may edition, vol. 26

still life with pictures of progress. plus, a recipe for piña colada lamingtons

May 07, 2026

∙ Paid

This time last year, I was working, or perhaps doing something akin to playing dead in the face of a predator by doing everything but working while feigning focus, because then the exam might prowl right past, and the sun’s rays were beckoning me out from my place in the library. If you have ever been on a college campus during finals week, you know the feeling. The late-spring, early-summer sun casts everything in a surrealist, hyperreal sharpness (especially in a place like Ithaca where everything is muted through the long winter) and you’re moving through a painting, tired heads lolling across library tables and movements lethargic, xanaxed. The only people smiling are the ones writing the exams, the black gaps between their teeth your prison bars.

As with all accumulating tensions, my stressors needed a release. With no pots and pans or baking soda and salt in sight, I funneled my feelings through an old, unfrequented aperture: writing. I figured that if I absolutely must be sitting and pretend-pressing keys on my laptop, I may as well project my conscious outside, where my physical form would much rather be. And so The Baker’s Almanac was born, my little place to dream about baking and being outside while I sit and study.

In the deepening spring of May, I had no choice but to recognize the trembling of my heart.

Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami

Here I am a year later, writing (read: procrastinating) in the exact same spot I was this time last year. The same wooden chair, the same sound of papers shuffling, the same sun and lack of sun.

But I’m not really in the same spot that I was, am I?

I think if you were to flicker between the two still-lifes, superimposed, you would notice the little shifts: my shoulders are a bit higher, perhaps, a little bit more space taken up by my frame, face unfettered. The unbelievability of a life well-lived, the renaissance vase and the brimming bowl of fruit, the whole body spilling out across the table, replacing the image repeatedly with the relief of its overlay. The rain is still coming down outside, the clouds a blank sheet unfurling in every direction, the same chorus and reverb, ephemera under light like degraded film, and nothing has changed except for myself who has been moved against her will by none other than her will.

Say I never took that chance, put all my flimsy faith into believing—in myself, of all things, not particularly powerful nor reliable, and who has made no miracles happen—say I was still in exactly the same spot that I was a year ago, say I was still. Say it is not human nature to keep flailing toward the future, as self-destructive as we are, say we are not all predisposed to survival, say the choice was never really ours. You are here, you have been handed the lease on your life, and it comes unfurnished, it comes as-is, character and charm and creaky floorboards, and someone is holding a camera: by the time the shutter flashes, you will be smiling.

On soft Spring nights I’ll stand in the yard under the stars—Something good will come out of all things yet—And it will be golden and eternal just like that—There’s no need to say another word.

Big Sur, Jack Kerouac

Looking more closely at the still-life: it seems the fruit is entirely different, too, the same greens and berries as before but more bountiful now. Last month had early-season strawberries and blueberries, but this month they’re joined by blackberries and raspberries, all-around more vibrant and plush. Richard Siken says: “Pink, orange, red, orange dreaming red,” and I think dreams do then come true, the way the sun circles the garden and throws shadows which exist only because there is light, or light which can only be bright relative to shadow, whichever perspective you prefer. Stone fruit is coming into season, starting small with cherries and apricots. I project myself out from my chair into another chair, a beach in the tropics somewhere, and suddenly the pineapple in my mouth is sweeter—perspective, again. The low hum in the library of collective dread. I love it here, and memory renders me a kid in a candy store, eager to pull as many books as I could carry—perspective.

Soon I will have a sweet, summer-ripened mango in hand, smooth ataulfo, and hot summer sun where the light comes before the shadow (perspective). In the interim, we can mimic the tropics here in perpetually-forty-degree-Ithaca with these piña colada lamingtons, blossoming with pineapple flowers. Perspective can project you there.