Zombies & Beat Cookies

I have only watched one episode of the walking dead.

It was the episode that started with Carol chopping wood in the forest.

Chopping wood. A redundant, necessary task of life. Chop. Chop. Chop.

Then along comes, you guessed it, a zombie. Without missing a beat Carol turns around and….WHAP. Off with his head. Then she sighs. Like she’s tired of chopping more than just wood every day.

Poor. Carol.

What does Carol do to shake things up? Carol makes cookies. Beat cookies (sugar is limited in post-apocalyptic times). The next scene shows Carol, beaming at a friend, beat cookies in hand.

I can relate to Carol. Sometimes I too feel like the sighing beat cookie lady. I’m tired of the pandemic. I miss my friends. I’m sick of chopping off the proverbial zombie heads in my life (aka wearing a mask or doing laundry).

Buuuut then I remember there’s always the beat cookies in life. Those moments that provide hope. Not quite as sweet as our previous chocolate chip cookies lives. But closer.

My point? Sometimes we have to trade in our decadent moments and eat some beats for a while. I’m not going to lie. It has sucked.

But I can smell the cookies baking my friends-the real ones with the chocolate chunks. The moments where our lives are all that much sweeter for our absence.

It shows us the good. And it encourages us to be present in our moments. To see and be seen beyond our everyday tasks. Into the sweet, sweet smell of our freshly baked lives of possibility.