Masonry is Like Baking a Cake (Tara Taylor Quinn)

I've learned yet another new trade. I now know how to put another brick in the wall. And another. And yet another. And I can grout as well as the best of them. Grout to seal bricks in the wall. Grout to take the place of bricks. Most importantly, there's an art to grouting to conceal blemishes. That's the best part. You know, in wall making, you can use grout in such a way that you cover up all your bad spots.

Kind of like cake baking. You mix the batter - much like you mix grout. First the powder goes in. Then the liquid. Then you have to use a little muscle to get the two to coincide in a moist paste. But it can't be too moist. The cake would come out runny and when you serve it it wouldn't stand up to it's job. It would run all over the plate and become pudding. Not cake. And it can't be too dry, either. That makes a cake taste like sand - and grout, too, I'm sure, not that I actually tasted it.

I skipped the baking part of the cake and, once the batter was made, went right on to the frosting part. Applying grout is identical to frosting a cake. Even the tool you use - while bigger - is like the tool I use to frost cakes. You have to apply enough frosting. You have to get it to stick to the sides (I always do layer cakes) and you have to smooth it. And just like with the wall, with a cake, you can cover blemishes with more frosting! Ever do a layer cake where the one layer is thinner on one side than the other. What do you do? You glob a bunch of frosting on that side of the cake in between the layers to build up the lacking layer. Right? It's always worked for me! That's kind of how it was with the grout. I was leery at first, but I caught on soon enough.

And through it all, I had my inspiration. Remember Pink Floyd? Another Brick in the Wall. Now that was a piece of art. A masterpiece. I've blogged about it here before. It amazes me that as a kid I listened to The Wall and thought it was great rock and roll. Today I listen to it and get so much more out of it on so many levels. It's all about human suffering. About the experience of being human. About our struggles and our dreams and how our dreams sometimes lead us places where we don't want to be. And how we keep going anyway, putting just another brick in the wall.

But I'm here to tell you that when you keep putting those bricks in the wall, eventually you have a really cool wall. And while we often use them as negative metaphors, walls aren't always bad things. Could you imagine sleeping at night with one of your bedroom walls missing? Say the one that goes outside? Or how about in the bathroom? You kind of want walls there. At least most of us do. This wall that my honey and I built was in the garage. Our lovely cottage has some strangeities. One of them was the garage. It only had three walls. It's not a carport. It's a fully beamed and framed garage with stucco and garage door and all appearances of being secure. But the wall that connects the garage to the patio was really only about a three foot bit of masonry with six feet of open air on either side. Which meant that every time we went anywhere anyone could walk around the side of the house and take anything they wanted out of the garage. And the second thing it meant is that weather - all kinds - can get in the garage and wreak havoc with our things. Not anymore. We built a wall. It protects us. It protects our things. It's keeping us more safe and secure. It rained last night and my husband and I stood in our garage and marveled at the dryness. What a blessing that was! Funny how you learn to appreciate things so much, funny how little things matter so much, when you stop and look at what life has given you. And what it's taken away.

Cakes can be bad for you, too. They're not really nutritious and too much cake can hurt your health. But can you imagine a world with no cakes? All weddings in the world without cakes? Or birthdays without candles on the cake?

I guess my point is - yeah, I promise, I really do have one! - is that I've learned yet another life lesson as I learn yet another skill. And that is that being open hearted and trusting is a good thing. But sometimes you have to build walls, too, to protect that which is most important.

And now I have yet another question for you. Is there a difference between saying "Love you" and "I love you"?

(A bit of housekeeping: Mary M., Darla, and Lorna - I used versions of your thoughts regarding joking in the book! If you'll send me your addresses, privately (ttquinn@tarataylorquinn.com) I'll get copies of Sara's Son out to you!!! Thanks everyone for the input! By the way, the book this appears in is called The Holiday Visitor and is out in November.)