At 3am the bakery is the quietest place in the city. Just the mixer, the radio turned low, and me with my hands in sixty pounds of dough.
A few months ago I started doing something I haven't mentioned to my boss. When I score the tops of the country loaves, I add a tiny spiral at one end and think one wish into each. Rest, for whoever buys this one. Courage. A good phone call. Someone to share it with. I never know who'll get which.
I like to think that somewhere in the city at 8am, a stranger is buttering a small blessing and has no idea.
Brother Anselm gives me the bread every Tuesday now, which is either an honour or a penance depending on how it rises.
I've been reading The Cloud of Unknowing with my novice master. The anonymous author says we can't reach God by thinking, only by love, and that we should 'beat upon that thick cloud of unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love.' I've loved that line since I first read it, and I've also had no idea how to actually do it.
On Tuesday I was kneading, eight loaves' worth, and somewhere around minute six my mind did its usual thing. Lists. Latin vocabulary. Whether my mother is sleeping well. And then, for a short while, it stopped. Not emptied, exactly. Just the push and fold, the heel of my hand, the dough growing smoother and warmer. One small word kept returning with each push. I won't say which word; the Cloud suggests keeping it to a single syllable, and keeping it to yourself.
When I told my novice master, I expected him to say that was only concentration, not prayer. He thought for a long time, as he does, and said, 'The author was a monk. He probably made bread too.'
The loaves were a bit dense. Brother Anselm said they tasted prayerful, which I have decided to take as a compliment.