Duly Noted

I have been informed that blogs generally include pictures. And sometimes recipes. To comply, here is the cake I made for my grandma's 87th birthday and the recipe that made it possible (thank you interwebs).

Chocolate Cake

1 1/2 C Ghirardelli cocoa

1 1/2 tsp salt

3 C flour

1 tsp baking soda

3 C sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 C oil

1 1/2 C buttermilk

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

3 eggs

1 1/2 C hot water

Combine dry ingredients then add wet ingredients. Grease and flour cake pans. (The batter is extremely runny and the cake will invariable stick to the cake pan, so I recommend using a spring form cake pan or lining the bottom of the pan with wax paper). Bake 350º for 45-55+ minutes or until toothpick comes clean. Yields two 9" cakes layers.

Chocolate Mousse Frosting

2 C butter

16 oz Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chocolate

2 1/2 tbs milk

2 tsp vanilla

5 C confectioners sugar

1 pt. whipping cream

Melt chopped chocolate and add to beaten butter and vanilla. Add confectioners sugar and milk. In another bowl, whip cream until it forms peaks then add it to the chocolate mixture. Generously frosts one 2 layer cake.

Cover with fresh raspberries (3 small cartons) and dust with confectioners sugar.

Running

Watching the Olympics on our living room floor I would roll back with my chin dug into my chest, my feet shot skyward like a steeple and my elbows wedged like an a-brace below my back.  Once in position I would churn my feet on the peddles of an inverted, invisible bike while the carpet made pebbled imprints on my neck.

As images of athletes flashed on the screen, I would map out the daily, air-bike exercise routine that would someday lead to the medal podium.  I could feel the finish tape pull and snap against my chest like the skin of a taut grape and indulge in fantasies of victory. 

Athletes were warriors and sport was a battle.

Now I’m training for the Provo River Trail Marathon on September 12, urged on by the boy with the rug-burned elbows.  Visions of epic struggle swim in my head.

But running is not a battle.  Running is surrender.

It starts as a panic.  I hear my blood like the throbbing sound of water rushing upon and sucking away the shore.  I greedily seize each breathe from the gaps in the cold swell submerging my head.  My thrashing legs and arms jerk unnaturally against an unseen foe.

But eventually, subdued by fatigue, I let myself be lulled by the orchestrated rhythm of the tide, and the desperate thrashing quiets.  What frightened entices and I realize the body that would rattle apart is the vessel to bear me home. 

The evermore urgent struggling within my chest pushes against the four-walled cavern of my rib cage until, finally, my consciousness escapes like a tight bubble expanding upward until it breaks on the churning surface of the water.

Still.

That’s what running is for me.  Stillness.  A chance to be quiet and trust what scares me.  It makes me wonder what I was running from in the first place.