a tale of the world’s most spectacular cookie

“I want the one with the raspberry middle and the sprinkles.”

My fingers poked to the bottom of the white baker’s box
reaching for the aforementioned suspect.

“Oh you found the good one, it has both,”
an enlightened person replied to me,
as half a dozen of us stood
casually snacking around a Midtown West kitchen table.

Going in, the cookie was average.
At first bite, something shifted.

“Oh my God, this cookie is amazing.”

The cookie was not amazing.
The cookie was white flour and processed food coloring.

Give me a decent chocolate soufflé and I’ll write you a sonata about it.
Crème brûlée gets a cantana.
This kind of cookie was not musical inspiration.

And yet,
this was the most marvelous cookie I had ever seen.

The taste was (Katy Perry rendition) fireworks in my mouth.
More fascinatedly, its constitution was remarkable.
Small multi-colored sprinkle dots- magnificent!
A gooey, thick, marma-laden raspberry button center—genius!
The juxtaposition of the crumble as it cascaded my tongue,
licking my lips and lingering there like a lovers lazy morning,
embedded in my lip gloss... groan. yum.

This little bod’s a foodie and a snob about it.
Much to my family’s chagrin,
I cannot help that a discerning palate was bequeathed to this tongue.
The cookie was not good due to its sophisticated merging of ingredients.

Despite being hauled from the lauded Veniero's,
it was in fact, a simple Italian sugar cookie.

Here, it was spectacular because of its mere existence.

Most spec.ta.cul.lar.

Giggles came.
They would not stop.
Which looks crazypants when everyone else is standing around
having normal conversation over falafel and aloe water
and you are against the wall,
eyeball pressed to a cookie, giggling.

I stepped into the other room, trying to sequester my giggles.
They kept coming.
I noticed people were now staring at me bemused,
but really there was nothing to be done.
Obama could have been present
and the giggles would not stop.

All at once heat blasted my body.
I looked around as though the answer to its sudden appearance
would be found in the air around me.

“I’m schvitzing.” I announced. To no one in particular.
“I’m schvitzing!!”

I took the cookie, now only perhaps 37% eaten, with me into the kitchen.
I had never eaten anything more slowly in my life.
It was impossible to ingest the cookie at a more rapid tempo.
and
it was very very VERY important to not lose the cookie.
I knew what a toddler felt like clutching a biscuit.
The cookie was everything.

A decade ago I had considerable experience with MDMA,
otherwise known as the drug ecstasy.
This was what this felt like.
This was what this EXACTLY felt like.

I shuffled to the kitchen and
stuck my head in the freezer.
Sweat bundled to break through on my lower back and the cold felt:
winterfresh.
Look! Frozen peas!
I grabbed them.
(This was not my home. I grabbed my friend’s peas.
The thought to ask did not cross my mind. The pea package was just so pretty, and I?...)
“Oh gosh, so hot.”
It felt perfectly reasonable to hold the frozen peas against the back of my neck
and reach for the sink greedily refilling a too-small Dixie cup of water,
precariously balancing these items
all the while being extraordinarily careful that I did. Not. Drop. That. Cookie.

I cooled down.

The kitchen counters became parallel bars.
This was a spontaneously brilliant idea as I set a hand on each side to lift myself up.
Did I mention that this was an entire home full of people and I was not alone?
The cookie was carefully set on the black granite countertop to the left.
My legs swung to and fro.
“This is so fun! I wish I had this in my apartment!
You could, like,
wake up and have a morning workout
like an Olympian on the parallel bars.”

With knowing raised eyebrows,
two dearest near me let me be,
as they talked and I interjected in conversation
while I played on the countertops.

Blah blah blah blah, “iPhone, Verizon, next week!”

Blah blah blah blah, “rememember how they used to make us do one pull up in gym class as a measure of fitness? I still can’t do that.”

Now, there was nationwide conference call with our spiritual community,
so gingerly we were ushered to gather in the living room.

I sat on a couch I’ve sat on a dozen times.
I picked up the silk striped pillow I have seen 50 times.
“It’s so soft! Look how beautiful it is. Has the pillow always been this beautiful?”
I asked my hostess, knowing full well as the words came out of my mouth
that the pillow had, in fact, remained the same.

Uh oh. Momentary panic.
Where is the cookie?
There it is, 3/5th’s eaten. It’s right there on the arm of the couch where I just set it.
Phew.
For reals. PH-ew.

Look at my fingertips.
They were stained from clutching the cookie,
its sprinkles leaving rainbow kaleidoscope hickey dots
like seven different ballpoint pens
made out with my fingerprints.
Naturally, I ran to show my hostess in delight.
“Look! Looklooklooklooklook. The sprinkles stained my tips!”
She gently assured me that soap and water have magical powers of cleaning.

Settling in to an hour-long call,
out came a flurry of hiccupped burps and giggles.
I made an "oopsies!" face.
They eventually subsided.
When there was a pause in the call,
I happily finished the last 1/6th of the cookie.

Afterwards, in the foyer,
as I was trying to balance putting on my snow boots
and someone gave me a chair to sit down so that I didn’t fall over,
my hostess asked:
“Are you going to be ok to get home?”

I assured her. “I remember what’s it’s like navigating the city on drugs… I can handle this.”

This was my experience after an hour with four awakened people.
I’m off with these peeps to a whole weekend of this.

We, collectively, are on the brink of this, as life, but with balance.
As reality.
As a new world.
This seeing.
This wonderment.
World...
Man your bakeries.

*************************
"If you only knew what the future holds
After a hurricane comes a rainbow

Maybe you're reason why all the doors are closed
So you can open one that leads you to the perfect road

Like a lightning bolt, your heart will blow
And when it's time, you'll know

Cause baby you're a firework."

(yes, I went there)

"Firework" 2011, as sung by Katy Perry,
and written by the Stargate team