year
doing nothing.

I thought
maybe the cat
had chewed the life
out of its stems -
that blasted cat -
teeth marks still
white and pocked.

I thought
maybe I didn't
pay enough attention
to its needs
for water
light
dormancy.

I read something about those things once in a book.

Hey! Aren't you supposed to flower once a year?
Ridiculous cactus.

We mainly snuck glances of disgust at each other.
Or maybe just I did.

So, you can imagine
my surprise when
rosey tapered buds
appeared.

Surely not -
not after I'd given up.

I monitored it tentatively, questioningly.

One morning I woke
to be met by
that elusive flower -
an explosion,
a dragon glowering fuschia,
a holy creature
covered in flaming tongues.

Who knew that
scaly, bracketed stems
could have such
an unexpected ending?

---