Muffins

I had a hankerin' to do another episode with a Southern accent, I suppose because it feels like coming home to a part of myself I didn’t realize I’d been missing. It feels like returning to a world where differences involved accents and not ammunition. I think I slip back into it from time to time just to remember there was a time that even though we didn’t pronounce our vowels the same way, we still knew how to love each other.

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Speaker 0:15

Hi, this is Jill Badonsky with The Muse's Daydream, and this story is called Muffins. Most dangerous things begin as accidents, like nuclear fission and bangs. And that's how these muffins started. Hattie was the kind of woman who always looked like she just finished stacking chairs after a church basement meeting nobody really wanted to attend. She lived alone with a spider plant named Bill and cookbooks that promised simple joy but involved complicated grocery lists.

Speaker 1:06

She wanted to make a batch of blueberry muffins that was just aiming for something gee whiz worthy. But she was out of sugar, so she used maple syrup. Out of cinnamon, so she used cardamom. Out of blueberries, so she used dice peaches. And out of patience, so she used extra vanilla. They came out looking like regular peach muffins. And she carried a couple over to her neighbor Martin, whose last recorded smile was during the Obama administration. He took one bite and his shoulders dropped a full inch. This is uh nice, he said, like the word was rusty. By the third bite, he was confessing his divorce, his fear of flying, and the time he peed his pants during a fire drill in third grade. But it was fine, he said, because they blamed the sprinkler system, so no one knew.

Speaker 2:13

In our town, news is usually limited to they moved the cereal to aisle five. So the report that Hattie's muffin had mollified Martin spread fast. Soon people started showing up with what they called situations: breakups, midlife crisis, and children who talked like tiny hostage takers. Hattie listened and baked. Might still work out banana nut muffins. He wasn't that great anyway, cranberry orange. Get a hobby lemon poppy seed. And people ate and something in them relaxed. Elise the yoga teacher called Hattie a healing portal, which is the kind of phrase that makes regular people want to run into oncoming traffic.

Speaker 3:05

The town newsletter ran her picture with the caption, muffins that make you feel better. It's just butter and fruit that was made while singing off key, she insisted. Folks didn't hear just muffins. They heard she couldn't fix me. Strangers began knocking and holding empty containers and full expectations. And one Sunday, a woman named Gwen arrived and said, My husband left. My kids blame me. And my mama sends sunsets with Bible passages on them. I don't want to feel better. I want to feel something else. Howdy reached for the flower and then stopped. I can't, she said, I'm out of miracles. They sat and the sugar sounded quiet. What if I made you a muffin that doesn't promise anything? Just keeps you company while you feel awful. A witness muffin. Gwen frowned. That's terrible brandy. Yep, said Hattie.

Speaker 4:36

And she baked a plain one. No fruit, no frosting, no false cheer. And they ate them right there and right out of the oven. Do you feel something now? Hattie said. Well my tongue's burnt, Gwen said. But less alone. Well that's something, Hattie said. And the next day a sign appeared on her door. Muffins for sale, happiness not guaranteed, company likely. Hattie didn't want to fix no one no more, but she made darn sure nobody in that town had to fall apart alone or on an empty stomach. Don't need to fix nothing, but it might taste good. This has been a muse's daydream. Written, narrated, and imperfectly engineered by Jill Badonsky. Check the show notes, there's some interesting things there. And thank you for listening.