By Hallie Waugh
@halliewaugh_writer

It is early January, and I am slicing almonds.

My ceramic knife cuts neatly through the wrinkled, papery skins and into the white meat at the center. I’ve been on an almond kick lately, and this cake is no exception.

The oven’s fan is humming to life while it preheats. I am listening to a favorite book of mine, Wintering by Katherine May. I read it every year in January—something to look forward to after the Christmas rush, a winter mood I slip into like a sweater. Tonight, I’ve listened passively to tales of cold water plunging and snow-eager escapades while I pack the Christmas decorations, tucking glass ornaments and frayed ribbons into boxes.

I’m technically making a cake for my mother-in-law’s January birthday. But I think I’m also making it because I miss my sons, and because I want to imbue our family life with wonder: waking to the scent of a baking cake, dusted powdered sugar snow, the stuff of magic.

We’re still in the early days of parenting, with a toddler and a baby born a year and a half apart. Our days together are still so deeply repetitive and entwined. And yet I’m already thinking years ahead, in hopes that a shared sense of wonder will scatter the terrain between us—signs to lead us back toward each other when we no longer share a roof or city or time zone. I go about marking that path a thousand ways: with dance parties and paper snowflakes and walks to the park and twinkle lights in their rooms. I mark it with movie nights and big hugs and Saturday donut runs. I mark it with the scent of almonds.

I spread the sliced almonds onto a baking sheet and pop them in the oven to roast until fragrant. Then I turn to the cake ingredients: yogurt, sugar, eggs, flour, oil, baking powder, almond extract, vanilla, salt. I fold them on top of each other and dip my finger into the dough to taste its transformation at each stage.

I nearly burn the almonds because I’m preoccupied with my audiobook. The scent fills the kitchen. When I pull the pan out of the oven, the nuts are about two shades darker than they should be. I pop one in my mouth, still piping hot and crackling. The taste veers on the edge of bitter, but they’ll work.

Just before the cake is ready to go in, I hear my youngest son cry out. He’s been fighting a low-grade fever all day, his nose running constantly. I shuffle to the end of the hall and short-circuit the sleep training process we’ve been trying, which involves patting and replacing the pacifier long before picking him up.

Instead, I pick him straight up and plop into the big rocking chair in the corner. He’s sick, and I need to hold him.

I say need because it’s the Saturday after his first week in daycare. He’s almost a year old, and while I know people put their children in daycare mere weeks after birth, I am unprepared for this change. I wept the first few days after drop-off. I feel weepy now, thinking of a new drop-off on Monday.

This shift to daycare comes on the heels of a year of overwork and constant multi-tasking while I tried to make a reasonable salary and juggle time with my boys—all without full-time childcare. Daycare is a necessary but painful adjustment, and he’s doing just fine. I can tell he loves his teachers, and he’s napped three out of the four days he’s attended. Still, my heart aches for the baby he was just over one year ago, when he and I were tucked up in our room with nothing to do but sleep and nurse, snuggle and coo.

Even more, I have to work hard to avoid the mental math of calculating hours we spend together versus time he’ll spend in daycare. I want to tip the scales in my favor. I think of the analogy a friend shared with me before we started daycare: When you and your child are together all day, she said, you fill the metaphorical relationship jar with pennies. Lots of interactions, mostly ordinary moments. When your kid’s in daycare, you fill that jar with fewer coins—less time together—but you’re filling it with quarters. You make the moments count. It evens out in the end, she says. We’re all filling the jar one way or the other.

I position my son vertically on my chest and lean back in the chair in the dark. I can’t see anything beyond his head and neck, which catch the sliver of light from the crack in his bedroom door. His bum sits above my arm, his face pressed below my collarbone. I lean my right cheek to his fuzzy head and clench my teeth over the feel of him, squished against me. I rock him long after he is soothed. I tuck my nose and mouth into the nape of his neck and breathe deep, kiss his buttery skin. He smells like uncooked dough, like my own skin, only different. He smells like winter, like home. To me, this moment is worth one big, glistening half dollar coin in the jar. More, even.

The tang of roasted almonds drifts down the hall, just a hair past fragrant. The scent is warm, and I can already taste how that cake will turn out in the morning when I bake it, glaze it, and sprinkle zested orange and powdered sugar over the top.

Tomorrow, when our oven sings its end-of-timer song, my older son’s eyes will light up and he will rush with me to the kitchen to gaze in as it bakes. I will find a portion of the cake, someplace inconspicuous, to pinch off a piece and give him a taste. I will watch his body wiggle with delight, and I will pop a bite in my own mouth, and we will lick our fingers and try to refrain from eating any more until our family arrives.

Someday when my boys live far enough away to miss me, I hope the scent of almond cake will return me to them. I hope they remember the ordinary moments, like all of us baking together, sugar everywhere. I hope they’ll smell almonds as they walk past a bakery, and, no matter how far or near I am, I’ll be right there—as abundant as breath, or as a million coins piled in a jar.

Hallie Waugh writes meditative essays and poetry about embodiment, spirituality, and creativity. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Seattle Pacific University and lives in Oklahoma City with her husband and two boys. She writes a monthly newsletter called Weekend Exhale on Substack. 

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