by Karen Lozinski

The day I baked myself into existence was a messy one.  I had to redo my left arm and both ears multiple times because they were misshapen, too long, didn’t match or feel right.  The middle finger on my left hand is still too long and gangly, so it’s the one I always thrust into the air when I flip anyone or anything off.

The thing is with any creative project, even one that involves the very act of bringing yourself into being, you have to stop at some point and assign it completion.  If you don’t, you can get caught in an endless spiral of seeking perfection, a state that’s been proven not to exist despite orgasms, cheese, and Les Paul Standards.

I have a fog of several centuries during which I altered a painting in pursuit of perfection—sometimes on the same canvas, over and over, in layer after layer of acrylics.  There were myriad canvas cast-offs too…iteration after iteration of synapses firing during the act of creation, of all things.  Up to that point, my work had been in hundreds of shows on national and international levels—objets I’d deemed perfect, so they could be out in the world for people to ogle and buy.  Fans and critics alike deemed this my “dry period.”  The celebrities that really keep me afloat claimed I had “abandoned” them.  I guess they were all somewhat correct.  That doesn’t mean I didn’t do other things during those hundreds of years, but almost all were banal, so I don’t have a vast catalogue of them in my memory.

I baked a kid into the world while obsessing over that painting, and though that act in and of itself is difficult to construe as banal, especially from a personal perspective, that kid sure turned out pedestrian.

That kid believes they are perfect, by the way.

And they started baking kids of their own while they were still a kid, except they all turned out as blobby dough balls with no limbs.  I believe there are over eighty of them flopping around out there, some tacky and unfinished enough to leave doughy residue wherever they roam.  It’s advisable to flour the carpets and floors if they’re rolling through.  My kid has been using the same means and methods to produce their globular progeny for decades, never refining their process or seemingly thinking about it, just plopping messy spheres into existence whenever the impulse arises.

So much for any kind of evolution in our blood(bread)line.

I sometimes wonder whether my kid witnessed too many of my attempts at perfection and just decided—aw, fuck this shit—that any half-baked effort would do.  Or maybe they took to heart what I’d said about not pursuing perfection.  Maybe they were adversely affected by my passion for perfection while I was bringing them into being.  I don’t know.  It’s okay to push yourself, strive for excellence, or make something worthwhile happen, but it’s never going to be perfect.  That realization and acceptance are pivotal.  I also have considered that what the kid produces actually is the best they can do.  Conversations with my kid on this matter don’t yield much insight.  My kid is usually headed out or away from me and there’s a car waiting outside that can’t wait any longer.

I’ll text you later—that’s what they say, but they never do.

On one of those same, predictable occasions, I wave over some of the more recent doughy blobs and lumps to come sit with me.  I encourage them to hop up on the sofa, patting the cushions on either side of me, but remember they’d mark up the fabric.  I spread out a fleece blanket on the sofa, sit on it myself, and hoist the hapless things up.  They move in and cuddle my thighs and arms.  I’m suddenly angry (and somewhat sad) that this is how they’ll go through life, without the facility of opposable thumbs or limbs.  Without the ability to run or jump or hug or have sex.  What would they ever create of their own?  They murmur in what seems like contentment, but I am spurred to act.

I whisk myself into the kitchen and prep for baking.  I gather a battery of bowls and grab the flour.  I turn on the oven.  I’ll be damned if these sticky spheres don’t get a shot at something of a “normal” life.  They’ve followed me, so I swoop down to grab one, plunking it in the biggest bowl I could find.  I’m not sure where to begin, my hands fluttering over its confused expression looking up at me, so I begin to knead it.  It squeaks and tries to evade me until it bites my hand.  Once it lets go, I reach down for two more and try to force them together into one doughy ball, smashing their soft bodies with the flats of my palms.  I pull at them in the hopes of forming even the nubbiest of limbs until I understand I need to make those parts and bake them on.  As I start the yeast and begin to mix flour and water, I hear the balls on the counter whimpering.  They are weeping and trying to escape.  One heaves itself from the big bowl and splats to the floor.

I scoop it up and gather it to myself, apologizing as it cries.  I turn off the oven and motion for the rest to follow me into my studio, which they do with trepidation.  I pull a giant sheet from the wax paper roll mounted on the wall and spread it on the floor.  I pool tempera paint along its edges. Fear crackles in their eyes—fear I put there.  I swipe my hand into the paint, creating arcs of color.  Slowly, they join me, using their whole bodies, filling the paper with energy.  An image begins to form and it’s actually good.  So good we’ll do this again.