How old was l, the year I had two birthday cakes? It must have been a special birthday; was I as old as 10? I feel I was younger. Perhaps my mother was exploring cake decorating that year? (Seeking fulfilment through hobbies, like other housewives of her time and place. Until finally she went out and found meaningful work – in an era when middle-class women didn’t. My Dad agonised that people would think he couldn’t support his family. But she was going mad from boredom and lack of purpose.... However, all that came later.)
It took all day, the day before the party. My aunty came to help. The main cake was a halved oval, curved top widening to flat bottom; a hollow tube down the centre. In this they stood a doll – a teenage doll, precursor of Barbie. Her top half was dressed in a pale blue bodice. The cake formed her long blue skirt, fit for a princess at a ball, painstakingly iced in deep pink loops like frills and ribbons, perfectly symmetrical. Mum was so proud of it.
The second cake was almost an afterthought, because she’d invited so many kids – from the neighbourhood, from school, and all my cousins. It was a regular sponge, round, with a flat circle hollowed out at the top. (Did they have special cake tins for these strange shapes?) Into that she poured green jelly, to just below the outer rim. Set, it became a pool of deep green water on which they placed tiny plaster frogs, water lilies with sugary leaves and petals, and several fairy figures. It was a quick and easy job.
How disappointing for Mum that it was the pool which enchanted the children, not the fairy princess. (Well, we were the generation who grew up to be rockers and Women’s Libbers!)
How disappointing for me, now, that I never thought to tell her, while she was still alive, how vividly I have always remembered both of those magical birthday cakes. She was never a cuddly mother, or one I could freely confide in. We were very different women, and by all evidence very different little girls. But ...
There are many ways of expressing love.
Written for Friday Writings 20: A Piece of Cake, at Poets and Storytellers United.
Note: One of those party guests is now the noted Australian novelist, non-fiction writer and sometime poet, Carmel Bird – who wrote, in answer to a birthday invitation I sent her as an adult:
Rosemary
If I come to your party
Will there be a cake
With green jelly
Dark green jelly
Deep pool jelly
For the frogs?
Shall we go into the summerhouse
Underneath the willow
Our smiles revealing
The gaps between our teeth?
Will the butterfly cakes
Filled with the red jelly
And the cream
Leave icing sugar dustings
On our noses?
Are we going to look
For a fairy ring?
Or has there been some alteration to the plans?
My Mum did live to hear Carmel read this at a poetry performance, where Carmel included it especially for her. She was surprised and touched.
There are many ways of expressing love.... true, true, true! What a precious memory, Rosemary. I observed that I too said "aunty" till I grew up and now I say "aunt" while referring to aunts and "aunty" when I call them ... and I have no idea why or how this transition happened... :)
ReplyDeleteI think 'aunty' is more affectionate and informal. I would say 'my aunt' if I was speaking in a more general, less personal way – as in, 'I used to love visiting my aunty' or 'My aunt was an accountant.'
DeleteFrom scratch baking is getting to be a lost art, breads and cakes. Technology has brought cakes to mix and bake and automated bread bakeries.
ReplyDeleteI loved reading the details of your mom's cake making.
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It used to seem to me that my mother, aunts and grandmothers were making a kind of magic with all their cooking, including baking.
DeleteThis really moved me, the generational knowing, the sadness of not being able to tell our mothers thank you now and the poem from the now poet who was there. It's a magical time travel.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Colleen. What a lovely comment! I guess doing our best to be good mothers to our own children is one way of thanking our mothers.
DeleteMy mother and I are also extremely different people, but it's easier to look back and see the love for what it was now that I'm older. It's one of the blessings of age I think.
ReplyDeleteAll for the choices of little children they teach us to look at things from a different angle.... precisely the fun angle. Lovely memories and lovely poem
ReplyDeleteYou are so right about little children!
DeleteOh she remembered after all those years. Lovely...very touching. I miss butterfly cakes .
ReplyDeleteAll those goodies which few of us have time to create any more!
DeleteI felt pangs of hunger and excitement reading your post. My mother was also a great cook but she never tried baking. Mostly because baking is not part of Indian cuisine. So many times we forget to say thanks to our loved ones and later regret.
ReplyDeleteSadly, it is only in hindsight I realise how much care went into creating not only those cakes but the whole birthday party for me.
DeleteI hope she knew, even if you didn't say it with words, just how much it meant to you. I bet she did, mothers tend to be decent observers. I love the poem by your friend. How wonderful that she, too, helped you relive that wonderful birthday.
ReplyDeleteThe connection with Carmel is nostalgic for both of us, in many ways.
DeleteThis is a precious--and vivid--memory. Just lovely! And, in my imagination, tasty too!
ReplyDeleteI think you;'re right. I remember that it got eaten fast enough.
DeleteWhat a special day that must have been. Made quite an impression with your friend to remember it years later. Special mom.
ReplyDeleteIt certainly was a magical cake! I think all the kids were very impressed.
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