I have a distinct memory of baking chocolate chip cookies with my mother.
She would bring out this old, folding step ladder to the edge of the kitchen counter.
It was brown and she still has it today.
I would sit on the duct tape tattered seat and watch my mother bake.
She had a Pfaltzgraff baking bowl and a wooden spoon.
She had a recipe from our old neighbor up the road, Beatrice, and all the ingredients strewn about the counter.
The eggs, the honey, the flour.
Cups and tablespoons and teaspoons all strung together on a plastic chain.
Sitting there at the counter I would watch her, precisely taking note of the ingredients she would add one by one. Mentally checking off each one in her head.
The sticks of butter she would melt.
The water she would boil to dissolve the baking soda.
The honey she would substitute for sugar.
My favorite part was when she added the vanilla.
Her homemade vanilla.
A bottle of cheap vodka that she would add sticks of vanilla beans to.
How she would turn the cap off and hold the bottle up to her nose, taking in the most wonderful scent of vanilla. Of warm spring days when she would have all the kitchen windows open. After she smelled it, she would hold the bottle to my nose and say, “Smell.”
Always smiling, always instilling this sense of magic around the pouring of the vanilla.
What motherhood looked like in its purest form.
After the batter was rolled into round balls and placed on the baking sheets, we would tap the mounds down with a metal spoon.
We placed the full sheets into the oven and set the timer on the microwave.
Together, my mother and I would lick the bowl.
Taking turns of one lick after another. Leaving a few chocolate chips on the counter to add to our bites of batter.
This is still one of my favorite tastes. How each spoonful would simply melt in my mouth.
My mother’s chocolate chip cookies.
Our sweet creation.
Every time I bake, I am taken back to this moment.
This memory of my mother and I, together in her kitchen.
How she would drape a kitchen towel over her shoulder and use it to wipe her hands on.
She never used an apron and neither do I.
Just one of the ways I am like my mother.
How I have come to embody her habits and ways.
How my face and eyes have molded into hers.
How I have become a mere replica of this woman who leads my way.
How the scent of vanilla can feel like her arms around me,
Whispering to me, “Smell,”
Smell this moment all up.
And never let it go.