As I was sitting down for dinner tonight, I had this sudden urge to have toast with butter. I actually do love my bread, but I generally never eat it with butter. Actually, it took me some time to rummage around and actually find the butter in my fridge in the first place. I toasted my bread, I sat down and I thought about my day (which is what I usually do during dinner.)

Dinner is my silent reflection time of uninterrupted calmness. As I was taking the knife and slathering it in the butter, my mind began to drift, and I failed to notice that I was trying to cover every single spec of my bread with this butter. Until I looked up, I had not realized the nice blanket I had created right over my bread. I'm going to be honest, I'm not the most meticulous person so I found this a bit whimsical and a bit out of the ordinary for me that literally no crevice was left uncovered. Impressive. Or disgusting. Then again, it had been one of those very off, very strange "over the hump days" so it is not at all surprising that I was slathering butter like a professional artist. 

I had to smile though because my grandmother (my dad's mom) was completely in love with both butter and cream cheese. I think for my grandmother, this blanket of butter was a metaphor of her love. She never wanted the layer of love to be spread too thin. There were no "wish" sandwiches. Why wish for what could be on top of your toast if you could just make it so? Why wish for another layer of love when you could just make it so? 

Think of the toast of your life and think about your cream cheese or jam or peanut butter or perhaps even organic apple butter if you are trying to cut calories. Whatever you spread, think about how you spread it. Is your love spread too thin? Too thick? Have you left a corner uncovered? If so, why are you avoiding that crevice? Maybe you haven't even had time to put anything on top of your bread. Whatever it may be, there is whimsy in knowing that you have the power to turn your "wish bread" into "whimsical bread." Be intentional. My grandmother had such a tough and sometimes lonely life, but I think she may have been the most intentional person I have ever met-particularly with food. The most sincere. The most humble. The most forgiving. The strongest and the toughest. In fact, I know she is up there having a piece of bagel with cream cheese right now and she is covering every crevice with love. 

We only have one life to live. If we can learn anything from my grandmother it is this: Leave no corner uncovered.