I am of two minds on how to best answer this one. My childhood had good moments, but it was not good overall. Some foods transport me back to my own personal hell and memories that I feel like a brand-new bruise, cut, or broken bone. I think I’d rather focus on the foods that take me back to happy moments.
I think there’s one specific happy food and related memory that I’m going to talk about today. I was staying with my maternal grandparents then. My “father” wasn’t in the picture for a few months while he looked for work where he might move us away from South Carolina. California and then later Kansas didn’t save me, but those states kept me more whole than I might have been in Saudi Arabia which was on the list of options at some point in the move planning. The happiness thrived for those summer months while the shadow was gone from our family is something I’ve been chasing to recapture most of my life.
My dear grandfather. who we always called Papa, processed one of his rabbits one day that summer to make meatballs and proceeded to serve us three kids the best spaghetti and meatballs I’ve ever had in my life. It bothered my sister once she learned where the meat came from, so she may have a different thought about this memory. But for me? This is bright, sun-shining, joy. I’m not sure even if I bought ground rabbit from a farmer today that it would taste the same if I tried to repeat the dish. The man had a magic hand when it came to the animals he raised and the fruits, vegetables, and peppers he grew.
As I travel back to the past in my mind, I can also smell the strawberries from the garden I found to be a holy space never seen between the four walls of a Southern Baptist church. Roaming and hiding in that cool, safe, space and being quiet and tranquil while my grandfather worked the garden was heaven. The cats that always roamed the neighborhood to relax in the small yard attached to the house that had been my mom and my aunts’ childhood home. Now only Aunt Ceil is left: Aunt Doris passed first in 2016, then my mom in 2021. Aunt Ceil is Papa’s other namesake besides me. No more namesakes remain in the younger generations. That magic garden shriveled up over 20 years ago with Papa’s passing when I was a newly-minted adult barely into my twenties. Truly sad, but perhaps appropriate. I fully recognize we aren’t going to mark proof of our lives on the history of the world for long. (Unless we’re Ea-Nāṣir – Ha!).
To end an entry that is probably longer than it needed to be, I think I’ve finally found the happiness out here in the PNW with John and our two ornery super-senior cats. I still wouldn’t mind sourcing some good rabbit meat this summer.
Read Cat Bounce 