The Fucking Pastry Brush

#10 Millennial Menoirs

Urgh. My pastry brush. A loved and most loathed kitchen item, apart from the gorgeous, hateful colander. I hadn’t known it would be the last thing left to me of us. I suppose it’s quite practical which is why I haven’t thrown it out but I keep it out of my sight until it has to be used. And then it’s in my hand glaring acid green silicone, reminding me that a) I really prefer wood and bristle brushes, you know, real stuff and, b) the fact that we’re not friends anymore. A bit extreme if you ask me, all things considered. All those moments shared. All of those funny coincidences and the kind of serendipity that can only come about when a real pal walks into your life, as if they had always been there.

I plunge the pastry brush in whisked eggs as if I’m bog washing your handsome face, wiggling it about, and swoosh it over the pie, half grimacing, half smiling, remembering just how much I liked everything about you, each merit celebrated, each shortcoming accepted. And just how much our wavelengths matched. You would suss things about me without being told because they were in you, too: you listened, you noticed, you loved.

I never expected us to remain good friends given the circumstances, and the mess we made of it all, and yet your unrelenting silence because you “…didn’t want to make Cindy* feel yucky.” feels like an injustice. All I had envisaged for the future of our relationship was the sum of less and less frequent ‘Happy Birthdays’; the occasional book/song recommendation; a flickering candle slowly burning down to a barely-there ember. Silence feels altogether like spent ashes where there was once so much warmth. Silence feels like you took my voice after naively swallowing hot pokers time and time again to prioritise what I thought was a friendship before all else. Silence is just so very silent.

For a while I respected your wishes. After a couple of years I called you the biggest coward I had ever had the pleasure of knowing and a fantastically cunty chump. These days I find myself swinging you a banging tune or pictures of herons when I feel like it because I know you’d enjoy them for at least a split second and because, frankly, I want to. I suppose my messages might simultaneously translate as “Hey, I miss you.” and “I’m a crazy lady.” and “You’re a knob.” That’s ok with me because that’s exactly how I feel and silence isn’t, wasn’t, my choice.

As for the pastry brush, well, while I have envisaged shoving it up your ass so the floppy tassels hang out and quiver with glaring acid green resignation, I somewhat enjoy the occasions that I get to use it because it reminds me that I love and loved you, wherever, however, whoever you are. Thank you for being my friend once, even if you aren’t now. Thank you for giving me this fucking pastry brush. Thank you for making my pies beautiful without even knowing it.

*name has been changed.