Y’all ever had a slice of tres leches? Genius concept. Soak a bubbly sheet of sponge cake in three variations on the same milky theme – thick and condensed, viscous and heavy, so thin they call it evaporated.
A soddy mess. That’s me. I’m a tres leches cake.
I started out this life as an angelic piece of foam. Clear outlines even if I floated. Dang. I was so happy. There are these family home videos of me running through complicated and chaotic choreographed numbers that came from somewhere, I don’t know where. Jumping from one corner to the next, twisting and turning, looking up, down, out, out into the big, wide world with these giant, glowing orbs. Sometimes I missed my mark. Sometimes I stumbled. Sometimes I fell, but dang, I got the heck up every time and went back to the only stuff that matters in life – dancing and singing like the whole cosmos flows through you.
But then this piece of cake had to venture out into the world, and damn, did it all come pouring down. First, the insidious sense that I didn’t belong, that there was something wrong with me. It was a watery sensation, like the tide coming in. I had a foreboding sense I would soon be under, but I was young, and I didn’t understand, so I soaked it all up. My cake, it still had a lot of space to breathe, so I didn’t bother worrying about it. Only, sometimes, I would have a faint memory of a time when I was less weighty, and I would miss that feeling of home.
Then, a deluge started when my family moved back to India, then back to the US, then up and down the East Coast, then middle school, high school, college #1, college #2, India again, moving in with the boyfriend, breaking up with the boyfriend, going west to add a few letters to the end of my name. Relentless. And this time, I felt it. I felt every fucking molecule, coating my tongue, too rich for my taste. I didn’t want any of it. I didn’t ask for it. But still, it came down. My poor cake, it was distended now. I shifted, uncomfortable, but still, I was young, and I didn’t understand, so I soaked this all up too.
Oh, and then, LA and that first year after LA. I had thought I’d reached my limit, that I was at capacity, but still it came down, only this time, it drizzled. Drip, drip, drip until the scales finally tipped. It was this barrage that was the worst of them, so icky and sticky, gluing the edges of my fingers together. I kept trying to get out from under it, but the more I struggled, the more tangled I became. My sponge swelled until I thought it was going to burst, and then it filled some more. I drowned. No more, I gurgled as I drifted to the bottom, no more.
Two years. For two years, I sat in it, letting those three greedy leches soak into the spaces yawning between the knotted fibers of my being. Do it, do it, do it. End me.I thought I was rotting. But even then, there were moments, moments when I’d trick myself into thinking I could somehow press it all out. Push down, squeeze the sponge till the excess seeped. And for a second, I would feel it all ooze, and for a second, I would think I had won, but then I would need to inhale, and zschoop, it all came rushing right back in.
Silly me.
Finally, I gave up. I was tired of looking at this cake. I wanted to start over again, fresh. I’d just bake my own sponge. I’d bake it from scratch. So, I shoved the wretched, drenched tray into a cold, dark fridge in the corner of my kitchen. Maybe, just maybe, it would freeze to death and finally leave me the hell alone.
I hoped.
So, there I was, spooning sugar, cracking eggs, whipping mousse, when suddenly – in fact, it was only yesterday – a new thought crossed my mind. Maybe, just maybe, I should eat it. Eat the damn cake, sis, just eat the damn cake.
I wiped my hands on my apron and crossed the diamond tiles of my kitchen until there I stood, in front of the fridge, struck by the strangeness of the moment. Ooo. A chill. Now that I was here, now that I thought I had figured it all out, now, now, I was afraid. What would happen if I ate the cake? Would I explode? Or, worse, would it pull me back to the undertow? And this time, this time, would I have the strength to return?
But oh, as the condenser coils hummed in my ears, I knew. I knew I had no choice. I was going to open that door. I was going to feel the cold in my bones as my fingers brazed the metal. My hands were going to shake as I cut a slice, a perfect square, and I was going to dig it out, mouth dry, so I could slide it onto a perfectly round plate. A fork was going to appear in my right hand and again, I was going to stand, paralyzed. Here was the moment. Here was the moment. We were here, finally here, in this moment. Was I going to do it? Was I going to eat the cake?
I shook my head, clearing my mind of this vision, a vision so vivid I had no memory how I ended up sitting down at the edge of a long table, the dark wood clung in lace tablecloth, a slice of cake weeping in front of me. Oh, the fear, it clutched my heart, and it squeezed so hard that I forgot how to breathe. I wondered if it would ever let me go.
I closed my eyes, sick, sick with sadness. The waves, they threatened to engulf me. Over and over, they crashed. They thundered. This was it. This was how I died. A coward who couldn’t eat a slice of cake.
But then, my dearest reader, I discovered there was an eye to this storm. And in the heart of that eye, in the depth of that silence, do you know who emerged? It was her. Her. Lissome, guileless, and pure. My dearest reader, she did not simply appear. She danced.
Yes, even I was surprised to come across her, dressed in her favorite frock of red and white stripes, heavy buttons of strawberries. There she was, dancing, just dancing. And I realized then that she had never stopped dancing, that she had been dancing through those terrible, terrible years. She hadn’t disappeared. She hadn’t collapsed. That angelic piece of foam, she had been there all along. She was the structure. She was holding the whole building up.
Like a VHS tape running in reverse, the long table pulled me back, and there I was, sitting, waiting. And there was the cake, sitting, waiting, but this time, when I looked at it, I saw past the liquid tragedy. I saw the A-frame of romance, my little dancing heart, standing strong, staying whole, bearing the weight. And suddenly, that fear, it was fading, fading, fading, caressing me with a fond farewell.
Good job, Anjana, it whispered, you finally learned the lesson.
Oh, dear reader, I smiled so wide I think I broke my face. I picked up that fork with great aplomb, with flair. Oh, yes, I knew now that I was going to eat this cake. I was going to eat every bite. I was going to eat this beautiful, dismal, tortured, perfect, perfect, aching cake. Yes, I was going to eat this damn cake if it was the last thing I would do in my whole, damn life.
I stabbed it, the metal tines scraping ceramic as I lifted it to my mouth. The fork hovered.
Ah, yes.
I had finally arrived at the moment I had always known would arrive. This was the moment, and here, we were. And now that I was here, on the other side of fear, I wanted to remember every second, forever and ever.
I closed my eyes, I settled my shoulders, I breathed in deep. I was ready. I was ready to go home.
Every last cell on my lips buzzed as they parted.
And my dearest, dearest reader, that cake?
It tasted so damn sweet.
So damn sweet, it hurt my teeth.
Music Corner: Okay, honestly, it’s more of a playlist today than a corner.
Some Duets Because Call & Response is Such a Lovely Feeling
Some Solo Vibes Because We Can Also Do Bad All by Ourselves
And heck, I’ll throw these in just for you – because what’s the point if we’re not having fun?
PS don’t forget that you are enough and that you don’t have to do anything to deserve love. The love, it comes. That’s just what love do!
Originally posted on LinkedIn.
