Angel Food Cake was on the on summer to-post list unlike the Lemonade. I crossed it off, and it felt surprisingly good. But not nearly as good as it felt to serve to my extended family after a 3-hour turned 8-hour road trip to the beach last weekend. Fourth of July traffic on the east coast is mighty nasty. 

We stayed on Long Beach Island—the tiniest strip of land snuggled between a sound and the Atlantic. As we walked through the town my grandma grew up in, we saw lines painted 4+ feet high with the words “SANDY” etched below—nearly the same height as my 7-year-old cousin. He stood next to cars and houses acting as our measuring stick.

Besides the painted lines on the telephone poles and the sand dunes around the beach towering a little higher than before, you’d never know Hurricane Sandy flooded the island 8 months prior—something I still have trouble fathoming. I can’t help but believe we are built to be resilient little creatures—to survive and bounce back when life hurls it’s little surprises our way, because it most definitely will.

I seem to be stuck on this idea lately. Our surprise move has occupied my every thought the last couple of weeks. In the grand scheme of things, it’s the tiniest of bumps in the road, although it feels like a mountain at the moment. The other week while on our babymoon in Maine, walking down the rocky beach I mentioned, “We have to look back to know how far we’ve come.” All the rocks were starting to look the same. I couldn’t tell one apart from the other, and I was afraid we’d miss the stairs back to our hotel if we kept looking down, tip-toeing to our every step.

I’m learning that I need those shanty lines painted on a poles and long pauses to look back and measure the distance. It’s easy, almost natural, to look down and watch my every step, losing track of where I’m headed. It’s easy to let the storm hit, no matter how big or small, and never realize it’s over—that I made it through, probably stronger than before. In the last couple of years, I’ve often heard my dad reminding me to celebrate—a seemingly simple concept. But in order to celebrate, you have to know what you’re celebrating. And the only way to do that is to stop and look at the polls and measure the distance. It may be tiny, stupidly tiny, but today I’m celebrating crossing this cake off my summer to-post list. I’ll start packing tomorrow.

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Recipe slightly adapted from William Sonoma’s book, Essentials of Healthful Cooking.