Since my days as a young girl I have been keeping within me this profound desire to lose myself in cake and fill my hands with its delicious creaminess… To merge with it as if succumbing to an almost cannibalistic instinct . Why? I honestly couldn’t say exactly. It could simply be an impulsive response against the context in which I was endlessly told that I needed to “mantenerme en la linea” (staying skinny), or it may also have to do with a deeper desire to transcend.
Either way, I thought it was about time to let it free .
The day finally came. I was doing my makeup when my dear friend Virginia showed up. I was still on my pyjamas and I hadn’t touch my hair since I had woken up, still with my braids and rolos. I stopped getting ready as I considered that our cake-making affairs were far more important than my appearance. La Lupe played in the background.
We started baking. We went for blue meringue as it matched with my Yemayá necklace, which I usually wear for protection, nunca se sabe (one never knows). We filled the cake with more cream, strawberries and condensed milk , and le echamos un bailecito (we danced to it) to reassure its tastiness. For the final touches, we brought in candy flowers and pearls which we placed randomly, and Virginia suggested we could crown the cake with a little paper peacock that was given to us once at a Cuban restaurant in the middle of nowhere, whom I decided to name Wilfredo.
The cake was done, so we only needed to set the table. We dressed up the scene with things that have been important for me in the past few years : a little statue of Virgin Mary, a can of frijoles negros (black beans), a book on contemporary Cuban art and a glossy magazine. In the background, a painting by Telvia Marín which represented the meeting of the two Orisha sisters Ochún y Yemayá.
With all of that I felt blessed and ready for action.
Virginia’s perspective :
‘Other than the messiness in the kitchen beforehand, how we had to built the cake and it didn’t look that great… But then with decorations and the peacock it actually started looking like a proper cake.
Anyway, what I recall of the experience itself is, first of all, how you seemed so excited at first but then tried to chew on a really big slice of cake hahaha. That’s I think when you asked me to join in. And honestly from then onwards I don’t really have any visual memory of what was going on. I only remember the sensation of the cake in my hands. Like, how it was a bit cold and slippery but also how much it reminded me of how I would play with play dough and all of that as a child. It brought me back to childhood because as adults we don’t have so many fresh, new, experiences like this one. It’s such a different texture and in general past a certain age we don’t approach things with our hands so much. I feel like in this society we prioritize visuals and audio .
So yeah, in summary, it was like a child’s new experience getting to “play” with it but also getting to eat made it seem more special. Because you get to be careless about the way you’re slicing the cake and you can just enjoy the taste and make a big mess.
Lastly, throwing cake on one another reminded of my theatre classes. Because it’s the kind of “game” you would there in order to approach the ordinary in a new way. Like, decorating someone’s face with cake is fun, it’s pretty in its own way but also it forces you to get closer to that person, literally and metaphorically. So I feel like it’s the kind of activity meant for a theatre group where you want the members to be closer to one another and to look deeper onto someone’s face.’
Later that evening , we wrote a little poem :
‘Politics are to you an extravagant little bag
that you like to carry around.
If I have to chose , I’ll chose Surrealism.
I want to get married, nothing casual.
Doing things from and with Love.
We ate cake with our hands,
we should be able to rebel against anything.’