Does anyone else feel irrelevant right now, or is that just me?  These are extraordinary times for all of us.  We are living history right now, as so well put by my favorite man of the moment, Governor Andrew Cuomo.  I don’t know about you, but that kind of perspective in these kinds of times makes me want to jump right off my couch and head to the front lines.  Ah, but no.

I am used to putting myself in the line of helping or serving others.  It’s what makes me feel good about the world and my own self.  I like helping, I like doing.  I used to have my entire identity and self-worth wrapped up in what I could do for people.  This feels different.  I no longer equate my worthiness for goodness in my life to how much I’ve done.  We all deserve goodness (well, most of us do.  looking at you, #45).  This feels different than that moment of my life.  I know that my worth as a human does not diminish because I am unable to perform as I usually do, yet the feeling of being irrelevant still lingers.

The world has gotten smaller in these past few weeks.  We’ve come to learn in a tragic way that most all resources are finite.  Masks, ventilators (a word I will never not hear in my head as being said the way Gov says it), money, attention.  We’ve all taken to social media to connect, to put ourselves out there.  Some performatively, as pointed out by body image activist Jessi Kneeland.  Everyone shouting for us to share their cause, or watch their livestream, or support their business.  Myself included!  No judgement on any of that, we are all trying to survive here but I’m not sure how much more of that I can take.

So I come to write.  Mostly to get my feelings outside of my brain and my body and hopefully let them go, having made peace with what they are.  And maybe to let someone else out there know that they are not alone in feeling this way, if you are a someone who can relate.  I don’t have the answers.  I think it’s ok to feel irrelevant in this moment – there are far greater things in the world happening than us.  But – that feeling will pass, as they all do, and that feeling mean you are not necessary.  Because you are.  Every single one of us is necessary to get the rest of us through this weird, weird time.

Now go take a walk, have a cry, sit in the sunshine, journal – whatever you gotta do to find some sense of normalcy and grounding for yourself,  It won’t shake all the lingering bad juju that we’ve all absorbed but it will reminded you that you are a part of this world and we need you still.

I’ve long said that the one true thing we all desire as human is to be understood. Think of any childhood (or recent adult) angst. How many times have we felt deep in our souls “You don’t get it, you couldn’t possible know what this feels like!” ie, you can’t understand me or my pain I am experiencing. I am not understood. Even now in this world of rapidly evolving language for inclusivity (yes please) and marginalized groups having more awareness than ever, we still all experience this feeling of being misunderstood.

It’s true – nobody can live inside your head  and know your thoughts as you. We are all as individual as snowflakes – a moniker I wear proudly – and not one of us the exact same as the other. Hot damn!  What a exciting thought!  Simple, uninventive, DEFINITELY not new information, but a fun reminder that never ceases to blow my mind. So how do we bridge that gap between our singularity as unique individuals and lessening that angst of feeling totally alone in this life?

A good friend of mine posted this on facebook the other day and tagged her building mates, two other good friends of mine. (link at the bottom) It broke down the idea of social capital, how and why it is the decline, and how we can fix it. Remember that whole idea of borrowing a cup of sugar?  While it may be intimidating/embarrassing/vulnerable to ask somebody for something you need, research shows that this idea of asking/helping/small talk strengthens our communities and actually makes us healthier humans. Ones who are less lonely, happier, and better functioning on the whole. I read this beautiful illustration while I laughed and cried because it so perfectly illustrates (haha see what I did there?) what I have been doing with Single Girl Cookies for the past 6 years. Life’s work AFFIRMED. Talk to that check out clerk!  Share a small inside joke with the dude on the subway!  Yeah, you both saw that midtown, suited up man just do a Michael Jackson spin – acknowledge that and CONNECT!

I’ve fallen out of kindness drops lately. Work has been challenging for many, many months. That community that I thrive on has disappeared and I feel like I am captaining a ship without a lighthouse. It is frustrating when you feel that age old angst of “why can’t you understand me??” in a place where you’re supposed to be a professional. It is frustrating when you feel someone is not listening. And for me, when my work is my life (for good or bad, I know), that ickiness creeps into every crevice.

I guess what I’m really thinking about at 1:30am is how I can get back to what really matters. Connection. Humanity.  How do we reconcile those things and still live in today’s modern world? AND be professional, functioning adults?? I wish I knew.  All I can really say for sure is, wherever you are at – I feel you, and I hear you. In the meantime until I figure that out, could I borrow a cup of sugar?

Awesome link to perfectly executed hypothesis: https://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/dirt/community-relationships-borrowing-from-neighbors-strengthens-democracy-20190318?fbclid=IwAR3krwhkSZ8P8dES272IwFs56l4Gnh9THg4volM-M0xUkRgiO9nr_MqsMT0

Let me introduce you to my latest obsession – the buttermilk biscuit. Growing up, my grandmother used to make make biscuits for our Sunday weekly family dinners, and most of the time they would get burned. So much so that “burned the biscuits” became a running joke in our family. When she passed, we started burning our biscuits on purpose at every family dinner. It didn’t feel right without it. Sometimes they were homemade heavy baking soda biscuits, and in the later years, they came from a Pillsbury can. Honestly, though it feels blasphemous to say, they were never that good.

The Thanksgivings and Christmases that have come and gone in the last five years since her passing have seen most everyone bringing or making a dish to pass, so the bulk of the preparation never lands on one person in particular. (My mom might have a disagreement with that, but she *is* the reigning matriarch – with great power comes great responsibility) this past Thanksgiving was held at my brother’s house.  25 of us (blood relatives and heart relatives – all family) managed to cram ourselves into their dining room, spread ourselves over three tables, and had a very  *ehem* “cozy” meal.  And by the principals set forth of our dish to pass feast, we had a MASSIVE amount of food and variety.

Usually at family gatherings, I get a bit of a pass because i don’t live there, don’t have access to my kitchen where I know what I have, and am not going to go out and buy $30 worth of stuff to make one dish.  And you’d be surprised how different the grocery selection and prices are from NYC to upstate.  Less tropical fruit variety and WAY more expensive, but milk and eggs are dirt cheap.  But I decided this year, I was going to make the famed biscuits, except I was going to make them from scratch.  Believe me, my mom tried to talk me out of it as it crept closer to dinner, but you know me – once I decide to do something…

I found this recipe called “Grandma’s Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits” and decided it was a sign – these were the biscuits I needed to make.  I did a double batch, and good thing too, because they were half gone before dinner even started!  I modified some things from that recipe that made these work perfectly for me, and I hope you enjoy them too!

Single Girl Cookies’ Thanksgiving Biscuits

2 1/2 cups White Lily Flour (soft winter wheat – hard to find, but I use White Lily brand)

2 tablespoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

dash sugar

1 stick (8 tablespoons) COLD butter

1 cup of buttermilk – I like to make my own!  Cause who keeps buttermilk in their fridge?? For every cup of milk, add 1 tablespoon of an acid, vinegar or lemon juice.  I like lemon juice.

Preheat oven to 425 F

Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl.  If you have a food processor, put your dry ingredients along with chunks of your mega cold butter.  Pulse until you see pea sized chunks and return your dough back to the bowl.  For those of us who have tiny NYC apartments and kitchens (not me – my kitchen is actually pretty big) and do not own food processors (me), use a dough cutter to mix and break up the butter into smaller pieces.  Slowly add in your buttermilk and mix until shaggy.  I like to use my hands.

Bring your messy ball of mush to a floured surface (I even dust my wax paper) and roll out until about an inch thick.  Fold it over on itself and do this maybe once or twice more – do not over do it!  For those of you with ocd tendencies like myself, this will be a real test of wills.  You will see little chunks of butter and spots where the flour is a bit clumpy  – IT IS OK.  I repeat – IT IS OK, this is what it is supposed to look like.  Take a round cookie cutter or glass and cut your biscuits.  Also resist the urge to twist as you come up out of the dough – that crimps the edges and prevents it from rising into that beautiful, fluffy, flaky, buttery creation we all want to pound the minute they come out of the oven.

Bake at 425/450F (you know your oven) for 12-15 minutes until they are golden brown.  Brush with melted butter.  DEVOUR.

If you’re curious about my specification of what flour to use, read this: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/11/better-biscuits-south-thanksgiving/576526/

Absolutely FASCINATING.  Food science ftw!

It was a hell of a fall season.  I had been living with my boyfriend for about a year, a move I made to nudge him into what I considered real commitment, a move which never works in any relationship.  Unsurprisingly, things had reached their end.  The break up itself was civilized and decent, just a regular conversation in the kitchen of a less-than-ideal apartment I thought was going to be my home for many years to come.  It was an apartment I was thrilled to be living in because it meant cheap rent and living with the person I loved. We hashed out the details of ‘why we don’t work’ in that same kitchen I had painted two different shades of red to cover up the hideous half-completed sponge paint project a former roommate had started and abandoned halfway through. A red kitchen to match all the other loud, bright colors in the apartment – a mustard yellow bedroom, a cobalt blue living room, red kitchen.  I called it the Primary Color apartment.  It was in that red kitchen that, without knowing it at the time, I had my first real glimpse of who I was to become.

I had been feeling this coming for many weeks as I tried to get my partner to open up about what could be wrong, what IS wrong, and how do we fix it.  I may have expected this but it did not make it hurt any less.  The days and weeks that followed the break-up were one that tested me in every way.  I was fired from a volunteer position for not committing enough time to the endeavor.  One morning as I went to drive to work, I came out to see my car’s windshield had been smashed with weights, lying on the sidewalk next to my car.  I rang in my 30^th birthday in that red, red kitchen, four weeks after we had broken up, because you see – we were still living together. NYC real estate being what it is, I didn’t want to be locked into a terrible lease in (another) terrible apartment, this time with who knows what kind of terrible people.  Or so I thought at the time.

I eventually found a beautiful place not too far from where we had been living.  This apartment had lots of natural light, polished hardwood floors, and freshly painted cream walls. I accepted within 30 minutes of viewing it.  I had only ever known Astoria, Queens to be my New York City home and no amount of personal heartbreak was going to change my love for the neighborhood.  I settled into my new apartment as I also settled into two new jobs I had started around the time my relationship was ending.  Everything in my life was new and nothing was the same as it had been just months before, including my love of fall baking. How could I feel inspired to create and bake when I literally did not know how to define myself anymore?  Not only that, now I had no one to share it with.  No friends (his friends remained his friends), an apathetic roommate whom I did not know, and no real desire to do anything except figure out what life was to be now.

Time went by as it does, and I started figuring out my new world and my place in it. It was fall again, and I had a year’s worth of growth under my belt.  I had a lovely new roommate.  Work had been going well and I was looking forward to starting another school year teaching private voice lessons. Most importantly, I was baking again.  That’s how I really knew I was getting back to myself.

I had grown up in a household where baking was at the center, specifically chocolate chip cookies.  These cookies went everywhere with us – to my dance classes, to my Girl Scout meetings, 4-H meetings, play rehearsal – I mean everywhere.  There was not, nor is there now, a person in my small town that has not had one of these famous chocolate chip cookies.  Baking and sharing was just our family way.  It is a part of my DNA, just like those cookies that are referred to by everyone as our last name – Heitmann Cookies.

The problem with two fall seasons worth of baking pouring out of you at once is you end up with a LOT of sweets, more than one or two people can really eat on their own.  It occurred to me that I hadn’t visited the local deli in a while, a while being a year, and the reason being because it was one of my ex’s favorite spots to grab lunch.  I reasoned that a deli like that knows and appreciates good food, and would appreciate if I were to share some of my baked goods with them.

Can you really know when something is going to change your life? I certainly had no idea that a simple act of kindness would shape the rest of my life in ways I’ve never imagined.  I shared those mini pumpkin cheesecakes with the people who worked there.  I came back and shared pumpkin bread, and butternut squash soup, and of course, chocolate chip cookies.  I got to know the people who worked there and had a small exchange with one employee that changed the way I view my fellow human.  My sharing gesture had made a difference to her life.  My eyes were opened to a world of kindness possibilities, all because of a cookie.

I knew this couldn’t be the last time I felt this rush of goodness.  I had made a positive impact on someone and knew I wouldn’t be able to stop; it felt too good to make someone else feel lifted up and thought of.  It made sense to me that I would continue connecting with my neighborhood by using the best conduit I knew of – a chocolate chip cookie.  I had a taste of what my life could be, and I decided to chase after that with all I had.  Single Girl Cookies was born.

And so the start of my new life came only with the death of the old one.  With flour on my cheek and dough on my hands, I was rebuilding who I was.  Back in that colorful, loud apartment I shared with my ex, I felt smothered, quieted, as if I had to shrink myself to be digestible and likable.  Don’t rock the boat, be agreeable.  But in this new place with its cream walls, streams of sunlight – I could be loud and colorful and vibrant.  I could make mistakes.  Not enough flour in your cookie dough and they’ll be flat.  Too much flour and they’ll be overly dense.  I could create baking masterpieces or disasters and share them with the world. And it didn’t matter which it was, because each batch, be it a masterpiece or disaster, was sending out an invisible thread connecting me to my community and those around me.  Each cookie and cupcake and baked good was a new piece added to my new puzzle of who I was becoming.

Now when fall comes around and leaves are dying on the branch, I don’t feel ‘the end’ of things.  I feel their beginnings.

I should be baking right now.  I have an rather large order to fill for tomorrow (120 Salty Sailors – oh my!) and a regular weekly order to get to work on for Thursday.  I should be baking but instead I feel compelled to write.

I woke up this morning, still reeling from some disturbing dreams, only to look outside and see the gray skies and dreary atmosphere.  Then upon chatting with my mother, I learned she dreamt as me last night, and before you start thinking I’m more nuts than I am, the things she experienced in the dream and thought as me in the dream are far too accurate regarding situations she knew nothing about.  If all those factors didn’t make me pensive enough already, I heard a song on my ride home about an hour ago that transported me back to the summer of 2010 and to that relationship I was in.  

I’ve been thinking a lot about relationships lately, and life paths – which was exactly what my mother dreamt about, by the way.  How we become who we are, who we were at different stages in our lives, and what decisions and circumstances brought us to this very point. I get asked a lot about my relationship status; am I truly single, what happens when you get married, why are you still single?  That last one used to get me.  How the heck am I supposed to respond?  “Well, I know I seem like a nice, sweet, kind girl on the outside, but secretly I like to hold puppy barbecues on the weekends and basically smell like toe cheese in the morning.”  I didn’t know why I was single.  I wasn’t meeting the right men, I was too busy and didn’t have time to devote to a relationship, etc.  Things that were/are all true and contributing factors, but all excuses for the real reason.  I was scared.  Scared of rejection, scared to show my truest self and still be loved, scared that I wasn’t enough for someone.  I was scared the entire relationship I had during that summer of 2010.  Which, by the way, lasted until fall 2012.  That’s a long time to be afraid.

Thankfully, the last 5 years of my life have resulted in some pretty significant emotional and spiritual growth, largely in part to Single Girl Cookies.  I recognize my worth and refuse to compromise my value.  I’m more kind.  I’m more open. (that one’s easy when you have confidence in yourself) But isn’t it crazy how one song can transport you back to that time and place and make you feel those feelings that you felt then?  I call them phantom emotions.  You don’t really feel that way now, not truly, but your body and brain react in ways you cannot control.  I used to feel that way around this person from my past relationship until I took control of the situation, approached it head on, and made the effort to reconnect in a new way.  One that forgives various sins of the past and allows your brain to recognize you are reacting to old situations that do not exist anymore.

I almost cried when I heard that song today.  It made me feel melancholic for that time, and sad for that girl I was then.  It also made me overwhelmingly grateful for who I am now, someone I love very much.  I was recently reminded that sometimes you have to make certain mistakes in order to grow and learn; something I know and live, but never hurts to be reminded of.  Growing is painful and rarely do we do it willingly.  Yet, if there is so much growth and so much learned from something, can it really be called a mistake?

Yes, I am still single, and yes, my heart is still open and ready for my person.  I used to feel anxious about finding them, but when I think about the people and moments I may have missed while wishing for things to be different, I’m reminded to be patient. (and believe me when I tell you I am more patient now than I have ever been n my life, amiright, anyone that knows me??)  Imagine how your life might have been different were you not patient enough to wait for what was right.  The old adages stick around because of the truth in their words: Time heals all wounds and love is all you need.

And a cookie every now and again doesn’t hurt either.

There’s no denying it- September is here. The calendar says it, the welcomed chill in the air after the sun sets says it, this Labor Day weekend – the unofficial end of summer- says it too. There are so many beautiful things about the fall and September. I mean, fall is my absolute favorite time of the year. Between the excitement of new beginnings and pumpkin EVERYTHING, what’s not to like?
September also brings other things for me, like the anxious pit in my stomach that’s been there for a while. 2016 has been quite the action packed year for me, and will continue that way until the foreseeable future. Don’t get me wrong – I like being busy. Not busy for busy’s sake, but the kind of busy where the things that keep me occupied make a difference. I’ve even taken on a few new professional roles this year and could mot be more thrilled. The downside of being that kind of busy though comes in August when all my jobs take a vacation (so I take a vacation) and I find myself with empty days and unsure of how to fill that time. 
What usually happens is I get way to introspective and become paralyzed. Without a purpose of somewhere to be everyday, or someone to help – I start to question. What am I doing with my life, why am I here, and the biggest question of all – what is it all for? I spend every day of August surrounded by family and loved ones, taking trips, having incredibly magical moments with my nephew; moments that make me catch my heart in my throat and remind me what’s really important in life. And then I come back to New York. Gladly always, but I come back to no one.  
The questions don’t go away either. I’m beginning to think they never will. A thought popped in my head when I was driving back to NYC that helps. My life is not my own.
 At first, that thought was pretty depressing, not gonna lie. To feel like you don’t even own your life, much less control it? Doesn’t feel good. Then another thought wormed it’s way in – “what a great thing”. 
You see, I truly believe no man is an island (even though I feel like that a lot). I might operate solo, but if I were made up of only myself, I would never grow or learn, and therefore stay stagnant the rest of my days. If I feel drained at the end of the day from giving all of myself away, I know (or at least am trying to learn) not to worry. Every piece of me I have given away, I get back tenfold. When I step on stage, every audience member owns a piece of me. Every voice student has a piece of me. Every person that has eaten a cookie or baked good gets a piece of me because I put all of myself into every batch I make. I’m more valuable when I am made up of fragments and pieces and moments and memories of everyone I’ve ever met or known or loved. We all are. 
My life is not my own, and I am the better for it. 

Sometimes I don’t know why I do it. Any of it. What difference does it really make?  Surely I can’t be along in thinking these thoughts. What do any of our actions mean in the long run?

Someone let me down this week. A friend let me down. Not a close friend or a great friend it turns out, but a friend nonetheless. Someone that I thought was closer than actually was, which added to the hurt.  It wasn’t the first time, and may not be the last. You say, “But Renee, if this has happened before, and more than once, shouldn’t you learn to expect to be disappointed?  Why does this hurt you if you saw it coming?”

Being the logical person that I am, I couldn’t figure out the answer for the life of me. It wasn’t until my bestie pointed it out and told me it’s because I see the best in people, that I view people as they are and as their potential goodness.  She’s so right;  I can’t help it and wouldn’t if I could. It was only just before that that I likened myself to a walking, exposed heart muscle without a protective rib cage. 

I had another conversation earlier this evening with someone who couldn’t get past the logic and to the emotion of why I would feel hurt even while still expecting a negative (in my eyes) outcome.  I couldn’t understand how he couldn’t understand why I was hurt, and his response was, “Well, I guess this conversation is over.”

My friend and I hopped in a cab (at my insistence being the one in heels) and headed home shortly thereafter. Because it’s NYC and New Yorkers don’t know how to drive in an inch of fresh snow, it took just as long as it would’ve taken us to hop on the subway to get home. The whole way home I kept thinking about me as this exposed heart muscle, and how yeah, that’s pretty much what I am. I am out there and strong and vibrant and beating and vulnerable as hell, but I am here. And yeah, I’m going to be hurt maybe more than other protected hearts, but I’m going to feel more of everything good too. I love deeply, I care deeply, so when I’m hurt, I hurt deeply. 

I tried to shield myself with the elements of snow and cold by taking a cab home, but in the end, I ended up at the same place, in the same amount of time. My heart will take me to the place I need to be and at the time I need to be there, and so the question becomes “how do I want to get there?”.  Which way would I rather choose?  Protected and untested, or vulnerable, weathered, strong and capable?  The hurt may be greater, but so will the reward – I will choose the latter every time. 

I’m sure you’ve heard – my 3rd Anniversary/Birthday is this Sunday!!  It blows my mind to think about I’ve met, all the lives that have touched mine, and of course all the cookies I’ve made.  My mind has been like a sitcom montage of all the highlights (and lowlights) of the last three years in cookies, and the way it has shaped my personal life. (best friends, dates, jobs, SO MUCH good food) All these amazing things happening because of a cookie.  Well, not really a cookie, but upwards of 6,000 cookies.  YAH.  Six THOUSAND.

In the beginning, I kinda had a nugget of thought that said to me “You should really keep track of how many cookies you are making.” I knew this project (now small business) would be more than a flash in the pan, even then.  But like any artsy type, I went, “Yeah, that’s a good idea, me!” and didn’t do it.  Still, I figure there has to be a good way to estimate a fairly accurate, if low balling, figure.  Here’s what I got:

I’ve been doing this for 3 years at 52 weeks in a year, so that gives me a minimum start of 1 batch per week, yielding approximately 24 cookies. 52 x 3 = 156 x 22 = 3,744

Add in about 20 weeks of firehouse drops and drops I did in Manhattan last year.
20 x 24 = 480 +  = 4,224

Now let’s think about the large batches I made over the years, mostly for functions or projects.  TEDx Utica – 160, Turtle Bay Music School – 200, Queens Kickshaw – 240, Markets – 100, Random handing out all over NYC – 100
160 + 200+ 240 + 100 + 100 = 800 + 4,224 =  5,024

This is where I start adding in all the extra curricular drops, the birthday batches, the ‘you needed cookies because you’re having a bad day’ batches, the ‘just because’ batches.  I start thinking of the weeks where my sink was a continuous cycle of bowls and mixing spoons, where the dishes that were in the strainer overnight never got put away because they were used the next day.  I also think of how I never truly ruined or burned a batch beyond eating (shockingly enough).  Every cookie found a home.

All of that brings be beyond 6,000 cookies.  It is worth mentioning that I’m only referring to my signature chocolate chip cookies, not even lumping in my almond sugar cookies, brownies, cakes, cupcakes, and bars.  I can’t even begin to think about the pounds of sugar, flour and chocolate I have used over the years.

Even with all that said, I have barely scratched the surface of cookie giving with SGC.  For all of you who haven’t had a chance to be part of the chain of kindness, I’d like to formally invite you to The Queens Kickshaw this Sunday at 7pm to have a drink and a cookie with me!  For every drink you buy, you get a free Single Girl cookie.  I’m really excited to meet all of you with whom I’ve had a social media relationship with over the last three years, and let you in on what the hype it all about! (the cookies are as good as they look) What better place to celebrate than where it all began?

So when you think one person is just one person and one person can’t make a difference, to that I say 6,000 cookies.  You may be one, but you are a powerful force to be reckoned with!  Cast out your doubt – YOU MATTER.  Go forth and make your mark.