everything is going to be alright

I walked in to the Duchess Bake Shop on Edmonton's 124th Street in great need of something. I didn't know what. Or maybe the what was so much in front of me it had lost its obviousness, an object obscured on the near side of my depth of field.

Everything slowed. Sun streamed in through the window and the light inside went golden. A stack of menus, crisp and elegant, paper linen, letters pressed. A whoosh of steam, the clatter of ceramic. People smiled, pressed up against glass with friends. Paris-Brest. Brioche. Galettes. Florentines. Ooh, I want that one and These are my favourite. A solemn young man in white emerged from double-doors carrying a tray high above his head. He set it down gently on the counter and everyone leaned forward, pulled by the witness of soft, buttery warmth straight from the oven.

I was in great need of something. I didn't know what. When everything slowed, I could feel its approach.

+++

You've thought it. I've thought it.

Oh god

I can't do this. I can't get through this.

Everything is falling.

The sky!

We will be crushed

There will not be enough understanding

money

stuff

time

love

Oh god

Slow down.

It's my turn.

Black tea, please. And macarons. One creme brulee, and a lemon, and salted caramel, and the lavender. And...

His hand rests in the air over a tray of pistachio.

One rose.

+++

Taste this.

Discord can't exist in the same moment as this. It's impossible.

You sigh. See? Oh my god.

The sun and the smiles on everyone, all of us pained and fearful and wanting. We feel so viscerally responsible for failure, for lack of control, for disappointing others. And yet here is this macaron, a small, perfect French thing that slows the spin of the earth.

You might be in great need of a sigh like that, the untwisting kind that wraps you in yellow. This was mine.

When your brain is a bloodthirsty mob, taste this and it'll go quiet, at least for a while.

Everything is going to be alright.

My prompt for Reverb10: Tell me about one 2010 moment that served as proof that everything is going to be alright. It doesn't need to have been profound. Think a passing serenity that makes you pause in the middle of a blink. Beyond trying to believe. A knowing that's as deep as bones, neverminding the how or the when. Comment here or write on your own. I'd love to hear about it.

Comments

[Neil]

I find laughter is still the best medicine. There were many times during the year that a joke or funny retort, even on twitter made my day. Usually it is not the typical general witty statement, which rarely makes me laugh out loud, but something more obscure, almost an inside joke that connects me with another person, and reminds me that there are others out there with similar sensibilities, so no matter what happens in life, you are never really alone.

[Laurie]

Your command of the language -- that turns the struggle into accessible, bearably unbearable poetry -- is a miracle I need.

[Laurie]

(And by "unbearable" I only mean the heart-piercing kind. As the blogosphere were.)

[Elizabeth]

Yes. Everything will be all right. Because the tiniest weirdest thing makes everything not all right, too. The flip of a switch, the words floating out of the doctor's mouth, the day where everything changed, the moment, even. (I used to make those macarons back when I was a pastry chef, in my former life and damn, they were hard to make --)

[Thordora]

Falling in love. Reminds me that anything, anything is possible.

[Emily of Deutschland]

For me, it was two beats after I wrote the words,

'Only at midday and sunset were there short dips in the hot mass of auditory hullaballoo.'

It was part of the first five pages I wrote for my still-new, still-helpless baby of a novel project (gulp). It made my guts churn, but strangely, it was delightful and thrilling. I got a small, private smile on my face. It widened and I blushed. It was a feeling, I realized later, not unlike the first time I got a note snuck to me - by way of Anna and Robin, who sat kitty-corner and just behind - from a BOY. From SHANE. Shyly triumphant I was.

I don't know if that line will make me shudder in a few months (much like my alliance with SHANE did), but its creation was a moment of absolute contentment and exuberance for me.

[kelly]

I bought my husband a camera for Christmas. An expensive camera. The kind that professional photographers use. Read the manual. Learn all it’s features. Take pictures of us on Christmas. I imagine we will all look beautiful through the lens. I’ll fill the house with photos of the children smiling in a mountain of gifts. If they grow up to regret the choices I’ve made, I will point at all the colored pictures and remind them. I did my best. I tried to make everyone happy. I guess what I’m saying is that sometimes not everything is okay, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t going to be. Merry Christmas, Katie girl.

[erin]

<i>Discord can't exist in the same moment as this. It's impossible.</i>

You're right, Kate. You are right.

And they come, these moments, in cycles like breath.

Have a beautiful holiday season.

xo
erin

[starrlife]

Bittersweet is what makes the world go round isn't it? Luckily I have a taste for the bittersweet.
Oh Happy Holidays Kate!

[Christine]

When my daughter started to love Kindergarten after having cried her eyes out for the first four weeks. I felt so sick and nervous in the beginning, and it was so hard to drop her off and come to pick her up. Then, almost like a miracle, she started having fun. And now all the teachers comment on how happy she is, and how well she has adjusted. Some time at the end of November, I knew that everything will be alright when I go back to full time work.

[Avitable]

Three days ago, in the shower, I sang my heart out, and when I stepped out, I just knew that everything was going to be alright.

[Cheryl Arkison]

After a traumatic loss this summer I struggled. Damn hormones on top of my emotions. One afternoon, whille our girls slept my husband held me. We laid on the bed, me with my head on his chest, and slept a deep sleep. Maybe it was because we never actually snuggle or cuddle or pretty much even touch when we sleep? Maybe it was because it was a way for us to acknowledge that this was something we were both struggling with? Maybe it just felt damn good to be so close, physically. But that nap in my husband's arms was enough to make believe that we'd get through.

[anja]

dear kate,
found you via twitter a few days ago. since then, i have read a lot of posts on your blog and had a look at your novel.i love the way you write and i love your name. my mother is called kate inglis, too. sometimes, there are no coincidences. have a good and peaceful christmas with your family. best from very faraway berlin,anja

[Misty]

When everything seems broken. My day, my work, my sense of who I am. When the puzzle I have to put together, that is my dream, just won't fit. The clock seems to be ticking and it's a race. If I don't finish in time it won't happen. Then what will I do? Then who will I be?
I shuffle in at the end of the day, defeated and tender. He pulls me in. His strong arms nearly wrap around me twice and I fit perfectly under his chin. Suddenly nothing is broken. Even if I am nothing more than I am in this moment it will be enough. It will be alright.

[Mary]

I have a disease that was passed to me via blood from a tick, a deer tick. And I found the thing sucking the blood from my back in April. It was engorged with the cells of me and at the same time it spit forth its rotten spirochetes into my body. For a long time, especially when it got into my brain, I thought my life was over. The disease makes you want to kill yourself. But I'm killing the fuckers, slowly, with antibiotics. And the healing has taught me a whole lot about the importance of outlook. Someone recommended I try this "healing touch" crap. And I was all like, "whatever. She doesn't even touch me? And how is that supposed to help?" And then I went. And I felt her warm hands over my brain and something started to happen, things started to work, and I started to feel better. Every time I went to see her she told me to just remain open to whatever might happen. I started to see things. Once I had an image of my husband holding me up in the water, as if he were teaching me how to float on my back. The water was very blue and the sun was warm on my face. He held me there for a long time and then he started to let go. And I laid there floating in the water, face to the sky, arms outstretched and I knew then that I would be able to fight this thing, but only with his help. Only with him spotting me. And he's okay with that.

Thanks for encouraging me to define that moment from the year; it's been marred with the glass is half empty 'things won't be okay' moments.

[Annoyed Army Wife]

I love your post. And thank you for your prompt. Quite a few of the Reverb 10 prompts have been so so; I've had no problem with them. I wasn't really emotionally involved. Your prompt was different. It shook me from my numb state of mind and catapulted into a state of, well, rage. I was pissed off.

The only thing I know for sure is that I'm okay in the current moment of my life. Every time I get off the phone with my deployed husband I know, if only for that moment in time, my life is okay. No proof exists to tell you life is going to be okay. There is no proof that will tell me my husband is coming home to me as the person who left or if he even is coming home at all. I just take life one moment at a time and try to have faith. No one can predict the future. You just have to stay in the present, breathe, and take life one moment at a time. Thanks again for making me feel something (and for prompting a fairly decent blog post out of me).

[Deer Baby]

A wonderful, uplifting post.

My moment, when the clocks slowed down and all was hushed, was one Tuesday afternoon hurtling around trying to get a thousand things done and not finishing any of them. I decided on a whim to take my two-almost three,-year old daughter to the theatre. Just turned up and bought tickets instead of micro-managing it. As we sat in the auditorium and the lights went down and all was hushed, the look on her face when the curtain rose - that was that moment for me.

Wishing you and all your family a very Merry Christmas.

[mamie]

I did this on my blog because I knew yours would be good (been waiting to see what it would be since you told us Christmas Eve was yours). Also because your prompt made me want to write.

http://mamieknits.blogspot.com/2010/12/everything-will-be-alright.html#links

It was worth waiting for. I do not only say this because of my crush. :) Happiest of Holidays to you and your people. Sending warm thoughts your way.

[Brooke]

Still waiting on this feeling... not quite ready to be so hopeful. But when I bury my face in my husband's shoulder, I sometimes feel like there will eventually be a day when I will believe we will be all right again. So I am getting closer.

[TJ]

I’m realizing that OK doesn’t mean life’s messy edges get trimmed nice and neat, that I stop feeling pangs in my heart that bring instant tears, that I always wear a smile on my face and skip through every waking hour. OK means accepting those dark moments of lying curled in a ball sobbing and never wanting to face daylight again, taking the hand offered by a friend and letting their compassion soothe my soul like salve on a raw wound. OK means sorrow co-exists with happiness. Every day brings a small moment, the honking of geese flying over to the pond, a raindrop suspended from a brilliant red leaf, two owls flying overhead while taking a walk with my son, sunrise creating a glow on mountain peaks. We are alive…and everything is okay.

Thanks for the prompt Kate and loved the simplicity of your post :)

[littleyawos]

In Saratoga Springs, NY, there is a tiny bakery under a sign that says: Mrs. London's. When you walk in the door, the world stops; everything is beautiful. Out of everything glistening under sugar glacee and nestled on golden cardboard circles, I always choose the mini fresh fruit tarts. With that first bite, everything IS quiet. OH, the joy of pastry. I am SO with you on this.

[tanya]

I have had that feeling before, but I can't pinpoint it. I think, for me also, it revolves around food. Because no matter what else was going on in your life, you cannot deny the comfort that delicious food brings. I can forget the pain, the stress, the money (or lack of it) while enjoying that taste, that feel in my mouth. The soothing calm as it hits my belly and makes me feel nourished ... full ... like a baby with no worries.

[Anna]

Oh Kate. I love you. Discord doesn't exist in the moments when my mouth is full of sushi. Since losing Sarah, I have become obsessed with it. There is something about the complexity and intrigue of the combinations of flavors that wake me up and cause me to confront THIS. VERY. SECOND. It's a relief. I don't have to think. I just enjoy.

So I totally get it. :) Much adoration, always.

[Lisa b]

I love moments like this one you describe. In fact, I think I may need them more than is practical.

There is a big moment for me when I realised our lives had changed and would never be ok again, and somehow that freed them to be alright.

[SarahD]

I saw the Bake Shop link and had to follow... thinking perhaps one day, while in Edmonton. What a great website they have with the days descriptions! Reminded me that one day, many days I continue saying perhaps I'll bake one day. Always just a lingering thought, hanging there as in "well, I can always go back to school to be a baker if I need a change in career". When trying to cut sugar completely out of our diets during a short lived health stint I thought "hmm, how could I be a baker if I don't eat sugar? Could I serve this feeling good about it when I feel it poisons your body?" Luckily I continue enjoying my dark chocolate, my delicious pastries consciously ignoring information that doesn't allow me to enjoy my life... And how MANY times I've thought Winnipeg is lacking in bakeries, GOOD ones selling real donuts and pies and pastries...

It was a good reminder of what I really should be doing.

Then again, when I saw the croissant photo I thought, were I in the moment I am equally torn between wanting to bake the croissant, photograph it or eat it.

[Shannon]

I struggled a bit with this one...some days it feels like everything and nothing is telling me it's going to be alright.

But eventually, I got there.

http://msswirlygirl.wordpress.com/2010/12/27/im-all-right/

[Christina]

And just like that, like always, your writing pulls me in, tugs at the strings and pulleys of my heart, and makes me FEEL what I'm feeling.

Happy new year Kate!

[Dolly]

Amazing!!!

[theappletea]

love the macaroons :) adorable !

[Brittany]

I truly loved this post. I think that we need those precious details, those little perfect macaroons in life that take us out of ourselves. Thanks for writing!

[Mama Zen]

This is like a deep, cleansing breath!

[EarnestGirl]

late mornings when the sun slants warm through the kitchen window
when i am cooking something good
when Bob Marley sings
it feels like a prayer, an incantation, a spell
and space opens for the possibility of this

[Carol]

In October of 2009, my husband was supposed to carry the Olympic flame. We travelled to Victoria, all excited, only to have his run diverted by protesters. He was heartbroken. Among the other people who lost their change to run were a 14 year old girl who had been practising for months with a jug of milk, and a boy in a wheelchair. I wondered what was wrong with the world, when people disappointed children in order to make a political point.

But the Olympic committee scrambled around and found replacement runs for those kids, and for my husband as well. Then someone cancelled their run at the last moment, and not only did he get to carry the flame this February, but so did I, and as I lit his torch, he kissed me.

Things... they work out in the end.

[misguided mommy]

WHY WHY WHY WHY would you include the link WHY. I want everything on that page. I'll start with all of the breakfast pastries, then the caprese sandwich, moving on to all of the cookies
AND WHY DID YOU INCLUDE THAT LINK WHYYYYYYYYYYYY