Pat a Cake, Pat a Cake

I forgot I forgot.

I had let the diagnosis define us again.

I could never have the picture perfect, so I stopped taking pictures.

I had stopped. I had removed myself from the scene.

A director yelling “cut” and collapsing on my canvas chair while the actors take smoke breaks and get out of character.

And I thought: this picture will never be what I planned, what I dreamed.

These actors will never say their lines.

These actors won’t ever speak, or even mime.

But whose characters are they?

Not mine. Not mine.

Not actors in my movie. This isn’t about me, or my script.

So I don’t do.

So I stopped doing.

I forgot I forgot.

Plot twist!

These beautiful moments – the mundane – I had not taken note.

The moments between scenes.

This is our movie.

And our cake might not turn out the same, or at all.

But we broke the eggs and their shells into a metal bowl.

Together, we watched a mixer at speed 5 and you laughed.

So don’t bake me a cake as fast as you can.

Stay with me, in this moment, watching an egg beat to froth in its bowl.

Make motion, make a picture, with me.