Figuratively, we "pass the dough" everyday of our lives. Dough not being money but stories and experience, memories and ideas. Our parents, through the years, give slices of their pies to us in the hopes that we will take the recipe and leave the old but add new ideas and seasonings and love to a different generation of dough-one that we will pass on to our own children. 

We all have family recipes that are tangible, meaningful. Some we have heard about and tried and other times we have simply kept the memory pie to share without every having recreated our own. And sometimes, that is okay too. 

My parents have always talked about their dating days, and the one story that always arises is the countless times they made pizza dough from scratch and then built their own pizza. They would both smile and eachother and talk about their trials and errors and "the good old days." And ever since then, I have always had a desire to try the recipe. But as we always say, sometimes time does in fact get away from us, and the memories we hope to build become just playful thoughts. 

With my brother getting married in a short month and his fiance a lover of pizza, I thought maybe now would be the time to recreate the pie. It's strange that when you are in the same memory yourself, you sometimes find yourself imagining the flashbacks of the old memories as you are making the newest memory. In my mind I'm replaying these two younger individuals in their twenties, laughing at their apartment in Cincinatti, my dad probably taking the lead in the dough-making. My mom, very assertive, most likely directing how to complete the recipe. Or maybe, the other way around. 

The thing about recreating any memory is that it takes time. You actually have to physically carve out a space to stop your life. Really with careful reflection of any memory, the stoppage of time needs to be completed. Or else, you aren't really thinking about anything or thinking at all and then the memory becomes less meaningful. Pizza making takes time. That dough requires a lot of love and commitment. The pounding and stretching remains theraputic and gives time for the memories (new and old) to sink in. 

When you create something with your hands, you become attached to it. It means a lot because it requires work and contemplation. And those memories then become meshed with your own and the crust becomes thicker with all those people and faces and memories passing by. Pizza pie floating by smiling in the sky.