Let Them Eat Cake

On meeting internet friends and celebrating 8 years of marriage

You turn the glossy page of a magazine (or more accurately shift your phone to avoid glare from the overhead kitchen lights) and behold a cake. You cannot help but pause. Inhale, exhale. Salivate slightly. Even from the page, the cake sings. She is tall (at least 2 layers!) and elegantly dressed (smooth frosting, piping, sunset colors). Her flavors harmonize. You read the recipe and are surprised when your pantry holds all required ingredients. Will you attempt? Will the cake stretch your baking muscles? What if the cake doesn’t turn out? What if it is a disappointment after all your effort? But, what if it does turn out?

Am I talking about real cake? Or is this a metaphor?

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“You have to go!” my husband exclaims when I receive the invitation to join a weekend retreat with my internet writing friends. We are driving home from a family beach vacation, and sun is warming my right arm and leg through the passenger window. “Writing with these women is so life-giving for you. I can see your excitement.” 

With nerves prickling my stomach and excitement buzzing behind my eyes, I register. A couple months later I commit to a VRBO with four women I’ve never met in real life. A few weeks after booking lodging, I receive a detailed itinerary. We will explore Chicago, make cocktails, write, eat cake, meet a local author. Major goal? Have fun (it will fuel us all creatively).

I kiss my husband and children good-bye and leave for the airport. Destination: Chicago. I take a selfie in the airport -- free hands, Chick-fil-a milkshake, and giant smile. What will it be like to meet the women I have written with online for years? We know one another’s intimate fears and how we’ve traversed hard times. But, we don’t know one another’s alma maters or children’s ages. We haven’t been in one another’s homes but have zoomed through writing workshops. We haven’t met one another’s spouses but have learned from one another. We haven’t worked together but have cheered one another on in our creative pursuits. 

Over the course of the weekend we meet up the Bean and walk by Lake Michigan. We explore the Art Institute of Chicago, joy ride an open air boat on the Chicago River to learn about architecture, comb through vintage shops in Wicker Park. We see flutter and passion as one woman demonstrates the art of cocktails and another decorates a cake and explains how it represents us and the weekend. We talk about books and faith and motherhood and what we’re writing. We cry when a local author reads an essay about motherhood. We journal and try a new way to write. We wear jumpsuits and jean jackets and talk about Taylor Swift. We drink gallons of coffee and try as much local food as we can. We laugh so hard our stomachs ache. We hug. We marvel at being part of a group of mothers pursuing creativity in the margins of our lives. We leave full of fun and inspiration. 

“You’re glowing,” my husband says the night I get home. We sit on the couch eating take-out Chinese food after the children are in bed, and I tell him all about my adventures. 

(Exhale enrollment is currently open!)

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My husband and I belong to the seafood restaurant’s first seating. The hostess leads us past whole fish sleeping on ice, and a bartender shakes cocktails behind the bar. I walk behind her, and my blown out hair swooshes on the back of my neck. Light glints off my fall shade of Olive & June nail polish, and cool air rushes over the cutout in the back of my new dress. Nick and I sit side-by-side in one of the restaurant's best “date night” tables facing the restaurant, and he takes my hand. Early evening glows behind us through the window, and a breezy curtain separates us from the next table. 

We gently tap rims on our icy martini glasses to eight years of marriage and reminisce. We crunch crisp crostini with pickled cucumber and tomatoes and onion and tangy feta. We watch the restaurant slowly wake-up as more diners fill tables. Waiters carry trays piled with glistening calamari and buttery snapper filets. I add horseradish and squeeze a lemon over two oysters on the half shell. Our chopsticks transport crunchy and fresh tuna sushi to soy sauce before we collectively groan with each bite. We tear into a whole red snapper like cave people and giggle when we pull tiny bones out of bites. What a gift to share this night, this heart, this life with my husband.

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Inspired after my weekend in Chicago, I decide to commemorate my eighth wedding anniversary with a cake to represent this year of marriage. I reflect on events and emotions of the year, our hardest since 2020. To represent this year, I create a two layer dark chocolate cake with a strawberry compote and a chocolate mint buttercream frosting.

Dark chocolate cake represents the darkness, bitterness, and hardships of the year.

Strawberry compote represents the sweetness of our love throughout the hard.

Chocolate mint buttercream represents fresh beginnings.

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I am light like genoise sponge cake. I am full like dried fruits and nuts studded in a Christmas cake. I shine like a chocolate mirror cake’s glaze. 

Friends, the cakes I savored -- my weekend in Chicago, my anniversary celebration, retreat and anniversary cakes -- were even better than I hoped.