sweetness of life

I’ve been up to my neck in sugar skulls for the past week. The Great Studio Cleaning began as a hunt for my molds, which were never found. After several attempts with rigging my own out of cheap plastic skulls from Walgreens, I finally gave in and bought the expensive clear molds I’ve had such contempt for. Finally, in my travels to the cake decorating store for icing fixings, I found the molds that I had originally had, molds straight from Mexico, made from heavy duty plastic and much more traditional looking than the clear versions. It seems the dead this year want a variety of different kinds of sugar skulls, and it’s my job to create them.

As I left the house this morning, I left behind a sticky stove and gritty floor. As usual, the magic is much more in the process than the product. By Samhain, my altar will hold beautifully decorated skulls of sugar, with names of the dead written carefully on them with brightly colored icing. However, up until that point the magic is in the making. Why do some skulls come out perfectly, while others crumble to pieces while being taken out of the mold? This year, with so many different molds, the truth of the randomness of creation and destruction is even more evident. The broken skulls have left their mark on my home and myself, bits of sugar and meringue adhering themselves with seemingly willful arbitrariness to a variety of surfaces.

In the car, on the way to Stanford Medical Center, I found myself more than once flicking off grains of sugar from my clothes. Despite my best efforts, even today the sugar was sticking to me. I was accompanying someone dear to me to her six month check up at Stanford’s Cancer Center. She has asymptomatic lymphoma, meaning she has cancer, but it’s not growing and she has no symptoms. For twenty percent of these cases, the lymphoma goes away on its own, for the rest it’s termed “watch and wait”. This check up was part of the watching, and hopefully, then a long period of waiting before the axe drops. Isn’t that what all of us are doing anyway? Like the sugar skulls, there’s really no science as to when we start to crumble. Life is sweet, and best not to worry too much about death. It will come when it comes.

Driving down, I felt at ease being supporting and distracting. That ease faded fast as soon as I saw the big sign “CANCER CENTER”. Despite the valet parking, the chair massages being freely offered, and the large plasma screens with soothing videos of natural beauty being broadcast from almost every wall, the Cancer Center was rife with anxiety, mine included. Death catches up with all of us eventually, but in this building, you can’t help but wonder whose shoulder She’s about to tap. I became acutely aware of the possibility of Death standing close to every person in street clothes who walked by, and to all who sat and waited in the beautifully appointed rooms. Only a small minority showed the visible signs of battling cancer, but Death loomed large in this spacious and elegant medical temple. As tests were drawn and we waited to be seen, I became acutely aware of the distinct possibility we would walk back out thru the doors of the Cancer Center with Death riding a little closer on the drive back. Sitting waiting, I had ample time to rid myself of every grain of sugar still remaining.

There was some stickiness to my fingers by the time the results came back and as they were read I clutched my cup of coffee for dear life. We were ensconced in the belly of the temple in the doctor’s office, known as the Big Kahuna of Cancer, Sandra Horning. All was well, the blood showed no change. In six months there will be another battery of testing, with some big full body scan that is rather unpleasant. But if that comes up clean, the chance increases that this woman who is dear to me will be one those lucky twenty per cent. We felt blessed by Luck as the valet ushered us back into the car and we sailed north thru the gorgeous fall day towards the city.

When I came home tonight I did what is in this season a daily ritual. I took the skulls I’d formed this morning out of their molds. Of my three big molds, two skulls made it, one didn’t. Death is all around this season, and my house is creaky with spirits. But Life still is trumping, coming out ahead, as evidenced by my day and the sugar skulls. Even when Death looms large, the sweetness of Life can not be denied. Two sugar skulls created and one destroyed. It felt exactly right.

What mysteries will be revealed when I start to do the frosting this weekend?