Somewhere.

I may be freaking out just a little bit this morning. So I made this afternoon peach cake. Then I freaked out some more.
Everyone makes choices and decisions at one point or another in their life.
We all come to a bend or a Y or a turn in the trail we're cutting up our mountainside, and we have to choose.  Up, down. Left, right. Backwards, forwards.
Somewhere.
You always have to be going somewhere.

I can remember when I first began to love K and who I was changed and I suddenly discovered new things I liked about myself but never knew. It was then that I wanted to make a cake.
So I did.
So I tried.
None of them ever turned out. And it was so frustrating. No matter the pan or shortening or the grease or the flour or the waxed paper painstakingly cut out into perfect circles, they never came out.
One time I was home by myself and I was so mad because I had worked for two hours baking and cooling and tenderly, oh so carefully, trying to get that cake out of the pan, but in the end it just broke into pieces. I threw the pans into the sink and shoved the mess of chocolate away from me and I leaned back against the blue walls of the kitchen and I cried. I sat on the floor and I cried. I pressed my back against the cabinets and I cried.
I can't do this, I said to myself. Then out loud, I can't do this. It isn't fair.
I wouldn't read "The Princess Bride" until a few years later, but I learned then what William Goldman tells me now.
Life isn't fair.
It was only a cake. A chocolate cake. But that was a turn up my trail. A bend. A Y in the road. A place I needed to choose. A place I decided what kind of woman I want to be now.
It's the small things that make us who we are.
So I tried again.
And again.
And again.
Until I could do it.

I always talk about how I'm climbing a mountain. I think it's because since the beginning of this year I've been struck with awe by the beasts that rise up around my Oregon. I love the mountains. I don't even know their names, and I'm still enamored by them.

I made a cake this morning. Afternoon peach cake. I also spent some time learning the names of my mountains. And I crossed my fingers this morning that I would leave them by the end of this year and find some new ones.
See, I'm making a decision. I'm turning; I'm at a Y on my trail. This is why I'm freaking out just a little bit.

I'm going somewhere.