Death by angel food cake

August 22, 2008 in Uncategorized

I read an essay by Beth Patterson while at Tybee Island with my family recently, and have been thinking about it ever since. And so, I invite you to read it.

Here’s the beginning, the context:

"As I live into the pilgrimage of Patti Digh’s 37 days exercise on what we might be experiencing if indeed we had ‘only’ 37 days to live, I’ve found myself going through layers of experience. I’m dreaming a lot, and not remembering any of them. I’m all over the place in my daily life–content, anxious, exasperated with myself, feeling sick in my body (for real), and sometimes very at peace and knowing that today, indeed, is a good day to die."

And here’s the extraordinary story of Edie and her angel food cake. Read it.

I have long wanted to write a story about the extraordinary will of Virginia Woolf, walking into that river with stones in her pocket. "Not to take the stones out," I would call it. And now, an extraordinary story of angel food cake, of knowing when.

My thanks, Beth.

About Patti Digh

Patti Digh is an author, speaker, and educator who builds learning communities and gets to the heart of difficult topics. Her work over the last three decades has focused on diversity, inclusion, social justice, and living and working mindfully. She has developed diversity strategies and educational programming for major nonprofit and corporate organizations and has been a featured speaker at many national and international conferences.

1 comment to " Death by angel food cake "


Beth Patterson

August 23, 2008 AT 4:10PM

And big thanks to you, dear Patti, for the inspiration you are being to so many of us around the earth.

Here in Bend, we held a special fire circle last night and I threw out the question of ‘what if…’ and although we were actually doing a ceremony of sending the young people from the community off to university, the question of ‘what if, 37 days…’ hung over us like an umbrella of deep space, protecting us, urging us to go deeper into the mystery of connection, home, wandering.

I drove through Asheville this past week, on my way to Camp Daniel Boone for a Sacred Fire Keepers Gathering, both ways in the wee morning hours. But as I drove through your town, my heart-mind woke up and I spread love for you and your life-work like wildflower seeds as I went by the place where you call home.

Thank you–
Beth