Girls are Stronger than 'Sugar and Spice'

I can’t do it. I cannot do it. Grandmother always said to never say never but Grandmother has never felt the heartbreak of this instance. She always made pastries and ice cream and cakes and sweets of all sorts for me. She always took me aside from the loud chaotic living room, lively with men discussing sports and politics, into the calm kitchen. Once, I looked up from my toy to ask what she was doing. She pointed and showed me what she was up to. Her slender fingers danced over dough gracefully. She rubbed the powder slowly and carefully betwixt her fingers as she mixed in salt to the ball. She added sauces and powder, cream, and milk, sugar and spice. Sugar and spice. She told me to always be as sweet and sugar and flavorful as spice. She always told me that’s what girls are. ‘Sugar and spice and everything nice’. 

My mother reaffirmed that notion. My mother was an angel in the kitchen. You could name any dish, and desert, and she would make it miraculously, somehow. No two dishes were the same, and no two flavours matched. Watching her was beautiful. Baking sounds beautiful.

Family is fragile. I hardly talked to her, my grandmother. I never learned. I regret not learning. I never understood her language, our native language, so I never learned. I don’t know why. Maybe things would have been different if I did. The window in the corner of the kitchen was covered in linden. The puddle of flour lays lifeless on the table, as if a single touch would shatter the mirage of smooth perfection, as if a single touch would shatter the memory. A single puff of smoke could and would topple the house of cards my family ached to make, and I am helpless to defend against it. I’ve never had much of a green thumb. The flowers in the pots I bought from the dollar store kits were already wilting. No birds sung from the bare dessert of my home. Still. I want to try. This warmth radiated from inside me calling out for me to try. If not for me, then at least in memory of her. The faint whispers of conversation flowing from the other room still drifts in my mind.

I’m not sure what I’m making. My hands are moving. Cold. That’s all I thought. That’s all I felt. Cold and detached, I could not feel my fingers. I could not hold. . .what was I holding? I can smell faint incense, spiced with flame. I don’t remember lighting any incense. How odd. Right. I was baking. Just baking. The ball of dough moves back and forth in my hands, warming it, willing it, to stay alive. I read a study the other day. Did you know that if you talk to water, or to a plant, in a positive way, they grow more prettily? Shouting at the dough didn’t didn’t seem to help though. It stayed still and lifeless. Coddling it in a blanket of plastic wrap like a baby seemed to only agitate it further. I wondered to myself what this stubborn ball of dough needed to come together properly. It was as stiff and crumbly as the wilting plants on my window sill, yet so sticky it reminded me of the way I clung to my friends for support. Exhausted, I lay it down on the table and watched it slowly deflate, drooping down. As if it had the right to falsely imitate the lifeless body of the lady I called grandmother. How dare it. No one could compete to the sight of watching her fall deeper into fragility every week I saw her.

My father always told me stories of her. To him, she was never fragile. She was never weak. It must’ve broken him to see her like that. I didn’t know her. Not enough. But I knew of the stories he told me. She always put him first. She bore the struggles for him. She bore the burden so he could study. She bore it all, emotions and physical hardships of being in a world she did not understand. In Death, she was positioned with care. She didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want to say goodbye. She wasn’t ready to leave until she saw her strong, handsome boys. In life, she took every action with care for her boys. She rolled every noodle perfectly, and beat every egg consistently.

Beating the eggs and then the dough felt wrong. It made no sense to me. Why would you hit a competitor that’s already weak? It sounds like poor sportsmanship in my eyes. I asked my teacher yesterday and she told me to ask the world. Leaving the mixture in the oven and watching it heat up sounds barbaric. The sounds of the oven whirring up to life sounded like a battlefield. It’s the stuff of nightmares. How could anyone survive? I do not understand how anyone could live through an age where appliances were even weaker. Baking sounds brutal. The Kitchen sounds like a torture chamber more than the playground ever did.

She wanted me to be a boy, you know? That’s the second to last thing she ever said to me. She wanted a strong handsome boy. It’s a shame that the world puts so much emphasis on that. Watching her in the kitchen was like watching a magician’s secrets. Every appliance is ready to shoot flames at you, spit water, and launch oil. Yet the way she cooks, pastries rose in the oven with a fertilized glow, like flowers reaching up to the sky. And her window? Always clear to see the birds fly and the garden of fruits and flowers she grew herself. What an adventure. She took it all on to raise her two strong, handsome boys. She was so proud of her strong boys. I hope she understands that she is stronger than any boy I have ever met.