Inner Journey Home

by Emily Hufschmidt
(Roswell,NM)

Ah, it's great to get off these aching feet. Where's that handle...oh, here it is...yeah..feels wonderful to get these dogs up. Comfy? Good. Lean back. Relax. Close your eyes...both of them now, no peaking!
We're taking a little trip. Take a deep breath and let it out slowly, good, now another one. Continue to breath slowly and deeply. Relax your toes, then your feet, your ankles...that's right. Just work your way up, relaxing everything as you go. We won't be needing those muscles. The only muscles we need today is your mind...so relax...
You may begin to notice a pleasant sort of buzzing in your extremities. Sort of like being kissed all over by a flock of butterflies. Ahhh. That feels amazing.
As you relax, you feel as though you're floating through the air. In your mind, you notice the scenery flying by...the clouds, the trees, bodies of water, birds...whoops! We almost collided with that airplane! It's okay now. Here we are...we float through the open door and immediately notice a fragrance that brings us right back home. There is an elderly lady standing at the stove, her back to us. She can't see or hear us, but she must sense our presence. She keeps looking around, a bemused look on her face. She shakes her head and bends down to open the oven. She grabs a potholder from the counter and her careworn hand grasps a pan of gingerbread cookies. They smell sweet and spicy, and we can see that the raisin buttons are almost ready to burst. The redhots used for mouths on the gingerbread boys are melted, and resemble a freshly kissed mouth with the lipstick smeared. She pulls a wire rack from the cupboard and wipes off the dust with her apron. Remember that apron? It's so old that it's almost fallen to bits. She's repaired it plenty of times. It used to belong to her mother. When we were small, she kept treats for us in the pocket. Today, the pocket contains a spatula, which she uses to transfer the cookies to the wire rack for cooling. She breaks one and looks over her shoulder before stuffing the broken cookie into her mouth. She chews as she finishes transferring her cookies, licking the spicy brown crumbs from her lips. We breathe in the spicy aroma, and as we recall the special flavor of those cookies, it almost takes our breath away. They always tasted the same, and we snitched them whenever we could. The careworn hands are mixing something in a bowl now...look, it's buttercream frosting for decorating the cookies. She scoops it into a baggie and snips off the corner. She used to use a decorating bag, but she can't squeeze that hard anymore; the arthritis has crippled those beloved hands. She puts eyes on each cookie, then an outline of boots and gloves, a cunning little vest, a hat. She scoops up the wire rack and puts it on top of the refrigerator to cool, and so the lemony icing can harden before tiny hands find the cookies. She washes her hands and dries them on her apron. The teapot is boiling; she turns off the heat and selects a bone china teacup from a high shelf. Remember those teacups? We were never permitted to touch them, because they were her legacy from Grandma. One of them was broken when we were in our teens. Oh, how she cried. Makes me tear up, just thinking about it.
She plops a teabag into the cup and fills the cup with the boiling water. The steam curls from the cup and she puts a drop of honey into the tea. She takes a spoon from the dish drainer. It's one of the everyday spoons, which is surprising. She usually uses the sterling with the bone china cups. Perhaps she's tired out from baking the cookies. She sits at the kitchen table with the tea. She stirs in the honey, then scoops a spoonful of tea and blows on it, to cool it; she takes an experimental sip, blows on it again. She gazes at the wire rack on top of the refrigerator, as though contemplating having another cookie with her tea. Her eyelids drop down momentarily. Then she opens her eyes and takes another sip of the steaming tea. She sets down the spoon on the bone china saucer. She pulls herself up out of the chair and starts to carry the dirty bowls and cookie sheets over to the sink. We catch a whiff of lemon as she pours a few drops of soap into the sink and turns on the hot water. The stoop of her shoulders says that she's tired and wants to rest. We wish we could seat her at the table with her tea, finish the dishes and snitch a sweet, spicy cookie to take with us when we go. Perhaps we heave a sigh. Our bodies begin to pull at our spirits and we find ourselves leaving the warm, fragrant kitchen behind, drifting over the trees, the mountains, the bodies of water. We find ourselves back in our individual chairs, eyes closed, the fragrance of gingerbread still in our nostrils. We open our eyes and realize that our family hasn't owned that house for decades, that the tea-drinking cook lies in the waters off a beach in Hawaii with her husband, and that the recipe for those marvelous cookies is gone forever. Then the tears come.