Milkweed and Honey Cake

Auteur

Wendy A. Horwitz

Texte du rabat

In Milkweed and Honey Cake: A Memoir in Ritual Moments, Wendy A. Horwitz shares stories about celebration, loss, change, and the best way to open a pomegranate.
Holidays delight - and disappoint. A couple marrying in the pandemic finds a surprise after a rainstorm, and a topsy-turvy search for a gravestone honors her ancestors. When a graduation is cancelled, Horwitz serves pomp and circumstance on the front porch, and through the shifting seasons of a life, amid the scramble of pet guinea pigs and birthday parties, her children add wonder and comedy to tradition.
With observations from nature, religion, and literature, Horwitz explores how ritual can exalt ordinary moments and frame the extraordinary. A blue heron, an old cupboard's scent, and the lingering feel of an engagement ring long gone prompt reflections laced with yearning and humor. Guiding us along a wooded path, to the kitchen table, in a messy garden, and under a tent reverberating with song, she traces the boundaries of ritual, considering what we do when ritual falls short, and how we might adapt each other's practices. And when the wider world seems broken, new rituals provide hope.
Lyrical and funny, thought-provoking and deeply moving, Milkweed and Honey Cake is at once a meditation on our desire for meaning and the story of a woman's lifelong efforts to create it.

Contenu

Introduction

1. Polishing the Silver
2. Yellow Schoolbus Moments
3. It Won't Be This Simple Next Time
4. The Swamp
5. Spring Cleaning
6. Shared Spaces
7. Narrow Bridge
8. The Heron
9. Polonius and the Jabberwock
10. Tamagotchi and the Dodo
11. On the Playground
12. Sacred Pages
13. Coconuts
14. Saltines and Honey Cake
15. Leavening
16. Under the Tent
17. White Coat, Black Book
18. In the Weeds
19. Graduation in a Year of Wonders
20. Kappa and Saint Anne
21. Transition Zones
22. Spreading Out
23. Love in the Time of Covid
24. The Toolbox and the Ring
25. Kedushah
26. Visiting the Graves
27. Writing to the Dead
28. The Last Country
    Acknowledgments