When he said it, I wondered if it was just about food. It may have been. But the conversation seemed to deepen, and I think he was speaking about something else.
Blue and I were sitting on the bench in our garden. He said that he was having that feeling again.
That feeling?
Yes. The feeling of wanting something… but not knowing what.
The afternoon was bright and warm, and Beangirl wasn’t yet home from school, so Blue and I had time together to just be two.
He asked me if I knew that feeling. I wondered what to say.
It felt like one of those moments when, as a parent, you might say too much.
I could tell him about discontent. About longing as a basic human experience, and about how that feeling of emptiness might be the Spirit’s work within us, if we can prayerfully pay attention.
But he’s four and none of that felt like the right answer. I remembered Rabbi Hugo Gryn’s words, quoted by Rebecca Nye in her excellent book Children’s Spirituality: what it is and why it matters.
“Spirituality is like a bird; if you hold it too tightly, it chokes; if you hold it too loosely, it flies away. Fundamental to spirituality is the absence of force.” Rabbi Hugo Gryn
Blue just want to know if I knew the feeling. He wanted me to understand, not theologize. So I told him, yes, sometimes I do.
He said that he feels it all the time. Almost all the time.
Yes. I do, too.
It’s hard to be content and be at rest. Life often feels on the cusp, like we’re moving away from something better or towards something better. Or maybe not better at all. It’s hard to know and it’s hard to sit still and be content.
I remember being little like this and wanting things to be “the way they were before”. (The quotation marks are important there in this memory. Specific like a remembered colour, perhaps.) Like my Blue, I felt like I always felt that way. It was a profound longing that felt deeper than any particular changing hunger. I was probably about the same age he is now. Just on the cusp of school. Just on the cusp of being a big sibling. I watched my own older sisters, trying to figure out how that is done. I felt on the cusp – without balance and hungry.
I also remember being this age and feeling full. And this one is about food, though that doesn’t make it frivolous. Our kitchen table was round and a bit crowded, I guess, both with people and food. Knees and elbows and room for forks and plates. A hundred negotiations to get through over sausages and mashed potatoes. Mum often made a baked dessert – something hot out the oven to fill in the gaps that growing kids develop all too quickly. Pineapple upside-down cake. Rice pudding. Bread pudding. Jiffy pudding. Cherry cobbler. Apple crisp and apple pie. Lemon pie or lime (which we called green slime pie). And Granny Hay’s Chocolate Fudge Pudding. This was a dessert that my dad’s mother used to make for her own crowded table of kids. Mum made it because Dad liked it, and so did we. After school, we’d stand aproned and on a chair, and help her stir the pudding together. It always came out the oven just at the right time. And after the pudding was eaten, you’d never feel empty at all.
So I made this for Blue this week while we skyped with Granny and Grandpa in Ottawa, and he licked the chocolatey bowl. Here’s the recipe. You might like it, too. It’s a little bit magic, process-wise, and best shared with a crowded table. See what you can manage.
My Granny Hay’s Chocolate Fudge Pudding
Dries:
1 scant cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
¾ cup sugar
2 tbsp cocoa
Wets:
½ cup melted butter
½ cup milk
4 tbsp cocoa
1 cup brown sugar
1 ¾ cup boiling water
How to:
Sift dries together in a medium bowl. Mix butter and milk, then add to the dries and mix well.
Put in a deep baking pan. Mine is stainless steel, 7 cm deep and 18 cm square. My mum uses a deep corning ware (maybe she’ll add the measurements in the comments section below?)
Combine brown sugar and remaining cocoa in another bowl, then sprinkle this mixture over the top of the pudding in the pan.
Pour on boiling water. I know it doesn’t feel right – but it is. If you want some magic, you can pour the water over the back of a spoon so that it doesn’t divot the surface too much. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. I’m not really sure it makes a difference.
Stand your drowned pudding in a roasting pan of hot water and bake at 350º for 45 minutes.
Serve with vanilla ice cream. Or pouring cream. Or cold milk. Enjoy.
