Cookies

My aunt brought cookies to a family dinner this summer. They were cute little sandal shaped sugar cookies. I usually don't bother with desserts that don't contain chocolate, but this was so adorable, I took a bite. And it was DELICIOUS. It was the best cookie I had ever had in my life- cookie perfection. I looked down at the little cookie sandal and thought, I know, logically, that this simply CANNOT be the best cookie in the world. It didn't make sense. There was no chocolate involved, the frosting was one solid sheet made of god-knows-what, and it didn't crumble the way the perfect cookie should. "Did you make these?" I asked, marveling at the rows and rows of perfect little sandals.

"No," my aunt replied, "I got them from Granite bakery."

Ah-ha! I thought. That explains it. Granite bakery is a tiny little bakery that was located south of the home where I grew up, but north of my grandparents' house. When my grandfather would come to pick us up without my grandmother, he would take us to Granite bakery and let us pick out a treat. Whenever he took us, I would choose these sugar cookies or a maple bar. We were raised in a house where honey nut cheerios were considered too sweet to eat and had to be mixed with regular cheerios and that was supposed to be a treat. My grandpa lived with my grandma who considered non-fat vegetable soup to be a treat, apparently because it contained slightly more calories than water. So for all of us, these clandestine runs to the bakery were deliciously secretive. We would get our cookies or maple bars tucked safely into their white bag, and Grandpa would tell us, "Now don't tell Grandma".

We'd bounce out of the store, bounce into the backseat and drive to the park closest to my grandparents. We'd eat our treats and then run around like lunatics until the sugar rush had passed. Grandpa would help us wash the remaining sugar and the sand off our hands and faces and tuck us back into the car, just in time to make it to a dinner of vegetable soup.

And suddenly, 20 years later here I was, tasting not just a sugar cookie, but the warmth of a loving grandpa, the sun shining down on us, the smell of fresh grass, the companionship of my sisters, and the deliciousness of a harmless secret. Now that is one perfect cookie.

After dinner, my sister walked back to her home from my grandmother's house. She lives just around the corner and is the neighbor of our paternal grandmother, our aunt and her family, and our maternal grandparents. I waved as I passed her and drove the less than 10 miles to my own house. Sometimes I am still shocked that I ended up here in Salt Lake again. It was somewhere I never wanted to return, somewhere I never had felt at home, and yet with the summer sun setting late in the evening and the taste of the past still in my mouth, I realized I had never felt so rooted or so at peace.