My son was sitting on our kitchen counter last week, watching the sunrise while I made breakfast. He scooted over toward the sink to wash his hands, and knocked over his juice glass with his foot. Into the open silverware drawer the juice poured, dousing every utensil. I took out the forks, knives, spoons, and recycled bendy straws. Then I grabbed the ample pile of newly-soaked chopsticks to the right of the silverware tray, gathered from Asian restaurants over the years. My children can’t part with a single pair, which delights my husband and me. We both lived in Japan. Separately–he, for three years after college, and me, as a high school exchange student on a U.S. Senate scholarship. Years later, when we met as graduate students in Virginia, we bonded over being fellow ‘Japan geeks.’
Our children have learned to eat dumplings and noodles with chopsticks, and would brandish them for every meal if we’d allow it. The slender bamboo sticks have been washed again and again in our sink, their metallic red Chinese writing long-lost to Dawn and the sponge. So, at my daughter’s and son’s urging, we’ve hastily replaced the writing with Japanese characters, using any writing implement within arm’s reach of the dinner table.
I was glad about the juice spill. Why, or when else would I have laid out every arrow-straight chopstick on that waffle-weave towel? The sight took me away for a moment. Always only for a moment. But long enough to see Joe’s characters in black, and mine in blue. A glimpse of that mysterious bond between husband and wife that’s spoken about in the marriage ceremony. Our writing says “Nihon e ikimashoka?” Shall we go to Japan? We have never been there together. From our vantage point today, to do so anytime soon seems a near-impossibility. My host parents are aging into their 80’s. How to return my debt of gratitude for inviting me into their family the year I turned sixteen? Could our young children make such a trip, even if we could manage it? Mysteries, all.
The Meal Ticker is a daily list of meals I’ve made at my house, which I post on the Coconut Girl’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Its purpose is to provide simple menu ideas for families. Many people have told me that coming up with healthy meals is a daily source of stress. This is particularly true of the overtired and harried among us–such as parents of babies and young children. Once readers have an idea of what to make, most are able to track down recipes (though I’m happy to provide these upon request via email). The Meal Ticker provides some quick online inspiration.
A friendship fell away from my life last month. Silently, like a leaf wafting down to the grass. It’s someone I don’t know well, but who has been an acquaintance for several years in a professional capacity. A lovely person whom I like and respect. She’s important in my son’s life. Something happened, something he reported to me. He was upset, and I was confused and distraught. Trying to proceed rationally, I followed what I thought was the proper protocol to learn more. It was just before the holidays, and the people I approached didn’t get back to me right away. When they did, they didn’t grant my request that she be included in our conversation. Did she choose not to come, or was it logistically untenable?
I used to have this little chat with myself, as I gazed into the fridge trying to find something to eat. It went like this:
My daughter’s been sick for twelve days. By the afternoon, she’s tired but not sleepy. We can’t go out because she’s still feverish and contagious. My son awakens from his nap refreshed, only to hear that once again, we can’t go to the park or to a friend’s house. He was sick all last week. He understands, but still asks “Why, Mommy?”
Late at night, when I wake and everyone else is asleep, our house feels like a ship in the middle of the jet-black Atlantic. My eyes open to the darkness, but it’s my ears that orient me. I listen to the silence, caressed every few seconds by the sound of my loved ones breathing. I account for each passenger–my husband next to me, and my children, sick with colds. At 1 a.m., I am the captain on duty. I close my eyes and flash a light to the other ships in the night’s vast expanse. I signal the other captains who stand sentinel. I nod to the mothers slipping silently into nurseries to feed their newborns, and wave to the fathers curled up next to their toddlers, guarding them against returning nightmares.
Tiny trinket. More powerful than winter, never-melting snow, cold drizzling rain, three nights sleeping on the floor next to a feverish child, a global economic crisis, no billable hours, and late-night demons. A talisman found by chance in a bowl of keychains in a Providence shop last December. I was looking for gifts for others. “Summer House,” it said. It was the only one of its kind among dozens of other keychains. We found each other. I put a key on the ring. And began to build the foundation of a dream I didn’t even know I had.
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