How does a writer get to the sprinkles?

A little pounding the dough helps.

Easter arrived this year with the usual mandate: to bake hot cross buns or casatella bread (Pane di Pasqua). Though my mother always made both, I couldn’t see myself accomplishing that in a week’s time.

Both of those recipes required a little foresight, planning, and some kitchen space, and time for the dough to rise, rest, rise again.

I chose Easter bread. At that point in the month, I needed glazing and colored sprinkles, and not just icing piped out across the buns to get me through.

The day started out simply enough. Flour secured, counter space cleared. Farm fresh eggs at the ready. Lemons too. Each ingredient I procured brought forth a recognition of how, at some point, I had arrived as a writer, the way my mother had done so as a baker.

I’m not the precisionist she was. In the writing world, she would have been considered a plotter. Strategically planning out her culinary attacks for hours. (It’s no secret my brother called her the “General” on occasion). I’m more of a pantser, but that might be the contrarian side who refuses to believe I’ve become her in some small way. All writers will note they do the same amount of work: some light fires from the beginning, preheat the oven so to speak. Others muddle and mix their way through the middle. And the rest, toil endlessly on the back end. Eventually, they arrive at the same place, exhausted though they are, with a finished product.

Recently, I taught a creative writing workshop on revision with my writing partner, Tina Neyer. One participant had interest in starting a blog. His approach differed vastly from mine. He wanted to find his voice, his rhythm, his tone. He couldn’t decide how perfect or imperfect his writing needed to be to post his first content. We carried on a few robust conversations over email on this topic. Finally, I realized, if he was waiting for permission, I could offer that to him, as the same person who started any number of blogs over the years: These Writing Shoes, Getting a Dog Blog, Generation U(rban), Gettin’ My City On, and the recently rediscovered Dementia Dilemma: A 30 journey in prose and poem.

We don’t know how our writing will be responded to, or what our writing is to become, until we put those words out in the world. Here I was, a person who found myself in figurative shoes I hadn’t anticipated (I always like my literal shoes), remarrying and raising stepchildren, getting a dog, moving to Over-the-Rhine, caring for a mother with dementia and a father with Parkinson’s. That’s the shortened version. If our birth names say who we are the world, then our blog names probably say a lot about who we are to ourselves.

Back to the dough. The yeast gurgled in the warm water, like clams sucking at the sand. When ready, I added flour and sugar, lemon, eggs, and remaining ingredients. And let the dough rise in double the size. I left the house for a bit, and returned to an elastic mound.

This is my favorite part of making dough—and writing. Peeking beneath the kitchen cloths into the bowl to see what has arisen. Of seeing results, knowing you’re getting somewhere.

Then, came a few rounds of boxing. Punching the dough, punching down good, as my mother might say. Of kneading deep into the flesh of its existence, of putting my whole self into the mushy middle. Of nailing every last air bubble, so when this dough rises for the second and last time, when this dough bakes in the oven, its texture will be woven so intricately, the gluten bonds will strengthen and lengthen, a finely drawn out story of bread.

When the dough was ready, I gave it a good brisk going over with egg yolk and milk. I don’t keep much milk around and incorporated oat milk into the egg wash. Was that okay? Did it burn faster than regular milk because of the high sugar content? Unlike my mother, I went around the system, whereas she was the system.

The loaf was popped in the oven, baked for a short period of time, and produced two lovely braids of Pane di Pasqua (or casatella or Easter bread). Critiquing, I would say the interior texture was a bit dry, but nothing a little glazing with sprinkles couldn’t balance out. I lopped off slices for days, ate it with my coffee, chewing over the steps it took to perfect this dough. Someone had to write this down, to experiment, to secure the ingredients, to make the thing, and to punch down good. There’s always the person smart enough to decide this bread was worthy of icing too.

That was where I found myself at work on my manuscript of cooking and food essays based on growing up Italian American. Approaching the end.

Two nights ago, I dreamt of my mother. She said, “You’re not mad at me, are you?” an odd thing to say until I realized how much effort had gone into ensuring my mother’s recipes and stories were preserved, digitized, made meaning from, and someday published. Yeah, I was probably mad at her for “making me do the work.”

As I carefully read through each page, braiding in pieces and parts, I removed the mention of pizzelle at least dozen times. I inserted more pronouns to replace repetitive words, indexed food items. Yet, I had one last essay to write. One that was bubbling up in side of me, a little like that yeast and water. A starter—of how place influences our beginnings, and I mean, in life, not just in birth.

The words didn’t come until the very last “afterword” had been written. It wasn’t surprising the essay came out whole, for I had been stomaching it the entire span of this journey. It was the literal icing on the bread. The part easiest to write because it was fully risen, fully sprinkled, fully consumed.

When I’m asked, how do you start writing, how do you keep at it, how do you make it all the way through three years of writing essays to compile something in book form, how to rewrite, revise, copy edit, move around, change the order, write acknowledgements, etc. I paraphrase E.L. Doctorow’s “writing is like driving at night.”

Writing is a lot like making bread. You have all the ingredients at your disposal, what you don’t have you improvise. But you can’t make bread without pounding the dough and letting it rise. Once you do, you get to enjoy the sprinkles too.

But what’s that you ask, about cleaning up the dishes, and the copy? Oh yes, here’s to the final phase of writing something Italian.

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Appearances have slowed for me to focus on the above. I’ll have a few new updates soon. In the interim, here’s where to find me:

• On May 10th, the AlzAuthors podcast will feature over 30 poets reading from their work about dementia, aging, caregiving and love. Stay tuned for links on how to listen in. But I will tell you mine involved peach ice cream, just in time for this summer season.

• Pauletta Hansel and I are again offering FREE, virtual caregiver writing experiences through Giving Voice Foundation. Next up, May 16th from 1-3 p.m. Learn more or register here.

• As we close out poetry month, many of my poet friends are sliding into the last week of poetry month, holding on to their last breath and beat. But don’t despire, poetry continues all year-long, as it should, with my friends Ellen Austin-Li and Christine Wilson, on the first Tuesday of every month. Follow Ellen here for reminders.

• To my surprise (and possible horror), I located my old blogs. At least my literary trust (or shovel buddy) can find them when the art world comes calling for that retrospective on my work. Here they are again: These Writing Shoes, Getting a Dog Blog, Generation U(rban), Gettin’ My City On, and the recently rediscovered Dementia Dilemma: A 30 journey in prose and poem.