Grandma’s Cookies
And so it begins. My week. My weekly blog. This writing has become a spiritual discipline. A way to begin my week and get an orientation to what is emergent in me. This morning I am tired, sore, and my work day starts earlier than most. Not a list of complaints so much as in indication of my pushing too hard over the weekend. Losing balance. My shoulder is tender and sore from a Pilates workout, my face is sun-burnt from a day of sugaring in the spring sun, and I am tired from our labours in the sugar bush. These are productive aches, consequences of living life large. I guess life should have its way with us, body and spirit. Balance is the true accomplishment.
I failed in my attempt to make maple sugar candy last night. A full day of boiling the sap yielded a pot full of rich dark late season syrup. The recipe for sugar candy looked simple enough. Boil the syrup to 235F, cool for 10 minutes, stir vigorously, add chopped walnuts and pour into silicone molds. Maybe it was my stiff shoulder, maybe it was the faulty candy thermometer, maybe it was starting the task late on a Sunday evening. Regardless, the syrupy mess did not set and a day’s worth of sugaring is undone. I might be able to salvage the dregs when I bake the maple walnut cake I plan for Easter dinner dessert. By the looks of things this morning, this will be a metaphorical rising from the dead. At best, a ‘broken hallelujah’.
When I was a teacher I began my classes with an exercise titled “Grandmas Cookies”. Students arrived to my class to find me sitting on a rocking chair at the front of the room, shawl over my shoulders, and a plate of homemade cookies on my lap. Note that I was not a grade school but a secondary school teacher and this was often a senior class. To say they wondered if their teacher had lost it would be an understatement. The bell rang and the activity unfolded. I explained that I was getting forgetful in my old age and I needed them to remind me of their names and tell me what they planned for future careers. Most readily played along, Especially when I explained that if Grandma, (aka their English teacher), approved of their name and their career path, she would give them a cookie.
“My name is Sam and I want to be an Engineer.”
“Well, hello Sam. Nice name, but no cookie for you!”
“My name is Jane and I want to be a Nurse.”
“Jane is such a lovely name, but no cookie for you”.
They continued. Some tried a second time. Some never bothered. The clock ticked on. Some were becoming increasingly bored, uncomfortable, restless. Finally, the code was cracked.
“My name is Frank and I want to be a Firefighter.”
“Ah, lovely Frank, come and have a cookie”.
Was Frank a pattern reader, an intuitive, was he just lucky? I watched as the class watched Frank retrieve and enjoy his cookie.
“My name is Matt and I want to be a Mechanical Engineer”.
Cookie.
“My name is Sarah and I want to be a Scientist.”
Cookie.
“My name is Maria and I want to be a Mother.”
Cookie.
The code was cracked and the winners, with crumbs on their lips, whispered the secret to their hungry classmates.
“My name is Tom and I want to be a Teacher.
Cookie.
Soon everyone had a cookie. As sweet as this was, the debriefing was the real dessert. I asked them to reflect upon and share with one another about their experiences. I wanted them to see where they found the courage to try again after failing. Why some gave up and waited. Why some never even attempted. Why others shared the secret: the alliteration between name and career as the key. I explained how the failing and the trying and the networking were the tools necessary to be successful in my class. Whether we were studying Shakespeare, or Poe, or Dickinson, or Atwood, the willingness to venture into the unknown with courage, the resilience to try and try again, the kindness to share your learning with one another would make them successful in my class and in life at large. I hoped the exercise would linger long after the taste of the cookies had faded.
In my own education, I remember most fondly a teacher I hated. Mr Towser. My grade 11 mathematics teacher. He would deduct marks from my test scores when I failed to “show the work”. Meaning, the right answer was not enough. I had to show my calculations from problem to solution. This outraged the 16yr old in me. Was he accusing me of cheating? Why isn’t the right answer more important than the process? With the patience of Job, Mr Towser explained that “without the calculations”, he could not assess my learning or correct my errors.. “Life will get infinitely more complicated” he continued. “Without a record of the process, without a record of the path you have taken, I cannot assist when you get it wrong”. At the time I was too narrow minded to see the cookie he offered. In the arrogance that belongs to adolescence, I thought he was only teaching me, or failing to teach me math. What he in fact was offering me was wisdom. Life did get more complicated. I did not always have the correct solution to life’s bigger problems. I needed elders, veterans, and teachers to guide me in the process of discovery. I needed to risk exposing my faulty understandings, my incomplete process, my incorrect choices before the wrong answers were written on my heart. Today, I thank Mr Towser and accept the cookie he provided even if I could not taste it at the time.
Our maple syrup, our maple sugar, even our maple fudge and cookies were successful. The maple candy was not. The syrup did not set. It remains, even this morning, a sticky and gooey mistake. Yet, the memories recalled in sharing my process with you may well be the sweetest candy of all.
A line of remembered poetry rises to end this blog. A poem written many years ago by my beloved and as true today as ever:
…Balance is a fleeting thing,
like early morning dew,
It is not falling that we test ourselves,
but in rising that we do”.
Butch Mercer