BILLY THE BAKER  

 

Sitting at my desk this morning I wondered how I would decorate my cake today. Allow me an explanation.

 

Since late adolescence I have always known what I wanted to accomplish in life, and followed that path with a sense of purpose and meaning. It wasn’t difficult to do until my familiar and comfortable path began to severely change direction. I maintained my footing and went on to navigate three major changes in my lifetime. I am not telling you this to pat myself on the back, but to set the stage for what happened to me when I turned seventy years old.

 

Changes in my attitude and self-confidence, questions about my work, and a loss of purpose began to gradually make their way into my thinking soon after entering the eighth decade. From time to time they would demand my full attention, making it clear they would not leave until I dealt with them. One of my ways of doing this is to write about them in my journal, and occasionally, when I feel I have comfortably managed the questions, I write about them publically in my blog or in these columns. The responses I receive from readers confirm my belief that these “stuff of life” issues are universal, and shared by others, each in their own unique way.

 

So what does cake decorating have to do with any of this? Well, thanks to my wife, I’ve seen dozens of episodes of the Great British Baking Show, which has given me a new way to look at these questions. We are all bakers, and life is the cake we bake. First we try to understand what we want for ourselves and go about acquiring the training and tools to accomplish our goals. Obviously the time and effort needed for this depends upon what it is we hope to do. When we feel we’re ready, we begin working, alone, or in the company of others. We may spend a lifetime in one place devoted to one chosen task, or we may move on to other work in a different setting. For many, this lifetime of work is marked by various combinations of successes and failures, hopefully more of the former than the latter. At some point, our working days come to an end, either slowly or abruptly, and we have nothing else to put in the oven. Our baking days are over.

 

As a baker, I can look back on my life’s work as a series of cakes freshly removed from the oven. With the exception of an occasional cookie or small bun, my baking days are over.  At least the oven work is. Now its time to focus my attention on the fun part -decorating the cakes I’ve created. There are thousands of written words, essays, manuscripts, and assorted notes and comments to be reviewed, revised, and edited, and above all – organized, in addition to all the unfinished material to be completed. For the past several years I’ve fantasized about having some of my work published, and if I want that to happen, now is the time to act.

 

In the studio, where most of the work has been completed, the decorating is approached differently. Although it involves new work, I see it more as a refinement of the past. The intent is to raise the quality of my work, building on what I’ve already done. For 35 years I’ve been learning and practicing. Now it is time to do what I’ve always wanted – to create the best art I am capable of doing – with no excuses, ifs, ands, or buts. Making those paintings I’ve been imagining in my head for years a reality will be the icing on the cake.

 

It is also the time to think about cleaning up any mess I’ve left in the kitchen. This means reaching out to family and friends, especially those that have been partially displaced by time and distance. It’s the time to mend those injured relationships, as well as establishing new ones and re-establishing old ones.

 

This has been a fun way of interpreting the final chapter of my life’s journey, and I look forward to at least 10 more years of “decorating”. It is one more new beginning.

 

Note...That is not my cake.