Gratitude Practice 2022 Nov 24: Love and Hand Pies

This afternoon, my little family worked together in our kitchen and made way too many delicious fruity hand pies for three people to enjoy. But…in the spirit of Thanksgiving...we just kept going and the results were lots of yummy hand pies and lots of big big love. 

Right after Burke and I were married, while browsing in Williams-Sonoma one day, I discovered a fun little hand-held heart shaped pie press and I fell hard. Holding this perfect package in my hand, I did a little future jumping and imagined and hoped for the very afternoon I had today with my real family. Drunk on successful marketing and dreaming of future happy holiday treats, I purchased this over priced kitchen gadget and have tinkered with it on and off for almost fifteen years. I remember looking at the beautiful golden brown perfectly sealed hand pies on the outside packaging and thought ...."Wow! How beautiful! How delicious! Look at these perfect idyllic golden brown flakey hand pies! THIS! THIS is the kind of holiday treat I hope will come from my kitchen one day." Oh, the ambition of newlywed life! Fast forward and reality check my initial expectations and today with my happy little trio we created a counter full of yummy fruity perfectly imperfect hand pies that look very different (and let's be real probably taste very different) than the pies advertised on the pretty packaging. Success! And…wait a second!! Have I been bamboozled? Mislead? Dupped into the delusion of perfectly sealed, perfectly delicious, golden brown heart shaped baked goods? But, wait

…I bought in! I literally bought the product. I followed all of the steps and one of those things is not like the other! And then…Oh, right…love….love and hand pies.

A final declaration of my annual gratitude practice is...love and human relationships seems to be a lot like fruity hand pies...a well intended hopeful risk that is always a little more messy than you expect it to be and yet always worth it in the end. Love and hand pies. Both seemingly simple and yet both can be surprisingly complicated and challenging because life and stuff and fruity goo can get a little risky around the edges no matter your best methods or intentions. I'm learning that real love and real hand pies rarely look or feel or respond or behave as advertised (damn you sophisticated marketing campaigns!!!).  Both love and hand pies will morph and change under a little heat, under a little pressure and will fall apart completely if you don't purposely create a little space and distance for the stream and pressure to escape. Creating a mechanism for releasing pressure is neither good or bad, it just is. It's just science and human nature and critical to the success of both. Love and hand pies require careful ingredients, adequate time and attention, ample space, thoughtful preparation and boundaries. I'm learning that both love and hand pies require strong intentional sealed edges with room for realistic expansion. Nothing uniform or guaranteed about the end result. Nothing neat or tidy when it comes to love or a batch of finished hand pies but always always worth it in the end. You show up. You do the best you can with what you've got. You get and remain curious. You seek feedback and multiple perspectives. You review. You reflect. You apply the knowledge you've acquired along the way all the while remaining open to new ideas and techniques. You hold on to yourself and your rolling pin and hope for some good outcomes…but be careful to not overwork the dough or your thinking because....yikes to both. With love and hand pies you've got to maintain high expectations for perfectly golden brown hand pies all the while learning to love and value and appreciate every single normal, average, imperfect batch…come what may. 

Best to expect some bubbling, some discoloration, some needed and useful cracks, and from time to time…hand pies and people can ooze out of their carefully sealed edges and especially during a moment of expansion. In my limited yet developing experience with both loving people and our baking I'm finding, so much success is dependent on outside variables that you can't really control or manage, anyway. Both pies and people require grace and patience, ongoing information, good tools and equipment and lots and lots of practice. Love and hand pies...always a gamble...often risky but always worth it in the end. 

Thanks to Williams-Sonoma…my newlywed Thanksgiving dream came true today. Today and this year has been a great big tricky adventure with love and hand pies. Grateful for so much messy wonderful delicious love and a counter full of perfectly imperfect yet truly magnificent hand pies. Grateful for the growth, the grief and the goodness that is connected to practicing the art of loving yourself and others. 

Grateful for the many old friends and a wonderful collection of new kindred spirits who bring so much to my world. Grateful for my work family and their ongoing dedication, resourcefulness, passion and creativity. Grateful for the Rich's and the Robinson's and friends who have become family. 

And mostly grateful for my happy little trio and the life we are creating together. Grateful for the laughs and the loves and all that I am learning as we do this life together. Grateful for the ups and the downs, for the forgiveness, and the friendship and faith they have in me and us. Grateful for the safety and security and support they provide. These two happy humans are my people and my priority and purpose and my peace. Grateful to be his wife and her mom and how these roles and responsibilities are making me a better me. Grateful for love. So much love. Love and lots and lots of hand pies.