My First Mania

My mom has shared with me on multiple occasions since I was a kid that in my earliest years, I was easily entertained, and because I walked and talked so late and seemed otherwise content with little attention and minimal stimulation, she came to suspect in me a somewhat deficient mental capacity. In other words, she supposed I was retarded, or as we now say, mentally challenged. I was at the very least, by all accounts, a rather mellow baby. Apparently, I could occupy myself for considerable spans with just a handful of toys rolling around the interior of the play pen. She recalls, "Sometimes I even forgot I had you," because I remained so quiet in whatever contained space she had placed me.

The photo at the right shows me in November of 1976, lounging rather contently next to my dad. The next, just below, was taken on December 22 of the same year and shows me handling one of Dad’s LP recordings of the music of Czech composer Leos Janacek. Apparently, not only did my dad have few hang-ups
about which of his personal possessions (however cherished) we could play with, but it would appear I’ve likely been a classical music enthusiast since roughly egg, that my fanaticism is something of a genetic inheritance. Now, even in the elbow-propped photo with Dad, I do at least appear a bit older than a mere 22 months. And still, as the story goes, I’ve not yet spoken. I’m tempted to believe I was simply holding it in, waiting for the 
right moment to reveal my true aptitude. The photo to the left is from January of ’77 and shows my older brother Anthony in the foreground, either before or after brushing his teeth, and me belly-flopped on the bathroom counter in a feigning endeavor. Apparently, there was nothing quite like imitating Dad and getting a clean, close pretend shave. But even at this point, no talking.

My mom maintains that while she had heard my voice and known my cry, infrequent as it was, my fledgling self had not uttered so many individual words as to suspect me capable of actual speech. I had not, in other words, sufficiently pieced together bits of gibberish or tripped through phonemes, like most children, attempting to draw the semantic connection between language and reality. Odd as it may sound, I’m told that when I first "spoke," it was in a complete sentence. At almost two years and three months, perambulating the outskirts of the kitchen one day, I finally revealed my faculties. My brother had entered the house from playing outside. As the story goes, he asked my mom for a cookie, and she handed him one, at which point I said, "I want one, too." Mom was startled, to say the least. Supposedly, she and Anthony exchanged looks of disbelief, and in the subsequent weeks and months, it became clear to Mom, Dad, and Big Brother that I was indeed in possession of all my wits. Though I don’t remember it at all, the tale always makes me smile, not merely because of the quirky satisfaction in relieving Mom’s suspicions concerning my intelligence in such a cavalier and off-hand way, but more to the point, I’m rather proud to have spent my first words on such a noble request. I’d like to think I was simply waiting for a topic worthy of my first intelligible utterance. And what better to have spent it on than, of all things, a cookie? I believe I did indeed wait for the most worthy subject, perhaps my first fixation, and one that has since proved one of my greatest obsessions, my kryptonite, if you will. I tell my students on occasion, "My professional integrity is secure. I can’t be bribed, cannot… But your best shot is homemade chocolate chip cookies."

Now let us be clear. The rather mundane sweetness and derelict flavor of a store-bought cookie should offer no confusion here, as it has absolutely no intersection with what I truly crave. Call me a snob, but in truth, I have been known on occasion to enjoy the Famous Amos, Mother’s, or Chips Ahoy cookie families. I use the word enjoy here somewhat liberally, however, since a conspicuous distinction between this enjoyment and the ethereal and euphoric bliss brought on by the homemade cookie should be clearly understood. What’s more, let us clear up the issue of alternative recipes, which may include anything from oatmeal raisin, white chocolate macadamia nut, and peanut butter to the occasionally pleasing melody of tastes and textures in the chocolate Mallomar, the Pepperidge Farm Chessmen, or the renowned and ever-popular Oreo. Even the oft-glorified snickerdoodle, in all its tartar cream and cinnamon-laden glory, pales in comparison. All these may be "enjoyed," but to be clear, at no point do they contend. Never do they approach, by a deficit of miles and miles in the annals of sugar-hood and cookie cuisine, the irretrievable glory; the majestic and luminous charm; the symphonic harmony of sugar, flour, egg, butter, and chocolate, fresh and warm from the benevolent hearth of a well-tended range brought to gorgeous life in a homemade chocolate chip cookie. O Heavenly realm! O me! O life! Of the questions of cuisines recurring, of the endless trains of the flavorless—what good amid these, O me, O life?

Given the intensity of my affection for chocolate chip cookies, it might be surprising to discover that until last Christmas, I had lived the entirety of my adult life and enjoyed two kitchens of my very own without having personally owned an actual cookie jar. But this term of deficiency was brought to an end the moment I opened the best gift I’ve ever received, my first bicycle at around six years old being a distant second. In the annals of human generosity, who doesn’t try, as best they can, to "hit it out of the park" when it comes to gift giving? We all struggle, and quite frequently, to determine what gift may best suit our family member, our co-worker, our friend. Often we default to a last resort of some kind, a good example of which is the one gift that so seamlessly rides the line between the tackiness of cash and the sentimentality of personal preference—the gift card. No other gift holds such a striking dichotomy of purpose and appreciation, for no other gift is so avoided by the conscientious and thoughtful giver while being so unilaterally enjoyed by the honest receiver. Sometimes, we’re able to avoid these last resorts and achieve some degree of genuine feeling or sentimental charm. But rarely do these qualities so perfectly coincide with so supreme a degree of personal resonance so that the gift is truly something the person would never buy for themselves, but would sincerely adore and cherish not simply by virtue of the thought and feeling put into it, but also for its connection to their own interests, passions, or pursuits. It’s tough to hit it out of the park, but my good friend Gina did just that, two days before Christmas of last year, when she placed in front of me a gift of considerable size, which I unwrapped and discovered to be a ceramic Yoda cookie jar! Truly, I believe, there has never been one so uniquely touched by a gift as I was at that moment. Stunned at first, but attempting repeatedly to utter a series of exclamations that might convey the extent of my incredulity, but which inevitably began and ended solely with "No way!!!" I found myself at times having trouble breathing, and at others, nearly hyperventilating, almost unable to contain my excitement or maintain my composure. I may love chocolate chip cookies, but I’m also a Yoda fan through and through. What’s more, I will forever live in admiration of my friend Gina, who accomplished that triumph to which every gift-giver aspires but rarely, if ever, achieves. Indeed some live their whole lives without giving anything even near the perfect gift, and regardless of cookies or little green Jedi, this in itself is worthy of awe, a feat at which I would consider it quite sensible of the average person, so generally considerate and conscientious of the charge in giving a good gift, to stop and marvel.

But I digress. My love for chocolate chip cookies has long been known to family, friends, colleagues, and students. But how tremendous it is to find oneself the beneficiary of happenstance, which occasionally has the effect of seeming divinely-conferred? And well, who’s to say it isn’t? Might not the Almighty aim at one an exquisite share of benevolence in the form of a tasty treat? A couple of weeks ago, a member of the café staff at the school where I work offered me a bit of surplus – a rather large chocolate chip cookie that had been broken in half and was therefore unsellable. "I just don’t want it to go to waste," she said. At once, I thought, Praise the Lord! What a divine and marvelous dividend. This wonderful woman truly had little understanding of what a good turn she had done, what an inadvertent blessing she had been by happening upon one so uniquely designed to love and appreciate what she sought to relinquish and the subsequent allowance of joy she had bestowed.

Now, let us consider carefully to what extent my enthusiasm may warrant concern, as you might be tempted to think me an addict. You might think I’m known to be drawn in so deeply by my enjoyment of a homemade chocolate chip cookie that I lose all notion of place and time, of setting and situation. Yes, you might be tempted to believe me capable of losing all recognition of where I am and whom I’m with, all that I know or understand lost in the deliciousness that awaits me in those precious moments before each bite. You may ask, might I even engage the cookie(s) in conversation, simply to help them understand that the people who stare at us aren’t jealous and that they needn’t feel self-conscious about the communion that must occur between Chris and cookie? Should it be possible that this dessert of the soul should inspire belief in a heaven, and that such a heaven should contain some sweet antechamber I might one day enter and spend a few million millennia basking in the enjoyment of a cookie supply that never diminishes and a flavor that never wanes upon whatever palate I might possess in this paradise of the soul? (O Lord, must it be a fiction?) You might believe me a nut. But let us be clear, no nuts! Seriously, they just get in the way. The true glory of a chocolate chip cookie is its dough-to-chip ratio, which should be as evenly balanced as possible. With that, aside from the exclusion of nuts, the right cookie should also not have too many chips. I believe many a great recipe has been spoiled through the use of too much chocolate. Yes, you might believe a variety of disturbing and socially disruptive potentialities in the nirvanic zeal I’ve described. What’s more, can my love be so extreme as to hinder temperance, to disrupt the dietary self-control I might otherwise attempt to exercise? Students and friends have been known to prepare entire plates of cookies for me for various occasions, most especially for my birthday. Are these difficult times, as the irrepressible lure of these platefuls is inevitably likely to eclipse all other sensible considerations in terms of weight gain, sugar-induced illness, or potential hospitalization? It is a challenge, I admit, a test of will, but that’s all. One or two cookies is not a big deal. Others of weaker will and lesser fiber might, by three or four cookies, cross into the realm of gluttony, at which point their thoughts become far more deceiving. Much like an addict, who can only think as far ahead as his next "fix," the difference between five cookies and six seems rather negligible, and the difference between seven and eight even more so. But alas, I believe myself free of danger, free of such pathetic, absurd, and insidious reasonings that whisper to the mind like devils in the ear. I’m simply in love, and the object of my attachment, my devotion, my solicitude is the homemade chocolate chip cookie. One would not consider a husband pathetic or absurd to declare himself in love with his wife. Though he may crave her every morsel of delicious beauty both inside and out, would he ever be called an addict? Would he be deemed unfit, as a result of his yearnings, to own property or to hold a job? I think not. Now of course, a spouse is entirely different from a cookie, both in terms of importance as well as lifespan. But still, we do not, as a rule, deem that a person’s wealth and variety of passions must necessarily compete for equity in the mind, but may span the gamut from the vital to the trivial, and certainly not call into question the mental stability of said person. Rather we exercise the understanding that these passions may coexist peacefully in a healthy and well-balanced mind. Yes. Yes, they can. Yes… Quite so… Without question. Yes… …No doubt… They definitely can……… You believe me, yes?