The Project: To bake and give away at least one loaf of bread each week in 2011. 

The Reason: A personal protest against the rampant selfishness of our society. 

The Bonus: It’s great spiritual practice, as well. 

Loaves of Bread Given Away So Far This Year: 20  (I counted several times, just to be sure I was right.) 

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Actually, last week I goofed with the weeks. (Counting is not my best thing, not even when it’s easy.) I put down that it was week 12 of my Let Them Eat Bread project when really it was week 11. This is week 12. Ah, well!  

This week I gave two loaves of bread away: one to my friend Diane Friese, whom I wrote about in a recent post, and one to my friend Sherry Hanson, who is unfortunately struggling with a recurrence of ovarian cancer. 

I have been friends with Sherry since the early 1990s, and I met her through a group called Maine Media Women. Sherry is one of those rare souls who is both creative and organized. (Those traits often do not occur in the same person.) Her house is shining and clean, but has funky, decorative touches that make it interesting. Sea glass, fish she has made from driftwood, and the color blue ripple through her house. Sherry teaches writing classes, is a fine poet, and has also written nonfiction for various magazines. She runs, she bikes, she roller blades, and Sherry must be as trim now as she was when she was a young adult. 

It seems grossly unfair that this creative, energetic person should be fighting ovarian cancer. As a matter of fact, it is unfair. No other way to put it. But she is, and it’s back on chemotherapy for her, back to not feeling well, back to not living a normal life. 

“But I’m hoping it will give me more time,” she told me. 

Yes, more time. As we age, that is what we all want, and I sure hope Sherry gets it. 

I must say that bread seems like a small thing to give to someone who is quite literally battling for her life.